She was the founder of the Associació de Mestres Rosa Sensat [ca][1] and wrote numerous books and articles on reading and writing didactics, pedagogy, educational policy, and children's stories.

[3] Her father was Josep Mata Virgili (1886–1934), an industrial technician, who died in a work accident in Madrid when Marta was 8 years old.

There she spent a long convalescence and, once restored to health, began to work in children's education following guidance from her mother who, because of a paralysis, had also retired to the country.

In 1959 she traveled to Geneva for the first time and contacted the International Bureau of Education, where she met the pedagogue Pere Rosselló [ca].

She also began working as a pedagogical consultant for the Catalan publishers Nova Terra and La Galera, and the recently created children's magazine Cavall Fort.

From 1965 to 1975 Mata strengthened her relationship with groups of teachers working on pedagogical renovation in Spain and Portugal, and established contacts with university professors and institutions in France, England, the USSR, Chile, and Italy, while specializing in teaching in language contact situations, and in the didactics of written language and Catalan and Spanish phonology.

From this legislature, Marta highlighted the fact that "the new legislation contemplates the participation of parents, teachers, and students in the school, and new capabilities for Catalonia.

From 1983 to 1984 she was a Senator representing the Parliament of Catalonia, and was one of the socialist rapporteurs, together with José Eduardo González Navas, of the first Law on Linguistic Normalization of Catalan in 1983.

In May 2004, she returned to the State School Council as President at the request of the then Socialist Minister María Jesús San Segundo, a responsibility she held until her death on 27 June 2006.