Irish Catholic teaching sisters were major actors in the development of education systems in New World countries such as the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Immigrants themselves, they faced a number of key challenges as they sought to adapt Old World cultural and educational ideas to the education of the immigrant…

This paper explores the historical formation of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) in the United States and argues that programme emergence depended on the ability of policy entrepreneurs to link the economic concerns of agricultural production with the ideational concern of national security. Using a historical institutionalist framework…

This paper is an examination of the history of Scottish religious education (RE). Focusing on 1962-1992, it distinguishes the temporal processes that unfolded during this period to identify the circumstances that led to a serious case of neglect of the subject, especially in the non-denominational sector. Next, it highlights the less emphasised…

Religious organisations have long relied on education to transmit cherished values, working within society to preserve their worldview. Therefore, when a religious education system is restructured, it can act as a barometer of change, revealing societal values and reflecting negotiated roles. Like other faiths, the Church of Jesus Christ of…

Pedagogically aimed craft education was established around the same time as the school-based system of formative education, under the term Sloyd. This refers to a pedagogical system of manual training that promotes general child development, through the acquisition of the technical skills employed in woodwork, metalwork, sewing, knitting and the…

Spain suffered a severe political and moral crisis in the final years of the nineteenth century and the first third of the twentieth. Pedagogues and politicians belonging to the "Institución Libre de Enseñanza" (ILE), or those close to it, did not consider it possible to regenerate the country without attending to education and Britain…

The Popular Front line made the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) a more hospitable place for "brain workers." The emphasis the line placed on mass ideological and cultural struggle against fascism meant that they became important allies to be won for the working class. As the principal transmitters of ideology and culture to the…

A decade of transformation that emerged following a period of inertia and insularity in Irish education, the 1960s is widely regarded by scholars as representing a paradigm shift in education policy. Marked by a more interventionist, strategic policy approach, this period resulted in significant democratisation of education, particularly at…

A body of scholarship on the history of the lives of Catholic teaching sisters has thrown up various challenges to educational historians. One challenge can be posed by asking how teaching sisters were able to go on to take up leadership positions. This is prompted by the observation that a particular body of literature for the period 1940-1965…

Educational publishing sits at the intersection of industry, culture and education. Pedagogical aims must be balanced with the need for publishers to make a profit, while also acknowledging Canadian national identity and culture. The events of central interest are related to the tensions between two publishers' associations in the wake of the…

The decades following the Second World War saw strong technological development and economic growth. They also saw "the advent of technology education", a period of extensive curriculum development in this field. But what was done and why? In order to obtain a better understanding of the historical roots of technology education, in this…

Treading in the footsteps of past generations, Ontario policy advisers journeyed throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1966 to directly understand the educational reforms that were being undertaken in that country. On their return, these consultants brought back a number of innovations for discussion with their parent committee in the…

This article discusses rural schoolteachers' relationships with local village communities in mid-twentieth-century Finland. At the time, Finnish rural teachers were typically very public figures in their local community. To deal with the pressures of their position, teachers resorted to coping strategies which the authors name "local" and…

This paper assesses the origins, conclusions and consequences of the Fleming Committee, which considered the relationship between Britain's leading independent boarding schools and the state. In 1944, the committee recommended one-quarter of the places at these schools should be assigned to a national bursary scheme for children who might benefit…

After the Second World War, the British, American and French believed education could be used to promote democracy in Germany. The Western powers faced particular difficulties with the field of physical education because of the strong Nazi influence in this area during the Third Reich. The premier pre-war physical education teacher training…