The history of education is, and can be, many things. In this article, I argue that the history of education in the Nordic countries is marked by three phases, based on its institutional setting. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the history of education was written by schoolmen for schoolmen. In the post-war era, the…

Applicants' suitability for the teaching profession has been underlined in admissions to Finnish primary teacher education. Nevertheless, hidden agendas beyond teacher competence frameworks and attribute definitions have also influenced primary teacher admissions, particularly in the last three decades (the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s). This article…

During the Cold War, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was a key player in sub-Saharan Africa. Focusing on its role in the Ethiopian polytechnical education reform effort between 1977 and 1989, this study explores the extent of educational policy transfer as well as the nature and magnitude of influence during the implementation of that…

This paper examines the impacts of co-residence (admitting women to men's colleges and men to women's colleges) at the University of Oxford beginning in the 1970s. Co-residence increased the representation of women undergraduates at Oxford to near parity with men; the representation of women in academic positions rose but not as substantially as…

This review considers the periodical literature on the history of education published in 2016. It discusses general long-term trends in the field, but focuses mainly on the key areas of research in 2016 itself. The review is divided into several sections: ancient, medieval and early modern history; schooling and education policy; the history of…

The paper compares the American and Soviet transformations at Kabul University, Afghanistan, during the 1960s to the 1980s explained in terms of Americanisation and Sovietisation. Using new declassified documents from both American and former Soviet archives, the author reveals that both powers attempted to impose their rival models of university…

This paper discusses the development of economic higher education in Czechoslovakia from 1945 to 1953, ie before the emergence of new economic universities with the same name: University of Economics (Vysoká škola ekonomická) in Prague and Bratislava. Its aim is to determine possible similarities and differences in economic education between the…

Using the case of the Hong Kong Polytechnic (HKP), this paper examines academic drift in colonial settings. The HKP, like polytechnics in the UK, was supposedly a service sector institution. Under the binary system in the UK, schools in the service division were governed by the state educational bureaucracy, while the universities--the autonomous…

Focusing on the Working Men's College (WMC), this study charts the chequered fortunes of a Victorian project: providing workers with a "liberal education." The paper analyses the project's aim (making "better citizens"), its disciplinary content (the humanities and/or the sciences) and its challenges (the increasing prestige of…

This article is a case study of the relation between urban schooling and university education, using two main sources. Data on the schools attended by history students at Edinburgh University between 1899 and 1933 illustrate the diversity and social ranking of schools in the city. New higher grade schools had a key role in increasing access to…

UK-based teacher educators formed the core membership of the History of Education Society when it was founded in 1967, and they were frequent early contributors to the Society's journals. Given these origins, one might imagine that the history of teacher education would have featured more prominently in the pages of the first 40 volumes of the…

The influential policy work in education of the intellectual grouping formed by J. H. Oldham during the Second World War known as "Oldham's Moot" (1938-1947) has been discussed in recent publications. These have noted its general educational and university policy, its intellectual strengths, and the role of Sir Walter Moberly in relation to his…

Most of the basic features of the American higher education sector started to evolve during the latter half of the nineteenth century. In response to the deficient demand in higher education, the suppliers (higher education institutions) adopted various marketing strategies to stay afloat in the market. Such strategies not only contributed a great…

The building of the English new universities during the 1960s symbolized the liberating possibilities of higher education. New institutions for a new age, their campuses were arguably part of a wider "utopianist" movement for community that sought to challenge academic elitism and conservatism. This paper considers the era of university…

Place is material, conceptual and symbolic. Physically, the Library at Townsville College of Advanced Education was central, visible and distinctive. Internally, it provided a dramatically different environment from other college buildings. It functioned as the (metaphorical) "hub" of the external studies programme and, when the college…