«Las escuelas de amiga»: espacios femeninos de trabajo y educación de párvulos y de niñas

Abstract

Starting with the limited information that the «History of Education» has gathered (in its diverse areas) about the «schools of friends» («Las escuelas de amiga»), we must think about a series of questions which we will try to answer. In this endeavour, there are three basic hypotheses which structure our work: · «The school of friends (“La escuela de amiga”) constitutes an historic fact which wasn’t sporadic, but generalized, at least in Andalucia and some other Spanish geographic areas (as those in both Castillas)». · «The school of friends (“La escuela de amiga”) presented two variations in its manifestation: such as pre-school schools (“parvulos”) and popular girls schools (“escuelas populares de ninas”)». · «Managed by women and set up in female work spaces». The process of verification of these hypotheses are founded on the information from a series of documentary sources which are available to us and are based on testimonies of diverse natures such as literary, historic-pedagogic, journalistic, legal, iconographic etc. and from other figures recognised by history. Their analysis allows us to get to know some of the characteristics of said schools, as well as the verification of the hypotheses