Profesores entre la historia y la memoria. Un estudio sobre la enseñanza de la transición dictadura-democracia en España

Resumen

The transition from dictatorship to democracy in Spain has been a crucial phase in our recent history. During this period the foundations of a political and institutional system were established and its study is essential to understand the current situation. Nevertheless, the dictatorship-democracy transition forms part of the final stage of the obligatory secondary education curriculum and we have been able to prove that there are many teachers who recognise they do not teach this topic. In this study we focus on the thoughts of history teachers regarding this historical period and its particularities. We move away from the supposition that the teacher, as a capable and reflective professional, is one of the main protagonists of the teaching-learning process; to the investigation of their thoughts and theories, and in the opportunities and barriers which they encounter when teaching. The transition is essential to understand the state of the question in classrooms in Spain and propose curricular improvements. 39 interviews were carried out with teachers in 7 cities in 7 autonomous regions in Spain, taking into account the variables of the centre (public and private schools with public funding), age (younger and older than 45 years, with direct memories of the transition) and gender. Interviews were analysed with the aid of the qualitative analysis program ATLAS.ti, based on the following initial categories of the teachers¿ thoughts regarding this historical period; didactic undertanding of the historical period and the objectives of teaching the historical period. The obtained results show a range of difficulties for teaching the period of dictatorship-democracy transition: from curricular problems to historiographical conflicts, including personal and interpretative particularities of a period which individual and collective memories, together with the impact of communication methods, seem to have a determinate effect. By concentrating on such a concrete historical age this has allowed us to approach diverse problems of teaching history from the point of view of the teachers to their doubts, motivations and professional skills.