Conference Agenda

The workshop will be of interest to early career researchers. The session will be interactive and focus on the importance of critical reflection to enable researchers to develop insights into the importance of who they are to shaping their research findings. The workshop explores how this is not a case of bias, but an inevitable, important and valuable aspect of doing research and building knowledge. To do this aspect of research rigorously and well, all researchers need to regularly subject themselves, their research practices, findings and theorisations to reflection and scrutiny. The audience will be invited to challenge their beliefs as we explore well-known phenomena through the fresh lens of unacknowledged and hidden forms of sexism, racism and other forms of prejudice.

Workshop Objectives

• To explore how a researcher’s perspective shapes their research focus and the analysis of data.
• To raise awareness of the risk of bias in the interpretation of findings, taking account of the impact of lived experience.
• To sensitise reseachers to the complexity of intersectionality and the many layers of positionality which have the potential to distort research results.

By the end of this session, participants will be better able to:

Identify and eliminate the propensity for personal perspectives to influence the interpretation of research data.

We live in a future-focused present. The predicted, yet unknown, crises that our world is set to face to the coming decade are undoubtedly salient. In response, governments are increasingly turning to anticipatory governance – a proactive approach to navigate these ambiguous futures (Muiderman et al., 2020). This approach extends beyond general modes of governance, in that it reveals a palpable intent to shape an unpredictable future (Rose & Abi-Rached, 2013).

To aid in this anticipatory mode of governance, policymakers often employ rhetorical strategies, including referencing the past to help defend arguments to shape the future. This tactic is also evident in education policies, where 'educational futures' are emphasised by “projecting the past and present into planning of the future” (Popkewitz, 1997, p. 401). In doing so, these policies instrumentalise the past to govern the future.

Scholars stress that such ‘instrumental uses of the past’ differ from drawing on historical perspectives to analyse contemporary issues (Dougherty, 2009), which remains highly valuable in educational research (Westberg, 2021). Instead, instrumentalising the past, as many future-oriented education policies do, involves “creating different pasts so they match (or not) the futures that we deem preferable” (Galviz, 2022, p. 31). Consequently, the past is used in service of certain ideologies, which not only prompts a biased and incomplete interpretation of history (Hess, 2010), but also risks producing ‘instrumental futures’ (Michael, 2000).

Therefore, this paper will investigate the use of historical narratives in two contemporary and future-oriented policies. Specifically, this study delves into the concept of 'politics of temporality', exploring how the past is instrumentalised to govern and shape future education reform, especially in response to global uncertainties. In doing so, it emphasises the power of supranational organisations in guiding this education reform, particularity within the current knowledge economy.

Utilising recent scholarship of ‘applied history of education’ (cf. Westberg, 2021; Westberg & Primus, 2023) and drawing inspiration from the work of, amongst others, Seixas (2005), who emphasises the need for historical thinkers – policymakers included – to think more historically, this research employs Jörn Rüsen’s staged scheme of development in historical consciousness. This framework identifies four ‘types’ of historical thinking – traditional, exemplary/progressive, critical, and genetic – ranging from basic to more advanced. Thus, the analysis aims to pinpoint the mode of historical consciousness employed in the selected policies, intending to prompt a ‘window of opportunity’ for the development of more sophisticated historical thinking in education policies.

As such, this research has a dual objective: firstly, to unveil instrumental readings of history within contemporary education policies, and secondly, to analyse how these readings may both hinder our understanding of history and serve as rhetorical devices for advocating disruptive futures. In other words, this study aims to uncover both what education policy discourse says and what the discourse does. It argues that instrumentalising the past not only distorts histories of education, but also serves as a powerful tool for policymakers to advance specific agendas in education. Accordingly, this research advocates for a critical reflection on the uses of the past in education policy-making and calls for the development of critical and genetic modes of historical consciousness, arguing that this may facilitate a dialogue among policymakers and historians (of education) in reflecting on educational futures.

Educational innovation is nowadays an indispensable concept when describing and understanding educational systems. It has been a key line of action in the reform processes globally implemented to adapt educational systems to the needs and societies of the 21st century (Caldwell & Spinks, 2013; Hallgarten & Beresford, 2015; Leadbeater & Wong, 2010). It has gained such centrality in the school environment that the OECD has announced what it calls "the imperative of innovation" (2015, p. 16). However, the widespread adoption of educational innovation in discursive and practical levels has not been accompanied by research and analysis efforts, leading to a lack of scientific knowledge regarding its conceptualization.

The term "educational innovation," despite its broad use by individuals from various fields, remains undefined. The word “innovation” is associated with the introduction of something new, implying a novel idea or element for an individual or group, from which a change in a system is derived. In the educational field, such change is associated with an idea of improvement in student learning and the quality of education (Rodríguez & Zubillaga, 2020). It can take the form of a theory, an organizational structure at the school or educational system level, a teaching-learning process, content, methodology, or teaching resource.

However, the term's meaning has not been precisely outlined, resulting in an ongoing lack of consensus and even contradictory meanings (Hill et al., 2022). This ambiguity makes it difficult to focus the debate and distinguish the purposes to which innovation responds. Consequently, although innovation has been established as imperative in current educational discourses, its meaning has remained vague and diffuse, hindering the assessment of its alignment with the quality and equity objectives that shape the global educational agenda for educational systems.

This communication aims to clarify this concept and address the limitation of current discourses and studies. To achieve this, it is necessary to delve into the origins of the term and observe its evolution. In the mid-20th century, there was a sharp interest in educational innovation understood as an improvement in students' academic performance, neglecting a more holistic vision of educational innovation related to human growth. This more integrated conceptualization progressively fades from the mid-20th century onwards in favor of school effectiveness, measuring its effects through educational performance and school profitability (Cogan, 1976). While it is a gradual process, it is primarily from the 1970s onwards when the concept of 'educational innovation' focuses predominantly on factors enabling the improvement of students' learning outcomes. For this reason, we concentrate the study on the meanings attributed to the concept of innovation in scientific research in the educational field between the 1970s and the 1990s.

For many years the emergence of civil society was seen as an important element in the rise, maintenance and consolidation of democracy around the world (Botchway 2018; Diamond, 1994). Nevertheless, there are differences with regard to what counts as civil society, and how it supports democratization (Edwards, 2009;.Jensen, 2006). There is also research that points out that civic associational life sometimes coexists with authoritarian regimes (Lorch & Bunk, 2017) or that civil society can, under specific conditions, even bring to the faltering of democracy (Sombatpoonsiri, 2020).

Research on the contribution of civil society to democratization highlights that it provides spaces for democratic deliberation and facilitates bringing grassroots issues to public attention due to their inclusion in the public sphere. But civil society is also important to support democracy as it can limit the power of the state. Casanova (2001) highlights the case of church-state interaction maintaining that in situations in which the church is disengaged from the state it contributes to processes of normative contestation in the public sphere. In Spain, due to the death of the dictator, Francisco Franco, in 1975, the Catholic Church was clearly relocated from its privileged role as a close ally of the state to civil society, becoming a central actor. In collaboration with a net of catholic civic associations it mobilized in order to protect its interests, especially in the sphere of education. The 1970 educational reform which was launched under the Franco regime recognised the privileged place of the catholic religion, while the reforms of 1985 and 1990 initiated by the newly elected socialist government installed a lay and public model of state education. This process was accompanied by large scale social mobilizations of teachers, parents and school associations both against and in favour of government educational policy.

In this paper we look at the role of civil society educational organisations in the consolidation of the Spanish democratic educational system. On the one hand we continue with a well-established line of inquiry which shows how educational associations and social movements opposing to the dictatorship and its legacy interacted with state and society in order to impact educational legislation, pedagogical practice and teacher training (Groves, 2014; Groves et al., 2017;Parcerisa et al., 2023). On the other hand, we complement and contrast this analysis with a novel enquiry into the role of catholic educational networks in the configuration of the Spanish education system during this period. The transition to democracy in the 1970s has dissolved their privileged position vis a vi the Franco regime which fused its nationalistic project with Catholicism. Due to the new democratic context they were obliged to reformulate their attitude toward the state which in its turn incorporated, after forty years of social and political exclusion, the world view of progressive social actors. As catholic schools and associations were identified with the barriers for the implementation of a post-dictatorial democratic education, their mobilization and incorporation into civil society has been hardly studied. Thus we know very little about their strategies of influence and interaction with the state.

In this paper we sustain that by comparing the mobilization of the catholic educational network with that of the progressive educational initiatives we can discern how their different position vis a vi the state influenced their educational discourse and legitimacy strategies. This comparison also enriches the understanding of the interaction between the state, civil society and education policy.

The voice is a crucial tool that teachers use daily to carry out their pedagogical practices. Its importance is highlighted by the significant amount of medical and quantitative research that has been done, in terms of preserving it and limiting the negative impact it can have on students’ achievements (see for example Martins et al., 2014; Rosenberg et al., 1999). The few qualitative research on voices has shown that they have the power to change the meaning of a sentence by, for example, merely varying the tone (Le Breton, 2011). In that way, our perception of certain voices can impact how we perceive people (ibid). In education, where a hierarchical relationship could be installed between a teacher and a student, this could be significant: how students perceive their teacher’s voice tone could influence such a power relationship, and Koch (2017) even suggests that this could further influence the kind of citizens students will become later in life. Therefore, the teacher’s voice is a powerful tool that could influence students’ achievement as well as their behaviour (Koch, 2017; Moustapha-Sabeur & Aguilar Río, 2014).

Nonetheless, the teacher’s voice was not always present in classrooms. Landahl (2019) has shown that in the 19^th century, the students’ voices filled up the rooms to repeat and memorize lessons. Towards the end of the century, a shift occurred: teachers were asked to ‘activate’ students by explaining and asking them questions, making their voices more dominant in classrooms (ibid). Despite the impact of a teacher’s voice in education and what it could tell about educational beliefs throughout history, there is still a lack of research on the teacher’s voice in qualitative and historical research.

This paper is an attempt to open the doors of the field of history of education on the teacher’s voice, by inscribing the research in the framework of New Cultural History of Education. One of the concerns of this framework is to understand and counter forms of power that can be hidden in educational historiographies as well as in the educational system itself throughout time (Fendler, 2019). The paper thus supposes that the teacher’s voice can be considered a powerful tool that needs to be understood more thoroughly. By doing this, the paper aims to add a new layer to different powers involved in education throughout history and to introduce a discussion on the potential power of the master’s voice.

More specifically, this paper investigates the descriptions of the teacher’s voice in the French-speaking Belgian context between 1880 and 1914. The period investigated is marked by the so-called School War, which opposed Catholic and liberal visions of education in policymaking. It ends with the beginning of the First World War, which marks a turn in many aspects of society, including education. Two research questions are investigated: the first one explores how teachers were advised to use their voice, and how their voice was described in pedagogical journals and manuals. This allows an analysis of whether the way teachers’ voices have been described has been the same as today, i.e. in terms of concerns for vocal health mainly. More broadly, such research could also give insight into how the voice has been seen as part of the didactic tools throughout history. On the other hand, the paper will compare the presentations of voice between Catholic and liberal pedagogical journals. This could inform us of the influences that pedagogical beliefs could have had and therefore, it could start a reflection on how education has been defined.

The purpose of this article is to further develop the groundbreaking research conducted by the Building Performance Research Unit (BPRU). The BPRU was established at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, in 1967 and conducted research on 48 comprehensive schools in central Scotland that were opened between 1958 and 1966. Our research contents were publicly presented for the first time at the ECER 2023 conference in Glasgow, the original setting of this history of education we continued to elaborate on. Our presentation introduced the objectives of the BPRU and the theoretical contributions of its researchers from various disciplines, including the founder and main coordinator, architect Thomas A. Markus ; P. Whyman (architect), D. Canter (psychologist), T. Maver (operational research scientist), J. Morgan (physicist), D. Whitton (quantity surveyor) and J. Flemming (systems analyst).

Our presence in Glasgow, also enabled unprecedented access to the BPRU documents, which had been archived since 1973, when the unit's activities came to an end. A detailed reading and critical interpretation of these archival documents can provide a relevant contribute to the knowledge of these first post-occupancy experiences in schools from the end of the 1960s. This includes the challenges, experiences, and deviations involved in speculating on a field that, at the time, was still unaware of its true relevance, as evidenced by many contemporary studies.

The working papers, signed by the researchers, provide an objective report on the measurements of school building layouts and the needs of their communities. The papers map the physical conditions that determine teaching environments, such as sound and daylight, through a rigorous study of spatial partitions. This helped to better understand the particular perceptions of students and teachers. Although the quantitative techniques were used to translate data into objective information, psychologist David Canter's reports aimed to subjectively assess the school communities through questionnaires that were marked by their semantic richness.

The BPRU theory of “improvisation” pertains to changes made in the day-to-day operations of schools’ communities, to varying degrees. The aim was to map these changes in a relatively simple manner, using models that learn from each school's level of improvisation. This allowed for the simulation of future day-to-day operations of schools as open systems of improvisation.

Based on the BPRU’s observation that “people are more adaptable than school buildings”, it is important to consider the full activity of these spaces as relevant data to achieve a fuller architectural response. We argue that interdisciplinary research is currently crucial for renovating educational spaces.

This year's Network17 invitation was a fascinating impetus to look at my dissertation (which I am currently writing at Vilnius University, on the retrospective and perspectives of Roma education policy and practice 1956-2024 in Lithuanian schools) from a completely different and unplanned angle - the emotions of the individual in a historical context. Nevertheless, today, balancing between two intentions: 1) to present a small part of the research data related to the teacher's memories of his/her experiences of working with three different generations of Roma pupils (from the late 1980's onwards), and 2) to criticize myself as a researcher who has been applying oral history for perhaps the first time, I pose the question: What emotions and feelings emerged in the teachers' narratives about the past, and do these emotions in the current context have implications for their work, and perhaps even for future strategy planning?

In answering this question, the analysis revealed a wide range of emotions and feelings experienced in the past, which can be summarised as "negative", meanwhile in terms of the present, educators identified much more "positive" emotions. This can be explained by the fact that teachers are now very happy about their successes and are aware of the enormous impact that, for example, a simple transition from one class to another can have on some Roma pupils, but both in the past and in the present this happiness, seems to be clouded by the pressure of the public "a piori problematic" discourse on Roma education, because as Matras mentions, "No tabula rasa is available when it comes to briefing politicians, media, or the wider public about Roma/Gypsies and their needs or aspirations" (2013). Thus, from a historical perspective the "resignation to defeat" of the past were transformed in the present - into a context of lower expectations. Teachers tend to view truly noteworthy pedagogical changes with a very modest attitude, as "small steps on a long journey". Interestingly, this phrase tends to be used by teachers of both the old and the young generation, which allows us to speak of a kind of reproduction of pedagogical emotions in the context of a future programmed in the past, i.e. a present of low aspirations.

The "good" features of oral history were particularly highlighted in the context of this study as an opportunity not only to create a source of unique information, but also to involve the Roma and the educational community in the construction of history. Nevertheless I have also encountered the "classic" difficulties of the novice researcher: trying to understand how individuals relate to their past and how historical understanding unfolds over time (Ricoeur, 2004), navigating between the twists and turns of memory and history, where the resulting testimony is "never the same twice in a row" (Portelli, 2009), and the difficulties of interpretation and the transition between the micro and the macro history of history (Domanska, 1999). I understand and apologise in advance to those who may find my newbie-level observations about the use of oral history in educational research naive and even self-evident, but perhaps by analysing myself rather than others I am much more in line with the longing theme of this year's ECER Network17 call - by sentimentally reminding experienced educational historians of their own first oral history research and nostalgic career beginnings.

Languages and educational reforms play a pivotal role in the intricate process of nation-building (Anderson 2005), yet the historical exploration of transnational contexts within this framework remains notably neglected. A region and temporal window that stand out for their explicit relevance to the transformation processes toward nation-states is Southeast Europe in the early 20th century. Marked by various conflicts and internal reform endeavors of the Ottoman Empire, especially the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 – regarded as the initiation of a protracted transformation from sultanic rule to the establishment of a Turkish nation-state (Osterhammel 2009, p. 800) – this era witnessed a profound reorganization resulting in distinct nation-states with diverse languages.

In the same year, the inception of the German and French-language daily newspaper “Osmanischer Lloyd” occurred under the auspices of the Foreign Office and the German Embassy in Constantinople. Aligned with one of the German Empire's global strategies in the Wilhelmine era – to construct a shared cultural and economic sphere “from Berlin to Baghdad” – the newspaper served as a propagandistic press organ for an international audience. It delved into a myriad of contemporary issues, including educational and language policies. The publication engaged in discussions encompassing the Greek, Turkish, Albanian, and Jewish languages; deliberations on the “Turkish language reform” and the “purification of the Turkish language”; inquiries into population literacy; and examinations of the Greek, Latin, and Arabic alphabets alongside their histories and the intricate relationship between religion and language (Osmansicher Lloyd 2.173, 2.219, 3.28, 3.39, 3.67, 4.42, 9.6, 11.81 etc.). Co-founder and deputy editor-in-chief Friedrich Schrader formulated a prevailing premise: "A new era needs a new language. This is a truth that emerges from the literature of all nations." (Osmanischer Lloyd 24.05.1914, p. 1). The predominant horizon of experience are (academic) and social socialization contexts and the historical experiences of the formation of the German nation state, which serve as the basis of the argumentation. And yet it is remarkable that the magazine appeared to act as an independent medium within the contemporary discourse of the metropolis and dealt with these topics with thematic depth and connections to other historical actors and print media.

In my contribution, I analyze this source's portrayal of the imagined vision of a “modern” and “economically successful” nation-state within the context of the language-related articles of the years 1908 to 1918. How are different languages assessed and categorized? What language, teaching methods, and educators does a modern (nation) state require at the outset of the 20th century for "success" in scientific and economic terms? To what extent are reform proposals articulated? With this approach I like to contribute both to tracing contemporary transnational entanglements and deconstructing the semi-colonial notions of the medium.

The theoretical framework of this study draws from Michel Foucault’s discourse concept, conceptualizing it as a historically specific space of knowledge and sayability entangled with power (Foucault 2015). Additionally, my research aligns with the immediate context of postcolonial studies, informed by Edward Said’s Orientalism. Here, the representation of “the other” and certain knowledge stocks emerges as a self-assurance and empowerment strategy shaping collective identity, even in Germany (Said 2003). Consequently, the articles statements must be scrutinized under the lens of self-representation. It is therefore particularly interesting to look at the extent to which statements on the relationship between nation and language are evaluated. The authors' arguments are based on the European-German horizon of experience and the evaluations thus follow certain deterministic and Eurocentric logics that must be deconstructed.

The development of educational history writing gained momentum in the first half of the 19th century. Its development was closely linked to the development of teacher training. Textbooks at different levels of the training played an important role in the formation of the discipline (Tröhler, 2004, 2006). According to Tröhler, the history of education had a moral, not a scientific, task. It set out the framework within which educators had to think about pedagogy, educational situations and schools. It placed contemporary pedagogical practice in a historical context and thus legitimised it.

Although Tröhler's findings are based on German and French textbooks, his conclusions are also valid for Hungarian textbooks. Hungary was in a unique position both in terms of its educational system and pedagogical thinking. The development of its culture and educational system has been strongly influenced by transnational trends (Mayer, 2019). In this respect, the role of German culture should be highlighted. Placing the history of Hungarian education in a European framework was one of the main aims of Hungarian textbooks on the history of education.

Cultural and pedagogical similarities can also be seen in the field of educational history writing. The history of education became one of the main subjects in the training of elementary school teachers in the second half of the 19th century. According to contemporary ideas, this subject provided the legitimacy of elementary school pedagogy and methodology. It also described the eminent educationalists and, through their lives, the desirable professional profiles with which teacher candidates had to identify. It was therefore a historically oriented subject, but with a strong normative content.

Although the history of education has played an important role in teacher training, little research has been undertaken into its history. This is partly due to the fact that Hungarian historiography of education has typically paid little attention to theoretical and historiographical issues. A few overview works have been produced (Szabó, Garai & Németh, 2022), but a comprehensive exploration of the history of Hungarian educational history writing is still awaited.

In my research, focusing on the training of elementary school teachers, I investigated how the construction of the "current past" and through it the legitimation of contemporary pedagogical theory and practice occurred in the Hungarian textbooks of the late 19th century.

This study, which forms an integral part of a broader investigation into the interconnectedness of educational discourses, focuses on perspectives of knowledge. These perspectives encompass the epistemological frameworks of knowledge, including its nature, acquisition, validation, and utilisation, and are influenced by various schools of thought, such as empiricism, pragmatism, and constructivism. These perspectives are pivotal not only to our perception of knowledge but also have a profound impact on teaching methods (Greene & Yu, 2016) and learner outcomes (Mason et al., 2013; Muis & Foy, 2010).

The project examines the last 60 years of educational discourse in Sweden (1962–2023). By analysing extensive textual data from parliamentary records, media, and educational research using innovative digital methods, we aim to illustrate how perspectives on knowledge have evolved within and across different discourse domains.

We chose 1962 as the starting point for our study because it marks the introduction of Sweden's comprehensive educational system. Since then, Sweden has experienced significant transformations in its educational system, including a shift from state to municipal governance of schools, the introduction of privately run schools, the establishment of a new teaching college, and the implementation of a new grading system (Lindensjö & Lundgren, 2000). These reforms align with major developments in Sweden's economic history, such as comprehensive welfare reforms and sustained economic growth (Schön, 2012).

Presently, the Swedish school system is grappling with a multitude of challenges, including declining academic achievement, increased inequality, grade inflation, inadequate competence supply, classroom disorder, and mental health issues. Recent research suggests that a transformed perception of knowledge underlies many of these challenges (Henrekson & Wennström, 2022; James & Lewis, 2012). A growing body of research has delved into how public opinion, educational politics, the media, and research reflect and influence perceptions of education (Billingham & Kimelberg, 2016; Lee et al., 2022). However, there is a lack of studies on the interconnectedness of educational discourses using natural data (Lyons, 1991) comprehensively over time. Topic modelling, an established method in historical studies (e.g., Cohen Priva & Austerweil, 2015), can provide valuable opportunities to study discourse formation.

In collaboration with KBLab at the National Library of Sweden (collaboration agreement KB 2024-114), we use exploratory transformer-based topic modelling and sentence-based large language models to analyse extensive data from these discourse areas: the political sphere, the media landscape, and educational sciences. These areas form three corpora represented by 1) parliamentary motions, propositions, and speeches, 2) content from the four largest daily newspapers, and 3) educational research published in scholarly journals. Through KBLab, we are able to obtain close to complete data series from each data source. By dividing the period into 5-year intervals, we investigate relationships within and across these areas to reveal when and where changes are initiated, adopted, and spread to other discourse areas.

Research questions:

1. What changes in the perceptions of knowledge can be found in the last 60 years of political, media, and research discourses?
2. How do changes in these discourses interrelate?

This study contributes to educational research and the social sciences in several ways. Firstly, it provides a robust empirical foundation for exploring the interrelationships among political, public, and scholarly discourses. Secondly, it offers theoretical insights into discourse formation and the processes by which semantic shifts are initiated, adopted, and disseminated across different discourse domains. Thirdly, by fine-tuning (L)LMs, we make a methodological contribution that enables the comprehensive and comparative analysis of extensive, previously inaccessible natural data over time. Additionally, all model codes will be made open-access and available to anyone interested in discourse and policy formation.

It has been not widely analyzed how intense emotions (both positive and negative ones) maintained the Cold War situation between 1945 and 1990: between the Blocks and inside a country (an example of this attitude: Biess, 2020). The topic of this presentation is a blind spot in the history of Eastern European education, namely the role and feelings of teachers and principals during the collectivization. In a one-party socialist system, every state employee (including teachers, managers, local officials, cultural workers, etc.) had to function as a propagandist (Slapentokh, 1989, 106–107); regardless of his/her commitment, and attitudes. Proving loyalty to the official ideology and the requirement to take part in socialist development (industrialization, collectivization, transformation of the culture) might cause conflicts of conscience for teachers, especially in rural areas, where these intellectuals were closely related to their communities.

The context of educators’ activities in mass mobilization campaigns in socialist societies (like collectivization) has already been elaborated (e.g. Fitzpatrick, 1994; Kligman & Verdery, 2011), but the personal views of these participants are mostly missing. I am going to present these through a special case study, showing the final phase of the collectivization in Hungary, in the early months of 1960. Originally, the process of radical change in agriculture was considered to be a field of historical investigation. Historians traditionally focused on the Party regulations, local implementation, and the reactions of the farmers (from collaboration to resistance), meanwhile, the other actors who were involved, remained in the shadow. On the other hand, scholars from the history of education were not interested in that topic, as it seemed to be too far from the issues of schooling, and belongs to the terrain of economic and political history. These all concluded in a forgotten and sometimes tabooed story of the dominant presence of schoolteachers in the collectivization: even the participants did not want to speak about it, because the persuasion of the individual farmers might connect with psychological and physical pressure.

My preliminary statements were the following before the analysis:

1. Education, as a content and activity was subordinated to different ideological and political intentions until the first half of the 1960s in Hungary. Teachers had to fulfil the Party-given goals at that time, with limited professional competencies.
2. Teachers’ (and other social actors’) involvement was enforced and manipulated by the Party, to take the responsibility down to lower levels (Ö. Kovács, 2012): the local staff had to agitate their own families, relatives, pupils’ parents, and so on. In an all-round movement, everyone was a link in the chain.
3. The communist project about social transfiguration was evaluated as a modernization program (even nowadays), and in this progress, the state educationalizes the whole society (Świrek & Pospech, 2021). Teachers had to educate not just the children, but their parents as well – and sometimes the educators needed an education too (Welton, 2014).
4. Propaganda and agitation made parallel universes in this world, where ideology immensely infiltrated everyday reality.

There are two broader dimensions surrounding this theme: the roles, possibilities, and limitations of intellectuals in an authoritarian, totalitarian system (Tismaneanu & Iacob, 2019); and the utilizing emotions in the history of education (Sobe, 2012). In this presentation, I will first outline the socio-historical background of the concrete case, and then comes the analysis of the complex interactions between teachers and their environment in the winter of 1960.

The term Anthropocene, popularised by J.P. Crutzen, suggests that humankind has become a global geological force in its own right (Steffen et al., 2011). In the search for the origins of the Anthropocene, it is often associated with capitalism(Foster, Clark, York, 2010; Zalasiewicz, 2019), most notably the US hegemony (Foster, Clark, 2021). The question is even raised as to whether the Anthropocene should be called the Capitalocene (Moore, 2016). Marxist philosophy and the ecological policy of the Soviet Union are presented as a counterbalance to predatory capitalism towards nature. But even while admiring this policy, it is acknowledged that it has been ambivalent (Foster, 2015). As Bolotova notes, “The slogans on the conquest and subjection of nature were among the most important ideological frames of the Soviet state. The idea of human dominance over nature and the call for humans to subdue, modify and reconstruct a chaotic and meaningless nature in order to regulate natural processes supplemented the overarching goal of a total reconstruction of the social order, making for an intrinsic link between state policy and the ideology of conquering nature in the USSR” (2004, p. 107). But in its outward-looking propaganda, the Soviet Union positioned itself as the greatest defender of nature and a fighter against the capitalists destroying it. The aim of this presentation is to analyse which of the Soviet Union's narratives - the conquest of nature or the preservation of nature - was dominant in Soviet educational policy and school practice. Has attention been paid to the ecological problems of the Soviet Union itself: the Aral Sea's destruction, the rivers' diversion, the causes of desertification, destructive forms of timber exploitation, irrational mining practices, etc?

This paper explores how pedagogies of place can support an analysis of the connections between people, places, and communities by including pedagogical and ecological discourses in a specific time and space in Denmark - The Travelling High School Tvind in the 1970s.

Grünewald (2003) describes five "dimensions of place" that can shape the development of a socio-ecological, place-conscious education: (a) the perceptual, (b) the sociological, (c) the ideological, (d) the political and (e) the ecological. Warren (2000) states that human beings must (a) examine the impact of places on culture and identity, and (b) embrace our political roles.

The case study examines the educational ethos and the conceptualisation of pedagogical actions and the concept action competence.

Tvind began (1970) near the village of Ulfborg (2000 inhabitants) on Denmark's west coast by the North Sea. A small group of young teachers settled there to live collectively and with a shared economy when they set up a state-funded folk high school. They were pioneers in social development, education and sustainable environmental projects. (Today the Teachers' Group has hundreds of members in several countries). Tvind Folk High School became internationally known in the 70s through this construction. It proved to be significant not only for the wind turbine industry, but also for the wider environmental discourse. The case highlights a close and complex relationship between environmental activism, pedagogy and the development of agency.

Special emphasis was placed on developing international solidarity with the working class through direct experience. Young Danes were sent to Third World countries, thus turning the folk high school into an international, globalised forum for dealing with Third World problems and power. At that time Tvind's pedagogy was inspired by Maoism and its strong focus on manual labour and material production based on solidarity with the people.

Environmental problems have been on the agenda since the 1960s and 1970s. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is therefore a complex concept. The concept: Action competence is central to the field. It is defined as a personal capacity that encompasses more than the intellectual-cognitive domain and is a pedagogical and ethical challenge, as it involves the will to act. The concept is ideologically influenced by German critical theory (Oscar Negt (1964) (2019) (including inspiration from C. Wright Mills concept of sociological imagination) as well as W. Klafki (1983/1959).(Breiting et al, 2009).

The intention is to foster democratic and action-oriented citizens. It involves the whole personality, including many of the mental capacities and dispositions. (Mogensen, 1995). Ideland, M., clams the notion of action competence inscribes standards for what is to be thought and acted, experienced and felt.( Ideland, M, 2016.) ESD is discussed as a top-down directive promoting an indoctrinating education (Hasslöf, H. Ekborg, M and Malmberg, 2013) (Jickling, 2003) (Jickling and Wales, 2008) ( Ideland, M, 2016.) as action and behaviour change appear as imperatives within a sustainability discourse.

From a democratic perspective, the extent to which citizens see themselves as potential actors in societal development may be of paramount importance (Kollmuss, A (2002)).

If eco-politics requires a new political subject that can, among other things, realise the notion of freedom without abundance and integrate ecological materiality into a democratic and emancipatory politics, it is necessary to develop some common competences for action. (Charbonnier, P (2021). Scholars argue the need for a new ecological class directed against the production horizon to sustain the planet (Latour, B & Schultz, N. 2022).

In times of increasing globalization of education, its politicization and its instrumentalization for social and economic goals are eye-catching. One of the signs is a remarkable upcoming of mechanistic wording in the area of education like input-output, cost and productivity, management, accountability. The conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches that are applicable in global research, access and democracy in education favorize the competitive, economic creature (homo economicus), characterized by perfect access to information and by the infinite ability to make rational decisions, maximizing utility in terms of monetary as well as non-monetary gains. However, pedagogical practice, students and teachers give us many other images of the human. So do the different subjects at school. It is more than obvious that learning, pedagogy, bildung cannot be reduced to mechanics.

In this symposium we will ask the question what is specific to pedagogy. We will look back to what we make out as specifically pedagogical terminologies in different languages and traditions. In seeking to return education to its human roots, we will take a stance in the Faure report (1972), as well as in the foremost Continental-European educational subdiscipline of pedagogical anthropology: According to the Faure report, education should enhance the full expression of being human. From the pedagogical anthropology point of view, all education begins with an implicit image or ideal of the human. Beside the homo economicus there are uncountable homo-epitheta. Most of them were coined in the mid 18th century in imitation of homo sapiens. The homo aestheticus refers to Alexander Baumgarten’s (1750) theory of ‘sensible knowledge’ and Immanuel Kant’s (1790) ‘judgment of taste’; Homo loquens is a serious suggestion by Johann G. von Herder, taking the human species as defined by the use of language. We will follow up the hypothesis that by making these images or ideals explicit as approaches to education, learning and content, a first step is taken towards an understanding education as a fundamentally humanizing process.

A historical stance will be taken in the approaches of the brothers Humboldt to bildung and curricula, for which especially Wilhelm von Humboldt stands for. In 1804, his brother Alexander on his way back to Europa from Latin America and Mexico visited Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd North-American president from 1801 to 1809 and one of the most influential political theorists of the United States, the main author of the ‘Declaration of Independence’. This meeting led to a letter correspondence (cp. Jefferson 1817, online). While Jefferson in his well-known dictum “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” sums up his nation-idea that is based on individual freedom (calling slavery an “abominable crime,” however, without insisting to abolish it), Wilhelm von Humboldt (1792, online) sees freedom as the “grand and indispensable condition” for individual development, as well as the flourishing of State affairs. In a US-American context, the pursuit of happiness is mainly about rights and citizenship rooting in the fundamental idea that “all men are created equal and independent” (Boyd 1950). Von Humboldt connects liberty and freedom foremost to academic freedom. In this paper, it will be explained how Thomas Jefferson and Wilhelm von Humboldt laid the ground for later discourses on curriculum and bildung.

Boyd, J. P. (ed.) (1950): The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Vol. 1: 1760-1776. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Humboldt, Wilhelm. The Sphere and Duties of Government (1792, 1854). John Chapman, 1792. https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/coulthard-the-sphere-and-duties-of-government-1792-1854. [retrieved, January 11, 2024]

Discussions in German-speaking countries regarding school content, when to teach it, and how to teach it make use of the term ‘Lehrplan’, while English-speaking countries use the term ‘curriculum’ to address these matters. It is essential to note that Lehrplan carries specific meanings that are similar to but not synonymous with English terms curriculum, curriculum guideline, course instruction, or course study. Lehrplan refers to a theory of Bildung, and defines “[…] that which matters in teaching and instruction” (Künzli 2009, 134), and should, therefore, be understood as the “[…] specifications set by educational authorities concerning both lesson content and learning objectives” (ibid.). Curriculum, a fundamental concept in Anglo-American educational research that recognizes ideas about what is being taught or should be taught are neither self-evident or settled matters. Therefore, “[…] everything about curriculum, including its definition, is contested” (Walker, 2003, p. 11). As Horlacher (2018, p. 2) argues, “Lehrplan and curriculum are not merely two concepts indicating comparable subjects but imply also a whole belief system about schooling”. This paper seeks to explore the possibility of conducting comparative research in light of the close connection between language and concepts by focusing the Theory of Lehrplan by Georg Kerschensteiner (1854-1932) and his theory of Bildung, and Decker Walker’s (1942-) perspective on curriculum. For Walker (2003), curriculum is the organization of educational content and purposes, and curriculum theories “employ reason and evidence, but in the service of passion. Curriculum theories can be analytical as well as partisan. […] Curriculum theories make ideals explicit, clarify them, work out their consequences for curriculum practice, compare them to other ideals, and justify or criticize them” (p.60).

Horlacher, R., & De Vincenti, A. (2014). From rationalist autonomy to scientific empiricism: A history of curriculum in Switzerland. In W. F. Pinar (Ed.), International handbook of curriculum research (pp. 476–492). New York, NY: Routledge. Horlacher, R. (2018). The same but different: the German Lehrplan and curriculum. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 50(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2017.1307458 Kerschensteiner, G. (1899): Betrachtungen zur Theorie des Lehrplanes: mit eingehenden methodischen Bemerkungen und Erläuterungen zu dem beigefügten neuen Lehrplane der Weltkunde (Geographie, Geschichte, Naturkunde) für die siebenklassigen Volksschulen Münchens. Rohrbach: C. Gerber. Künzli, R. (2009). Curriculum und Lehrmittel. In: Andresen, S.; Casale, R.; Gabriel, T.; Horlacher, R.; Larcher Klee, S. & J. Oelkers (Eds.): Handwörterbuch Erziehungswissenschaft. Weinheim: Beltz, pp. 134-148. Walker, D. F. (2003). Fundamentals of curriculum: Passion and professionalism. Erlbaum Associates.

Culturally responsive education, including culturally relevant or culturally responsive instruction described in multicultural education literature, is not only about utilizing students’ culture as a vehicle for learning, but also about teaching them how to develop a broader sociopolitical consciousness that enables them to critique the cultural norms, values, mores, and institutions that produce and maintain social inequities (Ladson-Billings 1994, p. 162). Contemporary U.S. scholars (e.g., Gay, 2018; Ladson-Billings, 1994) who have proposed various approaches to culturally responsive or culturally relevant education often draw upon the writings of William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963), an US-American sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist, called for an education that prepares humankind to think more broadly, to eradicate social, economic, and political inequities (e.g., Du Bois, 1903/2008). This paper takes an historical perspective on DuBois’ (1903/2008) early work, including particularly Souls of Black Folks, in relation to his educational journey and studies in Germany. DuBois wrote about his educational journey in Germany in 1892, and the ways in which he felt he was treated as a human being (Du Bois, 1894/1954). The paper considers Du Bois’ (1903/2008) indirect references to Bildung and implications for the contemporary pedagogical approaches culturally responsive and culturally relevant education.

Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903/2008). The souls of black folk. Oxford University Press. Gay, G. (2018). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. teachers college press. Hegel, G. W. F. (1807/2018). Hegel: The phenomenology of spirit. Oxford University Press. Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). Dream Keepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children. Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass. W. E. B. Dubois: Remembrance of His Berlin Years (1892–94), published in: German History Intersections, [November 29, 2023].

In bodily terms, pedagogical relationships and professionality, first of all, follow the signature of care. In this paper, educational care will be explained by relating to John Dewey, thus, through a historical approach. The US-American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer is a foothold in the common roots of the European continental and Anglo-American educational discourse (Kraus & Ylimaki in print), integrating continental philosophy with pragmatism, as well as with an enthusiasm for the actual challenges of a society. Dewey ([1916] 1966) models the ‘stimulation of the child’s powers’ in terms of a circuit of inquiry, i.e., as a directed transformation of an indeterminate situation into successful human action: “I believe that the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social situations in which [s]he finds [her]himself” (ibid., 54). The pedagogue mediates between a child and his/her impulses of cultural self-reflection, facilitating learning experiences and social self-reflection. The circuit of inquiry involves care in terms of the ‘important role of the bond’ between pedagogue and student (Dewey 1897, 3). With the focus on experience, self-activity and inquiry, Dewey’s idea of the ‘growth’ of a child or young person indicates the impact of bodily dispositions and activities, physical well-being, and environment on the learning of an individual. In this paper, the referential frame of Dewey’s concept of care will be identified in more details and connections will be drawn on an actual Continental debate on educational care (Dietrich et al. 2020).

Dewey, J. (1897). My Pedagogic Creed (No. 25). Place: EL Kellogg & Company. Dewey, J. ([1908] 1960): Theory of the Moral Life, New York: Irvington. Dewey, J. ([1916] 1966). Democracy and Education (ed. by J. A. Boydston). The Middle Works of John Dewey, vol.9, 1899-1924. Place: Publisher. Dewey, J. ([1922] 1976). Human Nature and Conduct. In: The Middle Works, 1899-1924, vol.14 (ed. by J.A. Boydston), Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Dietrich, C., Uhlendorf, N.; Beilder, F.; Sanders, O. (eds.) (2020): Anthropologien der Sorge im Pädagogischen. Weinheim Basel: Beltz. Kraus, Anja & Rose Ylimaki (in print): A Historical Introduction to Continental Pedagogics from a Northern American Perspective. In: Educational Philosophy and Theory.

In oral history we ask people to tell us about the past. By doing so, we get firsthand knowledge of their lives, particular events and their experiences. This gives us access to information that we not often find in documents (Janesick, 2023). Especially in education, oral history can provide an insight in ‘ordinary’ practices that were too mundane to be recorded in any other way, for instance day-to-day parenting practices. In the case of ‘the inner workings’ of the family, such as child rearing, oral history can often prove to be the only source of information; since the highly private nature of what happens inside the family home – in perhaps the most emotionally charged relationship conceivable – makes the collection of empirical data on parenting practices particularly difficult (Cuyvers & Van Praag, 1997).

However, oral history has been critiqued as being unreliable as a source, because it is based on human memory, which is susceptible to change due to mental deterioration, emotions such as nostalgia, personal selection by and bias from both the researcher(s) and the respondent, and the theoretical framework, design and context of the study in which the memories are collected and/or used. In addition, individual memories can be influenced by public narratives (Maynes et al., 2008; Peniston-Bird, 2009; Somers & Gibson, 1994). According to the Australian historian Patrick O’Farrell in 1979 oral history was moving into: “the world of image, selective memory, later overlays and utter subjectivity. […] And where will it lead us? Not into history, but into myth” (cited in Thomson, 2007, pp. 53-54).

Indeed, personal memories of past events or experiences that are collected for research purposes can be influenced by a large number of factors. However, when memory itself is seen as the object of study, oral history’s supposed weaknesses – such as its inherent subjectivity – become resources as opposed to problems (Portelli, 1979). The analysis of personal narratives on past events or experiences can produce valuable insights on the way: “…people make sense of their past, how they connect individual experience and its social context, how the past becomes part of the present, and how people use it to interpret their lives and the world around them” (Frisch, 1990, p.188).

In this paper, we will present findings resulting from the analysis of narratives from three successive Dutch generations (grandparents, parents and youngsters) on how they experienced the way they were brought up by their parents, focusing on perceived educational norms in particular. These narratives give insight in how these respondents experienced the way their parents gave them direction, the rules they imposed and how they enforced them, but they also describe the love, warmth and affection the respondents experienced from their parents. The narratives recount the memories of the respondents on the way they experienced their upbringing. We propose that in these memories both previous and current educational norms, such as that of ‘authoritative parenting’ (Maccoby & Martin, 1983), influenced the way respondents told their stories and evaluated their upbringing. However, the challenge remains: Can we untangle the past and the present in oral history narratives with respect to educational norms?

In this presentation, I aim to explore the role played by hope in educational historiography. To achieve this, I will introduce two influential historians of education whose writings continue to shape ongoing histories of education in the French and Dutch-speaking worlds. Despite their significant impact, these scholars are not widely known among historians of education, as only a few or none of their books and articles have been translated.

The first historian of education I would like to highlight is the late Dutch professor Lea Dasberg. While Dasberg is perhaps best known for her Dutch education bestseller, "Grootbrengen door kleinhouden" (Raising Children by Keeping Them Small), published in the 1970s, her work on 'hope' and 'pedagogies of hope' has recently regained attention from historians of education such as Micha De Winter and others. They specifically refer to Dasberg's 1980 inaugural lecture, "Pedagogie in de schaduw van het jaar 2000, of: Hulde aan de Hoop" (Pedagogy in the Shadow of the Year 2000, or: Homage to Hope). In this lecture, as well as in other writings throughout her academic career, Dasberg introduced hope as a crucial category for educators to reconnect educational pasts, presents, and futures. Inspired by her religious background, particularly her Jewish roots and her decision to move from the Netherlands to Israel, Dasberg presents a distinctive interpretation of what a pedagogy of hope can and should consist of.

The second historian of education I will discuss is the French scholar Philippe Meirieu. Meirieu is a well-known educational scientist in Francophone intellectual circles who consistently uses his research to engage in public debates. In his historical work, unfortunately available only in French, Meirieu has consistently demonstrated the value of historical reflection for contemporary educational discussions. Among the many historically inspired books he has published throughout his career are "Frankenstein pédagogue," "Korczak, pour que vivent les enfants," and "Pédagogie, le devoir de résister." Interestingly, Meirieu, like Dasberg, has occasionally touched upon the value of hope in thinking about the history of education. One of the articles in which Meirieu expresses his thoughts about hope is titled "Espoir, es-tu là."

In this paper we seek to examine the relationship between Walter Benjamin’s life and work as an aesthetics of existence (Foucault 1990, p.12) that materialises in three different domains where the writing process takes centre stage: an ethics of friendship, his quasi-messianic aspiration towards a communism of writing, and his considerations on the historian’s craft.

The German philosopher and essayist has often inspired historians of education “to develop new ways of seeing pupils and teachers” (Lawn & Grosvenor, 2001, p.125). His thought-provoking appeal to “brush history against the grain” (Benjamin, 1969, p. 257) has often been interpreted as a motto to challenge “crude reductionism”, provide “counter-histories” (Grosvenor, 2019, p.646) and open up new possibilities and methodological approaches in the field of history of education (HE). The montage or juxtaposition of different sources, in addition to the use of historiography and theory, as a means to disrupt gender (Goodman, 2003), is a good example of how the HE has appropriated Benjamin’s work.

The author of Illuminations has also been a continuous reference in the history of childhood education (Grosvenor, 2002), as well as in studies on deviancy (Grosvenor & Watts, 2002; Charles, 2016), urban experience (Lathey, 2016; Pozo, 2019) and school architecture (Hardcastle, 2013).

It was during the visual turn that Benjamin became more appealing to the HE, most notably because, “at this intersection of visual and material studies” (Dussel & Priem, 2017, p.643), he had turned into the perfect companion in guiding historians through the “’new’ technologies of display” (Herman & Plein, p.272) and the conceptualisation of “the mechanical reproduction of images and the subsequent loss of aura and privilege in the aesthetic experience” (Dussel, 2017, p.672).

Could Dussel's notion of aesthetic experience encompass or be applied to Benjamin’s processes as both a historian and a writer? And as a result, could the philosopher’s life and work – and the dialogue between them – be conceived as an aesthetics of existence, one that places the written word at its very core? In considering the HE’s narrative turn, Pozo (2023, p.1030) argues that “the historian's subsequent task is to transform him/herself into a storyteller, the type of artist that in Benjamin's opinion could not be further from the chronicler”. In fact "the historian has no choice but to adopt the skills and craftsmanship of the storyteller in order to build, from the fragments gathered in archives, an account compelling enough to find a permanent place in the memory of those who hear it".

Walter Benjamin developed the idea of the “operative writer” in his text The Author as Producer (1934/1999). Although he was not a fan of prescribing behaviours, he was certainly an advocate of messianic imagination. While witnessing the rapid development of technology and the massification of writing, Benjamin allowed himself to imagine a revolution that would put an end to the distinction between the author and the reader, the intellectual and the people, blurring and eventually putting an end to the lines that separate them. The writer would no longer be this venerated figure who dominates thought with his/her intellect, but a producer and an experimentalist like any other. He would declare the following: “an author who does not teach writers does not, in fact, teach anyone” (Benjamin 1934/1999, p.777).

As queer scholars (non-binary trans and gay, respectively), in this paper we explore the potential of a history of education committed to recovering from Western colonial violence trans, gender nonconforming and queer experiences from early childhood to adulthood.

Starting from historical accounts (Actualidade 1879, O Comércio do Porto 1879, Lusitano & Froilaz 1879, O Tripeiro 1926) of the life and education of António Custodio das Neves (1858-1888), born in Portugal’s Douro region, assigned female at birth yet growing up male, and emerging from such accounts as the ‘Woman Man’/‘Man Woman’ [‘Mulher-Homem’ /‘Homem-Mulher’], we confront ‘colonialist practices of avoidance and erasure’ (Barad 2017, 76; 2023, 37) having invisibilised gender-nonconforming, nonheteronormative existences and experiences like his. We commit ourselves to a history ‘with and against the archives’ of a past ‘that has yet to be done’ (Martins forthcoming; Hartman 2008, 13) involving ‘times, places, beings [that] bleed through one another’ (Barad 2014, 179) into our present. Centring education from early childhood onwards as a trope with no less tangible effects, this history addresses ‘meaningful absence’, ‘void’, or ‘gaps’ as ‘excess’: a ‘lively tension, a desiring orientation toward being/becoming’ (Martins forthcoming; Barad 2015, 396; Hartman 2008, 5, 12). Trans/gender nonconforming and queer experiences thus did (not) yet exist (if) only (differently) ‘at their intersection with institutions of disciplinary power’ (Martins forthcoming; Heyam 2022, Mesch 2020) constraining the conditions of their non/existence (Barad 2017, Hartman 2008; Foucault 1972, 1980). Among such institutions were those policing conduct in civil society from a legal perspective, those studying, cataloguing and treating conditions based on then-prevalent views of medicine, psychiatry and psychology, but also educational institutions, from kindergarten onwards. Beyond Modern notions of linear temporality that stabilise boundaries between past, present and future (Thyssen 2024) governing dominant ‘fictions of history’, we endeavour to rescue ‘impossible stories’ (Hartman 2008, 10) ‘that are not the histories … archives wish to recount (Martins forthcoming, Steedman 2001) but may carry with them ('un/timely') 'difference that portends the future' (Grosz 2004, 11) present and yet to come. Any eventual such difference 'matters' as ‘substance and significance’ (Barad 2007, 3) for education, from kindergarten to school and beyond, in Portugal as elswhere in Europe.

The case of António Custodio das Neves is intended as a preparatory excursion into a wider history of gender nonconformity and queerness in education from early childhood education and kindergarten upwards, particularly in Portugal and Norway (see e.g., Askland & Rossholt 2009).

Discussions of Black history and school desegregation in many US K-12 schools have been narrowed to a few heroic figures and moments. Historic representations are currently challenged by a nationwide movement to uphold White supremacy and deny the violent history of racism in the US. The revisionist claims are challenged in this qualitative narrative research project that presents stories gathered from 10 Black educators in Augusta, Georgia, who recount their stories of desegregating schools and institutions as students or educators. This oral history narrative project imagines these stories as the basis for engaging K-12 teachers and students in creating new curricula.

Although African American history is part of the K-12 curriculum, the complexity and diversity in the experiences of African-descended people in the United States is rarely represented (Byrd & Jangu, 2009). Recognizing all of African Americans’ experiences in the US challenges the popular understanding of America, its place in the world, and its moral standing, and thus this full description is generally not welcomed (Hannah-Jones, 2019). Teachers need to be equipped with a rich understanding of the circumstances that African Americans have endured, the economic and political as well as individual, and deliberate forces that created those circumstances, and the triumphs and achievements of African American communities despite the challenges (Byrd & Jangu, 2009). One way to disrupt popular discourses that claim the moral authority of the US and uphold white supremacy is to teach local stories that enhance national examples of resistance, struggle, and achievement in Black communities. We use the words African American and Black interchangeably in this paper to describe people and community in Augusta, Georgia, where people self-identify as African American and Black, and are multigeneration residents of the US. We also follow the authors when referencing research literature as they have used these terms. The experiences of those in the community who personally advocated for change in order to create access and greater justice remind teachers and their students that we are all responsible for creating the communities we want to live in.

The stories told in this oral history research project highlight the brave acts of educators and students in many settings: teachers who took the first steps to create meaningful educational experiences for their newly desegregated classrooms of students, community educational efforts in which media distortions and omissions were countered through forms of public pedagogy, and student responses to experiences of new and hostile school environments. They remind us of the costs of these efforts, as well as the gains achieved. They also remind us of the slippery forms of backlash that have sprung up since the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954), and the insidious ways that discrimination continues to assert itself (Mattia, 2021). These stories are relevant as we struggle to engage students in conversations that counter discourses that uphold white supremacy, or the “majoritarian stories” (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). These discourses can be found in the language of our students and in the local media presentations on questions regarding school curricula and student activism. “Everyday schooling in America rests deeply on this history [of white coloniality], which positions Eurocentric values and the impetus to control and erase BIPOC at the center of what we view as standard, decent, and desirable for intellectual acuity” (Lyiscott et al., 2020, p. 368). Because of the global resurgence and political support of the erasure of Blackness and colonial harms in national discourses on race and education, it is imperative to highlight history that complicates a simple narrative about the Black experience in the US.

This symposium is concerned with crises in educational policy and rhetoric, both contemporary and historical. Education policy is defined broadly and can refer to political and/or public debates about schools, policy documents or political decisions that lead or have led to changes in schools and education. In the symposium we aim to identify motives, typical sites of thought, key patterns of argumentation and language use in different political regimes. We will also focus on practices that emerge from political rhetoric about education. Persuasion in education policy also involves control of the political process, exclusion or inclusion of parties in the design of governance, organisation and institutions for long-term and systematic influence.
Crisis, on the other hand, often denotes an important moment when decisive change is imminent. A crisis can typically be a decisive moment in a narrative, with great potential for an undesirable outcome. The German historical theorist Reinhart Koselleck combines crisis, critique and fantasy. Critique expresses the possibility that things could have been different. Moreover, criticism involves having or acquiring a historical consciousness through the imagination. The study of political crises, therefore, involves the study of political imagination, the critiques that emerge, the judgments and political outcomes that result from new political judgments.

Geography was included as a mandatory and independent discipline in the Norwegian school system in late 19th century. At that time, geography served as a deliberate tool in crafting a distinct national narrative for a country that had yet to attain full independence and lacked the storied history of its European counterparts. Geography was a school subject until the 1970s when a radical curricula reform merged subjects and constructed new interdisciplinary subjects for primary and secondary schools. In general (at least for secondary school), geography was one third of the subject social studies; history and civics being the two other disciplines. This paper explores the evolution of geography content within the social sciences framework, tracing its negotiation and adaptation to contemporary policies and educational philosophies across four educational reforms since the 1970s. The focus is twofold: firstly, to elucidate the shifts in geography content influenced by political ideas and policies (national and international). Secondly, the study employs a analysis, drawing upon various conceptual frameworks of geographical thinking such as contextualization, scale and multiscale-thinking, relational thinking, spatial variation analysis, diverse perspective consideration, holistic and integrated thinking, meaningful creation, and the use of geographical imaginaries (Jackson 2006, Eidsvik 2022, Smith 2023). The paper applies these conceptual lenses to categorize the content of geography in different curricula iterations, emphasizing a particular focus on dissecting the alterations introduced in the most recent curriculum in 2020. By doing so, this research contributes to understand the interplay between educational reforms, political landscapes, and evolving paradigms of geographical thinking within the Norwegian education system. Conclusion: Fragmentation of geographical content and learning in education is highly problematic. The geography discipline has a substantial potential for holistic system thinking, combining knowledge, values, and skills from a different knowledge system. This is of paramount importance in an educational future compass where interdisciplinarity is highlighted as one of the main keys for a more sustainable future (ie UNESCO and OECD educational compasses). Reduction of geography as a discipline in schools and in teacher education is a step in the wrong direction in the quest for a more holistic and improved way to address the sustainability crisis through education.

Eidsvik, E. (2022). Geografisk danning og utdanning for berekraftig utvikling. I Geografididakikk for klasserommet. R. Mikkelsen og P. J. Sætre (red.). Oslo, Cappelen Damm Akademisk: 81-111. Jackson, Peter (2006) Thinking Geographically, Geography, 91:3, 199-204, DOI: 10.1080/00167487.2006.12094167 Smith, J. S. (2023). Thinking geographically. I Teaching Human Geography. Theories and Practice in Thinking Geographically. E. H. Fouberg og J. S. Smith (red.). Cheltenham, Edward Elgar Publishing: 11-38.

Sub-paper had to be withdrawn.

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On July 22nd, 2011 a car bomb exploded in the government quarter in Oslo, Norway, killing eight people and injuring hundreds. The responsible terrorist then drove to Utøya, a small island about an hour drive from Oslo. There, he shot and killed 69 people, most of whom were participants at the annual labor youth party’s (AUF) summer camp. In the immediate aftermath, and in the years that have followed, different, and in part contradictory, narratives describing and explaining the terrorist attacks have emerged, the dominating one being that this was an attack on the Norwegian democracy. Consequently, the best way to heal and to prevent similar attacks in the future is to protect and strengthen democratic values within the Norwegian population. Today, Utøya is a site of commemoration and education, as well as a social center for the youth labor party. Since 2016 thousands of Norwegian secondary and upper secondary students have visited the island to learn about the July 22nd terrorist attacks, to commemorate the victims, and to participate in educational activities aimed to strengthen their democratic agency. Both within the Norwegian social science curriculum, as well as the different public narratives, knowledge about the terrorist attacks of July 22nd, 2011 is considered important to prevent radicalization, extremism and terrorism. However, studies on school trips to former concentration camps in Poland and Germany question whether it is possible to learn about, and visit, sites of past atrocities as a means to empower students as democratic citizens. This paper will study students’ reflections written shortly before, and a while after, visiting Utøya. Using a narrative analysis, I will explore students’ historical consciousness through the research question: In what way to students negotiate past, present, and future in their understanding of the July 22nd, 2011, terror attacks, and Utøya as a site of trauma, commemoration and education? As the educational activities they participate in is framed within the narrative context of empowering democratic citizens, the paper explores how the students place themselves as actors within this context.

None references included

In 1988 UNESCO ranked Anton Semenovich Makarenko (1888 – 1939) as one of four educators who most significantly determined the world's pedagogical thinking in the 20th century. This is not only because his concept of Collective Education was the official educational theory of socialist countries, but also because numerous educators in non-socialist countries were inspired by his ideas. Attitudes towards Makarenko’s works in each context, however, range from a derogatory rejection of his ideas to a glorified appreciation of his pedagogical work. The rise and fall of scientific and pedagogical interest in Makarenko were not only influenced by the ideological battles of the Cold War, but also other pedagogical conflicts such as between theory and practice, traditions and innovations, and romantic idealism and pragmatism. After the collapse of the U.S.S.R., the number of research papers on Makarenko generally decreased while in many “Western” countries Makarenko's ideas, especially the socialist education methods, seem to have lost their relevance and been relegated to the past. Nonetheless, research on Makarenko continued, albeit with different research focuses. It was carried on not only by researchers in the post-Soviet states such as Frolov (2006), Dichek (2018), Oksa and Karpenchuk (2008), but also in countries like Germany and Japan (e.g. Mannschatz 2002; Schubert 2019; Dreier-Horning 2022).

While the above-mentioned research mainly focuses on discussions in the former U.S.S.R., our research project highlights the comparative aspects. Although Makarenko's concepts circulated transnationally and were received, (re)interpreted and implemented in different contexts, there are only a few works (e.g. Frolov 2006) that examine the transnational aspect of Makarenko's ideas across the Iron Curtain.

Thus, in this project, we aim to investiage how Makarenko was remembered (or forgotten) in three countries – namely, in Ukraine, where Makarenko was born and worked; in East Germany (and Germany after the reunification), where Makaranko’s pedagogy was once regarded as the official educational principle; and in Japan, which is one of the capitalist countries strongly influenced by Makarenko's ideas (Fujii 1988). Our research focuses on the time frame from the late 20th Century to the beginning of the 21st Century, especially around 1988 since in this year, shortly before the collapse of the U.S.S.R, the 100^th Anniversary of Makarenko was celebrated internationally. In our comparison and analysis we utilize secondary literature, pedagogical journals, and reports on educational conferences in three countries.

The starting point of this research project is a manuscript of the book, Basics of Modern Makarenko Studies (ОсновиСучасного Макаренкознавства), written by the second author of this proposal and his colleagues. The main audience of the book are Ukrainian students in teacher-training. The manuscript was almost ready for publication; however, due to the Russian invasion, it has not yet been possible to publish the book. Furthermore, in this new age of uncertainty the authors are now forced to rethink the question of whether and how Makarenko's pedagogy, which itself emerged in an age of uncertainty in the middle of post-WW1 Ukraine, should or can be remembered. We also seek to answer the question of whether his pedagogy has any significance for education in the future, not only in Ukraine, but also in other parts of the world.

This research is still in its early stages and we would like to present our first outcome and discuss it with other participants to further develop our research.

With this contribution, we aim to investigate the thought of Lamberto Borghi to show how, in his works, he emphasises a strong conviction that through education, it is possible to cultivate hope in building a future of peace.

Antonio Borghi (1907-2000) was one of Italy's most influential 20th-century pedagogists. He graduated in philosophy, specialised in German literature and taught for several years in various Italian high schools. In 1938, following the promulgation of the fascist racial laws, he was dismissed and left the country for the United States. Attending universities and intellectual circles, he came into close contact with leading figures on the international cultural scene, including Salvemini, Cassirer and Dewey. Returning to Italy as a full professor of Pedagogy at the University of Florence, he became one of the main disseminators of Dewey's thought. In his work, he establish a 'secular' paradigm of pedagogical investigation with a strong civil and political commitment.

With this study, we aim to investigate, in particular, the themes of peace, non-violence and anti-authoritarianism. These aspects, which we will highlight, are present in many of his most prominent works. This contribution will emphasise how the author tried to keep these values alive, even in his everyday life.

Through unpublished correspondence kept, in part, at the INDIRE (National Institute for Documentation, Innovation and Educational Research) archive in Florence, we will try to introduce the reader to a more private side of the author, showing how his commitment to these values led him to maintain contacts and relations not only with the academic world but also with non-violent activist groups. We will particularly emphasise the author's relationship with anarchist and non-violent groups operating in Italy at that time, contributing to the commitment and dissemination of those values that he supported from a theoretical point of view.

Since the establishment of the first state-supported art academies in the second half of the sixteenth century, the elaborate and schematic pedagogical principles set forth by the founding Mannerist artists were subsequently assimilated by the French Academy and instilled across Europe as a dominant model of art education. This traditional academic, pedagogical doctrine “has determined the character and the destiny of academies of art down to the twentieth century” (Pevsner, 1973, p. 66). In the nineteenth century, reinforced by the Romantic narratives of genius, the paramount view on artistic creation was still a reflection of the Kantian position that “beautiful Art is only possible as a product of Genius” (1790/2000, para. 46). The author of a work of art, “does not himself know how he has come by his Ideas;” thus the artist has no power “to communicate it to others in precepts that will enable them to produce similar products” (1790/2000, para. 46). On the one hand, art, as a property of genius, cannot be taught. On the other, the founding principle legitimising the existence of art academies lies precisely in the belief that artistic genius must be educated.

Progressive early twentieth-century art and design schools resolved the aporia of nineteenth-century traditional art academies. Design education proposed a radical solution – a unity between art and technology, producing thus not only the possibility of teaching art but a new paradigm of education – in which everyone can learn to be creative. The argument of this presentation is that modernist and vanguard art trends, together with the foundation of design schools such as Bauhaus and Vkhutemas, evidence the departure from the traditional academic model of art education and introduce a fundamentally different approach to teaching creative skills as something that anyone can acquire.

To examine this premise, I will discuss the pedagogies of some of the most progressive art schools of the early twentieth century – Svomas (1918-1920) and Vkhutemas-Vkhutein (1920-1930). These institutions were a result of the first reform of art education in Soviet Russia, carried out after the October Revolution. The traditional system of art academies was abolished – all artistic schools in the country (Academies of Fine and Applied Arts) were dissolved and converted into Free State Art Workshops (Svomas) (Khan-Magomedov, 1995). This new organisation was not only a complete break from the previous conservative model – for the first time, art education in Russia became organised on principles of freedom (Adaskina, 1992). Students had a right to elect a master of the workshop of their liking and even to enrol to a workshop without any supervisor. Moreover, admission to Svomas required no exams, no previous diplomas of completing other courses or secondary education and was free of charge.

In 1920, a second reform was carried out – merging the First and Second Svomas in Moscow and resulting in the creation of Vkhutemas (Higher Artistic-Technical Workshops). The establishment of Vkhutemas coincided with the time when vanguard artistic movements in Russia gained momentum - the most progressive leftist artists were given the task of creating their studios within Vkhutemas as well as defining the foundational course (so-called propaedeutics) obligatory for all students. The new system was conceived to open possibilities of artistic education to hitherto marginalised groups – youths from rural and working-class family backgrounds. Vkhutemas was an institution of mass education – in 1922, there were 2,222 students enrolled (in contrast to 119 students at the Bauhaus) (Bokov, 2020). The most urgent pedagogical difficulty to overcome was how to train students en masse, many without any previous contact or training in art.

What image comes to your mind when you hear ‘Blooms Taxonomy’? Most likely it is a pyramid with several different colored levels of knowledge from ‘remember’ to ‘create’, with implied or explicit arrows pointing upward. In fact, this visualization of taxonomy is one of the most popular. Yet, its origin remains a mystery: it was not part of Bloom’s et al (1956) original framework or the later revision (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). On the one hand, pyramids and triangles are a common way of visualizing theoretical models in the social and educational sciences: think of the didactic triangle, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1943), or Dale’s cone of experience (1946). However, while these models have largely retained their original pyramidal representations over time, Bloom’s taxonomy has evolved into various visual metaphors such as ladders, trees, circles, and flowers. What ideas about knowledge do these visualizations convey?

Developed in the 1950s, Bloom’s Taxonomy was designed to provide a wide range of educational professionals with a simple theoretical model that could be used to address curriculum and evaluation problems (Bloom et al, 1956, p. 1). Essentially a product of behaviorism, Bloom’s taxonomy emphasizes observable students’ behaviors resulting from instructions. Moreover, the very word “taxonomy” represents an attempt to apply models from the natural sciences, particularly biology, to the field of education. In biology, taxonomy refers to the classification of organisms into a hierarchical structure based on shared characteristics. By borrowing this concept from the natural sciences, Bloom’s Taxonomy sought to bring a similar order and ‘scientific’ rigor to educational objectives. A taxonomy, according to Bloom, unlike a simple classification system, must follow structural rules and reflect a “real” order among the phenomena it organizes (Bloom et al, 1956, p. 18). It is a method of ordering phenomena that should reveal their essential properties as well as significant relationships among them (p. 17). Recognizing the difference between classifying phenomena in the natural sciences and more abstract educational phenomena, Bloom noted that educational objectives, when expressed in behavioral terms, could indeed be observed, described, and thus classified.

Bloom’s Taxonomy has not only survived the decline of behaviorism but is still widely used in educational planning and evaluation in different parts of the world, including Europe (Anderson & Sosniak, 1994). Moreover, a new revision, known as Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy, was recently developed by Churches (2008) to account for the skills required in the digital age. Such persistence of the taxonomy can be attributed to several factors. First, its structured approach provides a practical and easy-to-use framework for educators and curriculum designers. Second, its adaptability to different visual metaphors may also contribute to its enduring appeal (see Mitchell, 2005). Third, most research on taxonomy tends to focus on its interpretations, misinterpretations and application in educational practice but ignores its historical origins, theoretical underpinnings, and visualizations.

This study explores the confluence of ideas and practices through which a hierarchy of knowledge is produced and disseminated as scientific facts. Specifically, it examines the assumptions and beliefs about knowledge implicit in the Bloom’s Taxonomy and its different visual representations. In doing so, the study brings together and extends the insights from a growing body of literature on how pictorial and graphic displays of conceptual models, methods or data transform ‘invisible’ phenomena into visible facts (Baigrie, 1996; Coopmans et al, 2014; Jones & Galison, 1998; Latour, 1993, 2017; Lynch, 1981; Pauwels, 2005; Rogers et al, 2021). This means that we regard pictures as an important part of discourses that establish ‘regimes of truth’ (Foucault, 2014) and promote certain ways of thinking, knowing, seeing, and acting in the world.

The Exposition universelle held in Paris in 1900 was by far the largest and most popular of the pre-WWI international exhibitions. This presentation centres on the Paris International Assembly (in French: Ecole internationale de l’Exposition) as a hitherto neglected educational aspect of this exhibition. The Ecole internationale de l’Exposition was a multi-stream lecture series whose particularity lay in the fact that it was coordinated by an international team of organisers for an international audience. The Ecole internationale de l’Exposition addressed visitors from all backgrounds, although the educated middle classes were the main target group. The events aimed at informing about the branches of knowledge represented at the exhibition in a “synthetic and concrete” way and at spreading the spirit of fraternity among peoples. This presentation is based on a variety of published sources as well as a selection of archival documents left from the Ecole internationale de l’Exposition. Firstly, it will show how the Ecole internationale de l’Exposition grew out of activities organised at previous world exhibitions (special lectures for instructors, workers, students who were delegated to the exhibitions), further developing and internationalising them. Secondly, the presentation will reveal the organisational mechanics of the undertaking. An International Association for the Advancement of Science, Art and Education was founded as an organising body. While prominent French education administrators served as general managers, activities were run by distinct French, British, American, Belgian, Swiss, German, Russian and Canadian groups. Although this arrangement provided the project with a genuine international character, it allowed the French to set the agenda and to use it as a tool of cultural diplomacy. Thirdly, the presentation will connect the Ecole internationale de l’Exposition to pedagogies that were prominent around 1900. In particular, the enthusiasm for popular and social education, in France and elsewhere, tried to spread scientific knowledge beyond the confines of academia. It also connected to the French doctrine of solidarisme. By focusing on the Ecole internationale de l’Exposition as an instance of practical internationalism rooted in a specific place at a specific time, this presentation contributes to research on educational internationalism during the long nineteenth century.

Networks hold a meeting during ECER. All interested are welcome.

After 1945, not only Czechoslovakia but also Europe found itself in a socio-political "new world". Interwar ideas of social and school reform were in many ways undermined by the catastrophe of war and could no longer help to support the formation of a "new" post-war modernising and more socially sensitive Europe. The political and economic division of Europe by the "Iron Curtain" after 1945/48, the socio-geographical and cultural transformation of Europe due to the "transfers" of population after the Second World War dissolved" the cultural and economic symbiosis of interwar Europe. Its central and south-eastern part was geopolitically in the totalitarian grip of the Soviet Union and in the "experiment" of the communist world order, with all its consequences for political, cultural and social life, not excluding the fields of science and education. In general, Europe has "fallen" into the competition between "East" and "West", with all the tactics of "victory".

For this struggle and rivalry it was necessary to offer an ideologically and emotionally charged concept in Czechoslovakia after 1948, transforming or negating the "old" world of education and promising a "new" model of education based on pedagogical science (Kasper 2020). To make the victory "lasting and solid", tasks were defined in the scientific research plans of Czechoslovak educational research institutions and universities. The answer was the concept of polytechnic education, which linked school with life and offered an educational model leading to the "victorious" and successful implementation of the communist economic-social experiment (Mincu 2016). This was similar in other "Soviet satellites" (Tietze 2012).

The paper reconstructs the discourses, practices of "discrediting" the interwar view of the concept of generally education in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s from the position of polytechnic education as a model of "new" generally education. In the second part, the paper traces the successes and failures of the promotion of this concept in Czechoslovak educational and scientific policy (the concept of the scientific revolution), in educational theory and in the reform of educational practice in the 1960s in the socio-political 'revival' process of the so-called Prague Spring (Sommer 2017). The third part reconstructs the processes of 'rehabilitation' and practices of the new legitimation of polytechnic educational concepts in overcoming the economic 'weaknesses' and failures of the so-called 'perestroika' in 1980s Czechoslovakia. The theoretical foundations (with reference to Marx's theory of the alienation of man), goals and practical implementation proposals of the "new" educational model and its transformations in different periods will be analysed. The strengths and weaknesses of its implementation in the practice of school and out-of-school education in the different "stages" of time will be reconstructed.

The transformations of the concept of general polytechnic education will be contextualized and discussed within the socio-technocratic and rationalizing control efforts of the "new" society (Sommer 2019). The issues of the theoretical definition, practical promotion and implementation of the "new" general education model are viewed within the dynamics of cultural transfer and circulation from the "model" Soviet Union (Behm/Drope/Glaser/Reh 2017).

We ask what were the background and specifics of the polytechnic educational concept in Czechoslovakia in the second half of the 20th century? What methods and emotional practices were used in the Czechoslovak debate to justify and advocate the concept of polytechnic education supported by the arguments of the scientific and technological revolution? Why did the concept of polytechnic education in Czechoslovakia not weaken or be completely destabilized after 1868, when in other countries of the socialist bloc its legitimacy was shaken seriously?

European Historical research, and also European Educational research, has regions that it sheds more spotlight on, and it has regions that are definitely out of focus. One of the former is for example the „DDR“, one of the latter is the now called country North Macedonia (MK in this abstract). While the one vanished into the BRD after 1989, the other one emerged as a nation state on ist own after the fall of the socialis eastern states.

In education, there is only little research emerging from MK, and even less dealing with educational topics in MK. Therefore, in this presentation I want to close this research gap with answering one specific research question at the ECER 2024:

1. What role did socialism/communism play in education in Yugoslavian times in the geographical region of MK, how did this change after 1989 and what role did democracy play thereafter, in the newly established national state?

Before the establishment of the University in Skopje in 1946, in the beginning of Yugoslavian times, students from the Macedonian part of Yugoslavia could only pursue teacher education outside of Macedonia, for example in Belgrade or Sarajevo. Up to this day it is only in Skopje that all subjects and school levels are offered for prospective teachers. Until 1991, there were additional teacher education programs for primary education. However, in the last 20 years, these programs were either integrated into universities.

While the „Wende“ took place in Germany in 1989, the „Wende“ happend in MK a little bit later, in 1991, when MK stepped out of the remaining part of Yugoslavia (which was mostly Serbia then). As many other countries after the „Wende“, there was the wish for a fast change of the nation to democracy, including the institutions for schooling. Instructions for changing the education system were communicated to schools and teachers through laws, curricula, regulations, etc. (cf. Janík & Porubsky 2020), as today too. However, these legislative changes normally reach schools later than intended. Furthermore, schools do not „simply“ implement the changes, they transform these into their instution. Mensching calls this process (and product) „living practices“ („gelebte Praxis“, Mensching 2018). Those become visible in the local mesosystem of the individual school (for macro-, meso-, micro-system, see Altrichter & Maag Merki 2016). Because of the fast tempo in changes, also changes in government, schools didn’t have sufficient time to implement all the changes before new ones were introduced (cf. Rizova, Bekar & Velkovski 2020, p. 1502).

Before 1991, teacher education in Yugoslavia was shaped by socialist state ideology, emphasizing the concept of "socialist unity." This ideology permeated the entire education system, from elementary to higher education. Teachers spoke positively of this socialist unity, referring to it as "brotherhood" and "friendship." Teachers are always part of a school culture and professional community (Helsper 2008), and this is crucial for their professional satisfaction (Rothland 2013). The societal contract in with teachers in Jugoslavia implied trust in their autonomous, professional actions (Hargreaves & Fullan 2012). The absence of trust, the „erosion of trust“ (Bellman & Weiß 2009) particularly after 1991 in MK, resulted not only in the loss of autonomy but also in demoralization among teachers (Peck, Gallucci & Sloane 2010, S. 452).

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