The Pedagogical Missions: An Innovative, Educational and Social Intervention During the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1936)

Abstract

In this paper, we will talk about the origin and characteristics of the Pedagogical Missions during the Second Spanish Republic which was founded to help rural teachers with their training and to take progress to the remote areas of the Spanish country. We will appreciate how intellectuals and teachers voluntarily participated in these Missions with a philanthropic and political aim. Then, following Morales Gutierrez’s principles on social innovation, we will state that the Pedagogical Missions were an educational and social innovation in Spain before the Civil War (1936–1939). Finally, we will make a comparison between the different social intervention models in history – Charity, Beneficence, Social Justice, and Social Inclusion – and the Pedagogical Missions social intervention model which shared similar characteristics with all of them.