This article has a twofold objective. On the one hand, we analyze the natural sciences curriculum for non-compulsory secondary education from the end of the nineteenth century until the 1970 educational reform, when the practice of publishing the lists of textbooks authorized by the central government ended. We seek to explore the natural scientific culture of a privileged minority who had access to secondary education from the end of the nineteenth century until the 1970 General Education Law to find out to what extent there were changes in natural scientific school knowledge. This scientific knowledge formed part of the learning of a generation of pupils that aspired and was destined to enter professions of social prestige and, later, in the 1970s, of the technocracy.1
Antonio Viñao's research proved that nineteenth-century Spanish secondary education was not a level created specifically for a middle class, as opposed to some upper class, and that the bachillerato (the traditional secondary baccalaureate diploma) remained an elite, male degree until after 1960.2 Alejandro Tiana confirms that the low percentage of secondary school pupils and the even lower number of girls was a situation that remained constant for many years at the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century. Thus, we were “faced with an elitist baccalaureate, preparatory class for university which was fundamentally male, characteristics that would continue to persist for a long time to come.”3 Although both the number of pupils and the number of private secondary institutions (largely confessional in nature) was growing, technical and professional secondary education created in 1949 was not very successful; in 1970, only 26.8 percent of young Spaniards between the ages of ten and nineteen were studying in secondary education institutions.4 Enrolment in the bachillerato rose from the said 26.8 percent in 1970 to 34.5 percent in 1981 and 48.9 percent in 1991.5 Only from the 1990 education reform onward was compulsory secondary education implemented with a new rethinking of the universalization of this educational level and its curricula.6
It is precisely the specific curriculum in the natural sciences that we focus on here. Within the curriculum (and textbooks), we pay special attention to the concept and representation of nature.7 As Daniel Tröhler states, the European context presents different conditioning factors that caused the development of secondary education to begin later and produce less than its non-European counterparts. The educational systems that emerged in the Western world in the nineteenth century gave rise to homogeneous curricula but maintained the particularities of each geographic location. The structure of subjects was similar. However, subjects are not monolithic entities but rather changing amalgams of concepts and conventions.8
In school curricula, subjects are defined in terms of rational foundations and rhetorics that are further composed of a web of resources and finances, as well as materials, which include textbooks and additional components to support teaching. They are models that assign resources, designate status, and distribute tasks within the institution. A curriculum is an official guide to the institutionalized structure of schooling.9
Major studies on school curricula were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s, which asserted that this concept was a social construction, and presumed the need to reform education. Written curricula, and particularly the syllabi, guidelines, and textbooks for school subjects, fulfilled both a symbolic and a practical function.10
The teaching and learning of natural sciences were also of international concern. Many foreign education systems were moving toward new approaches in the teaching of science subjects. The trend was slowly evolving toward a model that stressed practicality as well as societal need. Education in the natural sciences was seen one of the tools that allowed society to acquire the knowledge necessary to establish a path toward sustainable, just, and equitable social action. In 1952, UNESCO published the Teaching of Natural Science in Secondary Schools11 and, in 1956, the first UNESCO Source Book for Science Teaching, which was also designed for use in secondary education.12 The 1973 New UNESCO Source Book “grouped the contents under four major chapter headings: ‘Resources, Facilities and Techniques for Science Teaching’, ‘Physical Sciences’, ‘Biological Sciences’ and ‘Earth and Space Sciences’.”13
In Spain, research about natural sciences in secondary school curricula has focused on how the discipline was taught, what knowledge was covered in the curriculum, and what approaches were used for the selection of course content.14 There has also been debate about whether the knowledge to be taught should be propaedeutic or applicable to everyday life.15 What we want to identify is whether there were changes and innovations in the knowledge and approaches contained in the curriculum and in textbooks as Spain slowly entered a new democratic and technocratic model of society and government.
We turn to textbooks to see how these curricula took on textual form. In the study of textbooks, we discovered the most relevant publishers and authors, as well as the characteristics and prices of the books. According to Kira Mahamud-Angulo, textbooks are in general resistant to change, though they are also dynamic and do evolve in line with the characteristics of their political, social, economic, and educational context, timidly responding to changes at both the national and international levels.16
The selected textbooks are the printed versions of the legally mandated curriculum, which contain knowledge and actions that guide the practice of teaching. This brings us to pose the following question: do these textbooks represent an anchoring device for educational inaction and oversight of the curriculum, in addition to a lucrative publishing business model, or do they follow the curriculum closely?17
The lines of research in this field, primarily those related to the role and influence of textbooks and curriculum-related materials concerning classroom methods, highlight the fact that secondary education professors18 in Spain during our period of inquiry used textbooks as their key teaching resource.19 Textbooks were used as a part of the curriculum. While other materials were used to support textbooks, teachers were clearly dependent on commercially available materials more than on any other type of resource. Teachers chose textbooks and materials primarily according to the information and marketing materials provided by publishing houses.
However, as we shall see, the publishers that produced content based on the implementation of the educational reform in 1970 did not undertake substantial innovations, and thus contributed to the survival of curricular and textual models and knowledge from the past.
Research on natural sciences textbooks has addressed topics related to nineteenth- and twentieth-century books,20 in particular the relationship between the curriculum and the contents of the texts, in many different countries. Case studies of Colombia21 and the models of textual analysis that have been used in Argentina22 provide analytical models for our research.
Our research underscores the novelty of the study of the Spanish curriculum and its influence on secondary education natural sciences textbooks; it also draws on production contexts such as marketing and authorship, and looks for continuities and changes that indicate the extent to which the knowledge of natural sciences evolved when Spain entered its transition to democracy and experienced the consolidation of a new democratic society. In addition, we focus on the concept of nature in the curriculum and the textbooks, in order to observe how it underwent modifications, if any, during this period.
Methodological Approach
Our methodological approach was multifold. First of all, we examined the contexts of production of the curriculum and the textbooks. Political-educational developments can explain the production of a certain model of curriculum document and a certain style of textbook. Textbook authors emerge as a crucial and determining factor in this production process, as authorship is an indicator of the authority that the textbook receives. The international context can also play a role and is taken into account, so that we find out whether it influenced the Spanish secondary school natural sciences curriculum or whether national priorities proved to be more powerful in this regard.
Second, we carried out a revision of the names of the subjects of study in the curriculum, since in the nineteenth century natural history was the name given to this field of study. This name was also used in textbooks, but it underwent various modifications in relation to different natural sciences.
As for the textbooks, representative ones were selected on the basis of a series of criteria such as the inclusion of the books in the official approved lists, the status of the authors, the prestige of the publishers, or the number of editions. It should be noted that the sample contains eighteen manuals, three of which were analyzed in depth. The contents of the textbooks, that is, the blocks of knowledge, are analyzed following Mahamud-Angulo's concept of internal textual units.23 Hence, we focused on the contexts of production of the curriculum and the textbooks, including authorship, syllabus analysis, and textbook content.
The textbooks examined for this study are listed below in the textbook bibliography. The first column contains our sample of textbooks from the period between 1845 and 1970, and the second column contains the sample of textbooks selected for the period after the 1970 education reform. All these textbooks required state approval before entering the market, and while content barely changed during the course of the decades, prices continually increased.
Following Mahamud-Angulo, the context of transmission can be analyzed from two perspectives. The vertical perspective, that is, books of the same discipline offered for different educational levels, allows for a revision of curricular and knowledge progression. The horizontal perspective, concerning textbooks from different publishers offered at the same educational level,24 allows for the identification of editorial singularities.
An Outline of the Teaching of Natural Sciences in Secondary Education
Secondary Education, Curriculum and Textbooks in Spain at the End of the Nineteenth Century
With the Pidal Plan in 1845,25 secondary education in Spain was regulated for the first time. Teaching was divided into science and literature, and the curriculum lasted nine years. In the fifth year, in the science branch, the course “Notions of Natural History” (Nociones de Historia Natural) was introduced. In this context, the Manual of Natural History (Manual de Historia Natural), written by Manuel María José de Galdo, was published in 1849. As Alberto Gomis26 points out, ten editions of this book were published, the last one in 1888. The book grew from 488 pages in the first edition to 600 in the last one and included 342 engravings. These early works were mostly written by high school teachers. The number of pages was an indicator of curricular density and knowledge.
From the second half of the nineteenth century onward, knowledge of natural sciences acquired a cultural connotation of prestige. Secondary education professor Emilio Ribera stated the following in the first edition of his natural history textbook, from 1879 that
the culminating idea which I have endeavored to present in the writing of my work, has been to provide in the smallest possible volume the sum of historical-natural knowledge necessary for a pupil, who will not devote himself to higher studies in the beautiful science of nature, to find in this book sufficient knowledge to represent worthily the role of an enlightened man, which is so difficult to fulfil today, without the possession of a somewhat detailed knowledge of all the branches of the natural sciences.27
A fifth edition, published eighteen years later, proves that this book was valued and used by secondary school teachers for several years. Kostas Dinopoulos and Christina Karamanidou argue that “textbook science” always reflects the dominant “paradigm” in the relevant fields of knowledge. It presents a static, finalized, and consensual body of knowledge. Science, however, corresponds to a form of knowledge “under construction” that, by definition, is dynamic and often subject to negotiation and/or controversy not only within the scientific community, but also between the scientific community and representatives of other social institutions.28 The author of the textbook was aware of the need to reedit his educational materials.
This edition was thus included in the new secondary education reform. The Groizard29 liberal reform of 1894 led to a secondary education divided into two sections: general studies, which provided general culture, and preparatory studies, which applied and perfected the former in preparation for higher education. General studies lasted four years. Preparatory studies consisted of two years and were divided into two sections: moral sciences and physical-natural sciences. The reform placed great emphasis on the gradual increase of knowledge. It happened, however, that conservatives met the reform with much resistance, claiming that it was influenced by the naturalistic spirit of the time.30
In 1901, secondary education was reformed once again, with the Count of Romanones as minister,31 and the baccalaureate became a six-year program, beginning at the age of 10. In the fifth and sixth years, natural history subjects were studied. The textbooks written and published by Francisco de las Barras Aragón y Sevilla in 191632 and the textbook written by Orestes Cendrero Curiel in 1925 were part of this program. However, the latter textbook did not adopt the title of the course that was contemplated in the 1925 plan, but was instead called Botany, Zoology, Geology (Botánica, Zoología, Geología).
Secondary Education, the Curriculum and Textbooks in Spain in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
In 1926, the Callejo33 Plan was launched, and, as in the previous ones, the age at which studies were to commence was 10. The baccalaureate was divided into two stages: the elementary baccalaureate, which lasted three years, and the university baccalaureate, which covered another three years. In the third year of the elementary baccalaureate, natural history, physiology, and hygiene were studied, and during the university baccalaureate, agriculture was studied in the first year, which was common to all students, and biology and geology were studied in the second year in the science section.
Representative textbooks from this period include Ignacio Puig's 1932 textbook Natural History (Historia Natural) and José María Susaeta's 1935 textbook Human Anatomy and Physiology—Notions of Hygiene (Anatomía y Fisiología Humana—nociones de hygiene). The book's prologue reproduces a text from the State Official Bulletin (Gaceta) of 1 October 1934, in which we read that
in dealing with each apparatus or system, a brave comparative study will be made of the organs that constitute them with the corresponding organs of other typical animals, belonging to different physiognomic groups, in order to make the biological significance of the function they perform appear clearly marked, independently of their nature or constitution.34
The content is devoted entirely to the human being, with living beings, both higher animals and microbes, interacting with man as the hegemonic element, as the center of the system. Throughout the 343 pages, there are engravings illustrating the descriptions.
The 1926 syllabus legislated that the subjects were to be studied with official texts, which would be selected every five years, and there was even a proposal to introduce a single text for each of the subjects, although this last proposal did not come to fruition.35
In the middle of the twentieth century in Spain, natural sciences knowledge underwent an incipient revolution. It involved a closer relationship between theoretical explanations and practical fieldwork, and also integrated environmental issues more thoroughly into classwork. The inclusion of agriculture in the baccalaureate is a clear example of the newly established practical orientation of the natural sciences.36
The Turnaround of Secondary Education and the Natural Sciences Curriculum under Franco's Regime
In 1938, with the Law for the Reform of Secondary Education (Ley de Reforma de las Enseñanzas Medias), the number of classroom hours devoted to science subjects was reduced for all seven years of the curriculum. The first three years constituted the elementary baccalaureate. The next two years were the preparatory baccalaureate leading to the fifth year, including other types of technical studies such as agronomy and technical architecture (aparejadores). The last two years completed the university baccalaureate. The state's interest in this law is evidenced by the fact that it was decreed by Franco's government in 1938, despite the fact that the war was not yet over.
The sciences were grouped into a section devoted to cosmology. In the seven-year curriculum, they ranged from the “first notions of the world and man” to the “modern orientations of physics and chemistry,” all at the primary level, including the “principles of astronomy” and “elements of natural sciences.” In the first, second, and third years, the subject “elements of natural sciences” was taught over two hours per week; in the fourth and fifth years, “elements of physics and chemistry” was also covered in two hours, and in the sixth and seventh years, “revision of the elements of physics and chemistry” and “natural sciences” were included in the program. The law enacted before the end of the Spanish Civil War remained in force for fifteen years and had a clear ideological aspect, where humanistic disciplines took precedence. The 1945 textbook by Enrique Álvarez López Elements of Mineralogy, Botany and Zoology (Elementos de Mineralogía, Botánica y Zoología) contains one of the first definitions of ecology in Spain, which was taken from English authors.37
The 195338 law on the organization of secondary education can be considered extensive and innovative. It enacted a change in the curriculum structure. Secondary education consisted of seven years, the first four of which formed the elementary baccalaureate, and during those years “physical, chemical, and natural sciences” were taught. The elementary baccalaureate, which covered the first three years, began to become more widespread. The higher baccalaureate consisted of two years from the age of fourteen, in which pupils studied “exact physical and natural sciences”: two hours of “natural sciences” in the fifth year and, in the sixth year, “natural sciences including notions of physiology and hygiene.” Furthermore, as part of the weekly schedule, natural sciences were complemented by practical classes involving direct knowledge or manipulable representations of nature and laboratory practice.39
The textbook analyzed from these years is Natural Sciences (Ciencias Naturales) by Fernando Esteve Chueca, which was published in 1965. This textbook is less focused on content and more focused on visual representation, because the number of images and engravings illustrating the text is greater in comparison to previous textbooks. Esteve Chueca's work covers the subjects over 466 pages, with a high density of text and schematic illustrations, consisting of mostly black-and-white engravings. It presents the contents in the form of taxonomies and maintains the character of a book intended as a preparation for higher studies.
Despite the publication of Carlos Vidal's Didactics and Methodology of the Natural Sciences (Didáctica y metodología de las Ciencias Naturales)40 in 1961 by the Ministry of National Education, most natural science textbooks maintained the same conservative style in structure and content. This text was used in many high schools that intended to provide natural science teachers with a guide on modern teaching procedures, as well as guidance on how to create laboratories in secondary schools. This is an example of the dissonance between the didactic recommendations made by instructors and the textbooks that most publishers continued to produce.
Vidal's recommendations comprised many ideas that he obtained from the teaching proposals presented by professors who had sought to revolutionize the teaching of science in the first third of the twentieth century, such as Enrique Rioja, Modesto Bargalló, and Margarita Comas. All of these individuals were exiled by the Franco regime. Undoubtedly, Vidal was familiar with these proposals at the start of his career,41 and his work can be considered as a precursor of the introduction of ecology into Spanish education because, toward the end of the 1950s, he disseminated the latest didactic methods for teaching natural science in Europe.
Vidal supported the interest expressed by secondary school teachers via inquiries, workshops, and surveys, because he shared their concern with the problems inherent in teaching the natural sciences. He encouraged them to use secondary education teaching guidelines from different countries and to take necessary measures to ensure that his methodological overhaul helped remedy some of the aforementioned problems.
In Didactics and Methodology of Natural Sciences,42 Vidal referenced the International Conference of Public Instruction, convened in Geneva in 1952 by UNESCO and the International Bureau of Education, where it was agreed “to stimulate and facilitate the improvement of natural science teaching, with particular reference to methods, manuals, teaching equipment and audio-visual aids.”43 An agreement was reached at this meeting stating that education was considered incomplete if it did not include the natural sciences, and modern life demanded that society acquire basic scientific knowledge in order to understand the natural world and appropriately apply scientific discoveries to improve general living conditions. Moreover, it stated that the natural sciences included valuable knowledge about the development of ethical and moral values. The suggested objectives included understanding the structure, function, and preservation of the human body and other living beings in the environment; demonstrating the scientific method; and developing a love for nature, respect for life, and a will to safeguard humankind and nature alike.
Secondary Education in the 1970 General Law on Education
The origin of the 1970 General Law on Education should be understood as the result not only of a lengthy process focused on acquiring functional knowledge necessary for the country, but also of the influence of the technocratic model prevailing on the international scene. The influence of UNESCO promoted the development of a new concept of education in Spain. Educational systems had to become geared toward meeting countries’ need to develop their economies. Moreover, the idea of eschewing the vision of elitist education in favor of mass education came about with the goal of promoting the maximum possible development of human capital. The duration of required schooling had to be lengthened.44 With this law, primary education was expanded to include two cycles, which meant that compulsory basic general education continued until the age of fourteen. The structure of the education system meant that secondary education was offered to fourteen- to sixteen-year-olds, first in a two-year course called “Polyvalent Unified Baccalaureate” (Bachillerato Unificado Polivalente, BUP), and then in a final year called “University Orientation Course” (Curso de Orientación Universitaria, COU). The goal of BUP and COU studies was to prepare students to attend university; they were propaedeutic in nature, which meant prioritizing conceptual content.45
These studies were non-mandatory and, as the name indicated, sought to provide a generalist approach that connected different areas of knowledge.46 Secondary education lost its elitist nature in the academic year from 1975 to 1976, when the first year of the BUP was taught for the first time.
The Non-compulsory Secondary Education Natural Sciences Curriculum
This new version of the Spanish baccalaureate was composed of core and optional subjects, and technical and professionally oriented content. Subjects were grouped into areas of knowledge and integrated into disciplines that were related to one another, to a certain extent. The area of “Mathematics and Natural Science” focused on equipping students with the knowledge required to understand the natural, scientific, and technical phenomena of their surroundings. Promoting scientific thinking was essential to familiarizing students with the deductive and inductive methods of experimentation.47
Different areas of study were to be interrelated. Collaboration between subjects was frequent and flexible. The methodology required interaction between theory and practice. The areas of knowledge were as follows: “Language,” “Fine Arts,” “Anthropology and Social Studies,” “Religion,” “Mathematics and Natural Science,” and “Sports and Physical Education.”
In complete harmony with the guidelines set out by the 1973 New UNESCO Source Book for Science Teaching, the educational reform for teaching science in the 1970s and 1980s intended to guarantee the scientific literacy of the general population. This meant that the public would have the technological and scientific knowledge necessary to function in daily life, to solve basic health and survival problems, and to raise awareness of the complex relationships between science and society. The idea was to prepare all future citizens in this way, not just those who would become subject matter experts. That said, although educational authorities suggested changes in this sense, this did not mean that they were put into practice.
According to the program of study, in the first year natural science was a weekly five-hour core subject placed within the area of “Mathematics and Natural Science” along with two more subjects: “mathematics “and “physics and chemistry.” In the second year, there was only one subject: “physics and chemistry.” In the third year, natural science was offered as an optional subject in Option B, which also included two more subjects to choose from, namely, “language and literature” and “physics and chemistry.” Pupils had to choose two of these three options. The subjects for Option B in the third year included “natural science” (that was not a core subject at this level), and were also taught five hours per week.48
A year later, a change to the program of study reduced “natural science” to four hours of class per week, both in the first year and the third year.49 In the first year, the subjects of “mathematics” and “natural science” remained, while “physics and chemistry” was no longer a core subject. In the third year, for both optional subjects, “mathematics” was included together with “language and literature.” In this way, Option B included “mathematics, language and literature,” “physics,” and “chemistry and natural science.” Pupils had to choose two of these subjects. Again, in 1988,50 subjects that were taught five hours weekly were reduced to only four hours. As a result, “natural science” in the first and third year was taught one hour less per week without modifying the syllabus of the academic program either in form or in content.
No specific teaching guidance was offered in the instructions about how to implement the program of study for the Spanish baccalaureate. The general recommendation was for active and specific teaching based on real-life situations. The use of active methods was also recommended, such as the use of projects or work plans to coordinate activities.
The first- and third-year “natural science” topic lists for the BUP are shown below in Table 1. Content was chosen for the first-year course so as to provide pupils with the minimum required scientific knowledge for a well-rounded education.51
First and third year baccalaureate syllabus (based on the Decree of 22 March 1975).
| FIRST YEAR | THIRD YEAR |
|---|---|
| 1. Structure and composition of the earth 2. Minerals: structure and properties 3. External geological processes; sedimentary rocks and minerals 4. Internal geological processes; igneous rocks and minerals 5. Applied geology 6. Earth as the foundation for life 7. The biosphere; diversity of living creatures: classification 8. Adaptation of living creatures: aquatic and land-based life; biogeography 9. Individuals and communities; species and ecosystems 10. Energy and biogeochemical cycles 11. The cell as the unit of life 12. Human and animal morphology and physiology 13. Plant morphology and physiology 14. The microbial world: immunology 15. Biological inheritance: human genetics 16. History of life: paleontology 17. Evolution: the origin of human beings |
1. Minerals: their role in the earth's crust 2. Study of the lower crust: geophysical and seismic methods 3. Tectonics 4. The evolution of landscapes; geomorphology 5. Plate tectonics 6. Living matter 7. Histology 8. Morphology and physiology of vascular plants 9. Key groups of spermatophytes and their economic importance 10. The internal environment in animals and man 11. Organs and the function of nutrition in human beings 12. Organs and relative functions in human beings 13. Organs and reproductive functions in human beings |
According to the curriculum, first-year pupils should understand that living creatures all faced a widespread problem: how to use energy in the most efficient manner while sustaining the least possible deterioration. The topic list prioritized studying this frequently encountered problem. And it turns out that the different approaches to overcoming this problem were nothing more than the consequence of adaptive changes that provide living creatures with greater competitive advantages.
The topics devoted to the distinct disciplines of the natural sciences demonstrated interest in showing an ordered vision of living nature, which enabled pupils to distinguish the evolution of its elements from the most basic, such as the cell, to the most complex, the human body. This systematic approach was not to be presented as an unnecessary indulgence, but rather as a path to scientific knowledge that was essential to progress in the field of biology. In this relationship, human beings were viewed as living beings with noteworthy characteristics that distinguish them from the rest of the animal kingdom, an idea to which a substantial portion of the course guide was dedicated. Nature as a system is not yet represented in the textbooks; instead, isolated concepts are studied that are designed to give pupils the theoretical skills they would need to tackle later studies. In this area, we can see how continuities can be seen in the texts, which were heirs to the books of the past.
The third year focused on the study of beings from a higher order. Their composition and dynamic nature were studied in general terms. Topics like the structure and function of cells and the diverse types of plant and animal tissues were addressed. Vascular plants were viewed as the most differentiated group, and emphasis was put on knowledge of their physiology and usefulness for human beings. Focus was put on studying the anatomy and physiology of higher-order vertebrates and human beings, as these were considered of greater interest for students and, in some respects, the most representative models. In this third year, students learned to appreciate interactions between organisms that begin to constitute ecosystems. The textbooks for this year were published two years later than the first ones. The implementation of the educational reform proposed by the 1970 General Law on Education began to be a reality that can also be noted in these new texts, where the concept of nature in relation to the individual is more systemic.
The Transfer of the Curriculum to the Textbooks
Textbooks, and more generally, all teaching materials, required approval from the ministry in terms of content and price. After the publisher or author submitted a request for approval, the teaching component was approved, and maximum sale prices were set. Moreover, school textbooks could not be changed for a period of four years. Teaching materials included teaching guides, student textbooks, copies of the textbooks for each classroom held in the library, and other school materials.52 This study focuses on pupils’ textbooks, which the Decree of 22 March 1975 defined as individual use resources for students.
In order to apply for the approval of a pupils’ textbook, a request had to be sent before the first of January prior to the start of the academic year in which the textbook would be used. The General Directorate for Education System Resources of the Ministry of National Education established the criteria and appointed the committees responsible for issuing the requests.
The General Law defined the procedure with which to approve textbooks for all the subjects included in the educational system. Thus, the Decree of 8 September 197553 set out these rules, and from this moment onward, the lists of different approved textbooks for each year were published in the Official State Bulletin (Boletín Oficial del Estado).
These decrees indicated which publishing houses could offer textbooks, their titles and authors, and the maximum sale price as determined by the Ministry.54 The course programs were derived from these textbooks.
Approvals and Prices
The system to approve all textbooks was rolled out in 1974, and two years later it was decided that the number of authorizations to be processed represented a considerable volume of work for the bodies responsible for the task. As a result, for the Spanish baccalaureate the approval process was delegated to the General Director of Secondary Education.55 In 1977, the procedure to set the prices for textbooks, which had been in force since 1974 and was based on outdated data and estimates, was revised.56 A price scale, print runs, and a multiplying factor were established to determine the maximum sale price for each book. Subsequent reprints or new editions that included material modifications to the content or teaching materials required a new price approval. Other characteristics were considered when determining the price, such as composition and copyfitting, the number of illustrations, the number of pages, and the type of binding. Minimum print runs of 16,000 copies were established for the BUP.57
For the 1976–1977 academic year, textbooks were provisionally approved for first-year subjects. Due to the progressive implementation of the Spanish baccalaureate, publishers only requested approval for first-year textbooks initially. There were fifteen requests, and the majority used the title Natural Science. Eight publishers offered textbooks in the first year: ECIR, SM, Alhambra, Teide, Bruño, Luis Vives, Anaya, and Santillana. It is worth noting that Anaya and Bruño each requested approval to publish two different textbooks.
Prices varied between 344 and 658 pesetas, which is a higher price than that demanded for textbooks in other subjects. The number of pages was also taken into consideration when setting prices, in addition to the number and quality of illustrations. These textbooks were quite lengthy because, as we must remember, the curriculum stipulated sixteen topics in its official list.
It is worth highlighting that these textbooks were offered for sale between 1975 and 1985. Moreover, their price doubled in less than ten years, which made the natural sciences curricular itinerary one of the least economically viable options in this Spanish baccalaureate. Regarding the editions, it should be noted that all of the publishers, except Anaya and Bruño, offered only one textbook for each year of the BUP. In other subjects such as “mathematics” or “Spanish language,” many of the publishers offered three or more textbooks for each subject. Publishers of natural science textbooks offered only one textbook, probably due to the extensive nature of the topic list for “natural science,” which made them long but ensured that they were dense and rich in knowledge like the ones published in the nineteenth century.
The textbook publishing industry remained anchored in a long, dense, academic, and sober textbook format that generated considerable economic profits.
Discussion: Continuity and Disruption
Natural Sciences: Curricular Content and Structure
The content of natural sciences education after the 1970 reform included two distinct areas: “Geology and Biology” and “Physics and Chemistry.” The former had a linear topic list for the first and third years of the BUP. The third year did not delve into or expand upon the topics covered in the first year but rather continued to present new additional content, picking up where the first-year course left off.
Since we are also interested in curricular development with regard to both content and structure, we compare two textbooks in order to identify just what and how knowledge is added from one year to the next. Furthermore, we compare different publishers within a given year, in order to see if any publisher took any liberties in modifying the content or structure of the curriculum.
The textbooks selected were Dimas Fernández Galiano and Enrique Ramírez Sánchez-Rubio's Natural Sciences (Ciencias Naturales), from 1976, for the first year, and Emilio Anadón, Ester Álvarez, and Rafael Simancas's Natural Sciences (Ciencias Naturales), from 1977, for the third year. These textbooks, although only two in number, are representative because they were put out by one of the most widely distributed publishers in Spain during the 1970s.
Content analysis of basic textual units: vertical perspective.
| Publisher/Academic Year | ||
| Basic Textual Units | Anaya 1º BUP | Anaya 3º BUP |
| Preliminaries | A brief introduction in which the coherence of the book is discussed. The author points out that he avoids superfluous details and highlights the didactic resources introduced at the end of the topics. | It is more extensive than the introduction of the first-year textbook. It points out that there is a lack of coherence in the contents of the curriculum that the book tries to solve by breaking down the topics. It justifies the scarcity of experimental proposals. |
| Table of Contents | There is a general index with 17 topics: 11 for biology and 6 for geology. | Overall index with 41 topics: 29 for biology and 12 for geology. |
| Corpus of Instruction | There is a glossary of terms in the activities. There is a balance between theoretical and practical content, and in addition to the synthesis experiences there is practical experimental work. | The theoretical and observational aspects of the text are very important. In addition to these, texts on experimentation have an essential formative character. |
| Images | There are images of species in their environment and dissections showing anatomy, cells, and tissue microscopy images. | Images have more weight illustrating explanatory diagrams, anatomical sections, and experiments. |
| Activities | Practical observation work, dissections, and simple experiments. | There is experimental practical work to a lesser extent than the first-year textbook. |
| Didactic Elements | This is the main section of theory. There are summary texts, diagrams, key tables to identify organisms, and bar graphs. | There are summaries and sections of activities. There are tables of contents and outlines but no conceptual maps. |
We see how the table of contents of the first-year textbook is faithful to the contents of the first-year curriculum (see Table 1). The third-year textbook is divided into subsections, but it respects the same structure. As in the nineteenth century, experiments are described in both textbooks. The images are similar to those found in textbooks from earlier times, but they now contain more material concerning human anatomy, following the legislative instructions of 1953. The activities, in both years, are observational, with no differences between the two levels. International recommendations do not seem to have been taken into account.
For the comparison of the textbooks produced by different publishers, we selected two from the third year, that is, Emilio Anadón, Ester Álvarez, and Rafael Simancas's Natural Sciences (Ciencias Naturales) from 1977 and Caballero Moreno, Esteve Chueca, and J. M. Rodríguez Rodríguez's Natural Sciences (Ciencias Naturales) from 1978. The first book, as noted above, was published by a very well-known publishing house in the Spanish market, Anaya; the other was published by a small publishing house located in a small town on the Mediterranean coast, Marfil, which was created by one of the authors of the textbook, Esteve Chueca.
Content analysis of basic textual units: horizontal perspective.
| Publisher/Academic Year | ||
|---|---|---|
| Basic Textual Units | Marfil 3º BUP | Anaya 3º BUP |
| Preliminaries | It has no introduction. | It is more extensive than the introduction of the first-year textbook. It points out that there is a lack of coherence in the contents of the curriculum that the book tries to solve by breaking down the topics. It justifies the scarcity of experimental proposals. |
| Table of Contents | There is a general index with 13 topics: 8 for biology and 5 for geology. There is a glossary of terms in synthesis activities. | Overall index with 41 topics: 29 for biology and 12 for geology. |
| Corpus of Instruction | The protagonism is in the balance between the theoretical and practical contents. In addition to the experiences of synthesis, there are experimental practical works. | The theoretical and observational aspects of the text are very important. In addition to these, texts on experimentation have an essential formative character. |
| Images | There are images of species in their environment and dissections showing anatomy, cells, and tissue microscopy images. | Images have more weight illustrating explanatory diagrams, anatomical sections, and experiments. |
| Activities | Practical observation work, dissections, and simple experiments. | There is experimental practical work to a lesser extent than the first-year textbook. |
| Didactic Elements | This is the main section of theory text. There are summary texts, diagrams, key tables for identifying organisms, and bar graphs. | There are summaries and sections of activities. There are tables of contents and outlines but no conceptual maps. |
Our comparison of publishers shows how the themes of the smaller Marfil publishing house follow the structure outlined in the curriculum. Anaya divides the index into forty-one themes. The content is more theoretical, and it is in this feature that we can perceive how Esteve Chueca reflects the international guidelines on which he had been working. Anaya, a larger publishing house, displays illustrations generously. Although the activities do not encourage experimentation, didactic elements are more abundant in the Marfil text, and thereby corroborate the author's influence on the book's accommodation of the international recommendations.
In short, the ambitious nature of the programs means that the content and concepts addressed in the textbooks were dense. There was a degree of fixation with trying to cover every topic from the syllabus. The texts dogmatically and descriptively covered concepts and content, leaving little room for a discursive and reasoned approach.
Our exploration shows that the topics and issues addressed in the textbooks were excessively academic and highly deductive. The structure of the books was centered on classroom readings. They followed Ministry guidelines to the letter, and, consequently, the content presented in the textbooks was identical. Hence, the textbooks analyzed evidenced a closed nature. There were few allusions to social and technological surroundings, and hardly any concepts were analyzed from an interdisciplinary perspective. In fact, the different sections of the textbooks were frequently presented as separate and unconnected fields of science. Nature is therefore a sum of organisms that do not interact but must be understood by the pupils as categories in themselves.
The Relevance of Authors
Since the nineteenth century, the authors of most natural science textbooks were prestigious and renowned naturalists or biologists. In general, the same authors wrote both the first- and third-year textbooks. Many of them were members of a generation of secondary education professors, or catedráticos de instituto, and university professors that stood out in the field of teaching and research.58 Some notable authors whose professional careers and commitment to teaching is evidenced by their authorship of textbooks for Spanish baccalaureate natural science classes throughout the duration of the 1970 General Education Law include Fernando Esteve Chueca, Saturio Ramírez del Pozo, Salustio Alvarado Fernández, and Dimas Fernández Galiano.
Fernando Esteve Chueca studied natural science at the Central University of Madrid.59 He began as an adjunct professor to the Chair of General Geology at the same university and shortly thereafter passed the civil service entrance examination to become a catedrático de instituto, where he worked as a teacher in different Spanish secondary schools. He primarily taught biology and continued to conduct research in this field while associated with different institutions. In 1967, he joined the University of Granada as the Chair of Botany in the School of Pharmacy and later moved to the University of Alcalá. He collaborated with international research institutions such as UNESCO. As an author of textbooks, he worked with the Marfil publishing house together with two other catedráticos de instituto in order to publish first- and third-year BUP textbooks.60
Saturio Ramírez del Pozo's career took a different path from that of Fernando Esteve Chueca. He first received a degree in primary education and later another in natural science, and then became a catedrático de instituto at Granada Secondary School. Later he was a full professor at the University College of the University of Granada in the School of Teacher Training, where he remained until retirement. He was a strong proponent of practical work and teaching in the laboratory. He was the author of one of the natural science textbooks published by Bruño, specifically the book Cyclos, for both the first and third years of the BUP.
Salustio Alvarado Fernández founded his own publishing house. He was trained as a natural scientist, zoologist, and botanist. He received his doctorate in science and held the Chair in Animal Physiology in the School of Science at the Central University of Madrid. He taught at high schools and worked with Celso Arévalo, who revolutionized science teaching. During his academic training, he traveled to various German research institutions and discovered new methods with which to study and teach science. He was the author of various biology and natural science textbooks.61
Dimas Fernández Galiano was awarded the Chair of Bacteriology and Protozoology in the School of Science at the Central University of Madrid, a position which he held while simultaneously acting as a secondary school teacher until 1966. At the university, he performed both research and teaching functions, believing that the latter was an essential component of being a university professor.62
These authors stand out among the authors of textbooks in the 1970 education reform. Hence, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, until the mid-1980s, secondary education natural sciences textbooks were written by experts in the field of natural science, all of whom had exemplary academic careers. The authorship of textbooks maintained the prevailing tradition of the past. The majority had knowledge of teaching science given their professional careers as teachers in different institutions of secondary and university education. It should be noted that, until the mid-1970s, there were no female authors. The first one to appear was Ester Álvarez, who wrote the 1977 Anaya third-year textbook together with two male colleagues.
Conclusion
Understanding how scientists and scientific methodology work is an essential part of scientific literacy and the public understanding of science in general. Research indicates that the majority of the Spanish population does not understand how scientists work.63 Some scholars argue that science textbooks are one of the sources of this misunderstanding. However, textbooks remain a resource for the standard science classroom.
We have seen how the organization of the structure of secondary education studies evolved over the periods studied, undergoing various modifications of elementary and higher levels with different numbers of years of duration. From the curricular point of view, although the discipline went from being called “natural history” to “elements of physical and natural sciences” to, in later periods, “natural sciences,” its contents were always determined not by requirements for the direct application of this knowledge in practice, but by its preparatory nature and the accumulation of knowledge for its development at higher levels. Similar to structural changes of secondary education, scientific areas of knowledge evolved as core or optional areas with varying numbers of teaching hours.
Our research confirms that, during the transition from elitist secondary education in the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century to mass secondary education in 1970, school knowledge about natural sciences did not change substantially either within the curriculum or within the relevant textbooks. The natural science curriculum for noncompulsory secondary education remained unchanged from 1975 until the education reform of 1990. The influence of curricular tradition predominates. This is evident in the curricular content, and in the density, structure, and presentation of scientific knowledge.
Textbooks progressed in line with this curricular tradition. The structure of the textbooks was remarkably similar to that of the curriculum in most of the textbook editions examined. The quantity and density of knowledge content made it difficult to introduce new features into textbooks during the 1970s and 1980s. The effort was still focused on collecting as much knowledge of the natural sciences as possible by presenting it as accurately as possible and by transferring it to school knowledge with similar levels of complexity.
The authorship of textbooks remained in the hands of leading personalities in the academic world, which led to dense and academically oriented books, which were sober, faithful to the curriculum, and in disharmony with the new trends in science teaching, introduced in the 1970s, and the new social democratic context of the 1980s.
Industrial and economic interests emerged as a potential external conditioning factor that also affected the structure and evolution of textbooks because publishers were able to make greater profit from these textbooks. In general, the prices of these textbooks were the highest among all subject textbooks in Spanish secondary education. It was not only the length of the books, but also the scientific authority of the authors that played a role in determining the price of the textbooks, turning the natural sciences itinerary into an expensive educational option accessible only to a minority of the population—just as it had been in the nineteenth century.
Finally, international recommendations had no more influence than the Spanish academic tradition. Although the international context and advances in science had long recommended changes in the configuration of the discipline, the natural sciences curriculum and its textbooks remained unchanged until 1990.
In this journey through the curricular and textual evolution of school knowledge about natural sciences, tradition prevailed over innovation, predominantly presenting a representation of nature like a taxonomy of elements that corresponded to the categories suggested at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and the names of the subjects made their nature explicitly visible. This representation of nature was in line with the pedagogical aim and the traditional view of natural sciences, which were preserved and reinforced by the textbooks themselves. Hence, we may answer the question posed at the beginning of this article by concluding that textbooks represented an anchoring device that maintained academic tradition, followed and reinforced the curriculum, and contributed to the lucrative publishing business model.
Notes
Antonio Viñao Frago, Escuela para todos: educación y modernidad en la España del siglo XX [School for all: Education and modernity in twentieth-century Spain] (Madrid: Marcial Pons Historia, 2004), 139.
Antonio Viñao Frago, “Del bachillerato de élite a la enseñanza secundaria (1938–1990)” [From the elite baccalaureate to secondary education (1938–1990)], Revista Española de Pedagogía 50, no. 198 (1992): 271–288, https://www.revistadepedagogia.org/rep/vol50/iss192/6/.
Alejandro Tiana Ferrer, “El proceso de universalización de la enseñanza secundaria en España en la segunda mitad del siglo XX: una aproximación estadística” [The process of universalization of secondary education in Spain in the second half of the twentieth century: A statistical approach], Bordón: Revista de pedagogía 65, no. 4 (2013): 149–165, here 151, https://recyt.fecyt.es/index.php/BORDON/article/view/Bordon.2013.65410.
Ibid., 154.
Ibid., 158. Alejandro Tiana bears in mind the issue of demographic growth.
Ibid., 159.
This study is part of a R & I + i project entitled “The Individual, Nature and Society: A Study of Their Interrelations and Representations in School Textbooks in Spain and Portugal in the Last Third of the 20th Century.” It analyzes nature and society as educational categories that are identified and addressed in textbooks.
Daniel Tröhler, “La historia del curriculum como camino real a la investigación educativa internacional. Historia, perspectiva, beneficios y dificultades” [The history of curriculum as a royal road to international educational research: History, perspective, benefits and difficulties]. Revista de curriculum y formación del profesorado 21, no. 1 (2017): 202–232, https://recyt.fecyt.es/index.php/profesorado/article/view/58060.
Ivor Goodson, “La construcción social del curriculum: Posibilidades y ámbitos de investigación de la historia del curriculum” [The social construction of the curriculum: Possibilities and areas of research in the history of the curriculum], Revista de Educación 295 (1991): 7–37, http://hdl.handle.net/11162/70292.
Ivor Goodson, School Subjects and Curriculum Change: Case Studies in Curriculum History (London: Routledge, 1982).
UNESCO, Teaching of Natural Science in Secondary Schools (Paris: UNESCO, 1952).
The book had a second edition in 1962 before the New Source Book was published in 1973.
UNESCO, New UNESCO Source Book for Science Teaching (Paris: UNESCO, 1973), 11.
Omar Lozano Cantú and Oscar Villanueva Gutiérrez, “Ciencia, currículum y profesores: las ciencias naturales en la educación secundaria” [Science, curriculum and teachers: Natural sciences in secondary education], Actualidades Investigativas en Educación 16, no. 1 (2016): 1–18, doi:10.15517/aie.v16i1.21714; Juan Ignacio Pozo, “Natural Sciences in Secondary Education: A CommonArea or Several Different Disciplines?” Journal for the Study of Education and Development 17, no. 65 (1994): 3, doi:10.1174/02103709460575588.
José Alsina Calvés, “El currículo de las ciencias naturales y la educación en España” [The natural sciences curriculum and education in Spain], Eikasía Revista de Filosofía 99 (2021): 29–35, https://old.revistadefilosofia.org/99-02r.pdf.
Kira Mahamud-Angulo, “Contexts, Texts, and Representativeness: A Methodological Approach to School Textbooks Research,” in Methodologie und Methoden der Schulbuch-und Lehrmittelforschung, ed. Petr Knecht, Eva Matthes, Sylvia Schütze, and Bente Aamotsbakken (Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt, 2014), 31–49, here 33–35.
Jaume Martínez Bonafé and Jesús Rodríguez Rodríguez, “El curriculum y el libro de texto escolar. Una dialéctica siempre abierta” [“The curriculum and the school textbook: An always open dialectic”], in Saberes e incertidumbres sobre el currículo [Knowledge and uncertainties about the curriculum], ed. José Jimeno Sacristán (Madrid: Morata, 2010), 246–268.
In Spain, a secondary education professor (catedrático de instituto) is the highest rank a secondary school teacher can achieve, an indicator of great prestige.
Mark Depaepe and Frank Simon, “Fuentes y métodos para la historia de aula” [Sources and methods for classroom history], in Repensar la historia de la educación: Nuevos desafíos, nuevas propuestas [Rethinking the history of education: New challenges, new proposals], ed. Manuel Ferraz Lorenzo (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2005), 337–363.
Alberto Gomis Blanco, “Los libros de texto de Ciencias Naturales desde el siglo XVIII al XX” [Natural sciences textbooks from the eighteenth to the twentieth century], Memorias de la Real Sociedad Española de Historia Natural 3 (2004): 73–115, https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=1030989.
Yina Dulcey Cucuta, Los libros de texto de Ciencias Naturales y su articulación con los estándares básicos de competencias en Ciencias Naturales de la República de Colombia [Natural sciences textbooks and their articulation with the basic standards of competencies in natural sciences of the Republic of Colombia], MA thesis, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, 2017, https://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/62778?show=full.
Carla Maturano and Claudia Mazzitelli, “Libros de texto de ciencias naturales, de ayer, de hoy y, ¿de siempre?” [Natural science textbooks, yesterday, today and, forever?], Revista De Enseñanza De La Física 30, no. 1 (2018): 49–62, https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/revistaEF/article/view/20318.
Mahamud-Angulo, “Contexts, Texts, and Representativeness.”
Ibid., 33–35.
The Pidal Plan was a reform of the Spanish education system agreed on 17 September 1845, when Pedro José Pidal was Minister of the Interior and responsible for education.
Gomis Blanco, “Los libros de texto de Ciencias Naturales,” 85.
Ribera Gómez, Prologue to Elementos de Historia Natural.
Kostas Dimopoulos and Christina Karamanidou, “Towards a More Epistemologically Valid Image of School Science: Revealing the Textuality ofSchool Science Textbooks,” in Critical Analysis of Science Textbooks, ed. Myint Swe Khine (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013), 61–77.
Alejandro Groizard y Gómez de la Serna was a lawyer, jurist, minister, deputy, and senator in Madrid.
Manuel de Puelles Benítez, Educación e Ideología en la España Contemporánea [Education and ideology in contemporary Spain] (Madrid: Tecnos, 2009), 187–190.
Real Decreto reformando los estudios de segunda enseñanza y las enseñanzas técnicas del Magisterio, Agricultura, Industria, Comercio, Bellas Artes y Artes industriales de 17 de agosto de 1901 [Royal decree reforming secondary education studies and technical teachings of the teaching, agriculture, industry, commerce, fine arts and industrial arts of 17 August 1901], Gazeta de Madrid 231 (1901), https://www.boe.es/gazeta/dias/1901/08/19/pdfs/GMD-1901-231.pdf.
Francisco de las Barras Aragón y Sevilla was a member of the Spanish Society of Natural History, in whose Annals and Bulletin he thereafter published various anthropological, zoological, botanical, and historical works.
Aurelio González Bertolín, “El bachillerato en la dictadura de Primo de Rivera: el debate Callejo-Sáinz Rodríguez” [The high school in the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera: The Callejo-Sáinz Rodríguez debate], Edetania 57 (2020): 143–162, here 154, https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=7518848.
Susaeta, Anatomía y fisiología Humanas.
Francisco Canes Garrido, “El debate sobre los libros de texto de Secundaria en España (1875–1931)” [The debate on secondary school textbooks in Spain (1875–1931)]. Revista Complutense de Educación 12, no. 1 (2001): 357–395, https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/RCED/article/view/RCED0101120357A.
José Pedro Marín Murcia, “El material científico para la enseñanza de la botánica en la Región de Murcia (1837–1939)” [The use of scientific material as a tool in the teaching of botany in the Region of Murcia], PhD diss., University of Murcia, 2014, http://hdl.handle.net/10201/41148.
Cristina Jiménez Artacho and Joaquim Fernández Pérez, “La introducción a la ecología en los libros de texto españoles” [The introduction to ecology in Spanish textbooks] Llull: Revista de la Sociedad Española de Historia de las Ciencias y de las Técnicas 28, no. 62 (2005): 435–460, https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2470600.
Ley de 26 de febrero de 1953 sobre la Ordenación de la Enseñanza Media [Law of 26 February 1953 on the Organization of Secondary Education], Boletín Oficial del Estado 58 (1953): 1119–1130, https://www.boe.es/datos/pdfs/BOE//1953/058/A01119-01130.pdf.
Decreto de 12 de junio de 1953 por el que se aprueba el nuevo Plan de estudios de Bachillerato [Decree of 12 June 1953 approving the new Baccalaureate Curriculum], Boletín Oficial del Estado 183, no. 2 (1953): 4010–4012, https://www.boe.es/gazeta/dias/1953/07/02/pdfs/BOE-1953-183.pdf.
Carlos Vidal Box, Didáctica y metodología de las Ciencias Naturales [Didactics and methodology of natural sciences] (Alcalá: Ministerio de Educación Nacional, 1961).
José Fonfría, Cristina Jiménez Artacho, María García Barrutia, and Joaquín Fernández, “Carlos Vidal Box y la enseñanza ambiental de las ciencias naturales” [Carlos Vidal Box and the environmental teaching of natural sciences], Enseñanza de las ciencias (2005): 1–5, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266137754_Vidal_Box_y_la_ensenanza_ambiental_de_las_ciencias_naturales.
Vidal, Didáctica y metodología.
Records of the General Conference, 7th Session, Paris, 1952: Resolutions. UNESCO. Conferencia General, 7th (Paris: UNESCO, 1952), 22.
Mariano González-Delgado and Tamar Groves, “UNESCO and the Ley General de Educación: The Influence of International Organizations around Educational Modernization on the Francoism,” Historia y memoria de la educación 14 (2021): 209–252, doi:10.5944/hme.14.2021.28116.
Carles Furió, Amparo Vilches, and Jenaro Guisasola, “Finalidades de la enseñanza de las ciencias en la Secundaria obligatoria: ¿Alfabetización científica o preparación propedéutica?” [Purposes of science teaching in compulsory secondary school: Scientific literacy or propaedeutic preparation?] Enseñanza de las ciencias 19, no. 3 (2001): 365–376, https://ensciencias.uab.es/article/view/v19-n3-furio-vilches-guisasola-etal.
Decreto 160/1975 de 23 de enero, por el que se aprueba el plan de estudios de bachillerato, (1975) [Decree 160/1975 of 23 January, which approves the high school curriculum], Boletín Oficial del Estado 38 (1975): 3071–3074, https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/1975/02/13/pdfs/A03071-03074.pdf.
Ibid.
Orden de 22 de marzo de 1975 por la que se desarrolla el Decreto 160/1975, de 23 de enero, que aprueba el Plan de Estudios del Bachillerato, y se regula el Curso de Orientación Universitaria [Order of 22 March 1975, which develops Decree 160/1975, of 23 January, which approves the Baccalaureate Study Plan, and regulates the University Orientation Course], Boletín Oficial del Estado 93 (1975): 8049–8068, https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/1975/04/18/pdfs/A08049-08068.pdf.
Real Decreto 2214/1976, de 10 de septiembre, por el que se modifican determinados artículos del Decreto 160/1975, de 23 de enero, por el que se aprueba el Plan de estudios de Bachillerato [Royal Decree 2214/1976, of 10 September, which modifies certain articles of Decree 160/1975, of 23 January, which approves the Baccalaureate Study Plan], Boletín Oficial del Estado 228 (1976): 18505, https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/1976/09/22/pdfs/A18505-18505.pdf.
Orden de 19 de mayo de 1988 por la que se modifican las de 22 de marzo de 1975 y 11 de septiembre de 1976 sobre el plan de estudios de Bachillerato Unificado y Polivalente [Order of 19 May 1988 modifying those of 22 March 1975 and 11 September 1976 on the Unified and Multipurpose Baccalaureate curriculum], Boletín Oficial del Estado 125 (1988): 16026–16027, https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/1988/05/25/pdfs/A16026-16027.pdf.
Orden de 22 de marzo de 1975 por la que se desarrolla el Decreto 160/1975, 8049–8068.
Orden de 2 de diciembre de 1974 por la que se dan normas sobre autorización de libros de texto y material didáctico [Order of 2 December 1974,giving rules on the authorization of textbooks and teaching materials], Boletín Oficial del Estado 300 (1974): 25501–25502, https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/1974/12/16/pdfs/A25501-25502.pdf.
Orden de 8 de septiembre de 1975 sobre autorización con carácter provisional, durante el curso 1975-76, de los libros de texto y material didáctico para ser utilizados en los Centros docentes [Order of 8 September 1975 on provisional authorization, during the 1975–1976 academic year, of textbooks and teaching materials to be used in educational centers], Boletín Oficial del Estado 239 (1975): 21078, https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/1975/10/06/pdfs/A21078-21078.pdf.
Decreto 2531/1974, de 20 de julio, sobre autorizaciones de libros de texto y material didáctico [Decree 2531/1974, of 20 July on authorizations of textbooks and teaching materials], Boletín Oficial del Estado 220 (1974): 18852–18853, https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/1974/09/13/pdfs/A18852-18853.pdf.
Orden de 8 de septiembre de 1976 por la que se delegan atribuciones en materia de autorización de libros de texto y material didáctico en los directores generales de Educación Básica y Enseñanzas Medias [Order of 8 September 1976, which delegates powers regarding the authorization of textbooks and teaching materials to the general directors of Basic Education and Secondary Education], Boletín Oficial del Estado 227 (1976): 18423, https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/1976/09/21/pdfs/A18423-18423.pdf.
Orden de 6 de mayo de 1977 por la que se establece el procedimiento de fijación de precios de libros de texto y material didáctico impreso [Order of 6 May 1977 establishing the pricing procedure for textbooks and printed teaching materials], Boletín Oficial del Estado 118 (1977): 10918, https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/1977/05/18/pdfs/A10918-10919.pdf.
Orden de 24 de julio de 1978 por la que se establece el procedimiento de fijación de precios de libros de texto y material didáctico impreso [Order of 24 July 1978 establishing the pricing procedure for textbooks and printed teaching materials], Boletín Oficial del Estado 189 (1978): 18670–18672, https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/1978/08/09/pdfs/A18670-18672.pdf.
Leoncio López Ocón and Álvaro Ribagorda, “Conexiones entre los institutos de enseñanza secundaria y el mundo universitario en la sociedad española durante el primer tercio del siglo XX” [Connections between secondary education institutes and the university world in Spanish society during the first third of the twentieth century], CIAN-Revista de Historia de las Universidades 26, no. 1 (2023): 6–16, doi:10.20318/cian.2023.7818.
In 1970, the Central University of Madrid separated into two distinct entities: experimental science, health sciences, social sciences, and humanities were combined to form what would become the Complutense University of Madrid.
Manuel Peinado Lorca and Fernando Esteve-Raventós, “Datos biográficos y bibliografía del profesor Fernando Esteve Chueca” [Biographical data and bibliography of Professor Fernando Esteve Chueca], Lazaroa 9 (1986): 11–18, https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=910779.
Francisco Teixidó Gómez, “Salustio Alvarado Fernández,” in Diccionario Biográfico electrónico, ed. Real Academia de la Historia, https://dbe.rah.es/biografias/6870/salustio-alvarado-fernandez (accessed 21/01/2023).
Benjamín Fernández and Almudena Guinea, “Dimas Fernández-Galiano Fernández,” in Diccionario Biográfico electrónico, ed. Real Academia de la Historia, https://dbe.rah.es/biografias/24110/dimas-fernandez-galiano-fernandez (accessed 21/01/2023).
Cristina Jiménez Artacho and Joaquim Fernández Pérez, “La introducción a la ecología en los libros de texto españoles” [The introduction to ecology in Spanish textbooks], Llull: Revista de la Sociedad Española de Historia de las Ciencias y de las Técnicas 28, no. 62 (2005): 435–460, https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2470600.
Textbook Bibliography
Álvarez López, Enrique. Elementos de Mineralogía, Botánica y Zoología [Elements of mineralogy, botany, and zoology]. Madrid: Summa, 1945.
Anadón, Emilio, Álvarez, Ester, and Rafael Simancas. Ciencias Naturales [Natural sciences, year three]. Madrid: Anaya, 1977.
Barras Aragón y Sevilla, Francisco de las Heras. Historia Natural [Natural history]. Madrid: Editorial de la Lectura, 1916.
Caballero Moreno, J. M., Fernando Esteve Chueca, and J. M. Rodríguez Rodríguez. Ciencias Naturales [Natural sciences. Third year of Spanish baccalaureate. Alcoy: Editorial Marfil, 1978.
Cendrero Curiel, Orestes. Botánica; Zoología; Geología [Botany, zoology and geology], 4th ed., corrected, and expanded. Santander: S A, 1925.
Departamento Pedagógico Santillana. Ciencias Naturales [Natural sciences. First year BUP]. Madrid: Santillana, 1980.
De Galdo, Manuel María José. Manual de Historia Natural [Manual of natural history] 5th ed., revised, corrected, and expanded. Madrid: Imprenta de Santiago Aguado y Compañía, 1849.
Esteve Chueca, Fernando. Ciencias Naturales. 5º curso. [Natural sciences. Year five]. Alcoy: Editorial Marfil, 1965.
Fernández Galiano, Dimas, and Enrique Ramírez Sánchez-Rubio. Ciencias Naturales [Natural sciences, year one]. Madrid: Anaya, 1976.
Llerena Rodríguez, Antonio. Bioterram [Bioterram. First year BUP]. Barcelona: Vicens Vives, 1982.
Llerena Rodríguez, Antonio. Bioterram [Bioterram. Third year BUP]. Barcelona: Vicens Vives, 1982.
Llerena Rodríguez, Antonio. Ecos [Ecos. First year BUP]. Barcelona: Vicens Vives, 1982.
Puig, Igancio. Historia Natural [Natural history]. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 1932.
Ramírez del Pozo, Saturio. Ciclos I [Cycles I. First year BUP]. Madrid: Bruño, 1978.
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