Summary of the classes for the open book exam of the course History of Education in English
Summary for the History of education open book exam. I got a 17/20 by taking the open book exam with this summary.
Chapter 1: General introduction
In the first part of this opening class, we will start from the concept of 'pedagogization'. We will discuss
what can and should be understood by it and give some concrete examples. On the basis of this discussion
it will be made clear that 'pedagogization' is one of the existing narratives or narratives that a pedagogue
can use to reconstruct the past of parenting, education and training. In the second part of this opening
class, we will discuss the historiographical evolution that has led to the concept of 'pedagogization'. We
focus on the important role that the evolution from historicism to historicization has played in this
evolution. We show how the main features of a historicising attitude are central to the most recent
paradigm in the history of parenting and education, namely the New Cultural History of Parenting,
Education and Training. Finally, we go over the most important elements of the study guide that you can
find under "Course Information" and we briefly discuss the most important objectives of the course (for
this, see also the ECTS sheet that accompanies the course).
Reading material Class 1:
- Popkewitz, T. (2013). Styles of reason: Historicism, historicizing, and the history of education. In: T.
Popkewitz (Ed.). Rethinking the history of education. Transnational perspectives on its questions,
methods, and knowledge (pp. 1-26). New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
- Labaree, D. F. (2008). The winning ways of a losing strategy: Educationalizing social problems in the
United States. Educational Theory, 58(4), 447-460.
Core topics of Today’s class
- Difference between historicism and historicizing
- What is educationalization?
- Difference between past, history and historiography
- Examples of presentism
- Tensions between education and history in “history of education”
- An archive is not a neutral space where the truth can be found
- History is never neutral
This PowerPoint:
- We will talk about some basic concepts that are important.
- Introduce us to educational histioriography = theoretical reflection on how we should write the
history of education, how we should study our history of education and how that has changed
troughout time.
- Introduce a basic concept that is nowadays very prominant → educationalization (dutch =
pedagogisering).
- At the end → Tension between history and education (very crucial for a good understanding of what
history of education is about and how it’s evolved troughout time).
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1 Main goals of the course
- To offer students an introduction to the history of education
- Focus on Western actors and evolutions → Eurocentric perspective
o We speak here about Western educational thinkers, but in such a way that we deconstruct
them during the classes
o Many of those actors were involved in a kind of discourse that in the end produced several
differences. That ended up in the construction where some people where considered superior
and others inferior
- Not a celebration of Western history!
- Starting in the Middle Ages and going up till the 20th Century (first half)
- Relevance of history for contemporary discussions about education
- To construct an argument and use evidence in order to prove something – history of education is a
scientific field of study
- History is more than a story. It is a story based on the past, the archives. gathering data and doing
something important and reliable with it
Emphasize Western actors because the professor gets every year the same comments about that he only
focusses on Western actors and evolutions but those students did not really understand the meaning of this
class. Indeed he focusses on Western educational thinkers, but he does that in such a way that he tries to
deconstruct what they were saying in the past and he also tries to point towards the fact that many of those
actors/figures were involved in a kind of discourse that in the end produced several differences. It was a
discourse that eventually ended up in the construction of people who were considered superior and other
people who were considered inferior and that not only happened with regard to raise, but it also happened
with regard to difference of class and also with the difference of disability. So, although he indeed focusses on
Western educational thinkers, he hopes that throughout the course it will become clear that those educational
thinkers cannot be celebrated as such… we have to relate ourselves critically to what they wrote, to what they
did in our educational past and how they introduced several generations due our common world.
While discussing concepts, ideas, educational theories that have been invented by previous educational
thinkers he will try to demonstrate what we, educationalists today, can still to with those kind of previous
educational theories/concepts.
In history of education we write history. A history is not a story, a history is more! A history is a story based on
archival source material. We gather data and we do something reliable with it. Take that with you to the exam
because there will be an essay question and in that question he hopes that we will gather the material from
different paths of our sources and that we can convince him with our argument.
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2 Some basic concepts
The different concepts like past, history and historiography have different meanings.
- Throughout the 20th century, historians became aware that we will never be able to reconstruct the
past in a truthful way (Cf. the historiographical evolution of the 20th century)
- Those 3 levels are very important to distinguish during these classes
- The past stays the same but what does changes throughout time is the ting that we are interested in
when we look towards the past. The histories that we produce, they change, they evolve. And
defiantly the historiographical reflections we come up with to think about our historical past and
educational histories.
Educationalization is a concept that is used by historians (of education) in order to describe something that
happened during our past.
We will talk about the kind of narratives that we can use to say something about our educational past, but
also about some reflections about how we can and should write about educations
Past Everything that is not immediately available anymore, where you need a
= Het verleden medium to say something about it, belongs to the past
- Everything that has happened up until now
- The collection of all of the events that have aquert before the
moment that we are in right now)
- The medium that we need to use to know something about the past,
helps us to come up with an interpretation of it.
Everything that lays behind us is the past. Everything that is not immediately available anymore
for human beings, that belongs to the past (everything for which you need something else, some
kind of medium, in order to say something about it is the past). For example, the class will be
recorded and what the prof says is gone and we need the recording in order to listen to it again.
The same can be applied to things that happened during the middle ages, if you want to know
what happened there at school we must use historical source material. That material is some
kind of medium that helps us in order to come up with a kind of interpretation. That’s a crucial
inside that historians became aware of throughout the 20th century that actually we will never
be able to reconstruct the past in a truthful way.
History History refers to some kind of ordening (like chronologicly, but also other kinds
= De geschiedenis are possible) in the here and now by a historian of things that he/she found in
an archive, things that are related to past events, figures, actors, …
- The idea of interpretation is crucial to understand the difference
between the past and history.
- History are all the stories that we can present about what happened
in the past and where a kind of interpretation is added to that past.
- This interpretation can be deduced from some kind of statistical
analysis or it can be done on the basis of a qualitative interpretation
of the past
- The kind of narratives that are being produced by historians in order
to make sense of our past)
- So history is not the same as the past. History is a kind of elaboration
of the past. It is the result of al the hard work that historians (of
education) undertake in order to make sense of our educational past
The history refers to some kind of ordering in the here and now by a historian of things that
he/she found in an archive, things that are related to past events/actors/figures. The idea of
interpretation is crucial in order to understand the difference between on the one hand the past
and on the other hand history. So history are alle the stories that we can present about what
happened in the past and where a kind of interpretation is added to that past. That
interpretation can be deduced from some kind of statistical analyses or it can be done on the
basis of a qualitative interpretation of the past.
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Historiography A reflection on how we can and sometimes should write histories of education
= Historiografie The way we think about the relationship between the past and history changes
throughout time.
- We have come up with different methods in order to transform the
past into history. There are different theories in order to think about
the relationship between everything that lies behind us and the art of
transforming that to an attractive, compelling or interesting history
- Historiographie is related to a critical reflection on how to do,
preform, write, come up with histories of education
- This means that you reflect on how you can reconstruct the past, how
you produce particular narratives, particular histories to make sense
of the past
- Theoretical reflections on how those histories need to be produced
- Meta reflection: Reflection on how we can and sometimes should
write about histories (of education)
Historiography is a kind of reflection on how we can and sometimes also how we should write
histories of education. Historiography is related to a Greek word ‘grapheme’ and that means ‘to
write’ and if you translate it literally, then indeed it sounds like a critical reflection on how to
write history in general, histories of education in particular. Because that is also a mistake that
you often hear: “I can’t imagine an easier job than being an historian of education because
nothing changes” → that is not true! The way we think about the relationship between the past
and history, changes throughout time. We have come up with different methods to transform
the past in to the history. We have come up with different theories in order to think about the
relationship between everything that lays behind us and the art of transforming that in to an
attractive/interesting history. So historiography is indeed related to a critical reflection on how
to do, how to perform, how to write, how to come up with histories of education (cf. Popkewitz).
Important difference between historical literature:
Primary source material Everything that has been written, printed, published in the past and where a
historian has not yet added some additional meaning to it
- Example: schoolbook that was used in the 1920’s in France. This has
been used by the teacher, historians have not yet made use of it in
order to reconstruct the past and to turn it into a history
- Example: the text in our reader of ERASMUS
- Example: Law of Jull Fery that says that children has to go to school
until they are a certain age
- Example: a corresponding (letters) between historian figures
- Example: A picture or painting about a classroom / A diary that was
written by a teacher
- The primary scource material can be different in kind → Printed,
written, Visual, Acoustic, Tangible
Secondary source The outcome, article, monograph, abstract …Something where the historian
material or (historical) presents primary source material in a such a way where he/she adds an
literature interpretation to it
- The word secondary refers to the activity preformed by the historian
(of education)
- Example: A book that is written about a law in France that says that
children have to school until they are 12 years old
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PW2 – Sem 2
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