Women’s Labour Universities. Transgression instruments of the model of women during the Franco regime?

ABSTRACTOne of the primary goals of Franco’s education policy was to train the working class in the doctrinal principles of the regime. Labour Universities were one of the education institutions created for this purpose; there were three for women (Zaragoza, Cáceres and Huesca). This article focuses on analysing the purposes sought by these macro-institutions when training working-class women, using diverse primary sources: documentary, audiovisual, archive and legal. Findings indicate that Women’s Labour Universities aimed to provide specialised vocational training and also to impose the doctrine of the ideological principles advocated by the regime in relation to the model of women. However, these goals were somewhat incompatible as providing women with vocational training promoted their emancipation, contrary to the female ideal mainly advocated.KEYWORDS: History of educationSpaindictatorshipworking classwomanvocational training Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 The Spanish Falange and JONS programme comprised a total of twenty-six points. See: Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1937) Decree 255 of 19 April. BOE, 20 April.2 Patricia Delgado-Granados and Gonzalo Ramírez-Macías, “¿Conveniencia o necesidad? La formación de la clase obrera en las Universidades Laborales franquistas (1955–1978)”, Historia Crítica 63 (2017): 117–136.3 Matilde Peinado, Enseñando a señoritas y sirvientas. Formación femenina y clasismo en el franquismo (Madrid: Catarata, 2012).4 Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1937) Decree 255 of 19 April. BOE, 20 April.5 Stanley Payne, El régimen de Franco: 1936–1975 (Madrid: Alianza,1987).6 Enrique Moradiellos, Las caras de Franco: una revisión histórica del caudillo y su régimen (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2017).7 Paul Preston, Franco: caudillo de España (Madrid: Debate, 2015).8 Antonio Cañellas, “La tecnocracia franquista: el sentido ideológico del desarrollo económico”, Studia histórica. Historia Contemporánea 24 (2006): 257–288.9 Anna Catharina Hormann, “1959. El Plan de Estabilizacion”, in Historia Mundial de España, dir. Xosé M. Nuñez Seixas (Barcelona: Destino, 2018), 830–836.10 Cañellas, “La tecnocracia franquista”, 258.11 Hormann, “1959. El Plan de Estabilizacion”, 832.12 José Luis García and José Carlos Jiménez, Un siglo de España: la economía (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2003).13 Enrique Berzal de la Rosa, “Clérigos y fieles ante el franquismo: La evolución de las actitudes políticas de los católicos durante el Desarrollismo”, in No sólo miedo. Actitudes políticas y opinión popular bajo la dictadura franquista (1936–1977), eds. Miguel Ángel Del Arco Blanco, Carlos Fuertes Muñoz, Claudio Hernández Burgos and Jorge Marco (Granada: Comares, 2016), 177–194.14 José Vidal Beneyto, Memoria democrática (Madrid: Foca, 2007), 51.15 Óscar Martín García, “La polis paralela. Espacios de participación política en el franquismo final”, in No sólo miedo. Actitudes políticas y opinión popular bajo la dictadura franquista (1936–1977), eds. Miguel Ángel Del Arco Blanco, Carlos Fuertes Muñoz, Claudio Hernández Burgos and Jorge Marco (Granada: Comares, 2016), 195.16 Xavier Domènech, “La clase obrera bajo el franquismo. Aproximación a sus elementos formativos”, Ayer 85, no. 1 (2012): 201–225.17 Carme Molinero and Pere Ysàs, Productores disciplinados y minorías subversivas. Clase obrera y conflictividad laboral en la España franquista (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1998).18 Antonio Viñao, “La educación en el franquismo (1936–1975)”, Educar em Revista 51 (2014): 19–35.19 A Women’s Vocational Baccalaureate was later created in 1957 to foster women joining the workforce for certain jobs. See Viñao, “La educación en el franquismo (1936–1975)”, 29.20 “Las Universidades Laborales: evolución, situación y perspectivas. Versión provisional” 1977, Fondo Universidad Laboral, C. 205572/26, page 9, General Administration Archive (AGA), Alcalá de Henares.21 Patricia Delgado Granados, Formación Profesional, educación y trabajo. Retrospectiva de las Universidades Laborales (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2012).22 Licinio de la Fuente, Universidades Laborales y Promoción Social (Madrid: Labour Ministry Publications Service, 1971), 17.23 Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1956) Order of 12 July, Provincial Statute of Labour Universities. BOE, 19 July; Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1959) Law 40/59 of 11 May, regulating Labour Universities. BOE, 12 May; and Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1960) Decree 2266/60 of 24 November, Organic Regulation on Labour Universities. BOE, 25 November.24 NO-DO, no. 526, 2 February 1953. Curiously, vocational training for women was not as newsworthy in the NO-DO (first tool used for propaganda news by the Franco regime) as pointed out by Carmen Sanchidrián and María Dolores Molina, “La formación profesional vista a través de NO-DO (1943–1981): Propaganda e ideología en un pasado reciente”, Espacio, Tiempo y Educación 7, no. 2 (2020): 135–156.25 Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1972) Decree 2061/1972 of 21 July, integrating Labour Universities in the academic system of the General Education Act. BOE, 31 July.26 Geraldine Scanlon, “La mujer bajo el franquismo”, Tiempo de Historia 27 (1977): 4–28; Jarné Mòdol, “Models formals i sentimentals al Server de la fenineïtat: la postguerra a Lleida (1939–1945)”, Ilerda 49 (1991): 189–207; and Inbal Ofer, Señoritas in blue. The making of a female political elite in Franco´s Spain (Eastbourne: Sussex Academic, 2009).27 Aurora Morcillo, En cuerpo y alma. Ser mujer en tiempos de Franco (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2015).28 Gerardo Meil, “La política familiar española durante el franquismo”, Revista Internacional de Sociología 11 (1995): 47–87.29 Carme Molinero, “Mujer, franquismo, fascismo. La clausura forzada en un mundo pequeño”, Historia Social 30 (1998): 97–117.30 Meil, “La política familiar española durante el franquismo”.31 Carmen Agulló Díaz, “De ignorada a necesaria: la formación profesional de las mujeres en el franquismo (1936–1975)”, in Entre lo doméstico y lo público. Capacitación profesional de las mujeres en España (1940–1977), ed. Sara Ramos Zamora (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2016), 45–72.32 Pilar Folguera Crespo, “El franquismo. El repertorio a la esfera privada (1939–1975)”, in Historia de las Mujeres en España, ed. Elisa Garrido (Madrid: Síntesis, 1997), 527–548.33 Mónica Moreno, “Mujer y culturas políticas en el franquismo y el antifranquismo”, Pasado y Memoria 7 (2008): 165–185.34 María Concepción Borreguero Sierra, “La formación profesional femenina”, Revista Educación 188 (1967): 72.35 Carmen Sarasúa and Carme Molinero, “Trabajo y niveles de vida en el franquismo. Un estado de la cuestión desde una perspectiva de género”, in La historia de las mujeres: Perspectivas actuales, ed. Cristina Borderías (Barcelona: Icaria, 2009), 309–354.36 Sara Ramos and Teresa Rabazas, “Mujeres e instrucción rural en el Desarrollismo español”, Historia de la Educación 26 (2007): 221–256.37 María Concepción Borreguero Sierra, “La formación profesional femenina”, Revista Educación 188 (1967): 74.38 Sara Ramos Zamora and Carmen Colmenar Orzaes, “Mujeres rurales y capacitación profesional en el franquismo a través de la prensa femenina (1939–1959)”, Educació i Història: Revista d’Història de l’Educació 24 (2014): 135–171; and María Antonia Paz and Carlota Coronado, “Mujer y formación profesional durante el franquismo”, Pandora: revue d’etudes hispaniques 5 (2005): 133–145.39 Teresa Rabazas and Sara Ramos, “La construcción del género en el franquismo y los discursos educativos de la Sección Femenina”, Encounters on Education 7 (2006): 43–70; Antonio Canales and Amparo Gómez, eds. La larga noche de la educación española. El sistema educativo español en la posguerra (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2015).40 Amparo Moreno, “Mujeres en el franquismo”, in 100 años en femenino. Una historia de las mujeres en España, eds. Oliva Rubio and Mª Isabel Tejeda (Madrid: Acción Cultural Española, 2012), 79–98.41 Carmen Romo, “El desorden de la identidad persistente: cambio social y estatus de la mujer en la España desarrollista”, Arenal: Revista de historia de las mujeres 12, no. 1 (2005): 91–109.42 The new Directorate-General for Social Promotion was also created by the Ministry of Labour. Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1964) Order of 8 April. BOE, 23 April. This signified a change in the justification of the social policy of the regime, and specifically of Labour Universities, which went from being seen as “offensive welfare” so often used in speeches by Girón de Velasco during the first phase of creating Labour Universities, to a system of educational and vocational “social promotion” for the working class.43 María Ángeles Jiménez, “Promoción Profesional de la Mujer en la nueva sociedad”, in Ministerio de Trabajo. Primera Mesa Redonda sobre Promoción Profesional de la Mujer en la nueva sociedad. 24 al 28 de septiembre (Madrid: National Female Work Committee/Directorate-General for Social Promotion, 1973), 40.44 Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1967) Order of 6 May, definitively approving the order of 29 September 1966 on amending 1964 curriculums. BOE, 23 May.45 Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1956) Order of 12 July, Provincial Statute of Labour Universities. BOE, 19 July. Although these teachings were not incorporated until two years later following approval of the Teaching Statute: Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1958) Order of 16 August, approving the Teaching Statute of Labour Universities. BOE, 28 August.46 “La Universidad Laboral de Tarragona oferta curso de Formación Profesional Social”, Diario Levante, November 14, 1958.47 José Antonio Alfaro, “Megaestructuras modernas: La Universidad Laboral de Huesca”, in II Congreso Pioneros de la Arquitectura Moderna Española: Aprender de una obra (2015): 19.48 Ministry of Labour, 25 años de la mutualidad laboral de la construcción (Madrid: Publications Service, 1971).49 “Universidades Laborales”, ABC, November 8, 1966, Education section, 21.50 Ricardo Zafrilla Tobarra and Julia Utiel Heras, Universidades Laborales: aproximación a su historia económica (Madrid: Popular Libros, 2006), 98.51 In the early 1960s female students barely reached 15.7% of total male students. “La formación profesional de la mujer en la Universidad Laboral”, Magazine UNI 18 (1972): 8.52 The scholarship covered all aspects related to school life: enrolment, materials and text books, board and accommodation, second-class train tickets from the family home to the Labour University and vice versa, clothing (outerwear, two pyjamas, dress schools, gym clothes, work uniform, dressing gown, etc.), medical and pharmaceutical service, personal hygiene items, etc.53 Patricia Delgado Granados, “El proyecto de Universidad gironiano para la clase trabajadora y su sistema de estudios”, Sarmiento. Anuario Galego de Historia de la Educación 14 (2010): 101.54 Interview with CDM a former student at the Labour University of Zaragoza, 15 November 2022.55 Regulation for Labour University Scholarship System of 9 April 1959, amended in 1962 by a Resolution issued by the Directorate-General of Welfare. Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1962) Resolution of the Directorate-General of Welfare of 24 April. BOE, 25 April; Ministerial Order of 21 May 1969, issued by the Directorate-General of Social Promotion and the General Delegation of Labour Universities, approving the Student Regulation. Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1969). BOE, 4 June. The new regulation specified both requirements for becoming a student and academic requirements to maintain that status.56 Magazine Vínculo. Universidad Laboral 12 (1969): 4.57 Sociologist Goffman describes them as, “a place of residence and work, where a great number of individuals in the same situation, isolated from society for a significant period of time, share in their confinement a daily routine, formally administered”. Erwing Goffman, Internados. Ensayos sobre la situación social de los enfermos mentales (Madrid: Amorrortu, 2007), 18.58 Goffman, Internados, 18.59 Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1967) Order of 31 July, regularising the situation of boarding students at Labour Universities. BOE, 18 August.60 Interview with FFL one of the directors of the Labour University of Zaragoza, 30 November 2022.61 José Utrera Molina, Nuevos horizontes de las Universidades Laborales (Madrid: Ministry of Labour, 1970).62 The role of youth magazines regularly published at Labour Universities is interesting as they represented their own propaganda, dissemination and communication resources. They were dependent on the institutions, which centralised and disseminated information on academic, sporting, cultural, religious and professional activities at each centre, and often included information generated at other Labour Universities provided they were of use to the teaching community. They were usually divided into thematic blocks covering university life and educational, cultural and professional projects, focusing on teachers, students, service staff, visitors, academic authorities, former students, etc.63 Interview with Licinio de la Fuente, Televisión Española, 1971.64 From its creation in 1934 to its termination in 1977, it was led by Pilar Primo de Rivera, sister of José Antonio, founder of the Falange, and daughter of Spanish dictator Miguel (1923–1930).65 Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1939) Decree of 28 December, regulating the powers of the Women’s Section, including vocational training for women. BOE, 29 December.66 Carmen Sanchidrián, “Educación y cultura en el franquismo: del nacional-catolicismo al modelo tecnocrático de educación (1937–1972)”, in Educación y cultura en la Málaga contemporánea, coord. Mercedes Vico (Malaga: University of Malaga, 1995), 178.67 Cristina Gómez Cuesta, “La Sección Femenina y su modelo de mujer: un discurso contradictorio”, in El siglo XX: balance y perspectivas (Valencia: University of Valencia, 2000), 195–202.68 Interview with CDM a former student at the Labour University of Zaragoza, 15 November 2022.69 Ministry of Labour, Universidades Laborales (Madrid: Labour Ministry Publications Service, 1967).70 Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1955) Industrial Vocational Training Act of 20 July. BOE, 21 July.71 Magazine UNI 3 (1968): 7.72 On 8 March 1964, it was announced by the Minister of Labour at the Olimpio theatre in Huesca and a public tender was called for its construction in a Resolution dated 10 August 1965. Magazine UNI 1 (1968): 4.73 In 1968, architect Ambrós received the Ricardo Magdalena Award for Public Buildings for his management of the Women’s Labour University of Zaragoza, which became one of the protected buildings in the capital of the region of Aragón.74 Carlos Tundidor, “Inauguración de la Universidad Laboral de Zaragoza”, Magazine UNI 0 (1968): 14–15.75 Magazine Veleta 2 (1967): 8.76 Provincial Branch of the Women’s Section, Box 60, signature 259, Documents and Archives of Aragón. Provincial Historic Archive of Zaragoza, Zaragoza.77 NO-DO, no. 1519B, 14 February 1972.78 Sara Ramos Zamora, “Tradición y modernidad. Espacios de poder de las mujeres”, Innovación Educativa 26 (2016): 101–112.79 Magazine UNI 45 (1978): 26.80 Called “Cuartillo”, “Valhondos”, “Suerte de Santa María”, “Dehesín” and “Terrenos de Campante”. From “Memoria del Proyecto”, Revista Nacional de Arquitectura 31 (1961): 19.81 The first chancellor was José Luis del Valle Fernández (1967–1973), who was replaced by María Antonia Rodríguez Castelo (1973–76). Finally, the chancellor’s office was led by Andrés Sánchez Pascual until the Labour University was dissolved.82 Magazine Norba (1969): 9.83 Ricardo Zafrilla points out that this change in studies was not welcomed by the people of Cáceres as they considered the new educational offer to be of a lower level. Ricardo Zafrilla, “Universidades Laborales. Un proyecto educativo falangista para el mundo obrero (1955–1978): aproximación histórica”. (Doctoral thesis, University of Castile-La Mancha, 1998).84 José Antonio Sánchez, Boletín Forja del Mutualismo Laboral (Cáceres: Provincial Delegation of Mutual Funds and Montepíos, 1966).85 Manuel-Vaz Romero “La Universidad Laboral de Cáceres. Encuentro de antiguas alumnas”, Alcántara 65 (2006): 89.86 José Antonio Alfaro, “Megaestructuras modernas: La Universidad Laboral de Huesca,” in II Congreso Pioneros de la Arquitectura Moderna Española: Aprender de una obra (2015): 19.87 Jacinto Contreras, “Reseña histórica de la Universidad Laboral de Huesca en el 40 aniversario de su creación”, Documentos Jaén, https://docplayer.es/storage/37/17642694/1653498415/jKCzNChGRU7fJS6k2f-xyA/17642694.pdf (accessed March 18, 2022).88 Interview with RDC a former student at the Labour University of Huesca, 15 December 2022.89 Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1972) Decree 2061/1972 of 21 July, integrating Labour Universities in the academic system of the General Education Act. BOE, 31 July.90 The Subdirectorate-General for Integrated Teaching Centres was created, dependent on the Directorate-General for Intermediate Teaching. Boletín Oficial del Estado [Spanish Official State Gazette] (1979) Decree 2049/1979 of 14 August, on the organisation and functions of the National Institute of Integrated Teaching. BOE, 28 August.Additional informationNotes on contributorsPatricia Delgado-GranadosPatricia Delgado-Granados (PhD) is Professor and Research Fellow of History of Education at the Department of Theory and History of Education and Social Pedagogy in Seville Faculty of Education, University of Seville. Her research interests are in History of Education, especially in educational policy and international relations and educational influences.Gonzalo Ramírez-MacíasGonzalo Ramírez-Macías (PhD) is Professor and Research Fellow of Sport History at Department of Physical Education and Sport in the Seville Faculty of Physical Education, University of Seville. His research interests are in Sport History and Female Sports, as well as body stereotypes regarding sport. He has published widely in these areas.