The use of visual materials has been one of the characteristics of history of education during the last decades, but the use of documentaries and films has been rather scarce. This paper is part of a broader research that uses NO-DO as primary source. In fact, its aim is not to know how education was, but how it was presented by NO-DO, as media of propaganda.

Noticiarios y Documentales cinematográficos "NO-DO" were created by the Franco regime at the end of 1942 with the aim, according to Joaquín Soriano -first director of the entity-, "to be as good as better one". Then, it had to reflect "all the noble aspects of the life of our nation: political, economic, artistic, cultural, scientific, sports, etc. [...] In short, it should inform, instruct and recreate" (cited in Tranche and Sánchez-Biosca, 2018, p. 52).

These audiovisual resources were seen as a weapon by governments and adopted as a propaganda medium. This was the case of NO-DO, although there were other countries with totalitarian regimes such as Italy (Noticiario LUCE), among others, which also used newsreels and documentaries as a means of propaganda.

Using NO-DO as a primary source, in this study we will analyze what was showed about primary education and, mainly, what role the State and the Church played in this educational level according to the news and documentaries projected by NO-DO.

After a bloody civil war (1936-1939), the totalitarian regime called "Francoism" was established in Spain; it ended with the death of the dictator (1939-1975). Historians divide this period into several stages: the post-war years marked by repression and autarky (1940s); the pivotal decade (1950s) establishes the transition between the hard period experienced in Spain and the changes and advances that took place since the 1960s, known as developmentalist Spain, which enabled the country to emerge from a serious crisis and to leave behind the label of a backward country; and the decade of the seventies that meant a crisis in the regime and its end with the death of the dictator (García Delgado, 2003; García Delgado and Jiménez, 2007).

This communication is divided into two parts. In the first, we will revise the education policy, looking at the main legislation and reviewing the role of the Church and the State in relation to primary school. In the second part, we will analyze the image of these rules and their application after NO-DO. To do this, we follow the stages established by Navarro Sandalinas (1990) focused on primary education: postwar from 1939 to 1945; educational immobility from 1945 to 1962; and school and development from 1962 to 1975). At each stage we will analyze the presence of primary schools (inaugurations, daily activity, materials and furniture) and the types of schools (public or private) that prevailed.  The State assumed a subsidiary role in primary education, leaving the Church the leading role. The schools of the Church were addressed to the elite, while those of the State were located where the Church was not interested in having schools for economical or ideological reason. The public schools were mainly located in rural areas and small towns, where few boys, and fewer girls, were able to decide to do further studies after the primary school as the offer or public high schools was really scarce and was concentrated in the cities. Considering these aspects, our hypothesis is that the State used NO-DO to show more than it did to improve the primary education, with some nuances according to the stages, as we will see.

The main objective of our study is to analyze what NO-DO showed about primary education and, mainly, what role the State and the Church played in this educational level according to the news and documentaries projected by this media. Most of the news were banal, although containing a clear indoctrinating intention. Ideals and values were evident in order to facilitate their assimilation by the spectators. However, it must be stressed that this doctrine did not have a real influence in most cases (Paz, 2003). We have reviewed the extensive bibliography existent on NO-DO (more than 120 references), although most of them are not focused on educational issues (Collelldemont and Vilanou, 2020; Molina, 2021). In parallel, the literature on Francoist primary education has been reviewed; this period has been one of the recent star topics among Spanish historians of education, although, and this must be clearly pointed out, few moving images and documentaries have been used as historical sources. In this case, the primary source is NO-DO and the other sources (primary and secondary) are used to interpret and value the information extracted from the NO-DO. In total, we have found 52 news and documentaries about primary education on the website of Filmoteca Española, where all the numbers of the NO-DO are digitized. The information of each issue has been compiled in a table structured in the following sections: section to which it belongs (Newsreels, Documentaries in Black and White, Documentaries in Colour, Magazine Images or Images of Sport), newsletter number, documentary or reportage and length, minute in which the educational scene appears, place where the news is developed, description of the images, and voice-over.

Primary education was not an aspect to which NO-DO played a close attention. There are 6,029 issues and only 49 dealt with this level of education. However, it is interesting to recall and to analyze what was discussed about these schools and what aspects interested NO-DO. Following the stages explained by Navarro Sandalinas (1990), there were only two issues during the first stage (NO-DO was created just two years before the end of this stage) and in one of them we can see priests as teachers. More numbers were issued (29 and 18, respectively) during the second and third stages. Most of them (17 and 11, respectively) dealt with public school buildings. Most of these schools had just the most basic materials (desks, slate, table and chair of the teacher, some furniture); it was difficult to see teaching materials, but the crucifix and some portraits (Franco and José Antonio Primo de Rivera) were in most of the schools. The new buildings were often shown without children. When there were children in classrooms, it was possible to see just some books and notebooks. From the 1970s, a degree of "modernization" was observed in some schools. Besides school buildings, sometimes it was possible to see teachers, occasionally priests or nuns, although their presence in NO-DO was really scarce. NO-DO focused on the schools created by the State to convey the kindest face of a regime that looked after children and offered a school place to everyone, despite the fact that the reality was quite different.

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