Educating girls based on the biographies of illustrious women from Spanish history (1900–1960)

Abstract

This study analyses how different political regimes used the study of history to promote a patriotic identity among schoolchildren between 1900 and 1960 in Spain. Qualitative methods were employed to examine a sample of the reading material most widely used in Spanish schools throughout the aforementioned period. These readers contained the biographies of famous figures from Spanish history that primary and secondary school students had to study, memorise and, above all, imitate. The scarcity of historical female models as opposed to their male counterparts is striking, and hence the need during the Franco era (starting in 1939) to increase the number of biographies of illustrious women to impose a model for girls to follow. The two female figures that appear in all the biographical works, in which their domestic as opposed to public aspects were stressed, are Queen Isabella the Catholic and Saint Teresa of Jesus.