In recent years we have witnessed the growing impact of international organisations on education research, policy and public opinion. Education researchers have argued that the role played by international organisations is part of a ‘global architecture of education’ (Jones, 2006, p. 48), also referred to as global governance of education (Sellar and Lingard 2013). Historians of education have argued about the importance of historical research to understand the dynamics behind the consolidation of this world wide educational discourse and practice. We can thus find important contributions to understanding the historical trajectories of international organisations (inter alia, Sluga, 2011; Christensen & Ydesen, 2015; Sorensen, Ydesen & Robertson, 2021), and the influence of, and wider implications arising from, international organisations in national educational contexts (Flury, Geiss & Guerrero-Cantarel, 2020; Elfert, 2021). Different studies within the history of education have also focused on understanding how educational expertise handed down from international organisations has influenced local networks of educators and experts in local contexts (Duedahl, 2016; Droux & Hofstetter, 2015; Prytz, 2020). Another series of investigations looked at local actors demonstrating the need to pay attention to the phenomena of interconnections (within, beyond, and across borders) through what has been called entanglement history or histoire croisée (Sobe, 2013; Chisholm, 2020).Although recently there are more case studies on this topic, in general, we find a tendency to overlook the reception and impact of the policies advanced by international organisations at the national, regional, and/or local levels (Christensen & Ydesen, 2015). As Fuchs writes, ‘Unquestionably, there is a need to examine how the complexity of interrelations between global developmental processes and national or specific cultural configurations can be analysed and explained from a historical perspective’ (2014, p. 21). This is needed to avoid far reaching generalisations or abstract analysis that overlook the spaces used by international organisation to advance their policies (Matasci & Droux, 2019).

In this paper we focus on a single case study regarding UNESCO’s role in the development and implementation of educational policy in Spain under the Franco regime. We trace the organisation’s attempts to establish collaboration with the Spanish government even before Spain became an official member in 1952 and follow its strategies in order to expand its influence on Spanish educational circles until its direct involvement in drafting the most important educational reform in Spanish history: The General Law of Education of 1970. With our analysis, we use the Spanish case in order to identify key aspects of an emerging global educational governance as manifested through UNESCO’s work, highlighting their complexities, which, taken together, illustrate many local-global dynamics still present today.

We carried out an historical research, collecting data from a long series of archives and official publications related both to the Spanish educational administration and the activity of the UNESCO in Spain. In our interpretation, following the disciplinary characteristics of history we took into account longitudinal developments and cultural contextualization. For our archival work we visited the following archives: Archivo Central del Ministerio de Educación y Formación Profesional (ACMEFP, Ministry of Education). Archivo de la Comisión Nacional Española de Cooperación con la UNESCO (ACNEC-UNESCO, Spanish Commission for collaboration with the UNESCO). Archivo del Instituto San José de Calasanz de Pedagogía, Residencia de Estudiantes (ISJC, Institute of Pedagogy); Archivo General de la Administración (AGA, General Administartion Archive); Archivo General de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (AGUCM, Complutense University, Madrid). The main educational journals published by the educational administration and used for this study were: Revista de Educación, Bordón or Revista Española de Pedagogía.

Using archives and educational journals to study the activities of international organisations in Spain under the Franco regime enabled us to demonstrate how the UNESCO, in collaboration with the OECD and the WB cast their net of influence into the country’s educational system. This historical perspective reveals the long-term planned effort of these organisations to slowly widen their contacts, collaborations and capacity to influence national educational policy. With Spain’s official integration in UNESCO in 1952, the educational institutions of the country began echoing the main ideas spread by the organisation such as the importance of literacy, developing international understanding, and the importance of education for economic development. In the 1960s, these ideas were implemented based on UNESCO’s belief in the importance of educational planning. By the end of that decade, UNESCO had assumed responsibility for revising and controlling the level of cooperation with its plans. Appointments of UNESCO specialists accompanied by funding schemes strengthened the close relationship between Spanish educational authorities and UNESCO, as a new committee arrived to accompany the planning and implementation of educational reforms. Many of the activities designed to facilitate these reforms were UNESCO-dependent, such as financing of educational projects, grants for training abroad, seminars, publications, and expert visits. In this sense, we can see how Spain organised its education system following normative ideas from international organizations like UNESCO. For the Franco regime, this collaboration with UNESCO and others offered a unique opportunity for international rehabilitation and an access to technical know-how that the country lacked at that time. This clarifies the synergies between dictatorial Spain and international organisations and explains the capacity of the latter to have strong and steady influence on the development of Spain’s educational policies.

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