On May 4, 2006, French and German cultural ministers announced the publication of "Histoire/Geschichte", the world's first secondary school history textbook produced jointly by two countries. Authored by a team of French and German historians and published simultaneously in both languages, the book's release drew considerable public attention.…

In this paper, the author first cites passages that highlight the key developments and dilemmas of teacher education in Ghana in the 1960s, when the new nation resolved to prepare its largely untrained teaching force in "progressive" methods. Across the decade--and across subject areas--Ghana conducted in-service teacher training to promote group…

This article focuses on historical admissions policies and offers a more nuanced and more substantial treatment of the relationship between Populism and higher education. Prior accounts of admissions in the late nineteenth century have sensibly focused upon the tension between secondary school leaders who were mindful of their multiple…

This article concentrates on two pieces of legislation promulgated in the early 1960s in order to investigate the broader ideas and concerns surrounding political education in the postwar Federal Republic of Germany. These pieces of educational policy highlight the consensus for continued reform while recognizing the value of curricular and…

Although historians of Russian psychology occasionally mention the bitter squabbles over high school psychology that occurred at major conferences in the 1900s-1910s, they usually present these debates schematically and merely as a side issue, failing to engage with all the difficulties surrounding the introduction of psychology into secondary…

In February 1899, the Committee of Physical Culture of the Chicago Public School Board approved an intensive "anthropometric" study of all children enrolled in the city's public schools. The study was a detailed attempt to measure the height, weight, strength, lung capacity, hearing, and general fitness of Chicago's student population. Through…

During the twenty to twenty-five years after World War II, children in the United States were increasingly taught to understand their nation, its history, and its economic greatness--as an "economy"--rather than in social, moral, philosophical, or political terms. During this time period, not only did an economics education movement emerge, but…

A host of scholars have illuminated the ways in which schools and other institutions have created and then sustained a vast gender gap in the scientific professions. Many of these studies have focused on overt discrimination: deliberate efforts by men to prevent the entry of women into scientific pursuits. Others have identified subtle and…

In the early twentieth century, many American educators pinned their hopes for a revitalized nation on the character education of "youth," especially adolescent boys. Although the emphasis on student morality was far from novel--nineteenth-century common and secondary schools operated as bastions of Protestant republican virtue--new perceptions of…

In this paper, the author highlights the Berlin Student Parliament and assesses educational innovations of the postwar era. The Berlin Student Parliament is but one example of the postwar pedagogical and curricular initiatives that sought to prepare West German pupils for their responsibilities in the new democracy. The organization believe that…

The title of this essay, comes from the Sherlock Holmes mystery entitled "Silver Blaze," which refers the "curious incident" as to the absence of an expected reaction. In this article, the author discusses an essay that will examine such an absent reaction, or at least a muted one: the limited impact of early intelligence testing on European…

In the Netherlands, the first girl admitted to a qualifying secondary education and the first female university student were sisters, Frederika and Aletta Jacobs, after the father and Aletta had made successful requests. In each case, the admission brought an end to a long-standing male privilege. And in each case contemporaries conceived of these…