In the context of the international exchange of school reform ideas and concepts, the new schools in Hamburg were recognised as exemplary instances of a revolutionary and forceful reform in the public elementary school systems. Based on studies of transfer and their premise that the transnational transfer of ideas, practices and objects does not…

After the revolution in 1918, many reformist teachers were convinced that they could put into practice their dreams of a free and independent school in a democratic republic. Four state schools in Hamburg became anti-authoritarian school communities, in which teachers, parents and students experimented with revolutionary concepts of education. For…

In this article we will contribute to the contemporary theoretical debate about film by considering, from a history-of-education perspective, the film "Zéro de conduite" by Jean Vigo (1905--1934). This film is classified under the umbrella of "poetic realism": a product of "cinéma de gauche" and an avant-gardist,…

Programmes of international educational exchange are not only carried out for educational purposes, but form an important part of modern-day public diplomacy. Through exchange programmes education and research are linked with foreign policy interests, which then in turn should affect the international contacts of universities and research…

Inaugurated in 2013, this collective research programme aims to construct an international mapping of the history of education that accounts for recent developments in the field. Our goal is to create a current and retrospective assessment of the discipline's institutional grounding and of the knowledge produced by its practitioners,…

In the past few years, worries about decreasing jobs or even the possible disappearance of the history of education as a field of study have frequently surfaced. Hence, the question arises as to whether the history of education, as a field of study, has a future--or is it, as many authors have remarked, in danger? This article starts from the idea…

This paper explores major historiographic "turns" in history of education with a focus, although not exclusively, on English-speaking Canada. It addresses the transformative intellectual impact of the turn toward social history on the history of education, the impact of cultural history and the linguistic turn, the reception of Michel…

Following a short introduction this article is divided into three main sections. The first provides definitions and brief histories of the nature-nurture debate and of neuroscience. The second section shows how in recent decades neuroscientific research has impacted on the debate with particular reference to our understanding of human intelligence…

Ways of talking about social histories tend to follow social realities as well as personal inclinations. The very terms we use reflect and refract particular histories. The authors of our sources foretold many concepts as they carved out the domains and marked the paths later historians were to follow in their attempt to understand the past. It is…

Following its late nineteenth-century emergence as an important element within federalist thinking across the British Empire, the idea of Greater Britain lost much of its political force in the years following the Boer War. The concept however continued to retain considerable residual currency in other fields of Imperial debate, including those…

In a significant 1925 essay, "Western Education in Moslem Lands", Paul Monroe addressed the emerging cultural and political forces faced by American educators in the Middle East. Monroe was widely recognised at the time as editor of the Cyclopedia of Education and director of the International Institute of Teachers College, Columbia University.…

This essay critically examines the commitment of James Bryant Conant to equality of opportunity as a guide for educational practice in his own era and in contemporary society. Noted chemist, president of Harvard University from the 1930s through the early 1950s, and noted analyst of the American high school from the time of publication of his…

The debate on knowledge in New Education is generally dominated by two opposed Anglo-Saxon positions held by Dewey and Thorndike. This paper presents another line of division. Claparede and Vygotsky, two representative European figures of New Education are both scientists constructing a theory of psychological functioning, and heavily engaged in…

In the first decades of the twentieth century, it was the turn of the reformist movements themselves to become institutionalised to make their voices better heard, to test their theories, to promote their pedagogic doctrines: through editorial vehicles, social and scientific events, associative networks and movements. Beyond this diversity there…

This paper focuses on the history of relations between colonialism, schooling and social change in Australia, Papua New Guinea and Ireland, countries that were once part of the British Empire. It indicates that responses to schooling ranged from acceptance and tolerance, to modification and rejection, depending on the country, the issue, and the…