MOTIVATIONS OF THE STUDY
The first option when looking for a study topic to develop the doctoral thesis was the Civil War (1936-1939) in the territorial framework of the region of Terra Alta. First of all, because of the personal and family ties with this territory and, secondly, because of the high degree of violence that was experienced in the region during the aforementioned period.
Once the first works of approach to the subject of study began, it soon became apparent that this was an excessively lively and present topic in the territory. This fact and the apparent lack of local documentary sources that could sustain a work of doctoral thesis forced to do a reconsideration of the subject of study.
For this reason, it was decided to start research in the period prior to 1936. The excessive magnitude of the resulting period forced to limit and specify a study topic to avoid falling into generalities and partial views. In this sense, while working on existing documentary sources began, the world of teaching and its praxis emerged as a very attractive and interesting topic for structuring a doctoral thesis.
The educational system, understood as a training tool that had to turn the new generations into citizens within the framework of a protodemocratic society, like the Spanish society of the nineteenth century, appeared as one of the possible keys to understanding the causes of the ‘ An outbreak of indiscriminate violence that Terra Alta lived within the framework of the Civil War. The degree of training of its protagonists, the literacy of that society, could well have conditioned, in one way or another, the facts that were lived in the different towns of the region.
With this initial hypothesis, establishing the relationships between the educational process (schools, contents, teachers and students) and the events that took place after the outbreak of the Civil War started, the research that must be completed in a future doctoral thesis .
Regarding the work prior to the aforementioned thesis, the work for the DEA valuation test here defended, a very specific aspect was chosen, that of school centers, one of the twelve municipalities in the region, the from Vilalba dels Arcs. The choice of this subject was based on the fact that one of the basic pillars to be able to carry out teaching work in any of the municipalities was precisely the provision of the basic infrastructures to do it, that is, the school; understood as the building where teachers and students develop their work.
Establishing the conditions of the schools and the difficulties of a specific municipality to be able to equip themselves, could provide a first view of the situation and the problems of primary education in that territory.
