Conference Agenda

This article draws on data and research results from an ongoing research and indexing project conducted by the author in close cooperation with the Bibliothek für Bildungsgeschichtliche Forschung in Berlin (BBF). Funded by the DFG - German Research Foundation - (04/2022-03/2025), the project "Thinking Education Across Borders" aims at the indexing, digitization, analysis, and open access provision of a unique and educationally valuable corpus: The international correspondence estate of Wilhelm Rein (1847-1929), the first full professor of education in Germany. As a source corpus, this legacy offers extensive research potential on the developmental dynamics of educational theory and practice worldwide and international educational networks. It also reveals boundaries and synergies in the professional pedagogical milieu, especially between actors in a highly visible academic pedagogical milieu and pedagogical actors who were primarily active in pedagogical fields that were more distant from universities, such as elementary school teachers, or who had a harder time gaining recognition or attention in academic milieus for various reasons (e.g., gender, social or geographic origin). By exploring these contexts, a contribution can be made to generating exemplary insights into dynamics in professional milieus more generally.

One of the research focuses is on the exemplary identification and investigation of different connotations and objectives of the motif of pedagogical reform. (1) From a transcending perspective, the significance of this motif for a professional exchange across (e.g. professional, temporal, socio-cultural and gender) boundaries will be examined. (2) Comparatively, it examines how geographical, economic, political and socio-cultural factors have determined connotations, objectives and practices of pedagogical reform and produced different approaches to reform-oriented pedagogy. (3) Terminologically, the question of interest is whether pedagogical reform always has progressive connotations or whether reformist (theoretical and practical) approaches in pedagogy can also be conservative or regressive.

The motif of pedagogical reform is understood as a fundamental systematic signature of pedagogy (cf. Koerrenz 2014), in the sense that all pedagogy is in itself and always reform pedagogy (cf. Oelkers 2005) and sets itself the task of changing a society experienced as crisis-ridden or imperfect for the better through education or creating the foundations for empowering people to become mature. Thus, all pedagogical theory and practice can be interpreted as a work of hope. By researching the historical connotations and objectives of pedagogical reform and by tracing their interplay in an exemplary manner, the aim is to contribute to making pedagogical reform understandable as a timeless pedagogical motif and to remind us of historical solutions and examples of good pedagogical practice with regard to current social and pedagogical challenges. Insights into the diversity of possible pedagogical reform claims and objectives, into the historical development of such connotations of pedagogical reform, as well as the search for timeless patterns in the interplay of pedagogical and (social) reform claims, can contribute to understanding, critically reflecting on, and questioning current objectives of and claims to education and educational reform. Insights into factors that have enabled and hindered understanding between different actors and groups of actors in historical discourses on the tasks, goals and perspectives of pedagogy can help to shape current pedagogical discourses more effectively, to understand them better and to bring together actors with different objectives on the basis of common pedagogical concerns (e.g. educational justice). Finally, historical findings on pedagogical reform concerns can point to persistent grievances or the need for reform, inspire approaches to solutions or allow critical reflection on whether current theories and practices are falling behind historical developmental progress in pedagogy.

In 1968, after a long process lasting over a decade, the Israeli Ministry of Education adopted the reform in the structure school-system, which was the most comprehensive and expensive reform in the history of the Israeli education system.

Fundamentally, the reform altered the structure of schools, created a new framework for comprehensive middle school following elementary school, and championed educational integration between students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. The reform was a response to rising social tensions between two groups with distinct identities and social standings – Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews.

The large migration of Mizrahi Jews from Islamic countries and their absorption primarily by Ashkenazi Jews from European countries created persistent social friction and ingrained inequality in the young Israeli state. In 1959, a popular protest erupted in the port city of Haifa, spreading to other towns in Israel. This protest, known as the Wadi Salib events, expressed the social unrest between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim, with protest leaders demanding distributive and cultural equality, with one of their central demands being equality in education.

In many ways, the education reform was a policy response by decision-makers to leverage the education system as a tool to reduce gaps and ease social tensions, yet despite starting implementation in the late 1960s, another social protest erupted in 1971 – the Black Panthers movement – making clear to policymakers the urgent need to address socioeconomic unrest.

In my lecture, I will seek to answer whether there was a necessary link between those social protests and the reform policy that created Israeli middle schools and promoted an agenda of educational integration between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim. In doing so, I will explain the motivations behind the reform and clarify why the ministers from the Israeli Labor Party spearheading it did not initially aim to change inequality in education but rather to first and foremost prevent social unrest. They adopted models from American, French, Dutch, British and Swedish education and thereby created a reform that transformed the education system – but not necessarily the reality of social inequality.

In closing, I will provide a brief comparative outlook on similar reforms implemented in Western Europe and the United States to understand the historical shift in secondary education in the decades after 1945. The lecture is grounded in the methodology of the political history of education and relies on extensive archival research of primary contemporary sources as well as local and international scholarly literature on education reforms, educational integration, and inequality in education.

During the first years of Lithuania's independence declared in 1990 and the dawn of its new life, unique processes of educational transformation took place. A team of diverse people committed to change was brought together by a strong and charismatic leader, Dr M. Lukšiene. Through the joint efforts of educators, scientists, artists, writers, and others, the Concept of the National School was developed in 1989. The concept introduced a unique vision of education based on liberal and democratic principles, the main task of which was the development of a free personality. Man and society, freedom and responsibility, the nation and the global world were not competing or conflicting concepts but harmonious, interdependent, and interwoven in the vision of the developers of the educational reform. The idea of liberal and democratic education was a core of the educational reform and later became an integral part of other educational documents, including the "Concept of a Good School" (2015). The essential aims of the National School Concept - openness and humanity, freedom and responsibility, respect for the individual, and commitment to the ideals of democracy - remain relevant today and hopefully tomorrow.

The phenomenon of educational reform has been extensively researched. However, the individuals responsible for designing and implementing these reforms have not received adequate attention from researchers. There is a lack of authentic evidence regarding the survival of educational reform, its significance for people's personal and professional lives, its current perspective, and the importance attached to it by reformers in assessing the current educational system and the development of society as a whole. This type of research is deficient not only in Lithuania but also in other European countries that have undergone or are undergoing socio-political transformations aimed at building or sustaining democratic values. The personal experiences hold immense value as historical testimony and provide a better understanding of the path of educational reforms, as well as insights into the future.
This paper analyses retrospective testimonies of individuals who participated in education reform at the beginning of Lithuanian independence, as well as their current reflections and insights into the development of the education system. The analysis examines the phenomenon of educational transformation in terms of its reflection on the reformers' experiences of political and ideological ruptures, the birth of ideas of free education, and the projections of their implementation in practice. By analyzing the different narratives and attitudes of the research participants towards the same phenomenon, the factors determining the unity, directionality, and sustainability of the transformation ideas are revealed.

The research is based on cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), which comprises three main ideas. Firstly, humans act collectively, learn by doing, and communicate through their actions. Secondly, humans create, use, and modify various tools to learn and communicate. Finally, community plays a central role in the process of creating and interpreting meaning, and therefore in all forms of learning, communication, and action. (Foot, 2014, p.3) CHAT is used to discuss the correlation between personal and collective agency, and to reveal the transformative and ecological aspects of agency in our research data.