School Textbooks as Sources for the History of Education and the MANES Project

Abstract

Interview conducted on January 31, 2025, in Madrid, at the National University of Distance Education (UNED), with Professor Gabriela Ossenbach Sauter, Chair of the Department of History of Education and Comparative Education, and coordinator of the MANES Project until 2023. She has carried out various research projects on the history of education in Spain and Latin America based on school textbooks. The interview discusses her academic trajectory and the relevance of schoolbooks as sources for the History of Education, highlighting the history and importance of the MANES Project and its connections with other Latin American centers and researchers. Ossenbach addresses the methodological challenges of researching textbooks, the need for source triangulation, and the importance of the cultural history of schooling. Additionally, the interviewee also discusses the impact of the digitalization of textbooks, difficulties in archive preservation, and the importance of international collaboration to strengthen research on school manuals from a comparative perspective.