Higher education and UK elite formation in the twentieth century

This study examines the proposition that mass higher education is, in practice, less a network of more or less homogeneous activities than a series of concentric circles in which elite institutions remain at the centre, but are surrounded by increasingly wide bands of universities and colleges, that are less and less likely to set graduates on the road to elite status the further they are from the centre. After a brief review of the classical and subsequent literature on elites and elite formation, the empirical study uses data from the very long established annual publication Who’s Who to make a quantitative analysis of the higher education background of all 120,000 Who’s Who entries born in the twentieth century. It finds that Oxford and Cambridge remained the dominant route to elite status throughout the century, though their share fell from about a third to about a quarter of the total. There were big rises in the contribution of other leading universities that have come to be known as the ‘Russell Group’. An analysis by main occupational categories shows that the political elite broadened its educational catchment area more than other groups. The so-called ‘public’ (i.e. independent) secondary schools also continued to make contributions much larger than their numbers warrant. The main conclusions are that Bourdieu’s notion of ‘symbolic capital’ offers a useful contribution to the interpretation of the continued dominance of well-known high status universities, and that while there was considerable change throughout the century, in general it followed the British tradition of being evolutionary and slow. In policy terms it concluded that the present government is justified in seeking both to widen participation generally and simultaneously to increase the number of people from modest economic and social backgrounds who attend the high prestige universities.     

Outdoor physical education in French schools during the twentieth century

During the twentieth century, outdoor physical education (OPE) gradually integrated with the French education system. Culturally speaking, OPE had to overcome several hurdles because it promoted values such as freedom, initiative and responsibility that were deemed incompatible with the existing educational model. Beyond being a pedagogical tool, the health and welfare implications justified the existence of OPE within the school system, thus changing the meaning of those values. The question of human relations with nature truly facilitated the incorporation of OPE into French educational programmes even if the scope of its development is rather limited today. Some might regret the predominance of a kind of physical activity that conveyed values and was proven to be especially productive in terms of issues related to education, security and respect for the environment. Nevertheless, OPE physical activities found their rightful place within the school system because of the sports facet of the activities.     

Edinburgh University,schools and the civil service in the early twentieth century

This article is a case study of the relation between urban schooling and university education, using two main sources. Data on the schools attended by history students at Edinburgh University between 1899 and 1933 illustrate the diversity and social ranking of schools in the city. New higher grade schools had a key role in increasing access to university education for both men and women, especially for prospective teachers; the significance of the Education (Scotland) Act of 1918 for Catholic schools, and the continuing importance of small private schools for girls, are also shown. The second source analyses the school origins of successful Edinburgh candidates in civil service examinations between 1896 and 1944, supplemented for other parts of Scotland by the report of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service of 1912. This elite career drew mainly from older schools, and contemporary claims for equality of opportunity in Scotland need to be treated with reserve.     

Women's schooling and religious affiliation in Malawi at the end of the twentieth century

This paper examines the association between religious affiliation and women's schooling in Malawi. Using data from the nationally representative 2000 Demographic and Health Survey, results show that there are substantial differences in the acquisition of schooling by religious affiliation. More nonreligious and Muslim women reported that they had never been to school compared with women from Church of Central African Presbyterian and Catholic denominations. Further, our findings suggest that a woman's schooling is strongly influenced by her urban childhood residence and an increase in age at first marriage. These findings are related to the association of Christian groups with Western societies and religions that emphasize evangelization and recourse to schooling. Recommendations for further direction in research are discussed.     

Competitive opportunity and liberal culture: the significance of Scottish education in the twentieth century

Three of the great social ambitions of educational reform since the late nineteenth century are now seriously problematical. Although education does offer individuals a way of bettering themselves, we now know that it does little to change the terms of the competition among people who start from different social classes: it probably does not, by itself, affect relative social mobility. Education in advanced economies has little effect on overall rates of growth: it is now clear that the analogy between individual and economic development is untenable. And the main other option to these instrumental goals—that education should pass on the best that has been thought and said—is now deeply unfashionable with policy‐makers, radical activists and most shades of academic opinion. Scotland is a telling case of these shifts. In the past century, it has held quite firmly to all three older views, and has tried quite thoroughly to implement educational reforms in pursuit of them. Its experience is as good a demonstration as any that the first two ambitions—of social mobility and of economic development—cannot be realised by educational change alone. The country is also moving deliberately away from the third ambition, its old humanism of knowledge. The implications of this experience and these developments are discussed.     

The educational system and national identities: the case of Spain in the twentieth century

The aim of this article is to study the construction of the Spanish education system and its relationship with nationalist education policies. Throughout the 20^th century, there has been a great deal of tension between Spanish nationalism and Basque and Catalan nationalism, in particular, over the establishment of a national curriculum that is the expression of different conceptions of national identity. In this period, the Spanish education system evolved from centralisation to decentralisation, and as a result brought about the creation of the Spanish national curriculum. The educational contributions made in Catalonia and the Basque Country were included in this process, which partially satisfied the aspirations of these communities.     

Educating Immigrants in the Netherlands: Migration flows and educational policy in the twentieth century

The first part of this article describes some general tendencies in migrant and school populations in Western Europe. Then it focusses upon some specific migration flows in the Netherlands in the twentieth century. A distinction is made between three migration parameters: colonies, labour force, and asylum. The second part of this article discusses the policy initiatives taken to educate the different migrant groups and their offspring. A distinction can be made between the first 70 years of the twentieth century and the remaining decades. In the first part of the century the education of immigrants was in the hands of private initiatives set up by churches, welfare institutions, migrant organisations, and employers. Later the Dutch government became a major player.

     

20世纪中叶美国对泰国的政治介入

20世纪中叶,出于冷战格局的需要以及对泰国军人独裁统治的不安,美国积极介入泰国政治生活,极力帮助泰国军人集团组建政党筹备大选,对其进行军事保护和经济援助.与此同时,泰国奉行一边倒的亲美政策,成为美国在东南亚地区的桥头堡和马前卒.至此,泰国军人集团的执政地位得以合法化,美国在该地区的影响力进一步扩大,亚洲紧张局势持续升级.     

A narrative review of Greek myths as interpretative metaphors in educational research and evaluation

This paper reviews a series of Greek myths put forward as cultural narratives that could be used as metaphors or interpretative similes for explanatory and evaluative purposes in educational research and evaluation. These myths have been used in educational research literature, and most of them were found by carrying out an exhaustive search of that literature. In particular, the paper discusses Procrustes, referring to the use of arbitrary evaluative standards; the myth of Mentor, the embodiment of the researcher as facilitator/improver for new, inexperienced researchers; Prometheus, or the archetype of the self-sacrificing researcher; Periphetes, representing the evaluator who is cruel through incompetence; Sisyphus, symbolising the researcher’s anxiousness to achieve his goals; and Ulysses, an archetype for qualitative research.These myths are still absolutely relevant today, after more than 20 centuries, and can be used as powerful explicative frameworks of phenomena in the field of educational research and evaluation. By using myths to interpret educational phenomena, one reconnects contemporary qualitative educational enquiry with its ancient predecessor forms of meaning making.     

Educational sciences,morality and politics: international educational congresses in the early twentieth century

Internationalism became one of the keywords in the international intellectual and political debates at the end of the nineteenth century. As a political, cultural and social movement it also included science and education. The desire for international cooperation and global understanding was caused by the growing economic interdependence in the world and the threat to peace by nationalistic politics of the imperialistic powers. Within the context of discipline formation and fragmentation, cultural critique, social reform and pacifist movements, academic educationists, teachers and educational and social reformers in various countries tried to establish an international network to promote scientific cooperation, peace, mutual understanding and professional collaboration. In this article, the author will try to place the phenomenon of internationalism within the context of the formation of educational sciences in the early twentieth century. Drawing from the example of other scientific disciplines at this time, such as geography, meteorology and physics, one can assume that the internationalizing of education also increased its professional and scientific standards. The “disciplinarization process”1 Whereas this term is used by Hofstetter and Schneuwly, Van Gorp, Depaepe, and Simon prefer the notion “discipline‐formation process”. See Rita Hofstetter, “The Construction of a New Science by Means of an Institute and Its Communication Media. The Institute of Educational Sciences in Geneva (1912–1948)”, and Angelo Van Gorp, Marc Depaepe & Frank Simon, “Backing the Actor as Agent in Discipline Formation: An Example of the ‘Secondary Disciplinarisation’ of the Educational Sciences, Based on the Networks of Ovide Decroly (1901–1931)”, both in this issue. of educational sciences was closely intertwined with the genesis of an international scientific network through special institutions. In order to investigate this assumption, the genesis, structure, contents and effects of international cooperation in the field of education in the first decades of the twentieth century will be considered. This international cooperation took on different shapes. It included, among others, the international exchange of teachers and students, international educational exhibitions, international congresses, transnational institutions, multilateral standardization and international journals. The focus will be on the main agents of institutionalized internationalization, namely international congresses and associations, and individual forms of international communication and cooperation will therefore not be dealt with. The article begins with a short overview of the different kinds of international educational congresses. Two types of internationalization within this institutional setting will then be introduced: the research‐oriented, “scientifically” based model of academic educationists (“new educational sciences”) and the instruction and reform‐oriented, “politically and morally” based model of a social movement (New Education). Finally the geographical extension of internationalization will be analyzed briefly before the main argument is set out in the concluding remarks, namely that the internationalization of education through international institutions found its driving force in moral and political assumptions of the teaching profession and its goals of school reform within the New Education rather than in an international scientific paradigm of the academic “new educational sciences”.     

A gathering of great minds: Designing twenty‐first century education with twentieth century ideas

Imagine that influential thinkers of the past could join with those of the present to design today's college student experiences. Author Kari Taylor envisions the outcomes of such a process.     

Ecumenism,economic necessity and the disappearance of Methodist elementary schools in England in the twentieth century

This study aims to define the extent of, and causes for, the decline of the Wesleyan educational effort in England in the twentieth century. In 1902 the Church had 738 schools, but these rapidly declined throughout the century, with only 28 remaining in 1996. The establishment of these schools during the nineteenth century had been largely for the protection of Wesleyan children, with a denominational mistrust of the proselytism in both Anglicanism and Roman Catholic institutions. This study aims to show how far this mistrust continued into the twentieth century and estimates the influence of growing ecumenism on the Church’s decision to allow its own elementary schools to disappear. Nevertheless, this is an important subject, reflecting the declining influence of all churches on wider society in the twentieth century, as well as the increasing need to form church alliances to counter growing secularism in a post‐Christian era.     

Catholic women educators’ discourse and educational measurement in the early twentieth century in the United States

ABSTRACT

In the early twentieth century in the United States, Roman Catholic schools grew in number and became increasingly regulated by state departments of education. This led to the increased influence of public school reform movements in Catholic schools. Some Catholic educators questioned these movements, while others embraced them. Educational measurement strategies, such as IQ and standardised testing, gained support from women religious orders and congregations, who made up the majority of the Catholic teaching force. For pragmatic reasons, they saw some value in the promises of modern educational science for teaching and learning. This practice, however, put them at odds with some of the beliefs and values of their Church. This study demonstrates how Catholic sister teachers attempted to shape the debate on the introduction and use of reform strategies like IQ and standardised testing. It also examines how Catholic sister teachers made use of Catholic beliefs and values to make arguments in favour of IQ and standardised testing in Catholic schools. Using agreed upon Catholic religious tenets and working within their gendered reality, Catholic sister teachers demonstrated how they tried to convince their colleagues, male and female, to come to an understanding around the use of educational measurement.     

中国神话与希腊神话之异同

中国神话与希腊神话都产生于人类的初始阶段,反映了早期人类生活和认识的过程,所以具有相同点:但又因两国的地理环境和历史演进不同,中国神话与希腊神话又有许多不同之处.     

中国神话与希腊神话之异同

中国神话与希腊神话都产生于人类的初始阶段,反映了早期人类生活和认识的过程,所以具有相同点:但又因两国的地理环境和历史演进不同,中国神话与希腊神话又有许多不同之处。     

The educational work of the De la Salle Brothers and popular education in Gipuzkoa in the twentieth century

^{1 1}This article is the result of a research project financed by the Spanish Ministry for Science and Education, project number EDU-2010-15218. The authors are members of the Research Group for Historical and Comparative Studies in Education – Garaian of the University of the Basque Country, recognised by the Basque Government, registry number IT 298/10. Many religious orders and congregations that were deported from France between 1904 and 1914 established themselves in neighbouring countries (Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and Spain). One of the affected congregations was Los Hermanos de las Escuelas Cristianas, ^{2 2}The Brothers of Christian Schools which worked in the field of popular education. Many of its members found refuge in the Spanish province of Gipuzkoa, which neighbours France on the Atlantic coast, where it succeeded in establishing and maintaining itself for centuries. Today it is the second most important congregation in terms of the number of schools and teachers in the private school sector. An analysis of this congregation in Gipuzkoa during a 100-year period reveals a considerable increase in schools located in cities and villages with a large industrial sector; with institutions being dispersed throughout the entire province, and a dedication to popular education through vocational training. This training has been one of the most important characteristics of Lasallian pedagogy, and it paralleled the modernisation processes of Gipuzkoan society in the twentieth century.