There are multiple vantage points from which historians have observed the ways in which both diseased and healthy bodies (as well as their constituent parts) have served as tools of knowledge generation, instruction and coercion in the hands of medical practitioners. From spaces of formal, specialist education such as the medical school to more…

Reviewing the historiography of education provides insights into both the past and present of this growing area of research across the UK and Ireland. In the nineteenth century research reveals a close association with national identities. These were often Whig histories that celebrated the present and emphasised the progressive nature of…

A geophysical perception of the ecumene had always existed in the consciousness of Indians even in precolonial days. But with the advent of the British, and with the establishment of territorial mapping and institutionalised education, there was a growing awareness of differences and similarities related to ethnicity, race and space. Colonial…

This article traces the emergence of the term 'turbulence' to describe the educational disruption experienced by military children after 1945. It asks why the term came to dominate professional discussion of military education so much from the late 1960s onwards and the wider tensions it exposed in post-war Britain: between welfare and warfare;…

Agricultural improvement was a vital aspect of the 'development scheme' of the British Government in India as agriculture was the most revenue-generating industry in Bihar. From the first Famine Commission Report of 1880, there was a set agenda to improve agriculture through education. This was to be achieved through importing western science and…

Indian students in Britain before the Second World War were a sizeable social group who exerted noticeable influence on Indian nationalism and on British institutions and society. The politics of race and empire were mediated through British schools and universities in this period with consequences for Indian students, and their peers. This…

During the activity of the Interim Treasury Committee for Polish Questions from 7 July 1945 to 31 March 1947, several thousand Polish citizens were given the opportunity to study abroad. Despite their difficult financial situation, they strove to continue studying, where this had been disrupted before the war, or started studying anew. Such an…

Historians of education are well placed to engage in applied historical approaches providing authoritative evidence of the past to inform policy and practice. This article is based on the presidential keynote delivered at the History of Education Society (UK) annual conference in 2019. As such it reflects on possible future directions for the…

This article concerns the educational philosophy of S. Margery Fry (1874-1958) and its impact upon the design, organisation and functions of university residences for women in the twentieth century. According to Carol Dyhouse, Fry, the only woman on the University Grants Committee from 1919 to 1947, 'exerted considerable influence over the shape…

After the First World War, the second generation of headmistresses were working in a Britain in which the secondary education of girls was generally accepted. In 1920, Phyllis Monk, a former Blackheath student and Roedean teacher, was appointed to take charge of Chorleywood College, a new secondary school for girls with a vision impairment. She…

This article addresses the life and educational thinking of Victor Lytton, second Earl of Lytton, who not only involved himself in a wide number of social causes but was instrumental in contributing to the development of progressive education in the early decades of the twentieth century. This he did through his work with the New Ideals in…

The historiography of child guidance has focused primarily on the United States, where it first developed before travelling across the English-speaking world. The rapid expansion of child guidance in the interwar years was enabled by private philanthropy, which provided fellowships to foreign professionals to study in the United States. This…

During 1931-1933 several BBC radio broadcasts invited listeners to participate in what would now be termed 'citizen science' experiments. Scientists broadcast on a research topic, and asked for relevant data and observations from listeners. Most of these broadcasts were part of the "Science in the Making" series. Topics investigated…

Correspondence education, or learning by post, lasted over 100 years in the UK; it had its roots in the nineteenth century, peaking in the mid-1960s. It was also widespread, numbering hundreds of thousands of enrolments, significantly increasing access to higher education. Yet it has been marginalised in accounts of British higher education. This…

One strand of historical research in education that sails on the waves of the visual turn in history concerns the progressive image of education. A major reference point is an article written in 2007 by Burke and Grosvenor, who, on the basis of the photographic archives of two progressive schools in England, constructed a visual typology of…