This research paper reviews the history of efforts to modernize the educational system in Spain, including an analysis of right and leftwing political forces and parties, since the late 19th century through the present. After several centuries of intellectual stagnation and cultural and political decay, the emergence of political liberalism in 19th century Spain provided the impetus for initial educational reforms which were largely stymied by the weight of tradition, Spain's uneven economic and political development and the polarization of Spanish politics over divisive Church-state issues. The fierce and violent controversy over the ambitious educational reforms of the left of center Spanish Republic (1931-1936) prevented their implementation. After the Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War, educational reform was shelved until the latter stages of the regime of Francisco Franco. The processes of economic modernization and political maturation and moderation which characterized Spain in the 1970s and subsequently during Spain's transition to democracy ushered in sustained and comprehensive educational reforms which are transforming the Spanish educational system at all levels.
State of Spain's Educational System in 1875
By the late 18th century, Spain had undergone a long period of cultural, intellectual and political decline. Little was left of what Payne called "the flowering of Spanish education and culture" which reached its apogee in the 16th century, El Siglo del Oro, (4). The roots of Spain's medieval intellectual riches were found roots in the great universities founded by Muslim rulers in Moorish Andalucia and at the great Catholic University of Salamanca to which scholars came from all over Europe to study science and mathematics and which Michener said was "once the world's preeminent center of learning" (408). Payne said "Spain had fallen within less than a century to the status of educational backwater a...