Over the past two decades there has been a growing interest in the exploration of "transnational history". This work has focused in general on understanding the "movement, ebb and circulation" of ideas across borders and in particular on the introduction, transmission, reception and appropriation of ideas through the process of…

In this article, the authors examine policies and interventions concerning special children in the United States and Europe from 1900 to 1960. They focus on concerns about, and interventions on, children defined as having "special needs". They explore interventions, both in the form of words and practices, and examine their effects on children and…

This article is an attempt to shed some further light on the people and the processes involved in the identification of mental deficiency in children and young people. In order to do this, it turns away from the themes that have been most prominent in the historiography to date: elite and professional ideas, parliamentary and public debates and…

The experience of immigrants and ethnic minorities in post-war Europe represents a significant silence in the history of education in Europe. Published research in the field on this theme is negligible in quantity, and is largely restricted to brief and narrative descriptions of policy changes that are organised around concepts of assimilation,…

Through an analysis of both education policy and knowledge creation, this article explores the historical dimensions of two key features of the "new information age." In the field of education, it documents the development of a progressive education policy in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Birmingham, UK. This policy extended access…