The Idea of the Secondary School in Nineteenth‐century Europe

The title echoes the well‐known phrase ‘the idea of the university’, and European universities have always been seen as institutions with a strong international dimension, developing according to common patterns. In their case, it was the ‘Humboldtian’ model embodied in the University of Berlin founded in 1810 which prevailed. For secondary schools, the lycées of Napoleon and the German Gymnasien, both taking shape around 1800, share this role. The main features of the lycée/Gymnasium model can be summarized: they were public, secular institutions; they were part of an elite sector with little organic connection with popular education; they were oriented to preparing for higher education, with a predominantly classical curriculum, taught by specialist teachers trained in the universities; and they offered an eight or nine year course culminating in an examination (baccalauréat, Abitur) which came to define a completed secondary education.

Some of these features came from the common European heritage of humanist education, others were due to political and social developments in which all European countries shared — secularization, the growth of the middle class, the impact of the French revolution, etc. But there could be crucial national differences in the timing of such developments, and in the degree to which the values of old and new elites were fused together. One argument of this paper is that the new model long remained an ‘idea’ or conceptual framework rather than a reality, even in its French and German homelands, and that the uniform concept concealed many historical variations. And after around 1870, new moulding forces took over (industrialization, mass politics, nationalism), though these too gave a strong impulse to uniformity.

The new relationship between secondary schools and universities did not become definitive in many countries until quite late in the 19th century. The word ‘secondary’ could be used in different senses, and boundaries could shift. On the one hand, traditional universities had included forms of preparatory general education which the new model defined as secondary and pushed back into the schools. On the other, as in the Bavarian or Austrian Lyzeum, the Dutch ‘illustrious schools’, or the English Dissenting Academies, intermediate institutions had developed which straddled secondary and higher education. Assimilation to the new pattern usually accompanied adoption of the ‘Humboldtian’ university ideal, and took place mostly between 1848 and the 1870s, though sometimes as late as the 1890s. The acceptance of 18/19 as a ‘natural’ age of transition itself needs explaining, and is clearly connected with the history of adolescence

The existence of a network of secondary schools, often as part of state structures which included precise legal definitions of their function, could conceal huge variations in the real role of schools in their local context. Even in a highly centralized system like the French one, historians are discovering the significance of local initiative and adaptation to local needs. In Germany, recent research has shown quite strikingly that the Gymnasien of the early 19th century were both multi‐functional in their curricula, and diverse in their social recruitment. Educating the elite, and giving an intensive humanist education, were only part of the functions of such schools. Historical generalizations have tended to overlook both the mass of pupils who left them at an early stage, and the diversity of the school pattern itself (religious schools in France, modern schools in Germany, private schools in Britain, etc.). Religious, ethnic and linguistic divisions could overlay those of social class. We should also recall that secondary schooling was a market, in which state policy had to compromise with parental preferences and family strategies. Studies of secondary schooling within its urban social and cultural context are one of the most potentially fruitful lines of current research

In the later 19th century, the multi‐functional role of schools diminished as industrialisation both expanded and differentiated the demand for schooling, a process studied by Fritz Ringer and others. It is in this context, perhaps, that the creation of modern forms of secondary schooling for girls is best seen. Within a new variety of ‘tracks’, the humanist secondary school became a specialized and more privileged type, fiercely defended by academic conservatives. Yet there remained close parallels between the various European systems: developments followed much the same chronology, and models such as the German Realschule were closely studied; even Britain was conforming to ‘continental’ patterns by the 1900s. In the age of the nationstate, great‐power rivalry, mass politics, and universal literacy, the training of a homogeneous national elite, an ‘intellectual aristocracy’ to provide stable leadership, became a general preoccupation. Just as this was true of the major powers, so the formation of such an elite through education was crucial to the demands of ethnic minorities now seeking emancipation within the multi‐national empires, as well as linguistic ones within some unitary states. In recent years, theorists of nationalism have emphasized the importance of education for the emergence of the modern nation‐state, and conversely historians of education must see nationalism as a powerful shaping force. This represents one of the ways in which, as in other fields of historical scholarship, interest has swung from the social themes which dominated research in the 1960s and 1970s to cultural and political ones.     

The segmentation of elite education institutions and of their students: the new preparatory courses for the French grandes écoles

The present paper focuses on the preparatory courses for the French grandes écoles (CPGEs), which are selective higher education programmes that enable ‘good’ students to bypass mass higher education and study under ‘favourable’ conditions. These CPGEs, originally intended to educate the children of the social and cultural elite, are now accepting young people from more diverse social backgrounds. Our investigation of this ‘new’ student population is based on a survey (1000 students and 350 teachers) and on interviews conducted with students (82) and teaching staff (24). Our research leads us to conclude that under the pretext of democratisation and adaptation to the labour market, CPGEs recruiting these new students are, paradoxically, helping to maintain social stratification.     

法国对外职业教育援助:动因、实践与特征

为提升法国国际影响力、维护经济利益以及实现全球可持续发展目标,法国对外提供职业教育援助,在政府、院校与社会层面开展了援助实践。在政府层面,法国开展官方发展援助,由法国开发署提供一体化职业教育援助项目;在院校层面,法国高等职业院校积极招收留学生,建设跨国职业教育项目,促进与受援国院校间的合作与交流;在社会层面,法国企业、非政府组织以多种方式积极参与对外职业教育援助。法国对外职业教育援助呈现出援助区域广泛但重点突出、援助主体多元、援助策略因地制宜、援助管理过程注重质量保障的特征。     

Solicitude and Special Education Policies

This paper examines the general context in which special education policies have been implemented in Western societies in order to try to understand the recent changes. It summarises the different meanings attached to the notion of equality, which are central to the question of special education and recent reforms, and finally it attempts to understand the ways in which special education provisions have been implemented into two different contexts, namely France and French speaking schools in Ontario (Canada). The paper draws on policy analysis conducted in France and in Ontario and from two recent research projects conducted in four different elementary and secondary French language schools in Ontario over the last 2 years, through an ethnographic approach involving different methodological tools, such as observation, interviewing and document analysis.     

Transnationalising American progressivism and emancipation: Frances B. Johnston and progressive education at the 1900 Paris universal exposition

ABSTRACT

At the 1900 Paris World’s Fair, Frances Benjamin Johnston, one of America’s first women photographers, played a key role in publicising in Europe American progressivism and emancipation in education. Through displaying photographs taken in the Washington DC public schools, she revealed to the international audience how American progressive reformers were aiming at providing a freer, more child-centred and democratic education to children in the public schools. Such pioneering effort to disclose these accomplishments was met with considerable interest and laudatory comments from French officials and school professionals. Being a prominent character in American photography, Johnston’s life and work have long aroused the interest of historians of art and women. However, her role in publicising progressive education’s ideals and emancipatory dimensions remain an understudied and yet important topic in order to analyse the transnationalising of American progressivism in education. Using archival and primary sources from the French and US governments, this article analyses the reception of the American educational exhibit displayed at the 1900 universal exposition in France. It thus aims at highlighting the ways in which photography was used as a powerful medium to document, spread and propagandise American reform effort in education across the Atlantic.     

"一个国家,两轨高教"之谜——法国大学校社会地位的历史文化分析

大学校源于法国国家干预教育的传统,是法国近二百年社会发展的一面镜子,国家的发展在大学校的发展进程中起到了决定性作用.随着其社会影响日益增大,大学校实际上已成为现代法国社会中获得和再生产文化资本、进入精英集团的主要合法渠道之一.因此,与大学平行,大学校成为法国一种封闭性、精英性的高等教育系统.     

Entanglement and transnational transfer in the history of infant schools in Great Britain and salles d’asile in France, 1816–1881

The historical developments of infant schools in Great Britain and salles d’asile in France – both precursors of present-day preschools – were interconnected. However, historians have not yet analysed specifically how transnational exchange influenced the growth and nature of these institutions. Drawing on archival data and secondary sources, and using a combined comparative and transnational approach, this study aims to remedy this omission. It traces the evolution of British infant schools and French salles d’asile from their beginnings to their affiliation with the education systems in their respective countries – i.e. from 1816, when Robert Owen founded the first infant school in Britain, to 1881, when the salle d’asile was incorporated as an integral part of the French education system (renamed école maternelle). The study also shows how ideas about infant education and the motives and experiences of educators and social reformers spread across British borders and influenced the development of salles d’asile.     

Neutrality and impartiality in public education: the French investment in philosophy,teaching about religions,and moral and civic education

In France, there is no religious education in state schools. ‘Convictional education’ appeared by drawing its perimeter around three educational subjects: philosophy, teaching about religions, and moral and civic education. Today, the French school is facing new challenges in a highly secularised society on which religion is laying new claims. As an institution, it is not neutral insofar as it proceeds from a political philosophy that evolved from the French Revolution. It is within the operative framework of this philosophy and with specific teaching practices that it intends to combine unity and plurality within itself.     

Departing from the beaten path: international schools in China as a response to discrimination and academic failure in the Chinese educational system

International schools are commonly depicted in the academic literature and popular press as offering elite educational credentials to an elite, oftentimes international, student body. In this paper, I draw on a case study of a Canadian international school to argue that a new form of international school is emerging in China – one that offers a haven for domestic students from certain competitive and discriminatory features of the Chinese educational system. Fieldwork was conducted at a Canadian curriculum high school for Chinese citizens in Beijing. Most students at the school were internal migrants or children of China’s ‘new rich’ entrepreneurial class; that is, their families had economic resources but occupied precarious social positions in contemporary Chinese society. Analyses reveal that the international school offers a pathway to obtain baseline academic credentials in the absence of other opportunities for progress in the Chinese educational system. Together with evidence of dramatic growth in international schools and tracks in China, this case study suggests the emergence of a new type of international education programme that departs from a picture of international education as ‘elite’ in terms of student body, academic environment, and expected educational trajectories of graduates. The paper also develops our understanding of class and educational strategies in contemporary China.     

Organizational rhetoric in the prospectuses of elite private schools: unpacking strategies of persuasion

The way in which private schools use rhetoric in their communications offers important insights into how these organizational sites persuade audiences and leverage marketplace advantage in the context of contemporary educational platforms. Through systemic analysis of rhetorical strategies employed in 65 ‘elite’ school prospectuses in Australia, this paper contributes to understandings of the ways schools’ communications draw on broader cultural politics in order to shape meanings and interactions among organizational actors. We identify six strategies consistently used by schools to this end: identification, juxtapositioning, bolstering or self-promotion, partial reporting, self-expansion, and reframing or reversal. We argue that, in the context of marketization and privatization discourses in twenty-first-century western education, these strategies attempt to subvert potentially threatening discourses, in the process actively reproducing broader economic and social privilege and inequalities.     

Levelling the reading gap: a socio‐spatial study of school libraries and reading in Singapore

This article takes a comparative socio‐spatial approach at the intersection of social class and reading politics to provide a fresh way of examining school reading policies and practices, unearthing previously hidden spaces of inequity for reading intervention. The juxtaposition of two nested case studies in Singapore, one of an elite all‐boys' school and another of a co‐educational government school with students in different academic tracks, revealed inequitable practices, specifically in the designs and uses of school library spaces between schools serving different social classes. The study argues that attempts to design reading interventions should move away from the view of student‐as‐problem to structure‐as‐problem in order to discover new perspectives for reading intervention. Additionally, this study demonstrates how foregrounding social class in educational research is necessary for effective design of educational strategies that aim to transform education and society by narrowing the gap between students from different social classes.     

The changing demand for higher education in the seventies: Adaptations within three national systems

Aspects of decline in the demand for higher education have become apparent in most Western systems of higher education in the mid-seventies. Although these are usually associated with deteriorating labor markets and falling relative earnings of university graduates, analyses of enrollment trends in Belgium, the United States and France reveal that other factors have an important influence upon enrollment levels. In the comparatively elite Belgian university system the maintenance of rigorous academic standards in secondary schools and the universities appears to be responsible for the stagnation in enrollments since 1971. The surprising decline in the enrollment rates of white males in the United States seems to be due to both worsening labor markets and declining academic achievement levels. French university students have responded to the devaluation of university degrees by decreasing the time and effort applied to university study; but even under these circumstances the traumas of the 1976 confrontation have apparently discouraged potential students from enrolling. These developments suggest that the expansion of higher education has reached a set of inherent limitations created by social conditions and educational organization; and that inducing further expansion would do little to raise real educational levels or further social advancement.     

Equitable partnerships for mutual learning or perpetuator of North–South power imbalances? Ireland–South Africa school links

This study examines how various components of a school-linking programme between Ireland and South Africa either support Development Education’s goal of sustainable, equitable partnerships that enable mutual learning between Northern and Southern countries or, instead, promote power imbalances that reify stereotypic images of weak, needy Southerners being cared for by powerful, benevolent Northerners. Ethnographic data from schools in both sites suggest that divergent assumptions about and priorities for Development Education in Ireland and South Africa, disproportionate exchange visits, socio-economic differences and an ‘inward’ South African focus versus a ‘global’ Irish focus set the stage for power imbalances within the linking programme. Recommendations for a conjointly conducted revision of the agenda for school-linking programmes are made. These centre on helping learners understand how issues of power and power imbalance function at the local, national and global levels.     

法国儿童托管教育:课外活动中心运作模式及其启示

法国儿童出生率和妇女就业率的上升让儿童在校外时间接受家庭以外的托管需求日渐增加。法国政府高度重视儿童托管工作,主要通过"课外活动中心"进行。它是家庭和学校之外的教育空间对儿童教育的补充,通过各种校外活动进行公民道德、合作精神和集体生活能力等方面的教育。我国儿童托管可借鉴法国的经验,探索儿童托管的具体策略与途径,加强政府的投入和监管,推动我国儿童托管教育健康发展。     

History and Geography in Elementary School: For a Change

The teaching of history and geography in elementary school stirs up public opinion in France from time to time. That is to say, the purposes and objectives of this pair of subjects carries some considerable weight in our society. Quite logically, these two subjects, associated with civic education and the economic, social, and political initiation of pupils, are mandatory in the curriculum for the preparatory course for the senior classes and also for the examination for the municipal secondary school diploma and for the Baccalaureat. In this respect, France is one of the countries which maintains these universal courses most consistently throughout pre-university education.     

The Role of Cities in the History of Schooling: A French Paradox (Nineteenth-Twentieth Centuries)

The centralisation of French educational institutions is more in keeping with a political and social model than with reality. The construction of a complete school system under state supervision started early but has been a process of more than a century and a half long, which until 1880 mostly concerned the education of the elite (higher education and the lycées), and which left an important role to cities. Part of the educational action of the state has long been based on the idea that training courses should be adapted to the needs of cities and regions. Towns were entrusted with a great part of the state educational policies while influencing the private sector at the same time. But although their school policies had abiding features and their financial commitments increased considerably during the nineteenth century, cities have never been independent of the state. Moreover, a great many other local groups and individuals took part in school development. Urbanisation in France has been gradual, which accounts for the lack of interest in urban educational studies on the part of French historians. The shift of the past few years has given us a whole new insight into our knowledge of the history of schooling and has brought to light its institutional, material and financial factors - overlooked until now. One of these factors is the permanent threat of pupil shortage which weighed heavily on most nineteenth century public and private post-elementary schools. Until public education became free - in 1881 in primary schools and in the 1930s in secondary schools - all schools were basically self-supporting. Recruiting a sufficient number of pupils was both a crucial necessity and one of the driving forces behind the creation and the renewal of educational provision, especially when several schools were in competition. Free education did not bring about any profound changes: the growth of school attendance reduced the unitary cost of studies and remained a major criterion by which the value of school management was judged.     

School competition and pupil flight in the urban periphery

In France, the existence of competition among schools and pupil flight from local public schools is not easily acknowledged because it calls into question established ideals concerning equality of opportunity and social integration through schooling. However, research on schools on the urban periphery shows that these phenomena are now quite common and reveal important changes in the functioning of schools and in perspectives and actual choices of parents. Faced with pupil flight to more prestigious public or private schools, local collèges create ‘good classes’, reinforce security and discipline and try to strengthen links with feeder schools to improve their image among parents. Parents, however, who are in search of guarantees of the existance of a good leaning environnement, have major doubts about the relevant criteria to judge school quality. Moreover, they differ strongly not only in the will to choose but in the ability to do so. The end result of these transformations in attitudes and behaviors is an increase in school segregation that can only be limited if important measures are taken to homogenize public school provision.     

Teaching national and regional cultures: the role of teacher identities in Martinique

Schooling is widely considered to be vital to the development of modern nation-states, yet little is known about how teachers might go about transmitting national culture within schools. Using the case of history–geography lycée teachers in the French overseas department of Martinique, this article makes the argument that teachers’ professional identities must be taken into account when considering the ways in which teachers implement curricula and understand their role in passing on national and other collective identities to students. Through local-level research in schools – comprised of interviews with teachers, school administrators, local officials and others, classroom observations and archival research – it becomes evident that teachers on the island, as elsewhere in France, enjoy considerable autonomy in implementing curricula. By training students to think critically, teachers encourage students to consider new meanings of ‘French’ and ‘Martinican’ identities on an everyday basis.     

特殊教育支持保障体系研究的热点分布及趋势

以CNKI所收录的特殊教育支持保障体系的相关文献为研究对象,利用Bicomb和SPSS软件对从1981年以来与特殊教育支持保障体系相关的1181篇文献进行可视化计量分析,以探测该领域研究热点分布及发展趋势。结果表明,我国特殊教育支持保障体系的研究热点主要集中在残疾儿童、随班就读、特教学校、融合教育、教育改革、支持保障体系、社会支持等方面。而且该研究领域有四大趋势,即特殊儿童教育结果的公平成为教育公平的关键;随班就读支持保障体系的构建成为重点领域;特殊教育体系的构建由单一向多维转变;“医教结合”初露端倪。     

高等教育大众化与缩小社会阶层高等教育差异的研究

通过调查发现,出身于较高阶层的子女拥有较多的入学机会;公办高职院校中各阶层子女入学机会盖异最小;拥有较多家庭文化资源的子女获得更多的入学机会;改革开放近30年来,我国各阶层子女高等教育入学机会差异,伴随着高等教育从精英阶段向大众阶段发展,呈现出先扩大后缩小的基本特征。