Between the 1940s and 1960s across Western Europe a spirit of reform along comprehensive lines manifested itself in secondary education, aiming at a reduction of the existing social inequality of educational chances. These reforms are said to be rooted in new policies and in new approaches in educational studies. This article explores the…

The article presents evidence of a shift in the conception of childhood towards communication, social intercourse and interaction as central forces in shaping children's identities in Spain during the last decades of the eighteenth century. Following a significant shift of meaning regarding the concept of children's "inclinations", the…

This article examines the educational concepts that were pursued for the benefit of underprivileged children in the era of the New Education Movement. Children's rights in Japanese modernity, as represented by the struggle to apply New Education principles to underprivileged children, are contrasted with the conventional view of childhood in the…

Educational concepts, such as enrolment, attendance, passing or failing students, school retardation, and school desertion, which made it possible to describe the course of children through the school system, went through a gradual process, beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century and throughout the first decades of the twentieth. In…

On the basis of their individual preliminary studies, the authors consider in this article the impact of Darwinism on psycho-pedagogical constructs in Belgium in the period before the Second World War. Their findings are put together around three positions, which are, in fact, hypotheses for further research: (1) The "influence" of Darwin on…

This article demonstrates the "discovery of the social life of schoolchildren" by showing how an interest for children's peer relations emerged in a Swedish educational and medial context. Drawing on historical and sociological childhood studies, the article analyses the concept of schoolchildren's social life in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s in…

Recent studies on primers from the time of the Third Reich in Germany show surprisingly little evidence of ideologisation. In comparison with other textbooks, national socialist contents were found to be present to a very limited degree. Rather than presenting the ideology, the books encouraged identification of the children with the presented…

In this article, the author discusses plans that were launched at three consecutive conferences on care for toddlers between 1929 and 1938 in the Netherlands. These plans and their realisation are evaluated in terms of what was seen as the missing link in the supply of institutional care for young children. The author identifies the professional…

The "discovery of childhood" is a tricky notion because childhood is as much a fact of a biological and psychological nature as a cultural notion that through the centuries has been the object of changing perceptions, definitions, and images. Children barely speak in history; virtually everything we know about them is mediated by adults. Then how…

The long-time Prussian/German Crown Princess Victoria (1840-1901), known after her husband's death as the Empress Frederick, played an important role as patroness of and advocate for many forms of academic and vocational education for girls and women. This article examines her work for various institutions in Berlin as well as her homeland. It…

The article explores ways in which intellectual co-operation at the League of Nations [SDN] provided a space for the engagement of culturally elite women in intellectual co-operation circles in Geneva, Paris and a range of national contexts stretching across Europe, Latin America and Asia. It discusses the language of the "international mind" and…

This article analyses photography as a tool for reinforcing textual discourses in the written press and supporting the popularisation of certain methods and practices in the illustrated press and magazines. The photographs will not be analysed as educational documents or testimony to educational activities but rather in an effort to explore the…

The subject of this paper is the construction of childhood as a time of happiness in different historical periods. It first analyses the construction of childhood as a time of happiness in the German romantic period in the eighteenth century. Secondly, the paper discusses the construction of happy mothers and children in "The Century of Childhood"…

The focus of this article is to draw attention to the presence and importance of travelling ideas, knowledge, and practices in Danish history of educational testing. The article introduces and employs a spatial methodological approach in relation to the connections between the international testing community and the emerging Danish practice of…

In the eighteenth century, the German pedagogical discourse took place within the broader framework of an international circulation of pedagogical concepts and ideas. The trans-cultural nature of these intellectual exchanges is particularly evident in the thoughts and writings on female education. Translations of books and essays played a…