After independence, the new Latin American polities adopted republican systems of government. This crucial decision stressed the importance of vast projects of popular education for the shaping of the virtuous citizenry to come, a clearly different agent from the old colonial society. As a means of creating new citizens and, at the same time,…

This article compares the methods and means employed by the state to enforce the education of (semi-)autonomous indigenous groups in southern Chile and northwestern Mexico (Sonora), border regions in the Latin American periphery, covering the transition from colonial times to the consolidation of independent republics until the middle of the…

Latin American independence from Spain and Portugal in the first decades of the nineteenth century was a process of global relevance. A considerable number of new polities emerged that had to deal with radically new political situations. Particularly in the case of the former Spanish colonies, a general rejection of the colonial past determined…

This article examines the enduring importance of handwriting in the early republic of Colombia. Colonial practice informed writing instruction but Colombians re-established it in national terms from the 1820s onward. Teaching writing became a critical tool of state formation: an ideal republic of virtuous functionaries depended on uniform…

This contribution analyses recent historiographical tendencies in research in the field of education at the time of the political emancipation of the former Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Latin America. The article briefly presents the complex educational scene in Latin America on the eve of the movements for independence. Due to the…

Although the Spanish American independence movements are reflexively assumed to have been inspired by the American and French Revolutions, the patriot leaders actually looked toward Great Britain for much of their inspiration and material support. One of their most cherished social goals was to reform and uplift their education systems and to that…

This paper articulates the concepts of political culture, schooling and slavery in order to comprehend the process of instituting modern schools in Brazil, during the period immediately after Independence in 1822. With a view to this, it takes as its starting point the strategies and proposals of different groups disputing the direction of the…

This article analyses the establishment of the "Instituto Nacional de Chile" between 1810 and 1830 as a crucial element of a political and cultural project advanced from an enlightened and republican elite. Its early inception in 1813 resulted from the necessity of consolidating a republican order, as shown by the different projects…

In 1932, the Irish government, facing an economic downturn, introduced a marriage ban which required that female primary school teachers were required to resign on marriage. This followed a series of restrictive legislative measures adopted by Irish governments throughout the 1920s which sought to limit women's participation in public life and the…

By the time of the July Revolution of 1830, the matter of training elementary school teachers had become important in French politics. But the literature on teacher training does not properly examine the linkage between training institutions and professionalism. The standard narrative of the development of primary education suggests that the July…

This article examines a group of five ink, pen and wash drawings produced by the Anglo-Swiss artist Henry Fuseli in the mid-eighteenth century in Zurich. The drawings were produced for a "Narrenbuch" (Book of Fools) uniting visual images of folly with humorous slogans. The drawings are significant in that they imitate sixteenth-century…

During the years following the Second World War, there were efforts in several European countries to grasp the opportunity to re-imagine "school" created through the need to rebuild on a mass scale. This article examines in detail an episode in the exchange of knowledge between English and Danish architects and educators during a period…

The 1920s was an ambivalent decade in Australia: on the one hand Australians were still reeling from the disastrous effects of the Great War and on the other they were witnessing unprecedented and exciting technological and social changes brought about by modernity. One of the most important modern technologies was the cinema, which Australians…

One of the early forms of intercultural education was the upbringing of children by foreign governesses, who appeared on the European labour market during the seventeenth century. In Germany families of the gentry and the wealthy middle-classes began, since the eighteenth century, to copy the upbringing of princely children. They too wanted their…

This paper illustrates the factors and features of the revival of paid care and domestic work in Italy. While Italy is experiencing a boom in the recourse to carers for the elderly, there is not a corresponding expansion in paid private childcare, in spite of growing female employment and limited public services for children. One of the reasons…