Studies in the history of physical education show that it was often promoted for socio-political reasons: to stimulate nation-building or increase economic productivity and/or military strength. By contrast, a different kind of motivation has received little attention in historical studies: the importance of physical education for the perfection…

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…

This article examines the reasons behind the decline of schoolgirl cricket in the years between 1945 and 1960. It considers the impact of the Education Act 1944 and "secondary education for all" on girls' physical education in general, focusing on why certain sports, in particular cricket, were not widely introduced into the new secondary modern…

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…

This paper examines the role of place in the reform efforts of two teachers who established Miss White's Home School in Concord, Massachusetts (USA). Flora and Mary White rebelled against the prevailing industrial model of instruction in tax-supported schools where they taught. As a solution, they moved to Concord--a nonconformist town with a…

Starting from a "life geography" of Karl Triebold, a leading figure in open-air education, this article provides an understanding of the seemingly ordinary but still idiosyncratic development of a German open-air school. Triebold's life's work, the fight against tuberculosis, conceived as character education through healthy occupation, was…

This paper discusses the manner in which the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland attempted to impose denominational control on the system of vocational education introduced by the state in 1930. Considerable research on education has been conducted within the period in question; however, the area addressed in this paper has been largely neglected by…

During the contentious late 1930s and early 1940s, American education and American labour struggled with both internal and external concerns over Communist infiltration. These struggles converged on the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), a union of 30,000 K-12 and college teachers. Through its focus on leftist politics and organised college…

Growing collections of social and educational history chronicle the many instances of educational agency that lie outside institutional narratives. Renewing and developing historical understanding, these histories raise important methodological questions surrounding historical representation. Addressing such questions, this paper develops the…

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…

This article explores the way in which different concepts of education are expressed through architecture. It analyses the case of the transformation of the campus of the "Colina de los Chopos" in Madrid after the Spanish Civil War. The victor's vision for education was captured physically in a new space that expressed the opposite values to those…

This conjectural essay was originally written for a symposium "Historiography of the future: Looking back to the future" held at the International Standing Conference for History of Education (ISCHE) 33, July 2011, San Luis Potosi, Mexico organised by Kate Rousmaniere and Frank Simon. Participants were asked to envision future challenges for the…

This article examines the ways in which Gipsy Hill Training College's (GHTC) graduates represented their lives and work in the college magazine, the "Gipsy Trail". The so-called "Wraggle Taggle News" featured snippets from married and single women teachers at every stage of their lives and work in Britain and overseas by the late 1930s. It will be…

This exploratory paper was prepared for a symposium held at the 2011 ISCHE conference in which participants were asked to envision future challenges in the historiography of education, to predict where the field was moving, and to imagine what innovations and new interests would arise in the subsequent 30 years. While the paper is playfully…

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.…