Lost in the battle: the treatment of students with diverse sociocultural background in LOGSE reform

Abstract

The «LOGSE» -an ambitious educational reform law of 1990 set forth by a then Socialist- Party majority government- reflects some important discursive and programmatic shifts regarding sociocultural equality and integration, and the democratization of Spanish schooling. Yet no sooner has the reform been fully implemented than an impending «counter-reform», launched by the current conservative government, already poses a challenge to comprehensive education, as instated by the LOGSE. And tragically, as the dominant proponents of one reform or another battle over the ideological and material control of schooling in a newly situated and increasingly diverse Spanish State, certain other voices remain unheard or silenced. One of the great ironies of this process of negation is the fact that, in the present historical context, when many such silenced voices -especially those belonging to immigrants and Gypsy/Roma collectives- have come to participate in Spanish schooling in ever-increasing numbers, the «Quality in Teaching Law» threatens to close the doors to the democratization of the educational system. The task of this paper, then, will be to draw out the cultural voids, negations and preferences at this legislative juncture, as group identities are filtered through competing educational policies. For, as we shall see, the LOGSE=s at times biased but laudable attempts to mitigate this cultural weeding-out process have only met with palpable hegemonic resistance.