Conference Agenda

Oral histories of education offer access to lived experiences, everyday practices, and processes of meaning-making that are often absent from institutional records. Crucially, oral histories can be understood as intersubjective reconstructions that show not only what happened but how educational pasts are continually reinterpreted through present concerns, identities, and expectations (Portelli 1991; Maynes et al. 2011). They are shaped through interaction: interviewer positionality, shared assumptions, and situational dynamics influence the narratives that emerge. Oral histories therefore provide insight into the co-production of memory and meaning across time. Against this background, the topic of this symposium is the production, interpretation, and temporal framing of oral histories in educational research, with a comparative focus on the Netherlands, Lithuania, and the former Socialist Republic of Macedonia/Yugoslavia. Across these contexts, a central research question arises: How do contemporary social, cultural, methodological, political, and emotional frames influence the ways in which individuals remember and narrate their educational pasts? This directs attention to the interplay of personal and collective memory, and the temporal dynamics through which the past becomes meaningful in the present.

The objective of this symposium is twofold: to advance methodological and theoretical reflection on oral history within the history of education, and to shed light on the ways in which narratives shaped by temporal dynamics may inform contemporary educational debates, particularly in a Europe marked by uncertainty and political transformation.

The conceptual and theoretical framework draws on scholarship on temporality, highlighting the coexistence of multiple timescales in educational lives (Barad 2017; Jordheim 2014; McLeod 2017). Distinguishing between Chronos-time (measured time) and Kairos-time (meaningful time) helps explain how educational actors retrospectively reconfigure past events in light of shifting circumstances or anticipated futures. Research on historical consciousness and narrative identity similarly demonstrates how people reinterpret earlier experiences as their present positions or expectations evolve (Sánchez-Mira & Bernardi 2022). Oral history thus becomes a site where personal trajectories interact with collective histories, revealing how past, present, and future remain entangled.

The framework further incorporates scholarship on memory and nostalgia. Memory, as a selective and situated process, foregrounds the lived meaning of educational practices, whereas nostalgia—especially in post-socialist contexts—may idealise aspects of the past in response to contemporary concerns (Berdahl 1999; Boym 2001). These dynamics require methodological reflexivity, acknowledging that researchers’ assumptions or generational orientations shape interpretation (Godson, Moore & Hargreaves 2006). Such reflexivity enhances the interpretive potential of oral history by making visible how educational pasts are mobilized within present discourses and identities.

The three papers illustrate these dynamics in distinct settings. Dutch oral histories of upbringing (1920–2015) demonstrate how interviewers’ conceptualizations of upbringing and interviewer-interviewee relationships actively shape the intersubjective construction of narratives about upbringing and perceived change. Lithuanian education reformers reinterpret the late 1980s and early 1990s through present-day democratic and professional experiences, revealing tensions between innovation, uncertainty, and agency. Women educated in early socialist Macedonia recall schooling through memories shaped by ideology, solidarity, and at times nostalgic “Yugotopian” framing. Across these cases, educational pasts are continually refashioned as political landscapes and generational experiences shift.

The contribution to the special call of Network 17 lies in showing how historically grounded inquiry can illuminate contemporary educational debates by unpacking relations between past, present, and future (Cowen 2002; Westberg 2021), and foreground the contingency and emotional texture of educational change.

Personal narratives about the past (oral histories) can be valuable sources of information about historical educational practices and experiences, yet they also reflect the social and epistemic conditions under which they are produced. These narratives arise within a specific social research context as a more or less structured conversation shaped by the aims, theoretical framework and methods of the study, the characteristics and expectations of interviewer and interviewee, and the relationship—however brief—between them (Maynes et al., 2011; Peniston-Bird, 2009; Portelli, 1981). Oral histories can therefore be understood as interpersonal and intersubjective reconstructions of the past (Maynes et al., 2011), raising questions about how this knowledge is (co-)produced. Following historian Susan Geiger’s (1997) call for transparency about researchers’ positions in constructing knowledge, this study builds on my earlier ECER contributions (Talhout 2024; 2025), which examined how the broader cultural-historical context shapes oral histories of Dutch upbringing. In the present paper, a different layer of this knowledge production process is explored: the influence of the interviewer as an active actor in shaping personal narratives of past educational experiences. The guiding question is: What can oral histories on Dutch upbringing between 1920 and 2015 tell us about how interviewers influence personal narratives of the past? The study analyses 321 interviews on upbringing in Dutch families, conducted by 107 pedagogical sciences students (2012–2015) within a broader project on youth individualization. Students interviewed three generations within one family—a young person of approximately 18 years old, one parent, and one grandparent—usually drawn from their own social networks, resulting in many interviews between relatives, friends or acquaintances. For the present analysis, segments on upbringing were examined using constructivist grounded theory, employing constant comparison within and across interviews and generations, supported by iterative memo writing (Charmaz, 2014; Corbin & Strauss, 2015). Preliminary findings show that interviewers influenced narratives through the phrasing of opening questions, follow-up prompts, definitions of key concepts (e.g., parenting goals or styles), and sometimes explicit corrections. Interviewees, in turn, aligned their responses with the aims of the study—offering “suitable” or “useful” accounts—while pre-existing relationships often resulted in shared but implicit understandings of upbringing. These findings highlight the complexity of oral history as a historical source in education—comparable to challenges in visual sources (Dekker, 2021)—and underline the need for future research to pay close attention to the researcher’s positionality in the construction of oral histories.

Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing grounded theory. Sage. Corbin, J., & Strauss, A. (2015). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Sage. Dekker, J.J.H. (2021). Dangerous, seductive, and innovative. Visual sources for the history of education. In S. Ruyskensvelde, G. Thyssen, F. Herman, A. Van Gorp, & P. Verstraete (Eds.), Folds of Past, Present and Future. Reconfiguring Contemporary Histories of Education (pp. 383-404). De Gruyter Oldenbourg. Geiger, S. (1997). TANU Women: Gender and Culture in the making of Tanganyikan nationalism, 1955-1965. Heinemann Press. Maynes, M. J., Laslett, B., & Pierce, J. L. (2011). Telling stories: The use of personal narratives [...]. Cornell University Press. Peniston-Bird, C. M. (2009). Oral history: the sound of memory. In S. Barber, & C. M. Peniston-Bird (Eds.), History beyond the Text: A Student’s Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources (pp. 105–121). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203717486 Portelli, A. (1981). The Peculiarities of Oral History. History Workshop, 12, 96–107. Talhout, M. & Amsing, H.T.A. (2024, August 27–30). Untangling Past and Present in Oral History Interviews on Parenting with Three Dutch Generations. ECER 2024. Talhout, M. (2025, September 9–12). “Conjured Up by Researchers”: Parenting Goals in Narratives from Three Dutch Generations (1920–2015). ECER 2025

This presentation introduces a segment of a study examining the experiences of Lithuanian education reformers from 1988 to 1995. This study serves as a case study (Bassey, 1999) on the development of an independent Lithuanian education system, employing mixed research methods such as phenomenography (Marton, 1981), life history (Goodson, 2011), and the analysis of secondary sources. This case study contributes to the primary goal of our research project: to analyze, describe, and reveal the experiences of reform pioneers as they lived and perceived them within the natural context of that era. This presentation specifically introduces a part of the narrative and phenomenographic study results, supplemented by an analysis of secondary sources. We will present several portrayals of education reformers and provide a phenomenographic analysis of the following questions: how do the study participants, the education reformers, view themselves and the studied period from today’s perspective? Data analysis uncovered qualitatively distinct evaluations. Retrospectively, the participants see themselves as: a) having landed in education reform by chance; b) lost and not understanding; c) having received a gift of fate; d) having lived a beautiful life; e) having an unrealized personal potential. Participants view the period under study as: a) conflictual; b) innovative; c) characterized by solidarity; d) free from bureaucracy; e) defined by continuous learning. The results reveal a critical perspective of the participants on themselves and on the period from today's point of view. Their perspective represents a sense of being an inseparable part of the events of the time in which they had to actively participate. They emphasize the transformative nature of personal, professional, and public life, full of coincidences, unexpected events, and contradictions. This presentation will examine personal and societal transformation during a period of significant change in state life, and how that transformation is evaluated from contemporary perspectives. Transformative agency puts “the emphasis on people being transformed by their own transformative engagements, activities and social practices” (Stetsenko, 2017, p. 175). These two poles of individual and collective agency are closely intertwined and equally manifest as lived experiences for all research participants. The overall research is predicated on social structuration theory by A. Giddens (1984), which acknowledges individuals’ capacity to initiate and implement social change through conscious action and the power to influence it.

Bassey, M. (1999). Case study research in educational settings. Open University Press. Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. University of California Press. Goodson, I.F., Gill, S.R. (2011) Narrative Pedagogy. Life History and Learning. Peter Lang. Marton F. (1981). Phenomenography—Describing conceptions of the world around us. Instructional Science, 10(2), https://doi.org/10.xxxx/BF00132516, p.177–200 Stetsenko, A. (2017). The transformative mind: Expanding Vygotsky's approach to development and education. Cambridge University Press.

The former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, particularly the republic of Macedonia (now officially North Macedonia), remains largely a "white spot" in educational research (Popović, Majsova & Anastasova 2021). This is especially true for the period during which Macedonia was part of the Yugoslav federation. One of the major outcomes of the formation of Yugoslavia and the establishment of socialism was the increased accessibility of education (Atanasoska 2023). Both memory and nostalgia relate to past experiences, involving emotional and cognitive dimensions. However, nostalgia differs in that it idealizes the past in contrast to perceived dissatisfaction with the present (Lasch 1991). It evokes a deep yearning to return to earlier experiences, conditions, and relationships. Scholars such as Boym (2001) have argued that nostalgia should be studied within the framework of the “new history” movement (see Le Goff, 1974), including methodological approaches such as oral history. While extensive studies have explored nostalgia for socialism from a post-socialist perspective (Kirn 2025), little attention has been paid specifically to Macedonia or to the role of (socialist) education in this context. Even research on postwar socialist education and Tito’s influence rarely focuses on the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. In the context of Yugoslavia, this form of nostalgia is often referred to as “Yugotopia” (Popović, Majsova & Anastasova 2021; Volčić 2007). Studies show that people often emphasize the positive aspects of the Yugoslav past, such as cultural diversity, the solidarity (expressed in the motto of "Brotherhood and Unity"), anti-fascism, and Tito's leadership (Volčić 2007). This study draws on interviews with women born between 1940 and 1942, who began their schooling in the newly established federal Yugoslav state of Macedonia following the Second World War. This was a transformative period: Yugoslavia was founded, socialism was implemented, and a new education system was introduced in Macedonia—one that, for the first time, included all children, including girls. These women were not the “last pioneers” (Popović 2018; Vučković Juroš 2018), but rather the first. As pioneers, they (Lazarević Radak 2020). This presentation will focus on two key dimensions of this socialist past: (1) the Yugoslav motto “Brotherhood & Unity,” and (2) the cult surrounding Tito. Using interview data, I aim to identify statements that express Yugotopia and contrast them with statements that do not convey such nostalgic sentiment.

Atanasoska, T. (2023). Being a “good” teacher in changing times: The example of (North) Macedonia. Revista Internacional de Educación y Análisis Social Crítico, 1(2), 34–55. https://doi.org/10.51896/easc.v1i2.332 Boym, S. (2001). The future of nostalgia. Basic Books. Kirn, G. (2019). Partisan ruptures: Self-management, market reform and the spectre of Socialist Yugoslavia (B. Praper, Trans.). Pluto Press. Lasch, C. (1991). The true and only heaven: Progress and its critics. W. W. Norton & Company. Le Goff, J. (1974). Medieval civilization. Blackwell. Popović, M. (2018). Yugonostalgia: The metanational memory narratives of the last pioneers. In M. Slavković & M. Đorgović (Eds.), Nostalgia on the move (pp. 42–50). Muzej Jugoslavije. Popović, M., Majsova, N., & Anastasova, S. (2021). Memory landscapes in (post-)Yugoslavia: The case of North Macedonia. The Historical Expertise, (25), 186–208. Volčič, Z. (2007). Yugo-nostalgia: Cultural memory and media in the former Yugoslavia. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 24(1), 21–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/07393180701214496 Vučković Juroš, T. (2020). “Things were good during Tito’s times, my parents say”: How young Croatian generations negotiated the socially mediated frames of the recent Yugoslav past. Memory Studies, 13(6), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698018790122