A Genealogy of Convivencia as an Ideal of Responsible Citizens in Education in Spain

• In Event: Transnational and Decolonizing Perspectives on Curricular Memory and Vision

Abstract

Since 2000s, concerns with convivencia― of living together convivially―have re-emerged in Spain’s education. During a period of ethnic and racial diversification of society and education, the “problem” of convivencia has been re-assembled as a “problem” of diversity and violence in schools. These concerns have been accompanied by changes in educational laws and policies. In the name of public and youth safety, these laws and policy have allowed police to patrol schools, and certain students, as a solution to end violence in schools. By historicizing the convivencia, I inquiry how the “problem” of convivencia, as a “problem” of diversity and violence, became so “truthful” that the presence of police in schools became a “reasonable” response to improve conviviality in Spanish schools.

Author

• Belén Hernando-Lloréns, University of Iowa