Documentaries and historians: the making of Republican schoolteachers as educational heroes in Spain

Purpose This article examines how Spanish historical documentaries produced between 1975 and 2024 have represented Republican schoolteachers of the Second Republic (1931–1936). It aims to understand how these portrayals shaped collective memory and how historians took these teachers out of the shadows and made them into educational heroes, linking the academic history of education with public history. Design/methodology/approach The study builds a catalogue of 27 Spanish historical-educational documentaries focused on Republican schoolteachers. Each film was described using 25 variables covering production context, narrative techniques, symbolic and emotional elements, and involvement of historians of education. The corpus was then analysed through thematic narrative analysis. Findings The documentaries produced seven recurrent representations of Republican teachers: pedagogical modernizers, victims of repression, exiled cultural brokers, community leaders, feminist pioneers, regionalist educators, and ambivalent/non-Republican figures. Overall, they framed teachers as progressive reformers and martyrs of democracy, downplaying continuities of traditional practice. The films employed emotionally charged testimonies, archival “mythologized documents”, such as class photographs and purge files, and symbolic acts to engage audiences. Historians of education played an important role, not only as advisors and on-screen experts but also as sources of narratives that shaped public memories. Originality/value This research uses a new source: historical documentaries on the history of education. It also reveals the role of historians of education involved in these documentaries in recovering and publicizing certain actors – the Republican teachers – who were forgotten during Franco's dictatorship and the first decades of democratic government.