Creating Citizens

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the content of citizenship education in Swedish schools during the twentieth century. Its origin and content is analysed in relation to predominant ideas in society at different times and is seen as the outcome of a struggle between social forces representing different power groups. The shift of meaning of democracy and equality is related to changes in political and economic conditions. Recent trends and changes in the Swedish educational system are discussed in relation to changing power groups in society and considerations made for the implications of citizenships, democracy and equality.     

The Sun Sets on Old England: Contradictions in Conservative Educational Policy

ABSTRACT

The article describes the increasing discrepancy between the curriculum policies of the Conservative government and the policy directions argued for by business organisations and other advocates of a human capital perspective in education. It traces some of the origins of the current Conservative preference for cultural rather than economic goals in this area of policy, and suggests a new understanding of the relationship between neoconservative and neoliberal thinking on the educational right. It argues that a return to ideas and practices developed in the late twentieth century offers a basis for curriculum policy more productive than either human capital theory or Conservative traditionalism.     

Re-educating the Body

Abstract

This article means to investigate the philosophical concept of human embodiment in relation to physical education. As human beings not only do we have a body that we can control, but we ‘are’ our body and live embodied in the world, as the German thinker, Helmuth Plessner, puts it in one of his many contributions to the philosophical anthropology of the twentieth century. Elaborating on this concept of human embodiment, the article explores a form of physical re-education that takes as its starting point this aspect of being in the body which has been and is still being underestimated even in the physical educational system. Re-educating the body in this aspect includes becoming more aware of the states, postures and expressions of the body so as to be able to remain connected to the body and to get to know oneself better as being in the body.     

Hollis Leland caswell: An Appreciation

(Circa 2020 A.D.) The late 20th century was a time of great upheaval: political, economic, religious, cultural, geographic, and educational With hindsight, it appears such social convulsions were necessary and inevitable — a perspective those who lived through that era are less likely to share. Reflecting on the educational changes during the past thirty years are Peter Wisseman, executive director of the International Commission of Accreditation for Teacher Education, and Yolanda Herrick‐Dillard, Dean of the College of Education at the University By‐the‐Sea (formerly Auburn University)     

Knowing one's place: space,theory, education

In the latter parts of the twentieth century social theory took a spatial turn, one that education has yet to undertake, at least in any concerted way. Nonetheless, this paper aims to demonstrate that there could be, and perhaps is, a more decided turn towards unraveling spatial questions underpinning educational processes and practices. In this paper, we briefly set out the key ‘trajectories’ of space in social theory. We also examine what happens when spatial theories ‘escape’ traditional disciplinary confines and ask, in a rudimentary way: to what extent education is education any longer when spatial dimensions are added to its fields of concern? This paper concludes by ‘mapping’ various spatial foci in critical educational studies.     

Policy,practice, and reconversion in Spanish educational reform: teaching and teacher education in physical education

Abstract

Since the late 1980s, reform of the Spanish education system has been justified by reformists as a response to the social and economic changes that have occurred in Spanish society since the democratic transition in the 1970s. Consolidation of democracy, development of technology and economic convergence with the advanced nations of Europe have been seen as the major challenges for educational reform. Restructuring and legitimation processes derived from the requirements of the new reform have been conceptualized as a policy of reconversion, the main purpose of which is to maintain, or achieve, a strong competitive position in the international market. In this paper, conceptualizing educational reform as a reconversion process will allow us to link aspects of the new curriculum (content, pedagogy and assessment), school organization, teaching and teacher education in physical education with wider economic, social and cultural influences and explore the tensions and conflicts between policy and practice in PE in schools. The paper will argue that there is a widening gap between the interests of progressive educationalists and the direction of market‐driven education reform.     

The “Medico-Pedagogical Institutes” and the failure of the collaboration between psychiatry and pedagogy (1889–1978)

ABSTRACT

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a number of Italian psychiatrists were convinced that medicine and education should work together to treat children with mental disabilities, then commonly defined as “feeble-minded”. To this end they promoted the establishment of “Medico-Pedagogical Institutes”, institutes, that is, with medical and psychological staff, reserved for disabled minors considered “amendable” or “educable”. These institutions were to serve, on the one hand, to remove children from Mental Hospitals, and on the other, to enable them to be educated and to improve their psycho-physical attitudes. Nevertheless, over their long history, which lasted about a hundred years, the educational component decreased significantly and many Medico-Pedagogical Institutes ended up by resembling adult Mental Hospitals. At the end of the 1970s, several scandals erupted, revealing the inhuman conditions in which children were treated, and all the Institutes were closed. It is impossible to understand the overall sense of the value and the functions exercised by the Medico-Pedagogical Institutes over the century of their existence, unless we take a long-term perspective, which can help to create a detached and balanced history, revealing of our relationship with diversity and biopower.     

Bilingual primary schools,decorative art and psychotechnics: Luxembourgian education at international exhibitions and congresses, 1870s–1930s

Building upon an expanding literature on world exhibitions and international conferences as vehicles for the transnational circulation of educational knowledge during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, this article discusses the participation of Luxembourg at these events. It focuses on three thematic strands: the representation of Luxembourgian education at world exhibitions during the late nineteenth century, when organisers showcased the allegedly advanced state of primary instruction; the activities of the director of the École d’artisans de l’État Antoine Hirsch who took the representation of Luxembourgian education into his hands during the first three decades of the twentieth century; and the Grand-Duchy’s participation in the Seventh Biennial Conference of the World Federation of Education Associations in Tokyo in 1937, when Luxembourgian education was first represented overseas. These episodes reflect the ongoing industrialisation of the country and the growing influence of the steel industry on the educational sector.     

Dickens and adult education

Abstract

This article argues that Rousseau's endorsement of male domination and his illiberal views of rape, punishment and the education of women have been seriously underestimated by twentieth century commentators who tend to produce expositions of his work that evade, ignore or marginalise this ‘darker side’ of his educational philosophy.     

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”.     

An epistemology of one’s own: curricular (re‐)construction of school technology and non‐technology in Sweden, 1975–1995

Obara Kuniyoshi, a leading representative in Japan’s New Education movement in the early twentieth century, founded his own private school, Tamagawa Gakuen, in 1929. Although his educational philosophy owes more to contemporary Western ideas about educational reform than to Japan’s educational heritage, Obara throughout his life invoked the juku, a type of private academy prevalent in Japan until the late nineteenth century, and made ‘juku education’ one of his principles. This case study examines Obara’s ‘juku‐myth’ both in the context of Obara’s educational thought and achievements and in the context of recent discussions about collective memory as a historical reality in its own right.     

Natura et urbis in the socio-educational renovation of Barcelona City Council (1909–1933)

ABSTRACT

During the first third of the twentieth century, Barcelona turned into a metropolis with emerging industry. To confront the growing social problems, Barcelona City Council undertook a renovating educational programme focused on hygienic and natural principles as well as on new active teaching methodologies and progressive education. Thus, a completely parallel network of institutions was created alongside the public schools – school camps, day trips to the beach, open air schools, etc. – that aimed at improving the living situation of children, most specifically via the promotion of direct contact with nature. At that time, Barcelona City Council disseminated information widely regarding all these initiatives with the publication, between 1909 and 1933, of around 70 illustrated brochures. The main aim of this article is, using these publications, to present the discourses that were disseminated and built up around the idea of nature and to understand how this relates to the urban environment.     

The university in the global age: reconceptualising the humanities and social sciences for the twenty-first century.

Abstract

By any metric, the twentieth century university was a successful institution. However, in the twenty-first century, ongoing neoliberal educational reform has been accompanied by a growing epistemological crisis in the meaning and value of the humanities and social sciences (HaSS). Concerns have been expressed in two main forms. The governors of tertiary education systems—governments, private investors, university managers and consultancy firms—have focused on how HaSS can adapt to the perceived research needs of the 21st century. At the same time, a competing set of discourses has been generated by scholars and researchers employed within the critical HaSS themselves. This article considers what these differing perspectives mean for reconceptualising HaSS for the twenty-first century. After surveying the contemporary climate, this article examines the findings of key reports on the future of the humanities from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Alongside those of Western Europe, these university systems are arguably the key drivers for the global university system. It is argued that these reports provide an opportunity for emerging universities to reflect on their research priorities and developmental strategies. The article concludes with some reflections on the wider consequences of the globalising of the university system, the increase of China's influence in Asia, and ponders the prospect of post-human/ist futures of the humanities.     

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.

     

State formation and the rise of elementary education at the periphery of Europe: the cases of Finland and Turkey 1860–1930

This article addresses the role of the state and state formation in the establishment of national education during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Through a comparative case analysis of two countries at the European periphery (Finland and Turkey), this article shows how national educational systems, in both instances, were driven by periods of intense state building. In the nineteenth century, military defeats sparked educational reforms, and in the early nineteenth century school laws were enacted due to the establishment of the republics of Finland and Turkey. Nevertheless, these examples also show the limits of a state formation perspective. Despite changes in educational policy, neither state reached high enrolment levels in the nineteenth century, and only in Finland schooling for all was realised in the 1930s. Thus, this work encourages further comparative analyses of the social, economic and political circumstances in which these states acted.     

EDUCATION WITHOUT THEORY

ABSTRACT:  This paper proceeds through four stages. First, it provides an account of the origins and evolution of the concept of educational theory. Second, it uses this historical narrative to show how what we now call 'educational theory' is deeply rooted in the foundationalist discourse of late nineteenth and early twentieth century modernity. Third, it outlines and defends a postfoundationalist critique of the foundationalist epistemological assumptions on which our understanding of educational theory has been erected. Finally, it argues that the only conclusion to draw from this postfoundationalist critique is that educational theory has run its course and should now be brought to a dignified end.     

Tagore’s “rooted-cosmopolitanism” and international mindedness against institutional sustainability

ABSTRACT

Cosmopolitanism is often seen as a western concept associated with liberal individualistic values. It is also associated mostly with the urban educated middle-class. However, cosmopolitan thinking has been also prevalent in the East. Scholars in the twenty-first century are increasingly arguing that, there are multiple ways of thinking about cosmopolitanism originating from different regions of the world. Among Eastern thinkers, Rabindranath Tagore from colonial British India has been considered by many as one of the most cosmopolitan thinkers. The uniqueness about Tagore’s cosmopolitanism is that, it did not uproot him from his rural Bengali roots and sense of ethnic identity. He was very much a “rooted-cosmopolitan”. In his book, ‘Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a world of strangers’, Kwame Anthony Appaiah had agued that, a “rooted cosmopolitan” is someone who was rooted in his own cultural context while having an open-mind to feel literally at home in the world. This article draws on archival research at Rabindra Bhawan in Shantiniketan and University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Library archives to further this argument and demonstrates how Tagore’s school and university were built drawing on his “rooted cosmopolitan” ideals and international mindedness. In conclusion, this article highlights some of the challenges of sustaining the reformist educational institutions led by Tagore’s unique personality traits, social and pedagogic reform movements in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century colonial British India.     

“To See is to Know”: the Pedagogy of the Colonial Exhibition,Semarang, 1914

In this paper, which focuses on a western discourse of race within the pedagogical context, I want to draw some parallels between the “object” and the image in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century classroom and the exhibit of the contemporary museum and exhibition. I suggest that the classroom, museum and exhibition were fundamentally similar pedagogical sites in which the object and the image illustrated similar pedagogical subtexts and were located in architectural environments which were similarly complicit in delimiting the range of meaning which spectators/readers were being encouraged to extract. I emphasise this parallel by focusing on visual representations of “the Other” in the school text and exhibition in both the meteropolian and colonial context. The paper concludes that a discourse of race and cultural contestation pervaded European educational institutions in the nineteenth and early twentieth century in both the metropole and the colonial periphery.

     

The reform of post‐16 education and training and the lessons from Europe

Abstract

With the future shape of Britain's post‐16 education and training still undecided policy makers are increasingly looking abroad for new models to follow. The educational debate has become internationalized. As in the late 19th century it is the pressure of economic competition from Europe which has galvanized British interest in the relative ‘success’ of training in countries such as France and Germany.

This paper examines the current use and misuse of comparative examples in British debates over reform. It analyses the systems of vocational education and training (VET) in France, Germany, and Sweden and assesses what lessons, if any, we can draw from them for the reform of British VET.