Conference Agenda

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.