CALL FOR PAPERS | Education in Dictatorship: policies, practices and resistance

Posted on 2025-07-04

Special issue - Educação, Sociedade & Culturas
EDUCATION IN DICTATORSHIP: POLICIES, PRACTICES AND RESISTANCE
Manuscript deadline: February 16, 2026

 

Guest Editors

Luís Grosso Correia, CIIE, Faculty of Arts, University of Porto, Portugal
Felicitas Acosta, Universidad Nacional de La Plata and Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, Argentina
Antonio Canales Serrano, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Espanha

 

Special issue aims and scope

On the centenary of the establishment of a military dictatorship in Portugal, which was materialized in the figure of António de Oliveira Salazar (1932-1968) and was continued by Marcello Caetano (1968-1974), this thematic dossier aims to bring to light articles from different national, and historical, and political contexts that contribute, at the same time, to the identification of the plurality of non-democratic regimes, which are sheltered by the concept of dictatorship (personalized, civil, single-party, military, monarchical, etc.) and their relationship with the educational sector.

The concept of dictatorship dates back to Ancient Republican Rome and then had a distinct and different meaning from today: the exercise of expanded power by a single person, appointed by official institutions (magistrates, Consul, and Senate), to govern for six months in a context of crisis caused by external or internal threats to the maintenance of the current political order. The concept has evolved throughout history, having gained new meanings and practices, and it is currently easier to define it in contrast to democracy. When analyzing institutional solutions (legislatures, elections, single-party or multi-party systems, restrictions or reductions in individual freedoms, freedom of opinion, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, context of external and/or civil war, etc.) and the political mechanisms set up to obtain the support and cooperation of some segments of society, on the one hand, and to neutralize the opposition generated at the level of each country, on the other, it is possible to affirm that the universe of dictatorships is plural.

In the case of the long dictatorship (1926-1974) in Portugal, for example, we witnessed a process dominated by a minimum political program to obtain maximum support; the institutionalization of an economic and social model based on a corporative organization, financial balance, an economy dominated by agriculture and industrial conditioning; in the de facto institutionalization of a single party; in the approval of the Constitution of the “Estado Novo” outside of Parliament; in the emptying of the bodies legitimized by direct suffrage; in the creation of a police state, repressive and tending towards totalitarianism; in the rehabilitation of the mystique of the colonial empire; among others. From an educational point of view, the dictatorship left its mark on values ​​(“God, Country and Family”), the maintenance of mass illiteracy, the social technology implemented in post-primary studies (elementary primary education for all, non-free secondary education – the technical track for some of the workers’ children and the Liceu to train the few middle-ranged officers – and higher education for a tiny minority), the establishment of the single school textbook policy, the surveillance and repression of teachers and students who did not show “affection for the regime”, among others.

The Franco dictatorship in Spain, which also lasted for a considerable period (1936-39 - 1975), had a much more dramatic genesis in the form of a civil war which conferred a particular radicality on the reshaping of Spanish society. Harsh repression was one of its main features and had a notable impact on education. In parallel to exile, executions and imprisonment, teachers were subjected to a process of purge, which aimed to ensure that the teaching staff was in line with the regime's ideology and would transmit the new national-Catholic values. Franco's educational policy raised many questions, such as subordination to the interests of the Church and the teaching congregations and its effects on the school network, especially in the closure of half of the public secondary schools. In the 1960s, however, the regime radically changed its policy and promoted a quasi-exponential expansion of the network of public schools, while at the same time promoting educational modernisation in various areas. Behind this Copernican turn was Spain's insertion into international organisations and the regime's assumption of its developmentalist recipes. In this way, the Franco dictatorship presents us with the paradox of two opposing educational realities under the same regime.

Throughout the 20th century, Argentina experienced a series of military dictatorships that interrupted democratic order and profoundly shaped the country's political, social, economic, and cultural life. These authoritarian takeovers imposed models of governance and control strategies with lasting effects. The first institutional breakdown occurred in 1930 with the overthrow of President Hipólito Yrigoyen, marking the beginning of the "Infamous Decade," characterised by electoral fraud and alliances between conservative and economic elites. In 1943, another coup paved the way for the rise of Juan Domingo Perón, who was democratically elected in 1945. However, his ousting in 1955 led to a period of intense political polarisation between Peronists and anti-Peronists. In 1966, another military coup established an indefinite dictatorship that marginalised political parties and repressed universities and social protest. This climate of exclusion intensified in the 1970s, culminating in the 1976 dictatorship—the most violent in Argentine history—which combined state terrorism with a neoliberal economic agenda. These authoritarian regimes varied in intensity and focus, but all sought to shape subjectivities aligned with their national projects, making education a primary arena of ideological struggle. With the return to democracy in 1983, Argentina initiated a process of institutional reconstruction that also involved reimagining the role of schools as spaces for memory, participation, and civic education.

Education, Society & Cultures and the editors of the thematic issue invite researchers to submit proposals for articles that address the relationship between non-democratic regimes (from different historical periods) and the marks they left on the educational systems of different countries and the educational movements and social agents that resisted and opposed them.

The journal welcomes and publishes articles in four languages: French, Spanish/Castilian, English, and Portuguese.

 

Importante dates

  • Article submission: February 16, 2026
  • Publication: 2026 

 

Submission instructions

Following the policies of the ES&C Journal, authors can submit their texts in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese. The contribution must be original, unpublished and must not be under review or submitted for publication in another journal.

New manuscripts should be submitted electronically through the online portal accessible on the journal website and they should meet the requirements mentioned in the submission instructions on the ESC website. Articles will undergo a blinded peer review process.

For further information, please contact esc@fpce.up.pt.

 

Some references

Canales, Antonio Francisco (2021). Education in Spain under the Franco Regime, 1936–1975. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Oxford University Press.

Canales, Antonio Francisco, & Gómez Rodríguez, Antonio (Eds.). (2015). La larga noche de la educación española. El sistema educativo español en la posguerra (pp. 95–127). Biblioteca Nueva.

Correia, Luís Gonçalves (2016). Récita do Liceu. O Liceu Rodrigues de Freitas/D. Manuel II no Estado Novo. Edições Colibri.

Delgado Gómez-Escalonilla, Lorenzo (2020). Educación para el desarrollo: OCDE, asistencia exterior y reforma de la enseñanza en la España del tardofranquismo. Foro de Educación, 18(2), 127–148.

Gandhi, Jennifer (2008). Political institutions under dictatorship. Cambridge University Press.

Kaufmann, Claudia (Dir.). (2017). Dictadura y educación. Tomo 1: Universidad y grupos académicos argentinos (1976–1983). FahrenHouse.

Kaufmann, Claudia (Dir.). (2018). Dictadura y educación. Tomo 2: Depuraciones y vigilancia en las universidades nacionales argentinas. FahrenHouse.

Kaufmann, Claudia (Dir.). (2018). Dictadura y educación. Tomo 3: Los textos escolares en la historia argentina reciente. FahrenHouse.

Nóvoa, António (1992). A educação nacional. In Fernando Rosas (Coord.), Nova história de Portugal. Vol. XII: Portugal e o Estado Novo (1930–1960) (pp. 455–519). Editorial Presença.

Martín García, Óscar, & Delgado Gómez-Escalonilla, Lorenzo (Eds.). (2020). Teaching modernization: Spanish and Latin American educational reform in the Cold War. Berghahn.

Puiggros, Adriana (Dir.). (1997). Historia de la educación argentina VIII. Dictaduras y utopías en la historia reciente de la educación argentina (1955–1983). Galerna.

Rosas, Fernando (2023). Ensaios de Abril. Tinta da China.

Teodoro, António (2001). A construção política da educação: Estado, mudança social e políticas educativas no Portugal contemporâneo. Edições Afrontamento.