The politics of vocational training of industrial technicians in Spain, 1924–30

In this study, I examine the extent to which technical education served to form a new middle class of industrial technicians during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in Spain. The principal means of achieving this, the Industrial Education Statute of 1924 and the Vocational Training Statute of 1928, were aimed at the working classes and the petty bourgeoisie. The intention was that both groups would support the State’s social and corporative system whilst at the same time promoting the country’s modernization. The great gap between economic and social reality, however, led to the failure of this educational project.