Science, Technologies and Material Culture in the History of Education - call for papers

Annual Conference of the History of Education Society (UK)
Liverpool Hope University
20th-22nd November 2015

Confirmed keynote speakers:
Professor Ruth Watts, Emeritus Professor of History of Education, University of Birmingham
Dr Claire Jones, Teacher and Honorary Fellow, University of Liverpool
Jonathan Reinarz, Professor of the History of Medicine, University of Birmingham

Too often the history of science and technology and the history of education have been written at a remove from each other despite being intimately connected. It is an important aim of this conference to bring these two significant and related areas of historiography into closer dialogue with one another. While we welcome papers which examine theoretical, methodological and historiographical aspects of the relationship between science, technologies and education, we are equally keen for speakers to focus on the interplay of these key themes in specific historical and material settings.

Papers focusing on the artefacts and material culture of science, technology and education are especially welcome. Papers should focus on one, two or all of the conference’s thematic areas, (science, technologies, material culture).

Possible topics for papers may include (but are by no means limited to) the following:Historiography of science, technology and education

• Historiography of science, technology and education
• Science and technology in the curriculum
• Scientists as public intellectuals
• Medical education 
• Technologies of the self
• Science and identity formation
• Science, technology and class
• Science, technology and gender 
• Materialities of teaching and learning
• Books, equipment, technology and the transfer of ideas
• Scientific and technological networks 
• Scientific internationalism 
• Science, technology and empire
• School and university architecture 
• Education for the scientific professions
• Popular science 
• Scientific and technological elites 
• Scientific societies
• Science as popular education/entertainment 
• Science and education in the home
• Subject and disciplinary formation 
• Medical humanities
• Educational artefacts 
• Museums as educational spaces

Abstracts (250 words max) should be sent to Heather Ellis at ellish@hope.ac.uk
Deadline: 1st June 2015

Postgraduate Panel
We are also looking for 10 minute presentations from Masters/MPhil/PhD students on aspects of their research which do not need to fit the conference theme. The Postgraduate Panel will take place on the afternoon of Saturday 21st November.

Student members of the History of Education Society (UK) are eligible to apply for bursaries which will cover the conference fee, accommodation and meals during the scheduled hours of the conference. Please mention your interest in applying for a bursary when submitting your abstract.

Abstracts (250 words max) should be sent to Lottie Hoare at chh11@cam.ac.uk
Deadline: 1st June 2015

Conference host: Faculty of Education, Liverpool Hope University
Conference venue: Liverpool Hope University (Cornerstone Campus)/Feathers Best Western Hotel, Liverpool

The effects of changes in the church on schools in seventeenth century England

By Ken Clayton

 

The church had a very close relationship with, and a tight control of English education from its inception in the sixth or seventh centuries until the 1640s. The decline in influence was slow to start with: first came the dissolution of the monasteries, then the Chantries Act and then the abolition of religious guilds. Each of these actions resulted in significant religious institutions being abolished and, where they supported schools, the schools either disappeared or had to find new sources of funding. Even so, by the seventeenth century, the church still had a significant degree of control. The Canons of 1604, section LXXVII, made it clear that:

‘No man shall Teach either in publick School, or private House, but such as shall be allowed by the Bishop of the Diocess, or Ordinary of the Place, under his hand and Seal, being found meet as well for his Learning and Dexterity in Teaching, as for sober and honest Conversation, and also for right understanding of God’s true Religion'

On the face of it, this implies that all teachers, including those at Petty Schools should have a licence. However, the evidence suggests that this rule was, in practice, applied only to grammar school teachers.       

Paragraph LXXVIII went on to dictate that if there was a curate in a parish who was able and willing to teach, nobody else was to be granted a licence until the curate had been given a job. The text also stated, very clearly, that a curate might want to teach 'for the better increase of his Living'. This paragraph differs from the earlier one, however, in that it specifically mentions teaching of grammar and therefore, it appears to refer specifically to grammar schools (Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical).

So by the middle of the seventeenth century the influence of the church had declined from total control of a majority of schools to, in most cases, nothing more than the bishops being able to decide who could and could not teach, at least in grammar schools.

What remained of the bishops’ control of schoolmasters began to disintegrate during the period of the Civil Wars. Parliament first undermined the bishops in 1642 and then, in 1646, abolished the episcopate altogether.

This meant that the church no longer had any control over education and, indeed, it seems that there was no control of any sort by any organisation for a few years. One consequence of this was a rise in the number of private schools run by individuals who would never have been given a licence to teach by a bishop. Bromsgrove in Worcestershire was one place in which this happened with William Suthwell being installed in 1650 without the blessing of a bishop (Icely, 1953, p17).

This situation did not last long because schoolmasters became caught up in Parliament’s determination to crack down on any remaining Royalists. Much of this activity was aimed at clergymen who refused to toe the Puritan line but the fact that there was significant crossover between schoolmasters and clergymen meant that schoolmasters were caught up in the net. According to Durston, in August 1654, the County Commissioners were told 'to receive information against any […] schoolmaster who was suspected of having committed one or more of a long list of offences including [...] using the Book of Common Prayer, encouraging traditional festivities and dancing, harbouring Ranter or popish opinions' (Durston, 2001, p158).

Six years later, after the restoration of the Monarchy, the Act of Uniformity of 1662 not only re-introduced the issuing of licences by bishops, it also reversed the instructions to County Commissioners by introducing a requirement that schoolmasters accept publicly the new Book of Common Prayer. Those who refused were denounced as dissenters and usually removed from their posts. Helen Jewell maintains that around 150 Dons and schoolmasters were ejected as dissenters (1998, p37) while Edmund Calamy, writing in 1713, reckoned that 39 schoolmasters were ejected as a result of their refusal to comply with the Act. In the preface to his book he admitted that it had been difficult to compile a list of those ejected and referred to earlier reports of around 2,000 clergymen, Dons and schoolmasters having been ejected (Calamy, 1713, p iv).

The preface to Calamy's book provides an interesting insight to attitudes to dissenters, even forty years after the event. 'To write of Nonconformists and Dissenters, is in the Esteem of some Men, to write of Schismatics and Rebels; To commend them is little better than to write in praise of Nero' he wrote, adding that 'They have born all the obloquy of the stage, the tavern, the press, or the pulpit could well vent against them' (1713, p iii). However, Calamy cannot be regarded as an entirely dispassionate observer, given that his father and grandfather were both clergymen who were ejected from their livings and Calamy himself was keen to restore the reputations of the ejected individuals (Wykes, 2004). That said, there is no doubt that schoolmasters who would not conform were usually removed from their posts.

So by 1662 the church had re-established a degree of control over schools following the upheavals of the Commonwealth period but it was still a long way from the grip that it had over schools prior to the Reformation.

 

References

Calamy, Edmund (1713) An Account of the Ministers, Lecturers, Masters and Fellows of Colleges and Schoolmasters who were Ejected or Silenced after the Restoration in 1660 London.

Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical of the Church of England para. LXXVII (available at http://www.anglican.net/doctrines/1604-canon-law/#p1-4, accessed 12 Feb 2015).

Durston, C. (2001) Cromwell's Major-Generals: Godly Government During the English Revolution Manchester, Manchester University Press

Icely, H.E.M. (1953) Bromsgrove School Through Four Centuries Oxford, Basil Blackwell.

Jewell, Helen M. (1998) Education in Early Modern England, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Wykes, David L. (2004) ‘Calamy, Edmund (1671–1732)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (Available at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/4357, accessed 6 July 2014).

Nikolay Neplyuev's Social and Pedagogical Experiment in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century

By Pavel Bilichenko

Investigating the original historical pedagogical experience in the activity of the distinguished enthusiasts of the world education development in period of 19^th – beginning of the 20^th centuries is of great scientific interest for us.

My research focuses on the history of my country in accordance to its status of the part of the Russian Empire at that period. In my opinion, pedagogical experience of Nikolay Neplyuev can be of serious interest for researcher.

He was born in 1851 in a very famous noble family. His father was close to the Royal House and headed the nobility in Chernigov province. 

Nikolay Nikolaevich Neplyuev

Neplyuev was an extremely religious person since his youth. Having received an excellent educational at the university (he graduated from St. Petersburg university), he soon came to the conclusion that the Russian society was not perfect and fell short of high ideals of orthodox Christianity. His searching for the ways to creating the new and highly humane society led him to conducting the famous and successful social experiment through organizing the community “Крестовоздвиженское трудовое братство” (“Exaltation of the Cross labour brotherhood"). The activity of this community was researched by many scientists: historians, sociologists, theologians. My research seeks to present Nikolay Neplyuev’s pedagogical investigations results.

The practical result of Nikolay Neplyuev’s educational activity consisted in opening two agricultural schools (one for boys and one for girls) in 1881, and a prep school in his estate in Chernigov province. The founder considered them to be a basis for forming since childhood the future ideal society. 

Children in the Prep School

Summing up the results of Nikolay Neplyuev's and his like-minded colleagues attempts, the fact of appraising the successful activity of these educational establishments is generally admitted. There were some peculiarities of these schools working far from big noisy cities in the silence of patriarchal village.

The first obvious condition of Neplyuev's work efficiency was his confidence in the deep religiousness of the rural population. He easily gained respect of the rural population by his views on upbringing their children grounding on deep respect of Christian values.

According to his views, the founder of the schools could effectively connect the process of teaching children with raising them on the basis of Christian moral tradition. Neplyuev himself actively taught boys in the boys’ school while his mother and sister conducted lessons in the school for girls. One of the traditions of the boys’ school was to hold weekly classes (on Saturdays) about the real sense of Christian study.

Using understandable for children examples from the Holy Writing Neplyuev tried to make bring them understand the sense of human brotherhood and human love to close people. The founder's experience of introducing to the school practice two circles: groups of senior and junior pupils (Rus. − "круг" (circle)) was a success. The first one united children and teachers in discussing pupil's behaviour, and second one included only children.

The experience of moral teaching was positive, when every new pupil could choose his own mentor amongst the senior pupils. Every mentor had a copybook where he noted his ward's behavior. Later, at the meetings, this was discussed and everybody could share his own opinions regarding the behaviour of different children and even of the mentor. 

General Meeting in Girls' School

The activity of these schools during the whole history of their existence formed the basis for their founder’s developing his idea of forming the labour community. More than half of school leavers joined the community voluntarily after graduating from school.

During his pedagogical explorations, Nikolay Neplyuev had to overcome the most serious in his view problem of providing qualified staff for his schools. The trouble was that most teachers couldn’t grasp the essence of founder’s deep educational ideas and they often did not share his views. After some years of efforts, Neplyuev obtained the authorities’ permission to employ the graduates of his schools as teachers. Later he considered it to have significantly improved the situation.

We consider it to be a great confirmation of Neplyuev’s project success that even after his death in 1908, the community as a social institute its household and schools existed for several more decades. Their liquidation in the late 1920s was caused by Soviet authorities’ policy.

We managed to restore a lot of different pedagogical innovations of Nikolay Neplyuev both in the sphere of upbringing and teaching.

A more detailed account of our research will soon be published in History of Education Researcher.

‘My First Coup': autobiographies of childhood

By C E Hastings

"My auntie and the headmistress tried as best they could, with smiles and toffee, to shield me from their rising anxiety, but I could feel it bouncing off the quick sideways glances they shot each other and taking flight like some dark, winged creature on the breath of their long, exhausted exhales. It was rumoured that people had been executed. I knew the headmistress and my auntie were worried my father might have been among them. I was worried too…"

 John Dramani Mahama’s autobiography, My first coup d’etat: Memoirs from the lost decades of Africa is not the typical political autobiography. Thankfully.

The first chapter is the title story and presents him as a small boy of 7, how he hears of Nkrumah’s ousting, and the personal consequences. As the school holidays start, he is the last pupil left, waiting for his father to come.

He doesn’t come, and he and a school matron travel to the city centre to find his home surrounded by troops and his father jailed by the coup leaders. He writes that the ‘course of my future’ was changed by an ‘unspeakable period of violence’ that followed.

This opening does not reflect the almost idyllic childhood Mahama recounts in the remaining chapters. The reason for this opening can be related to his introduction.  Here, he suggests that he views his book as a paedagogic project, a way to educate his readers. He is going to be as specific as possible, because he is tired of people generalising about Africa, creating a ‘monolithic’ viewpoint. In this way, for example, he stresses the difference between growing up in Accra (with his father, and attending the elite boarding school Achimota) and in a small northern village that is difficult to reach and (he suggests) considered by many Ghanaians as foreign. He is keen to establish that there is purpose in writing: this is not an ego project, but an important way to generate understanding, believing that survival despite difficult political and economic situations ‘must be somewhere in our stories, in the seeming minutiae of the day-in and day-out’. There are clear echoes here of the Christian biographical narrative, the focus on what can be learned, improved upon over a lifetime: the belief that there is meaning in everyday experience. For Mahama the adult, as much as Mahama the small boy faced with intimidating soldiers and a father who disappeared (to prison) for a year, the coup has educative potential.

It is this focus on minutiae, the small parts of life, which is of great interest to me in his descriptions of history, and of school as I develop a project looking at West African autobiographies. I am particularly interested in childhood memories of school, given the focus in so many sources and studies on the experiences of teachers, parents and policy makers. Mahama’s account of facing a playground bully, in contrast to these top-down texts, presents the school as a community in which teachers know little of their charges’ life. Mahama (briefly) attended Achimota, a school that stressed cooperation, yet the author describes a systematic theft of food by a bullying pupil that went unnoticed by teachers. This may seem insignificant, but shouldn’t: a key way in which African pupils showed their opposition to school authorities was the so-called ‘food strike’. Protest could grow from young people’s concerns over what was available on the meal table.

Achimota Badge: The keyboard image symbolises cooperation

In the reverse of this process, large, globally significant events become small parts of everyday lives through the prism of the school. Politics (in the shape of the coup) is discussed in school.   Even if for the smallest boys it is in confusing, new terms, that are not fully understood, that seem to offer exciting possibilities.

The autobiography also provides insight into the ways in which families strategically managed educational opportunity. In his description of a family divided between different schools, it becomes clear just how some parents attempted to systematically improve the odds of their children’s success (separating them across different institutions). This is even though Mahama recalls his father’s attitude to schooling:

"He saw it as one of the few risk-free endeavours in life. There was nothing to be lost from it and everything to be gained."

Children’s views of the school concerned, not to mention separation from siblings and home do not seem to have mattered from Mahama’s account. The author makes clear that the ‘tradition’ and prestige of Achimota did not prevent him from hating the experience. Again, it is suggested here that we have the child’s eye view of school.  This contrasts to the fuzzy, often minimally defined, claims to ‘reputation’ which dominate many accounts of African schools I have read in the archives. Despite this apparent disempowerment, Mahama’s account also includes key moments in which school enabled him to shine in front of his father. Even before he is selected for Achimota, his father is called in to meet with his first teacher, who has spotted his potential.

She tells his father that Mahama: ‘has the potential to make you really proud’. He goes on to win prizes at Achimota, recalling of this experience that

"even considering all the accolades I have been blessed to receive thus far in my life, nothing can ever top those few precious moments of hearing my name called, of climbing up on that stage and having all the parents clap for me."

Education here is a publicly rewarded activity, but also one seen as all the more rewarding in retrospect. I connect this retrospective focus on the benefits of education to Mahama’s introduction, his goals for expanding his readers’ knowledge and understanding. For me, Mahama’s autobiography sparks important questions. How valuable are memories of school, if they are recalled to argue for the value of education?  How do we interpret the discordant notes (his hatred of much of life at Achimota) in the light of this focus?

 John Dramani Mahama, My first coup d’etat Memoirs from the lost decades of Africa (Bloomsbury, 2012)

Available to buy from Bloomsbury’s online store

With thanks to Liverpool City Library, where I loaned my copy.

* This post is cross-posted from Africa in Words, a blog that focuses on cultural production and Africa. We cover books, art, film, history, music, theatre, ideas and people and the ways they interact, through their publication and circulation, with societies, economies and space. Our name is intended to recognise that there are as many Africas and ways of talking about it as there are words to do it with. It reflects our shared understanding of the diverse networks across the continent that generate thought and action, that provoke people to produce, to curate, and to write, and that cross political, generic, and disciplinary limits. Ours is a collective space made up of regular authors and guest contributors, edited by Kate Haines, Charlotte Hastings, Nara Improta, Rebecca Jones, Katie Reid and Stephanie Santana. The post forms part of an ongoing project looking at a autobiographical work and the study of childhood in West Africa. The goal of cross-posting is to reach an audience who might not have found the original site of the post, despite an interest in childhood, memory, colonial schooling and/or Africa. *

The Peter Gosden Fellowship

Introduction

In 2015, the History of Education Society will fund the second annual Peter Gosden Fellowship. The purpose of this Fellowship will be to build upon the achievements associated with the first Fellowship, in terms of establishing a higher public profile for the History of Education Society, its associated publications and conferences, and other activities concerned with the study and teaching of the history of education both in the UK and abroad. In particular, the Fellow will be tasked with maintaining a social media presence utilising a weblog (on the Society's website), Twitter and Facebook. This online activity will continue to develop an interactive web-presence in the period leading up to the 50th anniversary of the Society.

The Fellowship will start on 1^st February 2015 and finish on 31^st January 2016.

The Fellow will be mentored by the Society's publicity/website officer Dr Rob Freathy (University of Exeter).

Responsibilities

• The Fellow will be responsible for the following:
• Ensuring that a weblog is posted on the Society’s website at least once a month;
• Ensuring that regular Tweets are posted as and when necessary/appropriate/requested by the Society’s publicity/website officer;
• Ensuring that regular entries are added to the Facebook page as and when necessary/appropriate/requested by the Society’s publicity/website officer;
• Liaising on a regular basis with the Society’s postgraduate represent to maximise efficiency and effectiveness when publicising news and events pertaining to postgraduate students;
• Liaising with the organisers of the annual conferences (student and main conferences) to ensure appropriate and timely publicity over calls for papers, Tweeting of conference content, blogging of conference reports, book prizes, and similar;
• Consulting with the Society’s publicity/website officer on a regular basis, to be mutually agreed, with regard to the frequency, content and style of the ‘posts’, Tweets and Facebook entries; and
• Attending History of Education Society Executive Committee meetings (when necessary).

Note: So long as the authorship of all ‘posts’, Tweets and Facebook entries is appropriately acknowledged, so as to avoid any contravention of copyright law, it will be permissible for the Fellow to simply co-ordinate the social media activity rather than write all of the content his or herself.

Package

The Fellow will receive:

• £1,000 as an honorarium
• a year’s membership of the Society
• free attendance at the Society's annual conferences (i.e. the student and main conferences).

Notes:

• The honorarium will be paid in four instalments (each of £250).
• The year’s membership of the Society will entail receipt of free copies of History of Education Researcher and History of Education. (The second is additional to standard membership.)
• Payment for attendance at the Society's conferences will include the conference fee (including conference meals if these are additional costs), accommodation costs (to be agreed in advance) and standard class travel expenses.

Application information

Applications are welcome from anyone interested in furthering the missions and aims of the History of Education Society. These include the promotion of the study and teaching of the history of education; promoting the public profile and an informed public understanding of the history of education by engaging in relevant debates; providing collaboration and exchange among those interested in the history of education in the UK and around the world; and promoting links with the study and teaching of history at all levels. Previous recipients of a Peter Gosden Fellowship are welcome to re-apply.

Applicants should ideally be undertaking or have completed a postgraduate degree in the history of education or a cognate field of enquiry. Personal or professional experience of utilising social media, such as weblogs, Twitter and/or Facebook, would be desirable. Applicants should also be able to name two referees whom we may approach for references.

Location: The Fellow can be based in any locality, but must have ready access to the relevant Information Technology and to a reliable internet connection.

Application closing date: 31^st December 2014.

Short-listed applicants will be interviewed via Skype on a date and time to be arranged. Unsuccessful applicants will not be contacted.

Interested applicants should contact the President of the History of Education Society, Dr Cathy Burke, on cb552@cam.ac.uk.

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.