Junta de Protección a la Infancia de Barcelona, 1908-1985Aproximación histórica y Guía Documental de su Archivo, La

Résumé

The PhD thesis encompasses the recuperation, the sorting and also an initial cataloguing of the Archive of the Junta de Protección a la Infancia (Menores) de Barcelona (the Barcelona Childhood (Minors) Protection Board), an institution which was established in 1908 and in operation until 1985. This Archive is currently deposited in the Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya (ANC) (National Archive of Catalonia), classified under the Fondos Documentales 334 and 181. Owing to its documentary components and character and, and thanks to the type of tools it offers (a criteria specific GUIDE classifying information from the various registers according to chronological, technical, etc. specifications) it should provide for an easier and more productive access to this archive both for academic bodies and for the public in general. The PhD thesis is complemented by additional historically and pedagogically based analyses describing the following aspects: the process related to the construction of the social childhood space; the various types of responses and institutions which historically have come about as a result of social action with regards to childhood (with a particular level of incidence of those located in Barcelona); the economical, political and social situation in which the institution comes to light in our country; an explanation of the institutional and pedagogical positions in which the institution is inscribed is also offered, relating these positions to the factors which brought about the institution: the establishment of a bourgeois type system based on the social proto-state, shaped during the transition from the 19th to the 20th century. Drawing upon the information and the data available in the Archive, the PhD thesis also comprises an introductory study of the historical lifespan of the institution in the entirety of its chronological development. Moreover, it offers an explanation and a logical description of the Junta de Protección a la Infancia de Barcelona, fully covering the aspect of its social function and projection. This is carried out by means of a historical diachronic analysis, entirely interrelated synchronically with the history of social education in particular and social action in general. The PhD thesis is further complemented by 4 appendixes which encompass: the legislative information regarding the norms, in addition to inventories of complementary archives and facsimile copies of more than 20 selected documents from the Archive, all of which are commented and contextualised, thus providing a representative and relatively balanced image of the institution and its historical background. "