In order to comprehend the relationship between the two broad concepts referred to in the title of this article (production systems and nature), we believe it necessary to start with a systemic approach that provides a clear definition of the terms as well as the network of relationships that exists between them. We believe it is useful, therefore, to define a system as “a set of interacting elements which, while they may be divided in parts, acquire an identity precisely as a result of their being integrated into the whole.”1 Consequently, a production system could be considered to be a set of elements—raw materials, workers, machinery, administration—that interact to transform raw materials into a finished product, with this quality of interaction making it identifiable as a system. This same definition can be applied to other types of systems, be they natural, social, or economic, each made up of different elements and relationships. Within this approach, the concept of “inter-systemic interdependence,”2 which refers to the relationships between different systems, acquires special relevance. In our case, this interdependence refers to the fact that nature, which is also a (natural) system, and production systems are interconnected, since what occurs in one system influences the other. This type of relationship (and, more specifically, its representation in school textbooks) constitutes the subject of this study, in which we cover the historical period from 1965 to 1990.
There are several reasons for choosing this topic and this time period. First of all, Spanish historiographical research concerning the school, and more specifically, school textbooks, has focused heavily on the early years of Francoism. This includes numerous studies on the ideological indoctrination carried out in schools starting after the conclusion of the Spanish Civil War and continuing until the end of the 1950s. However, the period dealt with in this study, including what is known as late Francoism (tardofranquismo), from 1960 to 1975—the transition to democracy and the initial years of the newly established democratic regime—has received scant attention in our field in contrast to the work carried out in areas such as sociology, political science, and the history and politics of education.
Second, one of the salient features of late Francoism was the considerable openness of the country and the economic development that took place, which conferred greater relevance to the aspects that we deal with here (namely, all those relating to production systems), which belong less to the realm of ideology and more to the realm of socioeconomics. Our article aims to explain the way in which such topics were presented and transmitted in Spanish schools. The thesis by Yovana Hernández on economic culture in school textbooks under Franco and during the transition to democracy can be considered a pioneering work in this new line of research on this historical period.3 Cecilia Valbuena's thesis on the concept of work and its transmission in the authoritarian school serves as a starting point for our investigation, but, because it focuses solely on the early Francoist period, her investigation serves as an antecedent to our work.4
Within production systems, we have singled out three categories or elements. These are (paid) work,5 industrialization, and usefulness. We analyze these elements or categories according to the way their relationship to nature is represented. The following is a brief outline of the meaning that we have attributed to each of these concepts.
We begin by referring to the concept of work, understood as human effort applied to the production of wealth. The historical reference for this conception of productive work is linked to the mercantilist discourse dating from the last quarter of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. This perspective places work at the center of theories and debates regarding national prosperity, with productive work constituting a crucial element in the consolidation of a nation's wealth.6 It is worth remembering here Karl Marx's observation concerning the relationship between work and nature when he states that “the existence of any material good that is not a spontaneous product of nature will always involve the mediation of special productive activity”—work—which serves to adapt specific natural materials to the needs of man.7
Taking the above into consideration and keeping in mind our objective of analyzing the concept of productive work and its relationship with nature as conveyed in textbooks, we intend to respond to questions such as: How are certain jobs and professions related to nature presented in the textbooks? Does nature serve as a pretext for presenting certain kinds of work, or, to the contrary, is it the profession that serves to introduce content related to nature? Do we find signs of an evolution in the way said content is presented? Do we find allusions to these questions in education legislation from the period?
The term “industrialization” refers to the process by which industry becomes the primary sector in a country's socioeconomic order, relegating agriculture, crafts, and other traditional sectors to a secondary position. Spain's definitive step into twentieth-century industrialization took place, with a considerable lag in relation to the rest of Europe, in the 1960s, for which reason this period is known in Spain as the decade of industrial development. Within this category, our goal is to analyze references to the exploitation of nature for purposes of growth and economic development. The questions arising from this research, and which we address, can be formulated in the following terms. Which industries are presented in the textbooks as most important? How is the exploitation of natural resources presented? Is any reference made to the damage caused by industries, or do the textbooks focus solely on their economic benefits?
The third and final category, titled “usefulness,” contains references in which nature is explained in terms of the benefits that humans can get from it. In order to provide an adequate theoretical framework, we must refer here to the Object Lessons textbook series published between 1880 and 1966. These textbooks predate the period that we are analyzing, but their influence is evident in some of the natural science textbooks. They tended to present natural science content from the perspective of the principle of usefulness and came to be used widely with the expansion of education among the working class, emphasizing types of knowledge that were meant to be practical for daily life.8 The types of representations we find in this category allow us to focus on the most basic level of the relationship between humans and nature and to identify the degree to which this relationship was one of exploitation and personal use, respect and conservation, or mere knowledge.
Economic and Industrial Development and Educational Legislation: Where Does Nature Fit In?
Our study covers the period from 1965 to 1990. This includes what is known as the Spanish transition to democracy, which saw the transformation of an authoritarian state with a rigid, centralized power structure into a democracy with a novel, decentralized territorial organization. This first democratic era was dominated primarily by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, PSOE).
In the 1940s, the Spanish economy was based principally on its primary sector and Spain was basically an agricultural country. Agricultural goods accounted for 75 percent of all products comprising the primary sector, livestock represented 18 percent, while the fishing industry was responsible for slightly more than 2 percent of the total.9 With the Economic Stabilization Plan (Plan de Estabilización Económica) of 1959, however, Spain's autarchic economic policies were replaced by initiatives aimed at incorporating the country's fledgling capitalism into the international arena, modernizing its production networks and attracting foreign investment. To these ends, and with the backing of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government undertook several measures, including the liberalization of capital markets and production; the promotion of industrial activity by means of development plans; and the suppression of wages and the repression of unions in order to be more competitive.10
Between 1960 and 1975, industry grew at an interannual rate of close to 10 percent, leading to a fourfold increase in production and almost four million jobs in the industrial sector. Manufactured products became the country's principal export.11 Industrial production in Spain then lost steam beginning with the start of the political and economic transition, with a growth that stayed well below that of the surrounding countries and the OECD from the late 1970s to the present day.
The educational sector in Spain at the end of the 1950s was marked by low rates of school attendance, due in part to the fact that it was common for boys and girls to join the workforce at an early age. Those that did attend school often did so irregularly. This situation, which had hardly changed since the end of the Civil War, meant that there was an acute shortage of qualified, skilled adult workers for the country's workforce in the 1960s.12
With the 1959 Economic Stabilization Plan, which aimed to open the economy, and the Development Plans of 1962 and 1973, the government finally addressed the need for schooling, acknowledging its role as a key element for achieving greater development.13 The partial reform introduced in 196414 extended compulsory education to the age of fourteen. It was one of the measures taken to remedy the problem of the shortage of qualified workers hindering the country's economic development.15
It is within this context of development, which was occurring at an international level and in which education played a vital role, that the General Education Law (Ley General de Educación y Financiamiento de la Reforma Educativa, LGE)16 was passed in 1970.17 The new law attempted to address the changes and challenges brought about by the country's economic transformation, recognizing the need for the educational system to be closely aligned with the demands arising from the country's social and economic evolution. The law also emphasized the importance of “a greater alignment between the contents taught in the study plans and the demands of the modern world.”18
The chronological organization of this study is based precisely on these curricular considerations, as well as on two milestones in Spanish education. These are the primary education programs known as the national questionnaires (cuestionarios nacionales),19 which were introduced in 1965 and the 1970 General Education Law, which fostered, among other changes, the emergence of the first textbook publishers considered to be “modern.”
The 1965 national questionnaires for primary education were meant “to ensure that all Spanish children receive a basic instruction allowing for their insertion into and active participation in the life of their community.”20 Quite evident in this program was a concern for recent changes taking place in different aspects of people's lives resulting from society's rapid development as well as the way in which scientific knowledge was being applied. One of the novelties introduced was the concept of “didactic units,” which were understood as “a body of instructional knowledge and activities, learned and practiced in the school, focused around a basic theme of great significance and usefulness to the child.”21
Certain features of the questionnaires evidenced new concepts in the teaching of science (Table 1). The general provisions established that nature and social life were “indispensable areas of knowledge for the students’ projection in life and in their surrounding world,”22 in what seems to have been an attempt to relate the teaching of science to that of other subjects and to daily life. In year three (ages eight and nine) the questionnaires set out a single block of content called “Nature and Social Life,” composed of fifty topics or lessons. This block was divided into two distinct subjects in year four (ages nine and ten), “nature” and “social life,” with twenty-five topics each. In year five (ages ten and eleven), there were still two subjects, but “social life” was renamed as “geography and history.” In year six (ages eleven and twelve), it is the subject “nature” that was changed to “natural sciences.” Year seven (ages twelve and thirteen) featured three subjects, “natural sciences,” “geography of Spain,” and “universal and Spanish history.” These subjects were maintained in year eight (ages thirteen and fourteen), although the first two were renamed “physical-chemical-natural sciences” and “universal geography.”
Subject differentiation in the national questionnaires from 1965 (this division remained in force and was faithfully reflected in the textbook indexes until the early 1970s).
| Year | Age | Block of Content / Subjects | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 8–9 | Nature and social life | ||
| 4 | 9–10 | Nature | Social life | |
| 5 | 10–11 | Nature | Geography and history | |
| 6 | 11–12 | Natural sciences | Geography and history | |
| 7 | 12–13 | Natural sciences | Geography of Spain | Universal and Spanish history |
| 8 | 13–14 | Physical-chemical-natural sciences | Universal geography | Universal and Spanish history |
The orientaciones pedagógicas (“pedagogical guidelines”) for the 1970–1971 school year, which were approved by the order of 2 December 1970 (BOE, 8 December) introduced changes in the division of the subjects established by the 1965 national questionnaires.
The 1970 General Education Law laid down the structure of education in Spain that would persist until the promulgation of the Law on the General Organization of the Educational System (Ley de Ordenación General del Sistema Educativo, LOGSE) of 1990. The 1970 law established, for the first time in the twentieth century, an eight-year compulsory education structure called Basic General Education (Educación General Básica, EGB) to the entire Spanish educational system,23 resulting in significant changes in schooling practices. The 1970 law did not mention anything relevant on the teaching of nature. The topic was addressed in more depth in 1982 in the decrees24 that established the minimum teaching requirements. For years three, four, and five, the decrees stipulated the content to be taught in different subjects, dividing it into thematic blocks. With regard to natural sciences, the relationship between the individual and his or her surroundings was addressed as follows.
The teaching of natural sciences in the second cycle [of EGB] should provide the pupil with knowledge of their reality through observation, measurement, and simple experiences with resources from their surroundings and should foster the acquisition of habits of respect for their surrounding environment.25
For this study, the fact that work is included among some of the programmed objectives is relevant. One of these objectives, given for year four, is “to understand how man, by means of physical and intellectual work, can improve his nourishment, health conditions, relationships with other people [and his] surroundings, his understanding of things, and the benefit he can make of natural resources.”26 This objective includes a direct link between work and natural resources.
In year five, humans are portrayed as living beings capable of interacting upon their own free will with their natural and social environments. Thematic block 3, titled “Knowing How to Behave in One's Surroundings,”27 addresses individual and collective responsibility in maintaining an ecological balance (by taking precautions to avoid forest fires, not contaminating the air or water, not cutting down trees unnecessarily, and respecting the habitat of plants and animals). The beneficial use of energy sources is also touched upon, as is the demonstration of the way that machines can facilitate work as well as a better use of nature and how machines have modified many aspects of people's lives (artisanal work, production lines, typewriters, washing machines, sewing machines). This reference, taken from the text of the educational legislation, shows how humans interact with nature via the three categories that we have chosen for our analysis of school textbooks (work, industrialization, and usefulness).
In 1982, the minimum teaching requirements were established for the last three years of the EGB (years six, seven, and eight). This regulation was less explicit in the way it addressed the relationships between the individual, work, and nature. The section on nature, which consists mostly of observations and experimental studies, contains numerous uses of the term “usefulness,” but it nearly always refers to the utilization of instruments to observe and carry out experiments on certain aspects of the environment.28
Methodology
Textbooks were chosen in accordance with three established criteria. First, the textbooks all contained natural sciences and social sciences content addressed to students between eight and fourteen years of age and were chosen in accordance with their nature content in particular and their established categories of analysis. Second, the majority of the texts were published by the prominent publishing houses active during the final years of Francoism and the transition to democracy. These include Anaya, Santillana, SM, and Vicens Vives. Using the classification carried out by Agustín Escolano, the textbooks selected may be considered “second-generation textbooks,” a way of referring to those textbooks that began to be published at the end of the 1950s (Table 2).29 We made a special effort to choose books published in numerous editions in order to ensure that our sample was representative. The number of editions is an indicator that the textbook was indeed used. Finally, we strove to make our sample as broad and balanced as possible in order to confer the greatest possible coherence to our analysis. The forty-three compulsory education textbooks that we analyzed can be grouped chronologically as follows.
Sample size by decade.
| 1960–1970 | 4 textbooks |
| 1970–1980 | 18 textbooks |
| 1980–1990 | 21 textbooks |
Our work followed the methodological process indicated for this type of verbal-iconographical material. This requires the use of a qualitative method that combines the scrutiny of the text and its accompanying iconographic discourse with an examination of the links between language, discourse, and power, including their social and political dimensions.30 By using this method, we were able to identify the underlying messages relating to social and political issues that emerged in the relationship between the individual and nature as presented in these textbooks.
For our analysis, we chose and defined three categories that have already been developed theoretically. The first of these, “work,” includes references to professions and jobs as well as other activities with a link to nature (fishermen, farmers, miners, scientists). In analyzing social science textbooks, we took care to limit the field; while references to work are frequent, many of these are irrelevant to our study. For the second category, “industrialization,” we analyzed the way in which the books portray the exploitation of nature for the sake of the country's growth and economic development. In the third category, “usefulness,” we examined what benefits man gets from nature and the ways in which nature serves and is useful for humans.
We chose these three categories for two reasons. The first reason, which is of an empirical nature, has already been pointed out. It has to do with the fact that our study has its roots in previous research on textbooks containing object lessons. They purport to provide knowledge that is useful for life and for industry, and the natural sciences are explained therein from the perspective of their application and usefulness to humans. It was in this initial stage of our research that we noticed the presence of these three interrelated categories. The second reason relates to the context of industrialization and economic growth during the 1960s and 1970s.
The Relationship between Nature and Work, Industrialization and Usefulness in Spanish School Textbooks
Nature and Work: From Having a Trade to Having a Profession
Within this category of work, prior to the 1960s references to work rarely constituted the main theme of the lesson. The central content focused on raw materials, and it was via the explanation of these that we found references to the way humans worked with them. The information about how this work was carried out was often transmitted via images rather than text.
Only at the end of the 1960s do work and industry begin to appear in the books as central themes in content relating to nature. We find the explanation for this change in the 1965 national questionnaires, where it is especially prevalent in the texts used in years three and four. Following the guidelines of the national questionnaires, these manuals separate content dealing with nature and social life into two knowledge blocks, with these very denominations. Starting at this time, and throughout the remainder of the decade, we find increasingly frequent references (even in the indexes) in the section relating to nature to lessons that relate more to topics pertaining to the social life section. Headings such as “The Fisherman,” “The Leather Industry,” and “Wood and Furniture” and the naming of specific professions and industries are directed more toward social life issues.
Focusing on the example of the fisherman (Figure 1), we can see how the description of this trade placed special emphasis on certain features of the activity, such as how hard and dangerous it can be.
Lesson on the fisherman from Alberto del Pozo and M. Corona Andrés, Nosotros y el Mundo 3 [We and the world 3] (Burgos: Hijos de Santiago Rodríguez, 1967), 201 (scanned from the book by the authors, courtsey of Hijos de Santiago Rodríguez).
Citation: Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society 16, 1; 10.3167/jemms.2024.160105
The lesson entitled “Fish,” which we would presume to be related to the natural sciences, actually turns out to be more of a pretext for discussing the fisherman's work and the activity of canning and preserving fish. The following example, which alludes to both of these topics, comes from a 1972 textbook that tells us how
the fisherman's work is very hard, thankless and dangerous. He is out at sea for days on end, far from his family, undertaking the demanding work while suffering the discomforts of life on the boat and the innumerable dangers of the ocean.31
Within the same lesson on fish, we find another section describing the methods used in the canning and preserving of fish:
The fish that is caught can be eaten fresh. But much of it is conserved for future consumption.
The fishing industry uses different procedures for preserving fish:
–Freezing the fish in large refrigerators: frozen fish.
–Canning in oil: sardines.
–Drying, in special ovens and brine: cod.
–Smoking, next to a fire: salmon.
–Pickling, in vinegar: herring.32
During the democratic period from 1980 to 1990, we find that work is increasingly presented as a means to achieve a greater level of well-being; various lessons transmit the idea that humans have moved on from simply working to survive, to working to live better. This is attested to by affirmations such as “nowadays humans are not content just to survive, but rather they wish to live better, and so they work to achieve this,”33 or “by working, man improves his living conditions.”34
Hence, we find a considerable reduction in the references to workers in the more traditional sense (miners, fishermen, construction workers) and, in contrast, more examples of more modern-style professions such as scientists, veterinarians, physiotherapists, orthopedists, and astronauts. A similar change can be found in the social science textbooks (although they are not always relevant to our study), where allusions to professions such as anthropology and sociology become more frequent. The following example dealing with the work of scientists is taken from a year four natural science textbook published in 1990.
Film and television often portray scientists as if they were a special breed of man with some immense power that sets them apart from other mortals. It is important that we not succumb to this false image; scientific work is simply another kind of human work that requires the application of human knowledge, not so different from the knowledge required to handle a machine or manage the accounts of a business. Scientists’ work is comparable to any other kind of human work, although it is true that it requires a longer period of training due to the enormous amount of knowledge involved and to the complexity of its methods and calculations.35
This is not to suggest that in a lesson on plants, minerals, or the sea, for example, we no longer find mention of traditional pursuits such as farming, mining, or fishing. These were relevant sectors in the 1960s and in the following decades, and this importance is reflected in the textbooks. The following example comes from a lesson titled “The Vegetable Garden and the Country” from a year six textbook.
Spain has some thirty-two million people. Just like you, all of them eat, day in, day out, vegetables grown in gardens and in the country. This means that large quantities of plants need to be grown. It also means that a great many farmers are needed to grow these plants, along with large expanses of terrain to grow them in.
Thousands of farmers live and depend on growing the food that we eat. But there are many other people who work with these plants: drivers who transport them to the market, sellers who offer them to buyers, the makers of the machines used by the farmers, large industries that transform the vegetables into other edible products such as flour, oil, textile fibers, etc.
Spanish farmers represent 40 percent of Spain's total population. Do we need so many? What would happen if we had only half as many farmers?36
It is in the 1980s that this tendency changes and the direct references to work in its more traditional sense begin to disappear from the natural science textbooks, although some (especially relating to farming) can still be found principally in illustrations and activities.
In some texts, within the activities section, pupils are asked to answer questions about the work that the characters in the illustration are doing:
What are the farmers doing in the illustration?
What is the difference between the two ways of shaking down the olives from the tree shown in the picture?
The olive tree shakers usually place a tarp under the tree. Why do you think they do this?37
Nature and Industrialization: From Raw Materials to Development and Environment
Prior to the period that is the subject of this study, the portrayal of industrialization tended to be intimately linked to work, much more than to development, progress, or wealth. As was the case beforehand with work, in the 1940s and 1950s the main theme was raw materials, accompanied by references to the factories where these materials were handled. Quite often this type of content was shown not only in text, but also in illustrations.
In the 1960s, however, industrialization begins to be portrayed as a primordial subject in and of itself. For example, in a textbook from 1967 we find the “leather industry” as a topic. The lesson begins by talking about animals, with affirmations such as “nature has provided these animals with fur to defend themselves against the cold and to protect themselves.”38 However, in contrast to what we find in previous decades, when raw material was the most relevant content, the main theme here is industry. The text goes on to explain the different kinds of industry that exist. In fact, the illustrations that accompany the text all show industrial products such as (leather) shoes, purses, and gloves:
The leather industry has two modalities. One is that of the fur industry, in which furriers prepare animal furs to make coats. Not all furs are suitable for this purpose, however; the preferred ones come from animals with soft, shiny, colorful fur. The other modality is that of leather used to make shoes, belts, and other accessories.39
The decade of the 1970s ushers in an important change in various publishers. In the book indexes as well as in the treatment of the subject, nature begins to be shown in a more biological light, independent of human action. This is accompanied by the mention, not seen beforehand, of the effects that industrialization and humans’ use of resources has on nature. An example can be found in a Santillana textbook from 1974, which talks of the effects that humans, progress, and industry had on nature:
And little by little they modified the landscape in order to obtain the materials that they needed to survive. Humans did not think about the consequences that their actions had and often they ended up causing terrible damage to the balance of nature.40
The texts also begin to mention some of the measures that governments have taken to limit the damages caused to the environment. According to the same textbook, for example, “governments have listened to what biologists and ecologists had to say and, in many instances, they have taken precautions to limit the way that factories, cars, and other activities poison the air.”41 This tendency, which began in the 1970s, was consolidated and strengthened in the 1980s, as we will show below.
The content of the textbooks relating to industrialization also evolved during this time toward new sectors. Whereas through the 1960s references to industrialization invariably centered on agricultural or farming products such as milk, corn, or silk, we now find mention of other sectors linked to the country's industrial development, such as the canning and textile industries. In the 1970s, we even see mention of atomic energy. In a textbook from 1968 published by Hijos de Santiago Rodríguez, we have a reference to the fishing and canning industries. The lesson is also titled “Fish” (the same title and topic as the 1972 textbook cited above) and section 10, titled “The Ocean's Wealth,” describes the health benefits of eating fish and the importance of the fish preserving and canning industry in Spain. The lesson includes images of the C. Alvo canning factory in Vigo.
Textbooks from the 1960s begin to include specific content about the machinery used to handle and modify natural products. An example of this can be found in the textbook Nosotros y el Mundo 3 (We and the World 3), published in 1967, which includes an image of a woman weaving. The accompanying text talks about the speed of these machines, followed by questions about this industry and other types of work related to it.
During the democratic period examined by our study (1980–1990), we can safely say that the category of industrialization underwent greater changes than any other category. Allusions to industry as a factor in a country's growth and development virtually disappear and are replaced with explanations about its effects on the environment and on pollution. These explanations can be grouped in a new category called “the environment.” The following passage, taken from a 1983 textbook, enumerates some of the factors that have repercussions on people's quality of life.
From the point of view of the natural sciences, a person's quality of life is determined to a great extent by the following environmental conditions: the cleanness of the air that one breathes; the quality and quantity of water that one has both for personal use and for irrigating fields; the state of the ground on which one lives; the condition, conservation, and nourishment of the food that one consumes; the benefit that one makes of the plants, animals, and all of the resources that nature provides; [and] the balance of the ecosystem of which one is a part.
Some textbooks even talk specifically about a code of conduct that humans should follow in their relationship with nature. Despite these changes, we still find, albeit less frequently and in a subtler way, allusions to the link between progress and technological development, especially in relation to agricultural industry.
Until recently, fifty years ago in our country, land was plowed with the help of animals and planting and harvesting depended on the physical work of men . . .
Today, modern harvesting machines combine in one single unit a series of tasks, including harvesting, gathering, and threshing. New varieties of seeds, the intensive use of tractors, irrigation, and the use of new machines are all part of the modern agricultural sector.
The use of this technology, along with industrial development, has led to significant changes in the occupations of the majority of our population. One hundred years ago, nearly four-fifths of the population in industrialized countries worked in agriculture.
. . .
Today we find the inverse situation, yet the per capita production of agricultural workers is considerably greater than one hundred years ago.42
Nature's Usefulness for Humans
We analyze usefulness by identifying the degree to which references to nature focus on how useful it is for human beings. During the Francoist period, we can detect an evolution in the way that these types of content are presented. For example, in a lesson about a natural element such as the sun, there are important differences in its presentation in a textbook from the 1940s as compared to one from the 1970s. In the earlier case, the sun is presented in a more objective way, in the manner of an astronomy lesson where we learn about why it rises and sets where it does, how the earth orbits around it, etc. A textbook from the 1970s, however, contains, in addition to these features, information about its use as a source of energy and its importance as a crucial element in fuel production.
The following example is from a year-six EGB textbook published by SM. The lesson titled “The Sun as a Source of Energy” contains various paragraphs explaining the use of the sun in this way. It begins by referring to the sun's function as a source of radiation (“The sun is the source from which we receive the enormous quantities of energy that man needs for industry and for his life”). This energy, the text goes on to explain, reaches us in the form of radiation.43 Further along in the text, the reader learns about the use of the sun as the origin of coal and oil:
Coal, and to an even greater degree oil, are two of the forms of fuel that humans consume the most.
We have seen how sunlight enables green plants to carry out the process of photosynthesis. It is thanks to plants that we have coal, and to plants and animals of other geological eras that today we have oil.44
The text is accompanied by images of coal and oil extraction.
Another example of how natural science content is presented in accordance with its usefulness for humans appears in a lesson about insects from a year five textbook. The bulk of information has to do with insects’ influence on the economy and on people's health:
Insects are classified into two large groups:
–Harmful, such as locusts, phylloxera, aphids etc. Insecticides are used to control them.
–Beneficial, such as bees, which give us wax and honey, and silkworms, which provide us with silk. These insects constitute an important part of the economy of each country owing to the products that they provide.45
A year six textbook by the publisher SM provides us with another example with its allusion to the usefulness of communities of plants (woods, scrublands, etc.). Throughout the lesson, we find explanations of the economic benefits to be obtained from forests. As one passage explains: “Forests abound with trees. Trees are of great economic importance as a source of wood, charcoal, cork, wood fiber, fruits and nuts, etc. They also help to purify the air.”46 The text also mentions the meager economic benefits of scrublands (“Only a minimal exploitation of scrublands is possible; at the most, beehives may be installed along with aromatic plants used for perfumes. Such terrain is not of true economic importance”).47
With the 1980s comes an important change in the category of usefulness. This way of presenting information continues, albeit less frequently, but now it is closely associated with fuel and energy sources such as gas, coal, and oil:
Along with coal and oil, there are other forms of fuel whose use has become more and more common. One of the most important of these is gas, which is trapped under the earth and is obtained, like oil, by drilling. It is used in car motors, in industry, and in the home, especially in kitchens.48
After the oil crisis of 1973 and until the end of the 1970s and the 1980s, textbooks begin to address the issue of the depletion of non-renewable energy sources and to present other alternative sources of energy that could take their place. As the authors of one year-six textbook from 1983 observe: “Man makes use of multiple sources of energy. Today there is much talk about the energy crisis and the exhaustion of natural resources, yet one of the most important sources of energy, solar energy, is scarcely used at all.”49
Along with non-renewable sources such as coal and oil, mention is made of uranium as a source of nuclear energy, although scarce information is given as to how it is produced or the dangers that its use entails. The passage that follows, taken from a year-eight social science textbook, is exceptional in its degree of detail:
In 1973, the price of oil increased, its production came to a halt, and countries all over the world began to search for alternative energy sources. Among these alternatives, nuclear energy has become increasingly important.
There are two techniques for obtaining electricity from nuclear energy: the thermal and regenerative methods. The first of these uses such an enormous quantity of uranium that it could easily exhaust the world's reserves of the mineral in a short time. The second method consumes none but is extremely dangerous. With the safer fusion reactors, which will not be operative until the year 2000, the depletion of fuel will cease to be a problem.50
Textbooks from this period discuss renewable energy sources, noting, for example, that “renewable energy sources are those that are inexhaustible, meaning that humans can make as intensive a use of them as is needed.”51 They are considered an alternative, one that requires further study, to mitigate foreseeable energy crises in the future. As one year-seven textbook from 1979 explains: “We can also obtain energy from the wind (aeolic energy), from heat in the earth's core (geothermal) and from tides. Research into these kinds of energy could help to solve future energy crises.”52
In this sense, the ocean, in addition to being used “for fishing and for the extraction of mineral resources” and as “a route for communication and commerce,”53 is of benefit to humans because it is an inexhaustible source of energy:
The power of tides can be used to obtain energy. This is achieved by having the water, in its movement in and out from the shore, pass through channels and move devices that in turn activate a generator that produces electricity.
Today, however, there are very few places where tides are used for producing electrical energy. So while tides do not produce great quantities of energy, they can be of help in conserving our planet's scarce resources.54
The explanations concerning plants and animals, however, tend to focus on their biological features (such as nutrition), with scarcely a mention of how they benefit humans.
Conclusion
Under the Francoist dictatorship, school textbooks presented nature in a way that emphasized its usefulness for humans, largely ignoring biological considerations, an approach that changed considerably in the 1980s, when the scientific aspects of nature were given prominence. The 1970s can be seen as a period of transition, where certain continuities from early Francoism can be found, while, at the same time, we see signs of new perspectives and a gradual change to a more modern conception of industrial development, one that would characterize the later Francoist years and the transition to democracy.
Until the 1960s, references to work and industry found in textbook contents relating to nature were nearly always expressed in terms of primary commodities, which was where their true interest lay. Given the importance of agriculture in Spain's economy at the time, it is no surprise that the primary commodities such as wheat, corn, and milk featured most frequently in textbooks pertaining to this agricultural sector. The work involved in the extraction of these primary commodities was very often portrayed via illustrations of farmers working the land. In this sense, we can conclude that the textbooks reflected the reality of the times, not only in their depiction of work but also in the evolution of people's consumer habits, a topic in need of further research. While products may be modified slightly, nature's usefulness at this time is more linked to its benefits for humans (wheat nourishes us, the sun warms us, water is indispensable for life, etc.) rather than its future potential for industrial use.
The robust development of the 1960s, when industry began to catch up to agriculture and to reflect the new reality of Spanish society, changed this situation. Primary commodities did not disappear from school textbooks, but their treatment no longer focused solely on agriculture. Industrial activity, work, and a variety of professions now constituted the theme of many lessons related to natural sciences. This change can be detected in educational legislation, as attested to by the 1965 national questionnaires, which contained abundant content dealing with industries, skills, and professions that relate to the transformation of primary commodities and made up an important part of the country's economy (these include the tanning and leather industry, fishing and canning, grapes and wine, olive trees and olive oil). There is a certain air of propaganda to these mentions of work, which tend to highlight the heroism, self-sufficiency, and success of the country and the importance of work for the national economy, but also the danger of some productive activities. The usefulness of nature's bounty begins to be linked to the industrial benefit that can be derived from it, especially in the case of the energy sources that appear at this time.
The 1970s brought an important change, which would be consolidated in the 1980s, in school textbooks’ treatment of nature, which begins to be seen from the perspective of biology and not just from the point of view of human benefit. This change is especially noticeable in references to industry: allusions to industrial activity now include information about the harm that such practices can cause to nature and about the depletion of non-renewable energy sources.
Beginning in the 1980s, we find fewer references to work as well as an important conceptual novelty. Humans no longer work simply in order to survive or to contribute to the country's economic growth; rather, they work in order to live better and “to enjoy life.” Professions shown in school textbooks now require greater qualifications and specialization (doctors, scientists), which is no surprise given the social changes and school enrolment rates of the time and the extension of compulsory education to age fourteen. In keeping with shifts in the country's economic activity, professions associated with the rural world, such as farming, are mentioned less in the context of work and more in association with industry, which springs from progress and technological development. Agriculture is still necessary, but it no longer depends exclusively on the farmer.
We would like to conclude with an observation regarding the sources we used for our analysis. In our study on how school textbooks depict the relationship of nature with work, industrialization, and usefulness, we resorted mainly to natural science textbooks. However, we have also seen (and confirmed with an analysis of the curriculum) that in the 1990s these natural science textbooks focused on physical and biological considerations and not on human and environmental considerations (where “environmental” refers to a systemic perspective, as opposed to a more atomistic one). Nature was often portrayed with no human presence or interaction. This leads us to believe that future research on our topic will have no choice but to resort to textbooks from the area of social sciences, which tend to address the varied social, economic, and geographic aspects of nature.
Notes
María Novo, La educación ambiental: Bases éticas, conceptuales y metodológicas [Environmental education: Ethical, conceptual, and methodological foundations] (Madrid: Universitas, 2003), 126.
Ibid., 128.
María Yovana Hernández Laina, “Cultura económica y socialización política en los manuales escolares del tardofranquismo y la Transición española (1960–1985)” [Economic culture and political socialization in the school textbooks of late Francoism and the Spanish transition (1960–1985), PhD diss, UNED, 2018, https://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/19070.pdf.
Cecilia Valbuena Canet, “Análisis del concepto de trabajo transmitido en la escuela autárquica. España 1939–1957” [Analysis of the concept of work transmitted in the Autarchic School: Spain 1939–1957], PhD diss., UNED, 2023, https://portalcientifico.uned.es/documentos/65ea0e488aef32320667f02e. For a perspective from other areas of research such as the sociology of work and law, see Josefa Dolores Ruiz Resa, Trabajo y Franquismo [Work and Franco's regime] (Granada: Comares, 1999); Josefa Dolores Ruiz Resa, Los derechos de los trabajadores en el Franquismo [Workers’ rights under Franco's regime] (Madrid: Dykinson, 2015); José Baniano Mora, Emigrantes, cronómetros y huelgas: Un estudio sobre el trabajo y los trabajadores durante el franquismo (Madrid, 1951–1977) [Emigrants, stopwatches, and strikes: A study of work and workers during Franco's regime (Madrid, 1951–1977)] (Madrid: Siglo XXI de España editores, 1995); and José Babiano Mora, Paternalismo industrial y disciplina fabril en España (1938–1958) [Industrial paternalism and factory discipline in Spain (1938–1958)] (Madrid: Consejo Económico y Social, 1998).
We have opted to maintain the concept of work rather than labor because we draw from the difference pointed out by Arendt between these two terms. Despite being both linked to the relationship between the human being and the physical world, paid work produces a permanent product that outlives the creator while labor produces a product of ephemeral existence that may not be physical. See Michael J. Piore, “Work, Labor and Action: Work Experience in a System of Flexible Production,” in Transforming Organizations, ed.Thomas A. Kochan and Michael Useem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 307–319, here 312.
Fernando Díez, Utilidad, deseo y virtud: La formación de la idea moderna del trabajo [Utility, desire, and virtue: The formation of the modern idea of work] (Barcelona: Península, 2001), 21.
Karl Marx, El Capital: Crítica de la economía política. Tomo I: El proceso de producción del capital [Capital: Critique of political economy. Volume I: The capital production process] (Mexico City: Siglo XXI editores, 2008), 52–53.
Our research on Object Lessons textbooks was presented in a paper presented at the International Standing Conference for the History of Education (ISCHE) held in Berlin in September 2018 under the theme “Education and Nature”: Ana Badanelli and Cecilia Valbuena, “Systems of Production in the Teaching of Natural Sciences with Object Lessons Textbooks: Spain, 1940–1975.” More recently, the Global Textbook Resource Center (GLOTREC) project, led and funded by the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media / Georg Eckert Institute, is also advancing in the study of this type of textbooks in the different countries that are part of the project, via the following institutions: the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media / Georg Eckert Institute, the University of Torino, the MANES Research Center at UNED, Madrid, CINVESTAV and the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional in Mexico, the Instituto de Historia in Cuba, the Universidad del Atlántico in Colombia, the Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa and the Universidade de São Paulo, and the Biblioteca Central de Maestros y Maestras [Central Library of Teachers] and the Museo de la Educación Gabriela Mistral [Gabriela Mistral Education Museum] in Argentina.
Albert Carreras and Xavier Tafunell, eds., Estadísticas históricas de España: Siglos XIX y XX [Historical statistics of Spain: Nineteenth and twentieth centuries] (Madrid: Fundación BBVA, 2005), 250.
Carlos Abad Balboa, Jose Luis García Delgado, and Cándido Muñoz Cidad, “La agricultura española en el último tercio del siglo XX: principales pautas evolutivas” [Spanish agriculture in the last third of the twentieth century: Main evolutionary patterns], in Modernización y cambio estructural en la agricultura española [Modernization and structural change in Spanish agriculture], ed. José María Sumpsi Viñas (Madrid: Ministerio de Agricultura, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente, 1994), 69–126, here 108.
Carreras and Tafunell, Estadísticas históricas de España, 256.
Antonio Viñao, 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, 2004), 232.
Cecilia Milito and Tamar Groves, “¿Modernización o democratización? La construcción de un nuevo sistema educativo entre el tardofranquismo y la democracia” [Modernization or democratization? The construction of a new educational system between the later years of Franco's regime and democracy], Bordón 65, no. 4 (2013): 135–148, here 136, doi:10.13042/Bordon.2013.65409.
Law 27/1964 of 29 April 1964 on the extension of compulsory schooling to fourteen years of age (Boletín Oficial del Estado, BOE) [Official State Bulletin], 14 May 1964), established compulsory schooling for all Spaniards betweenthe ages of six and fourteen. This represented an important change by extending compulsory schooling from twelve to fourteen years. This period of compulsory schooling was maintained until the 1990 Law on the General Organization of the Education System extended it to sixteen years.
Manuel de Puelles, Educación e ideología en la España Contemporánea [Education and ideology in contemporary Spain] (Madrid: Tecnos, 2010), 319.
LGE [General Law on Education and Financing of the Education Reform], BOE n. 187, 6 August 1970, 12.526.
Manuel de Puelles Benítez, “Tecnocracia y política en la reforma educativa de 1970” [Technocracy and politics in the 1970s education reform], Revista de Educación, special edition (1992): 13–29, here 17, https://www.educacionfpydeportes.gob.es/dam/jcr:d0b4eae4-2dde-4d22-9651-65550dba76ee/re199202-pdf.pdf.
LGE, 12.526.
Approved by the order of 8 July 1965, cuestionarios macionales was the term used to refer to the syllabus or curriculum for primary education at that time. Later, especially with the 1970 law, the term “curriculum” was favored.
BOE n. 229, 24 September 1965, 13.006.
Cuestionarios nacionales, BOE n. 229, 14 September 1965, 13.023.
Ibid., 13.007.
The eight-year program of compulsory education was divided into three stages or cycles (ciclos). The first, from ages six to eight (years one and two); the second, from ages eight to eleven (years three, four, and five), and the third, from ages eleven to fourteen (years six, seven, and eight).
These were the decree of 6 May 1982 (BOE, 14 May), which regulated the minimum teaching requirements for the Middle Cycle of the BGE, and the Royal Decree 3.087/1982 of 12 November, which established the minimum teaching requirements for the third level of the BGE (BOE, 4 December).
BOE n. 15, 14 May 1982, 12.582.
Ibid.
Ibid., 12.583.
Royal Decree 3.087/1982.
Agustín Escolano, “La segunda generación de manuales escolares” [The second generation of textbooks], in Historia ilustrada del libro escolar en España: de la posguerra a la reforma educativa [Illustrated history of the school book in Spain: From the postwar period to educational reform], ed. Agustín Escolano (Madrid: Fundación Sánchez Ruipérez, 1998), 19–48.
Teun A. Van Dijk, “El análisis crítico del discurso” [Critical discourse analysis], Anthropos 186 (1999): 23–36, here 36, https://www.academia.edu/4097281/Teun_Van_Dijk_El_analisis_critico_del_discurso.
A. Álvarez, Nuestro Mundo 4º [Our world 4º] (Valladolid: Miñón, 1972), 38.
Ibid. Emphasis is printed in bold in the original.
Equipo Almenar, Espora: C. Naturales 4º [Spore: Natural sciences 4º] (Vitoria: Anaya, 1990), 4.
Ibid., 5.
Enrique García, Ciencias de la Naturaleza 7 [Natural sciences 7] (Madrid: Interduc, 1979), 10–11.
Juan Valls, Libro de consulta Ciencias de la Naturaleza 6º [Consultation book about natural sciences 6] (Barcelona: Casals, 1973), 148–149.
Equipo Ediciones Santillana, Naturaleza 6 [Nature 6] (Madrid: Santillana, 1983), 74.
Alberto del Pozo and M. Corona Andrés, Nosotros y el mundo 3 [We and the world 3], 4th ed. (Burgos: HSR, 1967), 226.
Ibid.
Equipo Ediciones Santillana, Consultor 5: Libro de consulta básico [Consultant 5: Basic sourcebook] (Madrid: Santillana, 1974), 485.
Ibid., 487.
Equipo Almenar, Espora: CC. Naturales, 8º [Spore: Natural sciences, 8º] (Madrid: Anaya, 1986), 240.
Antonio Quijada Gómez, Nosotros y la Naturaleza 6º [We and nature 6º] (Zaragoza: Editorial Luis Vives, 1973), 157. Emphasis is printed in bold in the original.
Ibid., 159. Emphasis is bold in the original.
A. Álvarez, Nuestro Mundo 5º [Our world 5º], 4th ed. (Valladolid: Miñón, 1972), 78. Emphasis is bold in the original.
P. Legorburu Igartúa, Ciencias de la Naturaleza 6º [Natural sciences 6º] (Madrid: SM, 1975), 74. Bold and italics are from the original.
Ibid., 77.
Equipo Diseño Didáctico, Ciencias de la Naturaleza 5º [Natural sciences 5º] (Madrid: Anaya, 1982), 78.
Equipo Ediciones Santillana, Naturaleza 6º, 108.
Equipo Aula 3, Bóveda: C. Sociales 8º [Vault: Social sciences 8º] (Madrid: Anaya, 1984), 150. Italics are in the original.
Equipo Ediciones Santillana, Naturaleza 6º, 111.
Enrique García, Ciencias de la Naturaleza 7, 70.
Equipo Aula 3, Bóveda: C. Sociales 6º [Vault: Social Sciences 6º] (Madrid: Anaya, 1985), 42.
Equipo Diseño Didáctico, Ciencias de la Naturaleza 5º, 80.
