El componente económico escolar como instrumento configurador de identidades. De la nación productiva a la nación democrática (España, 1960-1985)

Abstract

The aim of this study is to show how individual and collective identities were manifested and shaped in Spain through the economic discourse disseminated by the school textbooks during the period of accelerated economic growth (developmentalism) under Franco and during the transition towards democracy. It begins with the concept of identity, understood as a shared mental representation which is shaped starting in childhood, as well as with the premise that both individual and collective identities contain an economic component. These identities are configured by means of a socialization that is carried out through processes of identification with typologies of economic discourses, which change and adapt to political-economic and social contexts. The sample of school textbooks analysed is made up of thirty units pertaining to the Social Sciences, from the sixties, seventies and early eighties of the 20th century. The methodological approach used is the critical analysis of discourse (both texts and images), which has been carried out through a series of indicators, also using the study of contexts for data triangulation. The research allows us to verify how the economic component of the discourse conveyed by the textbooks has the capacity to configure identities, through mechanisms of identification and belonging, that are conditioned by the power structures.