Teaching Drawing through the textbooks of High School Education published in Spain (1915-1990): Bibliometric study of contents

This article gathers the results of an investigation developed during 1998-2004, as a doctoral thesis work, which it is considered as main issue to investigate some aspects related to how drawing was taught in Spain on high school educational level between 1915 and 1990. Some of the sources used to investigate were the textbooks published in Spain during the mentioned period, which were found in various public libraries of Barcelona. The main work to carry out our investigation consisted on the research, cataloguing and later analysis of significant textbook samples dedicated to the teaching of drawing and plastic expression published in Spain. The analysis centred the interest of the conceptual contents, visual resources and educational strategies present in a wide sample of manuals of the discipline. Through a bibliometric-quantitative study the evolution was observed and its presence in each one of the three sets in which the sample was organised was quantified, in clear correspondence with significant chronological cuts and educational reforms. This fact allowed reviewing the path and evolution of the contents, which have formed the different curricula of this school discipline, as well as give an account of the iconographic resources used and the generated school practices, necessary data to build professional knowledge that contributes to understand and identify the most coherent strategies with our educational practice.