RELIGIÓN Y ESCUELA PÚBLICA EN NUESTRA HISTORIA: ANTECEDENTES Y PROCESOS

Abstract

Since the beginning of modernity, the relationship between religion and school has always been a problematic and controversial issue. Once the first attempt to reconcile tradition and modernity failed down during the Parliamentary sessions that were held in Cadiz (1812), the conservative liberalism turned the basic/elementary public education into a virtually confessional school, not without tension between Church and State. Likewise, apart from the two short periods of the Sexenio democrático (democratic six-year period, 1868-1874) and the II República (Second Republic, 1931-1939), the Christian religion was also present in the secondary school, to a greater or less extent. Franco’s 40 year regime represented the final step in the confessional trend: for the first time in the Spanish educational system, religión was turned into a compulsory subject at every educational level —primary, secondary and university/higher education—. The constitutional consensus of 1978, focused on the Constitution 27th article, tried to solve this problem, but the agreements with the Vatican, negotiated out of the constitutional discussion, made the solution difficult to reach. Despite several attempted solutions by different Governments, the problem is still going on today: the tension in the school among religion, secularism/laicism and non-denominationalism continues.Q