The Spanish educational system has historically been characterized by a, intense collaboration between non-state and state initiatives in the provision of educational services and the access to education rights. Although these relationships have been and are perceived as problematic, they have materialized under different formulas across the country because of the different historical trajectories, school cultures and the process of transferring educational competences to the regional administrations. In any case, the historical presence of public-private collaboration relationships in the country explains the relative ease with which new emerging actors are managing to gain a foothold in governance processes, as well as in the construction, definition, and influence in policymaking regarding teachers in Spain. These new emerging actors are developing very effective strategies of influencing political opinion in relation to schools and their teachers. This influence is characterized by taking up the practices of more traditional actors of influence (focused on the search for forms of collaboration and direct dialogue with public administrations), while developing new ones (focused on interacting with and questioning teachers more directly, which is seen as a vehicle or conceived as a collaborator through which to address the interests that these new actors have in the education arena). Likewise, a common element is the search for media impact, with the resulting consequences in public opinion on the very conception of teaching.

With this paper we intend to explore the emerging structures and practices of pedagogical and political influence that new private actors are imposing on the teaching profession in Spain. And, more specifically, to describe and analyse the arguments and public actions through which large companies are launching themselves to deal with and worry about teaching as part of their corporate social responsibility strategies. In addition, the extent to which they are part of a broader social influence strategy will be considered. These corporations from different productive sectors, from banks to large technology companies, are investing efforts and budgets to education in general and, very particularly, to teachers. We will investigate about the double condition of this social action of companies on teachers in Spain: a new way of showing their commitment to the common good and, at the same time, another opportunity to influence its very definition. There is a lot of research on the participation of large companies and corporations in education and the effects that this is bringing. However, there is very little evidence about how this process is taking place within the specific Spanish context. Because, on one hand, some manifestations of these phenomenon are more recent in our country, and, on the other hand, because private participation in the definition of education as a common good in Spain has been a kind of historical tradition. We know that corporations move within a continuum of motivation, which ranges from the use of corporate social responsibility to improve their social position and marketing, to more medium and long-term views, related to strategic planning, positioning in their sector, and attracting potential future employees. Corporations’ interest on education would be located on the first part of that continuum.

We do not attempt at studying the processes of direct privatization of education, but how these private actors are participating in the construction of standardized social imaginaries about what a good teacher is and is expected to be. We are particularly interested in studying what activities they implement to bring these ideas to every teacher in every classroom in the country: from competitions and prizes for good practices, through continuous training courses, or conferences and professional teaching conferences, to the production of teaching resources. We will pay attention to the philanthropic activities carried out by large corporations with headquarters in Spain and in the specific actions of their foundations by and for teachers in our country, trying to establish what their structures and practices of influence are on public policies for teachers. in the country. For them, we proceed to a systematic analysis of information on the actions of various pedagogical advocacy initiatives promoted from the corporate world. Via an extensive Internet exploration, we identified an initial group of 41 initiatives and after a first screening we reduced the study to 32 cases. We have categorized the modalities of activities that they promote, as well as their capacity and their mechanisms of political and social incidence. We will determine the objectives, philosophies, and trajectories, resulting on a clearer image of the scope and ambitions of all these corporative initiatives.

We will offer a detailed analysis of the initiatives that some of the largest Spanish corporations are currently undertaking about teaching and teachers’ professional development. And it is that, unlike the educational administrations themselves, whose reformist action in recent years has been characterized by a scarce model of vertical implantation, large corporations interested in teaching owe much of their success to the fact that the activities of influence they develop are directly targeting teachers. These same corporations with the launching of their wide variety of activities and programs, are also very much pushing forward a sort of pedagogical agenda of their own about innovation in education, educational use of information and communication technologies, strengthening of soft skills, social leadership, and individualization of the successes of educational processes. The detailed study of these corporations’ actions and programs will allow us to identify their common patterns in the various ways they are consistently and effectively now influencing on teaching and our education system.

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