Milestones in the affiliation to professional teachers’ associations. The situation in Spain

This article makes use of two different analytical perspectives. First, we examine some of the milestones in the process of alliance and affiliation in teachers’ associations that has taken place starting in the final decades of the nineteenth century. In doing so we describe the different kinds of professional organizations (some corporative, others of a union model) as well as the kinds of demands and claims they made regarding the educational policies put into place by the successive political regimes (monarchy, republic, dictatorship and parliamentary democracy). The second part of the article traces the research carried out in Spain on the subject in recent years, including brief references, for comparison’s sake, to the panorama in neighboring countries such as Portugal, France and Italy.