Sentido y finalidad de la educación secundaria en la sociedad espa？ola del siglo XXI

in the present paper, we analyse the question of the aims of spanish secondary school in the context of a democratic society in the early twenty-first century. we argue, as far as we know, about the criteria that legitimate, ethically and socially, the aims of the education system in advanced democracies, interpreting in a critical way the relations between the aims and practices of education processes. from here, we defend the existence of internal and external criteria for the definition of the aims of the secondary school, concluding that the fundamental purposes of education are related to logical and argumentative abilities (the symbolic language proficiency, the critical thinking and its consequences...) and moral capacities (feelings of reciprocity, reasoned internalization of ethical values of democracy...). finally, from a philosophical perspective of the aims of education, we present some considerations on issues which are discussed in the public opinion and among experts, for example the issue of appropriate methodologies to achieve the aims of the secondary school, or the question of the new role of teachers in achieving these aims.