When summing up the attempts to apply educational psychology in Spain during the first decades of this century, we emphasized, among other aspects, the role played by child psychology, the weight of the French tradition, the strong ideological saturation and a certain inhibition of the university in this realm. None of these traits characterize school psychology and educational psychology towards the end of this century, though some of them are still somewhat in force.
Thus, the influence of child psychology, and more specifically of developmental psychology by authors such as Piaget, Bruner, Wallon and others, has been decisive in the recuperation and development process of the sixties and seventies. In Spain, similar to other European countries such as France, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, etc., school psychology and educational psychology still maintain a priviledged relationship with developmental psychology. Among other indicators in support of this, it may be noted that, in the majority of the Faculties of Psychology, these three spheres of psychology constitute an organized teaching and research unit. For many years, school psychologists have really been developmental psychologists interested in broadening the scientific foundation of education and concerned with solving educational problems.
It is still frequent, though less and less, for no distinction to be made between developmental psychology, school psychology and educational psychology, considering the latter two to be the applied branch, as it were, of the first. Even less frequent is the linking to learning psychology and, as a consequence, the consideration of school psychology and educational psychology as the applied branch of learning psychology.
As far as ideological saturation is concerned, it is important to remember the role played by the demanding civil and political movements when the Municipal Psychopedagogical Teams appeared. At this point, however, the reestablishment of democracy and the implementation of a new constitutional and legal order in 1978 have favoured real changes. For the last fifteen years, professional practice of psychology has been progressively shedding ideological connotations and, at present, the predominant criteria in teaching, research which in everyday professional practice are of an eminently scientific character. The association between the attempts to apply educational psychology on the one hand, and a liberal and progressive ideology on the other, have not completely disappeared, but they have diminished and have ceased to be a decisive ingredient in the social image of school psychology.
Insofar as the university inhibition is concerned, with regard to the attempts to apply psychological knowledge to education, we have come a long way from what was going on in the twenties and thirties. The existence of Faculties of Psychology has caused a constant flow and interaction between the academic and the professional worlds; that is between teaching and research, and application of psychological expert-knowledge within the framework of professional activity. At first, the Colegio Oficial de Psicologos and Faculties of Psychology spent some efforts to consolidate and to reinforce their identity, but also some efforts in coordinating joint actions.
There are certain initiatives on both sides directed toward building bridges between academic and professional activity (see for example, Pelechano, 1979; Bassedas, Coll & Rossell, 1981). The situation has changed drastically in the last decade and joint action initiatives are in existence to such a degree that, though we are still far from achieving the desired level of articulation, there is at least a common acceptance that this is one of the tasks that must be improved.
Against this background, the development of school and educational psychology in Spain will be strongly conditioned by the repercussions of two decisive facts: the beginning of the global educational system reform and the process of up-dating the curriculum design in all the Spanish universities.
The directive of the Spanish University Council, concerning the Licenciatura en Psicologia, introduced educational psychology among the basic subjects that must be included for professional training in Psychology. This fact will doubtless contribute to strengthen the teaching and research carried out by some groups of educational psychology, who have been specially active in several Faculties of Psychology during the last decade.
At the the same time it will promote the appearance of new workgroups and research teams. However, from now on, universities will enjoy a wide autonomy to establish their curricula and syllabus during the 90s. It is impossible to foresee which concrete solutions each Faculty will adopt regarding school and educational psychology training. In any case, one could expect them to take steps to solve the problem of a fairly high percentage of psychologists practicing their professional activity in the educational field without having received the necessary specific training during their enrolment in the university.
Whatever the real impact of these two processes may be - i.e. reform of the educational system and up-dating of curricula in Psychology - the future development of school psychology and educational psychology in Spain will have to face a series of urgent problems. Some of these are related to the epistemological, conceptual and professional coordenates of this realm of psychology and they are, to a certain degree, problems pending solution that are shared by colleagues of other countries.
Such is the case, to cite a few examples, of the function-accumulation process which has characterized the evolution of school psychology to the extreme of blurring its priority objectives and action limits; of the overlapping with other professional spheres such as infantile clinical psychology or educational and vocational guidance; or even the discussion about whether school psychology and educational psychology are synonymous or whether they refer to two closely related, but substantially different, fields of psychology.
Other problems however, are specific and began with the peculiar evolution of school and educational psychology in Spain since the start of the century. Among them we emphasize the need to achieve a greater approximation between teaching and research activities carried out in universities and in professional practice settings. In spite of the undeniable advances achieved in this sense, we still all too often hear practitioners complaining about the lack of practical and professional relevance in the initial training received in universities and research programmes that are carried out in them. It is also commonplace to hear scholars complaining about the lack of rigor and scientific bases of some professional practices. What underlines these criticisms, aside from their adequacy or inadequacy, is mutual mistrust and ignorance.
Universities should take this into account especially when up-dating the curriculum in psychology and defining research lines. The Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos should also take this into consideration when establishing requisites for the professional practice of school psychology and when planning its own training activities. Both sides are faced with the challenge of impeding two separate branches of school and educational psychology from forming, one academic and the other professional, with few contacts and exchanges.
JOSÉ RAMÓN CORREAS GONZALEZ
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LAST UPDATED Sunday 6 de August de 1995 - -