Greek historiography of interwar education policy unproblematically accepts the assumption that the bone of contention between the "Liberal demoticists" and the "Conservative purists" was the language issue; particularly whether "demotic" or "katharevousa" should be the language of instruction in schooling.…

This article examines an experimental kindergarten programme "Work in the Kindergarten: An Australian Programme based on the Life and Customs of the Australian Black" developed by Martha Simpson in early twentieth-century Australia. Here Simpson adapted international Revisionist Froebelian approaches to cultural epoch theory and nature…

The Chinese language movement was launched by the Chinese educationists to demand the recognition of Chinese as an official language to legitimise the status of Chinese education in the national education system in Malaysia. It began in 1952 as a response to the British attempt to establish national primary schools teaching in English and Malay to…

This paper describes a study dealing with the reconstruction of the lives of two Spanish primary school teachers during the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975), in order to learn to what extent such a field of research can contribute to the history of education. Two family archives provide extraordinary and unique documentation to track down their…

This article considers the emergence and meaning of a particular kind of surveillance in classrooms: the one represented by the gaze of the teacher. Drawing on teaching manuals and other normative material published between the 1820s and the 1960s, it is argued that the optical regime of the classroom underwent a decisive change during the second…

This article explores how infant school reform took hold in London's schools from the 1890s to the 1930s through examination of the work of two Froebelian head teachers, Elizabeth Mary Shaw and Frances Emily Roe. In contrast to teacher-led rote-learning methods and rigid discipline they implemented play-based activities drawing on…

What was the impact of government grants on the emerging national elementary school systems of the nineteenth century? This article deals with this question through a study of the introduction of matching government grants in Sweden during the latter part of the nineteenth century. The analysis shows that, although the government grants increased…

Starting from theoretical issues concerning places for children and from historical studies of childhood and education, the present article deals with the history of the school playground in a Swedish context. The focus is on a school playground debate in the 1970s, in which school playgrounds were the subject of lively discussion and the object…

This article examines the experience of the "school journey", an educational fieldtrip of a fortnight's duration, as practised in London's interwar elementary schools. Established historical debates over perceptions of the countryside in interwar Britain have previously failed to discuss the messages promoted in schools. This article demonstrates…

Researchers have identified a civilising mission in elementary schools in the decades around the turn of the twentieth century, particularly in poor urban areas. School log books from the 14 schools in Birmingham and Leicester, supplemented by other primary and secondary sources, are examined for insights into how headteachers perceived, and acted…

The blackboard, a useful teaching tool in nineteenth-century England, was transformed into a teaching necessity in the decades following 1870, when the Education Acts made school free and mandatory for all children. The resulting huge population of schoolchildren inspired the development of teaching techniques appropriate for large-group learning.…

As in many countries, such as Germany, Turkey, the United States and Japan the history/culture wars of the past two decades have increased public interest in what is taught in schools. This has resulted in rigorous debates in the general community, encouraged and sustained through regular media coverage. Partly as a response to this, History has…

The feminisation of teaching is an important topic in education and gender studies. Discussions have been enriched by comparative and international studies as well as a gendering perspective in which a complicated view of the role of the state has emerged. In colonial Hong Kong, although the government was limited in its support of teacher…

Much of the debates in late nineteenth-century Britain regarding the education of deaf children revolved around communication. For many Victorians, sign language was unacceptable; many proponents of oralism attempted to "normalise" the hearing impaired by replacing deaf methods of communication with spoken language and lipreading. While debates on…

The economic difficulties currently being experienced in the United Kingdom have served to further intensify debates about the role different kinds of education could and should play in both preparing individuals for work and boosting economic growth. However, these contemporary and historical debates have tended to neglect vocational guidance.…