Industry-focused accelerated vocational training for rural men in the late-Francoist Southern Spain: finding a balance between dictatorship’s agenda and international welfare policy trends

In this paper we assess both the fundamentals and the impact of an educational programme called “Formación Profesional Acelerada” (Accelerated Vocational Training), that was implemented in Spain during the late Francoism. Although such policy aimed to fulfill several targets set by the dictatoship’s agenda (providing skilled workers to national industries all over the country, reducing unemployment in rural areas, propelling an image of modernity, etc.), this kind of formative actions did not only take place in Spain, as many other governments in Western Europe promoted measures alike at that time. According to this, our two main research questions (1.Which were the ideological and political fundamentals of this education policy in our country? 2. Which was the impact of this education policy in the students’ personal and social lives?) are attempted to be answered within the frame of the welfare policy transfers developed, during the second half of the “Golden Age” of capitalism, between European core and periphery countries. We have focused on the experience of the “Formación Profesional Acelerada” in the rural province of Jaén, following a qualitative methodology based on content analysis of press, laws and historical documents; as well as on personal in-depth interviews and life histories of students who attended “La Acelerada” (the centre in Jaén where the aforementioned programme was taught between 1959 and 1975). Thus, our research stems from a hybrid approach between policy history (as we are concerned about how the policy was conceived and designed, and it evolved in a particular context) and social history (given our interest in the way that such policy had an impact on many individual’s lives).