Academic literature on the topic 'Social classes – Majorca (Spain) – History'

Based largely on primary sources, this article concentrates on the Liberal administration led by Count Romanones between December 1915 and April 1917. This is regarded as a crucial moment in the country's transition from elite to mass politics. The social and economic impact of the First World war brought about massive economic dislocation and social distress that in turn generated unprecedented levels of popular mobilization against the regime. Intertwined with domestic uproar, the country was polarized by the question of neutrality. Alienated from the ruling classes by his pro-Allied stance, Romanones was not only the target of a fierce campaign to oust him but also presided over the acceleration of existing movements of social and political protest. At his fall in April 1917, he left behind a storm of discontent and turmoil that threatened to bring down the entire political order.

This is a study of landlordism, agricultural labourers, and the State of Andalusia in southern Spain. This region, a classical case of landlordism, deviates from the typically West European agrarian structure dominated by the family farm. Andalusia's history centers on the conflict over land between a majority of landless peasants and a minority of powerful landlords, which was one of the main causes of the Spanish civil war. This study deals with two periods covering nearly fifty years of this latifundist system and its conflictridden relations of production. It examines the freezing of the agrarian structure for nearly forty years by the dictatorship of Francisco Franco and the adaptation of social and agrarian policy for the next ten years by the socialists. In other words, this is the story of how the agricultural laborers of Andalusia were transformed in less than one-half century from “peasants without land” to “clients of the welfare state” dependent on the social policies of the state.

The very first Article of the 1931 Spanish constitution declared ‘Spain is a democratic republic of workers of all classes’ and that ‘The powers of all its organs derive from the People’. But who were those workers, those People? This populist nationalism was key in legitimizing the Second Spanish Republic and in many of its political and cultural projects, but the state did not develop a clear image of the people. This should come as no surprise, since the ‘People’ was a contested concept in the 1930s, appropriated by different political parties and groups. How were Spaniards supposed to visualize themselves then? Who embodied the Spanish nation in the 1930s, and how was it represented? In this article, I show how different social actors – the state, photographers, the illustrated press – developed varying images of the ‘People’, focused either on the rural population or urban dwellers, who were supposed to play an important role in defining the new Republican nation. These photographic representations offer a window on to the complexities of the intersection between nationalism, populism, and social and political conflict in 1930s Spain, and how the nation was built through printed culture.

The authors considered historical and topical issues of the international division of labor (MRT). The analysis and parallel of MRI data by ancient scientists, researchers, scientists and experts of the XVIII, XIX, and XXI centuries. On the example of the European Union countries Greece, Spain and Portugal, the analysis of GDP, wages and unemployment as key indicators that characterize the economy of countries is carried out. The historical «cycle» of social structures is given and the dynamics of the ratio of the upper (B), middle (C) and lower (H) classes is shown. It shows the current problems of world markets, taking into account sanctions, trade wars and the consequences of the pandemic. Prospects for the national division of labor (NDT) are defined.

Modern Mexico is the latest volume in the ABC-CLIO Understanding Modern Nations series, which aims to provide concise topical reference sources in a thematic encyclopedia format focusing on representative countries of world regions. Recent volumes in the series cover China and Spain, with forthcoming volumes planned for Japan and Russia. Each volume includes thematic chapters on Geography, History, Government, Economy, Religion, Social Classes and Ethnicity, Gender, Education, Language, Art, Music, Food, and other cultural subjects. In addition to the thematic coverage in these areas, series volumes include “A Day in the Life” of typical people in the country and appendices covering terminology, economic and social data, and a reference bibliography.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the circumstances that have conditioned the development of education in Spain from the enlightenment to the present day. Design/methodology/approach – Multidisciplinary scientific approach that combines the interpretation of the legal texts with the revision of the doctrinal and theoretical contributions made on the issue. Findings – From the beginning of the nineteenth century, the history of education in Spain has been marked by constant fluctuations between the reactionary instincts, principally maintained by the Catholic Church and the conservative social classes, and the progressive experiments, driven by the enlightened and the liberals first, and the republicans and the socialists later. As a consequence of that, the fight for finishing with illiteracy and guaranteeing universal schooling underwent permanent advances and retreats, preventing from an effective modernization of the Spanish educative system. On the one hand, renewal projects promoted by teachers and pedagogues were inevitably criticized by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, obsessed with the idea of preserving the influence of religion on the schools. On the other hand, successive governments were weak in implementing an educational policy which could place Spain at the level of the other European and occidental nations. Originality/value – At the dawn of the twenty-first century, although the country has overcome a good part of its centuries-old backwardness, increasing economic difficulties and old ideological splits keep hampering the quality of teaching, gripped by neoliberal policies which undermine the right to education for all. The reading of this paper offers various historical clues to understand this process.

AbstractThis article explores the relation between transatlantic immigration and wealth accumulation in late colonial Mexico City, the chief destination for transatlantic emigrants from Spain. In contrast to the prevalent focus in the literature on networks and transatlantic ties, I argue that economic mobility and thus entry into the upper classes of colonial society depended on the social background of immigrants in their home regions in the peninsula. Human capital rather than social capital was the key determinant explaining why certain regional groups, notably the Basques, succeeded economically as merchants and miners, challenging traditional notions of networks and interconnectedness in Atlantic history and beyond. The findings are grounded in quantitative datasets of Spanish immigrants, overcoming both the biases of anecdotal sources and the methodological intricacy of disentangling the causal relationship between wealth accumulation and social ties.

This paper considers the reception and growth of sport in Spain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a period during which the new activity developed from a novelty into part of the national culture. I focus on who exactly gravitated to sport and why, to explain this growth and ground that explanation in the larger national and regional history. Several factors and early groups spurred Spanish interest in sport including the movement to ‘regenerate’ the country around the turn of the century, the support from the medical community, and organizations such as the Institución Libre de Enseñanza and the Federación Gimnástica Española. Sport was also attractive to the emerging urban, Spanish middle classes who embraced it as a form of conspicuous consumption and for whom sport served a similar social purpose as art in cities such as Barcelona. In the 1910s and 1920s, the masses also became receptive to sport and football in particular for various reasons. In particular, clubs created local identities that drew in members and allowed teams to serve as community leaders, like Athletic de Bilbao and F.C. Barcelona do today.

Background/Context Throughout history, a country's economic and military strength has influenced its times of cultural splendor and the rise of famous intellectuals and artists. Spain has been an exception to this. At the turn of the 20th century, a surprising series of events that no one could have predicted occurred. At the time, Spain had recently lost the last of its overseas colonies. A few years later, the Moroccan War was also a failure. All these events sent Spain into a state of confusion and provoked strong political tensions within the country: popular uprisings, street fights, and a general state of economic, political, and military weakness. Simultaneously, the cultural and intellectual scene developed a fascinating degree of momentum. Spain became the cradle of some of the world's foremost painters, poets, writers, and intellectuals, such as Picasso, Machado, Lorca, and Buñuel. Among them, the Catalan pedagogue Ferrer i Guàrdia (1859–1909), who was important in the libertarian tradition of popular culture, became a world figure with his educational project, the Modern School. This project was specifically aimed at the lowest social classes so that they would have access to a scientific, democratic, quality education, thereby developing their skills in a society where education was limited to the upper classes and contributing educational development to improve social conditions. Both his project and Ferrer i Guàrdia himself were persecuted and attacked until he was finally sentenced to death in October 1909. Purpose This goal of this study was to analyze Ferrer i Guàrdia's indefatigable fight for an egalitarian, high-quality pedagogical project. Specifically, the figure of Ferrer i Guàrdia was analyzed in the context of a socially and militarily decadent country, which led to his defamation, persecution, and death—in contrast with the international impact and prestige he achieved. Research Design This research was based on historical methods, specifically drawing on analyses of literature review, historical documents, books, and articles (both scientific articles and newspaper articles from the time) regarding the life and work of Ferrer i Guàrdia and the historical context in which he lived. Findings/Conclusions The article concludes with a summary of the great current value of Ferrer i Guàrdia's libertarian approach to education, which consisted of transforming education to provide high-quality learning for all regardless of socioeconomic class.

In the last years, the population in Catalonia has increased in nearly a million people due to the arrival of immigrants from outside Spain. This new situation has created a challenge for the educational system and the acquisition and use of Catalan in schools. In order to ensure that Catalan continued to be the main language in schools, the Catalan government initiated a program whose main objectives are social cohesion and providing support for the acquisition of Catalan for students who incorporate late to the educational system. The so-called aules d’acollida are classes where Catalan for academic and conversational purposes is taught to those students who do not have enough knowledge of Catalan to be in a regular class. This paper provides results on the acquisition of Catalan by the students who attended the aules d’acollida in year 2005-06. All students attending aules d’acollida in primary and secondary schools in Catalonia took two tests that evaluated the acquisition of Catalan and school integration/adaptation. The results show that a) students achieved better results in comprehension skills than in production skills, b) the fewer hours the students spent in the aules the higher the proficiency they achieved, and c) students who had a Romance language as their L1 obtained better results than student who spoke non-Romance languages.

Defence date: 21 March 1994
Examining board: Prof. Bartolomé Bennassar ; Prof. Joan Bestard ; Prof. Gérard Delille ; Prof. Françoise Héritier (co-directeur externe) ; dr. Pedro de Montaner ; Prof. Robert Rowland (directeur)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017

Defence date: 21 January 2000
Examining board: Jean-Pierre Amalric (supervisor) ; Gérard Delille ; Roebrt Rowland ; Bernard Vincent
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017

The sixth chapter likens the Haitian Revolution to a cockfight and begins to question Toussaint Louverture’s uses of power. By January 26, 1801 Toussaint has become the dominant cock, largely due to his huge political organization in the Northern provinces. A hint of reproach echoes in the discourse of narrator Grinn Prominnin because of the unacknowledged debt owed by Toussaint to the masses of formerly enslaved people who participated in the Revolution. At this point the black rebels were often insufficiently armed or were pitted against one another. Some fought for personal interests, others on more general terms; the result was a weakened position. Their advantage lay in their sheer numbers and common determination to become free. In 1793 Toussaint tapped into this energy by declaring the goal of universal freedom and liberty for Saint-Domingue, a political and tactical move that assured the former enslaved people’s loyalty to him. Once his organization solidified, he allied himself with French forces, against the Spanish and British (on whose side other rebel leaders were fighting). By 1795, Spain was defeated, and Saint-Domingue was controlled by three sectors: the new French political commissioner (Lavaud), the freedmen (Vilatte, Beauvais, and Rigaud), and Toussaint’s army. Major contradictions—economic, political, and military—divided the masses from the leaders in the latter group; often the former enslaved people were forced to work the land for the benefit of the revolutionary generals. Meanwhile, both inside and outside of Saint-Domingue, people began to distrust the paper money issued by the revolutionary state, and its value decreased. The war in the South took form, with Toussaint positioned against Rigaud. France’s third civil commissioner, Sonthonax, arrived in 1796 and was determined to crush the British and the mulatto generals’ troops. Sonthonax named Toussaint the leading general and Rigaud an outlaw. But Toussaint had Sonthonax expelled from Saint-Domingue the following year due to their several disagreements (including the fact that Sonthonax promoted Moyse Louverture to the rank of general, passing over several other leaders in Toussaint’s army). Meanwhile, in France, the political situation was becoming more conservative, and Toussaint feared that the former colonists would return to seize their property. In a dog-eat-dog society, every class has economic, political, and ideological interests; the freedmen and newly freed slaves were at odds. Toussaint subsequently repulsed Hédouville (who was sent by France as an agent of the Directory, charged with implementing reforms) and fought a vicious war in the South against Rigaud, the dominant mulatto general, thus deepening the racial divisions in the general population. Although Rigaud took a racial approach himself, Toussaint’s demagogy encouraged this social poison to pit the masses of formerly enslaved people against the mixed-race people, a problem reflecting Haiti’s hereditary ideological disease. Toussaint’s primary interests were commerce, money and the trappings of power. So intent was Toussaint on keeping Saint-Domingue afloat economically that he imposed strictures on the formerly enslaved people through a “rural work code,” forcing them to either remain on the same plantations where they had previously toiled or face severe punishment (including death). The idea of “freedom for all” thus began to lose its meaning. England and the United States began to exert pressure on Saint-Domingue as well. Before the War of the South between Toussaint and Rigaud, blacks and mixed-race people were allied against France, but afterwards each group sought its own type of Haitian independence. The beginning of the end of Toussaint’s power came about when the rebel leader fell into the Rigaud’s trap in the afè Koray [Corail Affair]; he nevertheless continued to fight for several more years. Toussaint’s leadership style moved to demagogy, and after 1799, plots mushroomed everywhere against him. The other rebel general, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, did not play upon social tensions in the same way that Toussaint did: instead of using race as a wedge issue, he allowed a group of mixed race people to join the rebel army, which raised everyone’s spirits and frightened the enemy. Toussaint’s organization was closer to the interests of the masses than Rigaud’s. With Dessalines, he convinced several maroon groups to fight against Rigaud; Dessalines won the South soon afterwards. The war of the South helped advance the larger revolution in Saint-Domingue. Once Rigaud was defeated, Toussaint was the only serious cock in the former colony. Freedom for everyone was the main interest of his organization, and he unified the country around it; Dessalines and Pétion ultimately worked together to help repulse Leclerc’s invasion of 1802. The freedmen’s advantage was blunted before they could take advantage of others. The former slaves grew stronger as a result. Despite Toussaint’s demagogy, the revolution was holding strong; though Toussaint still occupied a position of authority, there remained many contradictions in his camp.