Forgotten Shadows: How Education Mutes Spain's Authoritarian Past

• In Event: Global Struggles Toward Educational Equity: International Policy Lessons and Challenges

Abstract

In an era of "alternative truths," history censorship is a global epidemic. Forty-eight years after the fascist dictator Francisco Franco died, Spain is still living with a culture of silence and delayed justice. This study examines how schools in Barcelona, one of the cities obliterated by the Franco regime, approach teaching about the dictatorship. I seek to examine how the school environment itself has been, and is, a space for students to openly learn about a topic that is still taboo in the country. Through 30 phenomenological interviews, I compare student knowledge and understanding of this time in history across generations (Millennials to Gen Z) to investigate how it has evolved, coerced, or obscured historical truths.

Author

• Isabel Mavrides-Calderon, Barnard College