Samenvatting openboek examen: History of Education
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Course
History Of Education
Institution
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)
Deze samenvatting omvat beide delen van de beide docenten van History of Education. Deze kan gebruikt worden bij het openboek examen. Het document is, net als de lessen, voornamelijk in het Engels. Er staan af en toe Nederlandse vertalingen of verduidelijkingen bij.
History of Education
Introduction
History of education as a field of study - What is the history of education?
No understanding without history
The development of education as a system did not happen within a vacüum. How education looks
like, what we do in education, how we think about education, ... is shaped by the cultural, historical
context in which it developed.
We take a lot of thing for granted. → Has not always been this way!
vb. Teacher in front of class
Education is culturally and historically situated
How we organize, expectations… = result of historical process
→ Understanding where we come from
Imaging something new, based on the past
Conceptualize the present, reflect on the past
History… say what?
Historia: knowledge obtained via investigation (Greek)
→ Knowledge about past via historical investigation
So history is the study of the past
→ History of education: information about education in the past
But how do you do history?
Getting it right matters
3 important concepts that interrelate but should not be used as synonyms
o The past
= facts, events, thing that happened
vb. 1914 Law to learn
o History
= interpretation of the past, analysis of the past
o Historiography
= methods and body of historic works
= collection
Doing history is subject to change
Writing history: historical evolution and change
→ Answering different questions, different ways of thinking about things
→ Influence on relationship between past and history
→ Paradigm shifts during the past
,How we do History - Paradigmatic shifts in historiography and their consequences for
understanding the past
What is a paradigm?
“In the theory of knowledge (or epistemology), a paradigm refers to a distinct set of concepts or
thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what
constitutes a legitimate contribution to the field.”
You need a method to write history: certain rules…
How does this apply to the History of Education?
Historism
o 19th century: History as an academic study / scientific discipline
o Leopold von Ranke
o Wie es eigentlich gewesen ist
= Historian could reconstruct the past (copie)
“How it really was”
Believed that ‘past’ = ‘history’ (one to one relationship)
→ able to reconstruct, exact reconstruction of facts through sources
Sources: objects produced in the past
→ Tells something about past reality
→ Various forms: visual, written, formal, informal…
→ Letting the sources speak for themselves
What are the consequences of such an approach?
o Sources were mostly from rich and famous, they were the ones who left sources
o Paintings were never used as sources, mostly only written sources were used
A history of ideas
o 1th half of the 20th century
o What did pedagues of the past say?
Education/pedagogy was developing as a science
Process of professionalization of teachers = teacher training colleges
History of Education: was a very important part of the curriculum (not anymore)
It provided a guideline for the future
Knowing their history, would help them in their practice
→ What have they (previous pedagues) told us, what can we learn
Consequences of such an approach?
=Instrumentalizing approach, instrumentalize the past
→ Study the past for the sake of the future/present
→ Identify good/bad practices : learn from past mistakes and success
→ History becomes a story of continuous process, moving toward a better place.
New cultural history of education
o 1990s onwards
Influence of post-modernism: challenged assumptions of modernism
Like the idea of progress, the idea of moving towards a better place
, Questions idea of grant narrative (past=history)
→ This indicates only one truth
→ Can we really learn something from the past? Is there really one story, one truth?
o Connectedness of educational and cultural, social, political and economic spheres
→ We are situated in a context, never disconnected from society
→ You need to take the context with it, we need to include multitude of sources
Compilate different kind of sources, different perspectives on the story!
o As a result: a multitude of sources
• Read history of education from within
→ Historical context: don’t use/apply contemporary concepts to the past
→ Make use of the original context!
• Inclusion of a perspective from below
Real people were forgotten, inclusion of the perspective of people!
→ write from below : inclusion of the ordinary people, not only the rich (sources)
• ‘Triangulation’ of sources
o Also: sensitivity toward ‘language’: ~ linguistic turn
• History writing as a narrative endeavor
Story about the past ≠ exact representation
= based on sources that we selected, we gather info
→ We construct a historical narrative
• Language determines us, as much as it does our research
→ Is used to express ourselves, is not a mirror of reality
→ Words not only represent, they also construct a specific truth
Implications - Some thoughts on the difference between historism and historiczing
What’s what?
Historism Historiczing
o (objective) Reconstruction o Construction
o Human agency: what have historical → We construct a narrative about past
actors done? o Agency of the subject: what external
→ Focus: humans who lived in the past forces are at play here?
o Let the sources speak for themselves → Focus: ability to act, to do things
→ mediator o The source is not neutral!
o The archive as romantic space → particular purpose, produced with
→ sources sit and wait to be discovered particular intention, by someone…
and analyzed → Context!
o The archive as construction site
Archive = result of human intervention
→ Selection: sources have gone lost…
→ Only a fragment of the past
, Human agency vs. agency of the subject
Assumption that we are subject to something
→ Forces that potentially influence the agency of the subject
→ External forces: We don’t live in a void, without any meaning
We are children of our time: particular society, culture…
Influences our thinking, actions… !!!
→ WHY do we do these things, rather than focusing on what we do
Example:
How would you interpret this poster?
How would you, in other words, historicize it?
Source: Civilization 1934, published in La Ligue des Femmes, the journal of the Francophone Catholic
Women’s worker movement in January 1935.
The historian of education’s métier - What and how do we ‘do history’?
The subject of our historical narrative
o Change and continuity as a leitmotiv (terugkerende patronen)
o Potential sites of change (“evolution”): from education per capita to frontal instruction
→ Change in the ways we reflect/think does not mean the practices change
vb. Frontal instruction = teacher in front, children listen. Did not exist before 19th century
The idea of children listening was way older, things can occur later dan the idea!
o Critical investigation:
• Focus not only on how, but also on why, things gave evolved or changed
• The complexity of change: does change equal progress?
→ Improvement? Not really the case
• Aim is critical understanding of the present, or problematization of contemporary
ideas and practices
What does the historian of education do?
o There is an important difference between the past, history and historiography (cf. earlier)
Past ≠ history ≠ historiography
o Consequence: construction or reconstruction?
• Is a reconstruction possible?
▪ Issue of selection and choice
▪ Perspectivism (≠ Presentism1) (term by Nietszche)
= there is no single view point from which you can see the world
→ Different perspectives! No single, absolute Truth
• So what is the construction then?
▪ Anything goes?
Is every story of the past equal?
1
Presentism = understanding of the past with contemporary conceptions.
vb. Medieval political system was undemocratic. Democracy is a recent development, was not a thing during
medieval times.
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