Review of History of Education Society Conference 2014: ‘Transnationalism, Gender & Teaching: Perspectives from the History of Education’

By Charlotte Rochez - @cdrochez 

The 2014 History of Education Conference was held at Bewley’s hotel, Dublin. The hotel was an ideal location for a conference for the society given its interesting history, and many delegates enjoyed discussing the building’s history and its original purpose as a Masonic Girls’ boarding School. 

The conference theme of ‘Transnationalism, Gender and Teaching: Perspectives from the History of Education’ was variously explored in over 60 conference papers responding to the theme. Delegates came from a wide number of places; beyond those from the UK and the Republic of Ireland, delegates came from Australia, Canada, Denmark,  France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan and USA. Whilst papers spanned a variety of time periods, there was a predominant focus on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

Within the conference sub-themes emerged including: travel; religion; social class; non-institutional education; literacy, writing, literature, publishing and painting; Empire, imperialism and imperial oppression; methodologies; transnational movements of thought, culture and practices; power; methods of communication; identity and understanding of the self and the other; identity and the relationship between the individual, the community and the nation. Taken collectively the papers and the discussions left me reflecting on the intersectionality of transnationalism and gender in educational experiences, particularly the individual's understanding of themselves and others. The conference suggested to me that whilst transnational experiences have been and often continue to be gendered, the reflections - on culture, politics and self - envoked by transnational experiences have at times challenged traditional gender roles and behaviours.  

The three keynotes took up the conference theme in various ways: Professor Joyce Goodman MBE on 'Becoming Visible: Gender in Transnational Space and Time - Kasuya Yoshi and Girls' Secondary Education; Professor Elizabeth Smyth on ‘The world wide web of teaching sisters: building networks beyond classroom walls over space and time’ and Professor Dáire Keogh on ‘Our Boys: the Christian Brothers and the formation of youth in the ‘new Ireland’ 1914-44'.

Professor Joyce Goodman, Professor Elizabeth Smyth and Professor Dáire Keogh

On Friday evening delegates joined Dr Professor J Deeks, President of University College Dublin in celebrating the book launch of Dr Deirdre Raftery and Dr Karin Fischer (Eds.), Educating Ireland: Schooling and Social Change 1700-2000 (2014, Irish Academic Press).

On the Saturday afternoon a well-attended AGM of the History of Education Society reported on the work of society. The AGM featured positive reports on the publications of the society. The society continues to encourage researchers to share their work in the History of Education journal, the History of Education Researcher, in this History of Education Society blog and in A History of Education in 50 Objects webspace. 

A highlight of the weekend was the Saturday evening conference dinner in the grand Thomas Prior Hall, where delegates had a three course meal whilst enjoying live Irish music.

During the meal the Brehony and Bloomfield book prizes were awarded. Dr Catherine Burke received the Anne Bloomfield prize for A Life in Education and Architecture: Mary Beaumont Medd (2013, Ashgate). Dr Heather Ellis & Dr Maura O’Connor shared the Kevin Brehony prize: Dr Heather Ellis for Generational Conflict and University Refore: Oxford in the Age of Revolution (2012, Brill) and Dr Maura O’Connor for The Development of Infant Education in Ireland, 1838-1948 (2010, Peter Lang)

Dr Catherine Burke

Dr Heather Ellis & Dr Maura O'Connor

With thanks to all the delegates, to the energies all the presenters gave to ensuring the high standard of presentations, to Bewley's hotel, Ballsbridge and their helpful staff and to Dr Deirdre Raftery and to her team for their dedicated hard work in organising such a successful and enjoyable conference. 

And With many thanks to our conference host:The School of Education, University College Dublin, Ireland

We are pleased to announce that in 2015 the History of Education Society conference will be hosted by Liverpool Hope University with the theme of 'Science, Technology and Material Culture in History of Education' - 20th-22nd November 2015.  

Playcentre and DEHANZ

By Suzanne Manning ~ @slmanning1

When my first child was about 10 months old, I met a woman in a nearby park.  She asked me what early childhood services I would be taking my daughter to; at that stage, I had no idea.  So she launched into her spiel about Playcentre, an Aotearoa/New Zealand parent co-operative that offers early childhood and adult education, creating a parent support community along the way.  The next week I went along to my local Playcentre… 

My daughter is now 21 years old.  I was a member of that centre for 10 years, contributing as a session supervisor, adult education officer, collage corner looker-afterer, and vice-president.  I absorbed the training as fast as I could.  I was an active member of the local Association working in the adult education programme, including a stint as librarian, and was made a life member (which now mostly means I’m called on to facilitate tricky meetings).  My Playcentre work was counted as “sufficient educational experience” to accompany my science degree when I wanted entry into the Masters of Education programme.  Further, I was on the national Federation education team for four years, coordinating all the Association education teams.

Playcentre has been a life-changer for me.  When I was raising young children, it opened up a world of parent support and intellectual stimulation, and a scholarly direction I hadn’t known I would enjoy.  The community networks that developed for me are now part of my way of life.  Yet I believe that the Aotearoa/New Zealand early childhood education (ECE) policy landscape is marginalising Playcentre and endangering its survival (I’m in favour of evolution of Playcentre, but not extinction).  No big surprise, then, that my doctoral research is a historical look at ECE policy over the last 25 years and its impact on Playcentre.  History has lessons for policymakers!

Although my research is examining the last 25 years of Playcentre history in detail, I have also been exploring its longer history to put the work in context.  Playcentres started during World War II (WWII) in Wellington middle class suburbs as self-help ventures, in contrast to the already well-established kindergartens that had originally been aimed at children of the poor.  These centres quickly formed a network, combining with other similar groups such as Gwen Somerset’s nursery school at the Feilding Community Centre and Doreen Dolton’s nursery school attached to a secondary school in Christchurch.  When Gwen became the first President of the New Zealand Nursery Play Centre Federation in 1948, she influenced the organisation to develop along progressive education lines - which was familiar territory for many of the well-educated founders.  Gwen championed free play, learning through play and parent education based on child development and the observation of children.

In the post-WWII era, government and society strongly reinforced the traditional nuclear family and the associated gender roles: male income earner, female household manager and child carer.  Playcentre was a mixed bag in this respect as it supported (rather than challenged) women as full time carers of their children, but on the other hand, it gave many women an acceptable outlet for their talents in the many jobs necessary to run a centre and/or a national organisation as a parent co-operative.

Second wave feminism from the late 1960s promoted accessible and affordable childcare as a means for women’s emancipation.  This required government support for childcare services on an equal footing to the half day services such as kindergarten and Playcentre that were seen as being ‘educational’.  The childcare advocate’s message was that care and education for young children were inseparable and that the services should not be treated differently.  In 1989 the Before Five reforms merged the administration and funding of all the ECE services under one umbrella, a big achievement for childcare advocates.  For Playcentre, however, the effects were mixed: more money and recognition, but more administration and striving to fit bureaucratic categories that were designed for teacher-led services and not parent co-operatives.

Since the Before Five reforms, there has been increasing professionalization of the ECE workforce, an ‘educationalisation of play’ (Stover, 2011), and the promotion of ECE as a child’s right.  With the rise of Human Capital Theory where education is integral to producing a productive citizen, ECE has come increasingly under government attention – partly because of its role in freeing women up to participate in the paid labour market but mostly (according to the dominant discourse) because of the educational benefits accrued to the child.  ECE has come to be seen as something that only qualified teachers in formal institutions can do.  Although partnership with parents is seen as important, the discourse firmly points to a care (parent) and education (teacher) divide, even though the rhetoric is still that care and education of young children are inseparable.  Where does this leave Playcentre, a formal education centre with educated parents as the teachers?  It is all these changes, policies and discourses, and their effects on Playcentre, that I am trying to tease out in my research.

As part of exploring the recent history of Playcentre, I have written and co-written entries for the Dictionary of Educational History of Australia and New Zealand (DEHANZ) at dehanz.net.au.  One is an overview of Playcentre’s history, and the other is about the educational philosophy of one of Playcentre’s early influential leaders, Gwen Somerset.  DEHANZ is a new and expanding resource curated by the Australian and New Zealand History of Education Society (ANZHES) which is aimed at researchers and students interested in the history of education from our part of the world.  If anyone is knowledgeable about a particular area of antipodean history and would like to write an entry, contact the editors and make their day.

Stover, S. (2011).  Play’s progress? Locating play in the educationalisation of early childhood education in New Zealand. Unpublished PhD thesis, Auckland University of Technology.

The history of Scottish education: a window to the rural world

by Helen Young

I’m currently undertaking ESRC doctoral research into the history of the small rural schools of Scotland. Focusing on the period 1872-2000, I’m exploring a number of themes (including gender, citizenship and the nature of rurality) with an overarching emphasis on the role that these schools and their teachers played in community life. As well as drawing on archival evidence (both local records and central government files and reports), I’m undertaking oral history interviews to get a sense of lived experience and the material gathered to date is fascinating on so many levels.

For me, then, the history of education is very much a window to the socio-cultural, political and economic changes and continuities of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. On one level, researching the intricacies of the education system itself, of policy and practice in relation to administration and governance, curricula, staffing and the like, opens up many lines of debate. Whether it be the professionalisation of teaching, the development of secondary education or the shift from local school boards to county education authorities, there is much to be gleaned from their examination. At the same time, exploring the everyday lives of those involved in education, a mere glimpse of which is given in the sources, is both captivating and historically important.

To give an example of this, I would like to share with you a few short extracts from the School Log Book for Fearnan School in Perthshire, Scotland.[1] Written between 1917 and 1918, these make specific reference to the First World War and the value of their content speaks for itself. The entries were written by the headmistress Miss Lizzie McLaren Roberts.

25^th May 1917
The scholars were much grieved today to learn of the death of Hugh Cowan who fell in action on the 3rd May. He was well known having been brought up in the village and until he "joined up" had been a shepherd with his father at Balnearn.

25^th October 1918
Attendance reduced owing to various causes. One girl absent owing to parents having gone to Northampton to visit their son who has been seriously wounded ... Sad news reached the village this week - the death through gas-poisoning of another of our brave soldiers at the Front. Duncan Fraser an old pupil of this school was amongst the first to "join-up" and has been in "the thick of it" for a considerable time.

8^th November 1918
Again sad tidings! The brother of the brave soldier referred to a fortnight ago has succumbed at the Western Front to pneumonia whilst another who has been in the Transport Service for some time has been killed. Both these lads had seen four years’ service in the army and both deserved the high enconiums passed upon them by the villagers. Both were much beloved and are much mourned. A parcel was sent to one of our wounded soldiers in hospital by the children here. Each child also wrote a letter to him.

15^th November 1918
The glad tidings that the armistice was signed and that peace once more reigned reached us on Monday about three o'clock in the afternoon. Captain Thistle and Mr Peter Dewar called and made known the welcome news. The children cheered and all at once hastened to hoist the "Union Jack". The children then sang the National Anthem and were dismissed. The village received the news quietly the bereavements being too recent to admit of any demonstration of joy. The lumber camp of Newfoundland solders ceased work until Wednesday but there was no disturbance in this village.

---

[1] At the time of digitisation and transcription this log book was held locally by Kenmore Primary School. 

International Standing Conference on the History of Education 2015 (ISCHE 2015): ‘Culture and Education’ Istanbul University, Turkey, 24th – 27th June 2015

By Meryem Karabekmez (student representative of ISCHE 2015)

ISCHE 37 will be held in Istanbul in 2015 on the theme of ‘Culture and Education’. The purpose of this conference is to examine the relations between education and culture in the historical process.

• What is the relationship between culture and education?
• What are the roles of educational reforms and educational borrowing in the cultural changes?
• What are the roles of educational institutions, educators, and educational materials in culture formation and transformation?
• How have education and elements of culture such as language, religion, symbols, and routines influenced each other throughout history?

These are the questions will be answered in the conference on the History of Education which will be organized at Istanbul University in 2015.

Subthemes:

• Cultural paradigm and education

• Agents of intercultural interaction

• Language and education

• Religion and education

• Symbols, heroes, stories, and myths

• Rituals and routines

The deadline for the submission of proposal is 15 December 2014. Applicants will be notified of the acceptance or rejection of proposals at the beginning of February 2015. For those presenting a paper at the conference, the deadline for registration is 30 April 2015. We look forward to seeing you in Istanbul.

For more information about the conference please visit the ISCHE 2015 website 

You may also be interested in this review of ISCHE 2014 by Jonathan Doney. 

Teachers’ Lives, Teachers’ Voices, and Educational Development in Central Asia

By Peter Cunningham

Teachers’ life histories make a significant contribution to educational development in a Central Asian centre of key economic growth.  Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education has recently published a project from within their Professional Development Programme.

Stepping Stones: Recording the Voice of the Past, is the product of 65 teachers from across Kazakhstan collecting oral testimonies as an integral component of their action research. The resulting data is published at www.nupdp.weebly.com  

The teachers’ accounts in Kazakh or in Russian languages are archived as edited video extracts conveniently subtitled in English, and edited transcriptions are available for download in the language of interview and in English.  The benefits of video for the oral historian are evident.  We see and hear the interviewees, their facial expressions, body language and gestures. Their transcribed memories are then also accessible for detailed analysis.

Teachers’ accounts provide immensely rich stories of learning and growing into their professional role.  Their own educational experiences in family, community and school evolve into reasons for career choice, patterns of initial training and career development.  Personal ideals, political and ideological contexts, economic conditions and geographical contexts all come into play in understanding the evolution of teachers’ identities.

Hugely encouraging is the view of this project’s integration into the overall programme of educational development in the republic.  Alongside the ‘drivers’ of ‘internationalization’ and ‘modernisation’, space is made for ‘preserving cultural values, contextual ambience, historical mores and grassroots perspectives’, as the project explains in its goals.  Cultural and historical content are seen as making a significant contribution to educational development, and authentic oral history research is identified as a key methodology.

The wide range of perspectives opened up by the project is reflected in captions chosen to title these oral accounts: ‘From a dream to reality’; ‘For the love of children’; ‘For the love of teaching’; ‘The language of my ancestors’; ‘Passion for music’; ‘”Think from your heart”’; ‘Teachers that inspired us’; ‘Through thorns to stars’; ‘A brilliant life of hands-on innovation and research’; ‘Looking back, moving forward’; ‘The best of the Soviet education system’; ‘Democracy and authoritarianism in the school’.

What evidence do historians of education need to reconstruct the past?

by Heather Ellis and Stephen Parker

The History of Education Society was recently invited to take part in an open consultation process organised by National Archives regarding its operational selection policy (OSP) concerning the records of the Department for Education for the period 1974-1997. What at face value appeared to be a dry exercise, in fact raised some important historical methodological questions, centring upon ‘what should be kept for posterity in order for future historians to engage with and reconstruct the past, in all its multi-faceted complexity?’ The issues we raised in relation to the policy also required us to anticipate how historians of the future may wish to read these papers, predicting questions they might ask and gaps in the archive they would be frustrated by.

Having read the consultation document outlining a number of themes chosen as a basis for selecting particular documents to be preserved from the Department for Education’s (DfE) records, Stephen Parker and I, on behalf of the Society, prepared a detailed response requesting clarification on a number of key points. Amongst the issues were raised were matters around selection, such as who was responsible for selecting the material. Had the DfE itself been directly involved? We also wanted to know what would happen to material which was not selected: would it be digitised or simply destroyed? Likewise, we asked for more information regarding the rationale behind which particular themes and documents would be selected. We asked this, in particular, as we felt there were certain underlying preferences or biases apparent in the topics proposed for selecting material.

We also raised questions about the time span covered by the material, in this case 1974-1997. In particular, there seemed to be a decided emphasis on selecting material post-1979 with the years 1974-1979 receiving only scant attention. We wondered why this might be, given the importance of the shifts occurring in education policy in this period of Labour administration. Similarly, we wondered why there were no important events listed in the ‘timeline’ appendix prior to Thatcher’s Education Act of 1988. In some places, we were also struck by what seemed to be an undertone of criticism of the education policies of the Labour government in the 1970s. Point 5.3.1, for example, referred to school building programmes being ‘particularly badly hit’ by Labour’s ‘cuts in public expenditure’. We noted that there were likewise substantial cuts in education spending under Thatcher but (apart from the reference to the famous limiting of school milk at 5.23.1) these seemed to go largely undocumented. In this the policy interestingly appeared to reflect the politics of the selectors!

We were also concerned, from a methodological and policy perspective, that there was too strong an emphasis placed on the ‘finished products’ of educational reform. We stressed that key documents relating to the creation of particular reports and Acts of Parliament should also be preserved to illuminate process as well as end product. The role of the DfE in driving and promoting visible changes, especially Acts of Parliament, we felt, also received a decided focus, creating a particular impression of the Department as a dynamic and progressive actor in bringing about educational change. We wondered about the need to adequately represent the agency of other actors in educational reform and those policies which did not make it to statute, for example, those desired by lobbyists and opposed by elements inside the DfE. Although there were a few references to initiatives and policy directions which failed or lapsed (e.g. 5.2.1 – proposed organisational changes within LEAs; 5.5.2 – an abandoned voucher system and 5.8.1 – a rejected system of leaving certificates), these did not seem equally represented and were scattered throughout the proposal rather than being treated consistently. 

In the selection of themes such as the development of the National Curriculum, there appeared to be a focus on one narrative development - the increasing involvement of business and the private sector in education (and the attendant reduction in the role and powers of LEAs). There are other narratives of educational development from the years of Thatcher and the Conservative government which could be told, but the OSP appeared to us to be asserting one in particular. There seemed to be an assumption in the proposed selection of documents that the Conservative policy of reducing the powers of the LEAs was universally acknowledged as necessary. Thus, it was claimed in point 5.4.1 (without citing any evidence) that by the early 1980s ‘a need to radically overhaul the governance of both primary and secondary schools was recognised.’

As representatives of the Society (and as historians), we felt that the selection of themes had been driven primarily (if not entirely) by the topics of parliamentary legislation rather than events considered important in a broader historical context. Developments such as the race riots of 1981 were occasionally referred to (5.12.7), but there was no systematic attempt to situate legislative events against a broader historical framework, something we would recommend if a revision of the OSP were to be undertaken. The timeline of key events given in the appendix could have provided a good opportunity to do this but instead it comprised a simple list of Acts of Parliament and policy developments. 

There are also particular curriculum areas which do not seem covered in the detail which their historical and contemporary importance deserves. Although RE, for example, was mentioned briefly (in the context of the 1944 Act – 5.6.12), there was little, if any, consideration given to the significant role of church and faith schools during this period and the complex relationship which these schools enjoyed with LEAs. Likewise, the controversies around the changes occurring in curriculum RE from 1974 onwards were not explicitly mentioned. Other omissions would seem to include international influences, in particular, the substantial impact of EC/EU legislation and policy matters related to teachers’ professional development, especially major changes to teachers’ contracts and the creation of ‘Baker days’. 

Perhaps we’ve missed out other factors and issues you might have mentioned from all this. What was clear to us is archiving history as well as its researching requires methodological astuteness and historical awareness. Likewise, knowing what to keep and what to discard also requires a surprising degree of political sensitivity. 

November is #histedmonth

#histedmonth uses social media to encourage collaboration and networking between individuals and groups interested in the history of education. It seeks to promote the history of education by engaging the wider public. 

The theme of #histedmonth this year is: ‘Personalising the History of Education’

During #histedmonth we’ll be reflecting on questions like: 

• What is my own history of education? 
• What are the histories of the institutions I have attended (and taught at)? 
• Why do I think the history of education is important and exciting? What aspects of the history of education inspire me, and why?

Here are some initial plans for #histedmonth. Please develop #histedmonth by adding your own initiatives and publicising them on social media.

#histedmonth on Twitter:

• Share your favourite quotes from figures in the history of education or from historians of education (if the quote is too long, turn it into a picture using a text box on Microsoft paint – here you could also add a photo of the author too) – These are best posted on Tuesdays through November using both the hashtag #histedmonth and #TuesdayQuote.

• Add posts relating to your own history of education. Share your school photos, toys you played with, educational television programs you enjoyed, events in education you experienced, images and videos from the institutions you attended. These are best posted on Thursdays through November: use both the hashtag #histedmonth and #tbt (‘Throwback Thursday’). Remember to include the twittertags for any institutions in your posts.

• Recommend sources and ideas relating to the history of education to others – e.g. another Tweeter that they should follow, a website to look at, a book to read, a video to watch etc. This is a great way to publicise new books, journals, websites and writers. These posts are best added on Fridays through November: use both #histedmonth and #ff (‘Follow Friday’).

You might also like to include the following hashtags in your posts: #histed #twitterstorians and #edchat to connect with historians of education, historians and those interested in education.

#histedmonth blog posts:

Here at the History of Education Society UK blog we are inviting contributions to their blog in all forms (text, image, video, mixed). Here are some questions to prompt blog post ideas for #histedmonth: 

• How do you define the ‘history of education’; what does it mean to you? 
• How did you become interested in the aspect of the history of education you study? Why do you see it as important?
• Which books or authors inspired you to study the history of education? Why?
• Which figures in history or political developments inspired you to study the history of education Why?
• What do you see as the biggest issues in the history of education today?
• What are the histories of the institutions you attended or taught at (from schools through to higher education)? 
• What was your own experience of education / childhood /adolescence / adult education / teaching. Think about and share aspects of your own experience such as learning resources, pedagogies, popular perceptions of schools and education, political developments in education…