John Howlett

Connecting histories of education: transnational and cross-cultural exchanges in (post) colonial education

Perhaps an inevitable by-product of globalization and the globalized world, much government educational rhetoric and discourse is now heavily focused on the astringencies of international competiti...

Quentin Skinner, intentionality and the history of education

This article attempts to reconsider and re‐evaluate the often misunderstood and mis‐conceptualised notion of “progressivism” within education by examining it through the lens of intentionality, specifically the textual kind prescribed by Quentin Skinner in his seminal work “Visions of Politics” (2002). Locating and explicating his ideas will therefore form the first part of the article. In particular, there will be an examination of his two key analytical concepts, locutionary meaning and illocutionary force, which will act as the methodology for the analysis. The second part of the article will examine how writers of the past have tended to equate the term “progressivism” with “progressive schools”, seeing the concept as floating through time, independent of human agency. There will be a brief discussion on the problems of misconceiving progressivism in this way. To fulfil its chosen aim therefore, the article will use as its focus two contemporaneous educators from the past who have often been seen as fitting into the same, linear progressive tradition: Susan Isaacs and A.S. Neill. The article will demonstrate in its final part, through a Skinnerian examination of one of each of their key texts, how far from fitting into a homogenous progressive discourse Isaacs and Neill were when it came to their intentions and understandings in writing.

A social history of educational studies and research, by Gary McCulloch and Steven Cowan

historical ‘i’ and ‘t’. Thus readers may well come across the occasional assertion that they find questionable or wonder why this aspect of our language-learning history has been omitted. However, this is part of the beauty of this work: it will surely stimulate others to explore more deeply its histories and assertions, and even craft similar histories for other contexts. The exhaustive lists of references provided in this work will, without a doubt, help them on their way.

Transforming education. Meanings, myths and complexity

This is an important work which finds its place within the many and varied critiques of current educational trends and thinking. Whilst some of these – of which Stephen Ball’s (2012, 2013) are perh...

Secondary school education in Ireland: histories, memories and life stories, 1922–1967 by Tom O’Donoghue and Judith Harford

policy and African nationalist politics in the postwar period. And, even in its description of the school itself, the book pays little attention to other students, their experiences or their interactions with the future writers. Historians may also wonder, as I did, about Ochiagha’s use of sources. The book relies a bit too heavily on the published memoirs, essays and novels of the five authors, published interviews and Ochiagha’s email correspondence with several of them. These sources tell us a lot about the importance of the school in the writers’ memories and public constructions of their pasts, but they are less illuminating about the students they were before they became accomplished writers. To be fair, Ochiagha notes early on that the school’s archive is ‘fragmented’ and that many materials were lost during and after the Nigerian Civil War (p. 12). And she has located some fascinating documents from the period, including bits of school publications, teachers’ class preparation notes and commentary, photographs (many of which are included in the book), and a few colonial reports. Yet, despite these caveats, I was surprised by the paucity of archival documents (even those held in the UK) in her notes and bibliography. In closing, this book is valuable for its reimagining of Achebe’s place in Nigeria’s literary history and for its emphasis on the power of one particular educational environment to reshape history. Despite its weaknesses, advanced students and scholars of African literary history and of colonial education will find it useful. Kelly M. Duke Bryant Rowan University duke-bryant@rowan.edu

Essays in the history of Irish education, edited by Brendan Walsh

non-national relationships even at the highpoint of the nation-state. However, this volume as a whole does not persuade me that it is possible to dispense with national intellectual cultures and even nation-states in writing the intellectual history of the long nineteenth century. Scientific and scholarly academies, for example, were overwhelmingly national in conception. They acknowledged the importance of the wider republic of letters, notably by admitting corresponding members, but this very category implied a sharp distinction between full members – usually defined by residence or by nationality – and foreign associates. Why this should have been the case – and why it largely remains the case – are intriguing questions for discussion on another occasion, but that it was the case is undeniable. The story of the founding of the British Academy is illuminating here. It owed its establishment in the first place to transnational academic politics: when a congress of European and American academies was convened at Wiesbaden in 1899, it was noticed that Britain, alone among the nations represented there, had no academy to represent the interests of what are now called the humanities. The Royal Society, founded in the seventeenth century with a remit to improve ‘natural knowledge’, was asked to investigate whether it should broaden its remit or whether it could initiate the establishment of a sister academy. Thus international relationships were a key driver: the Wiesbaden meeting stemmed, after all, from a growing recognition that intellectual progress demanded effective international cooperation but the form of cooperation it institutionalised was cooperation between representative national bodies and the outcome in the British case was the creation of an academy which, like its foreign counterparts, was explicitly national in its mission.

The formation, development and contribution of the New Ideals in Education conferences, 1914–1937

Abstract This paper seeks to explore the development, impact and contribution made by the New Ideals in Education conferences, which were held between 1914 and 1937. In particular, it will examine how the group emerged from the English Montessori Society and forged an identity of its own based on the thoughts and ideas of its two major protagonists: Edmond Holmes and the Earl of Lytton. This was especially manifest in its commitment to a form of non-partisanship that sought to be inclusive as possible towards those agitating for liberty within the classroom. The paper will also examine the profound impact played by the First World War, whose events were a catalyst not merely for impelling the group to discuss and showcase practice but also how this could be applied in the reconstruction process. In so doing it will chart the evolution of the New Ideals movement, which fizzled out just prior to the Second World War.

Testing times. Success, failure and Fiasco in education policy in Wales since devolution. By Philip Dixon. Pp 180. Cardiff, Wales Academic Press. 2016. £17.99 (paperback). ISBN 978-1860571244

experience of applying for college from the students’ perspective. Another set of questions that scholars of higher education admissions are interested concerns outcomes from college other than grades, such as employment outcomes as well as the added value or learning gain in college. This is covered with reference to Bowen and Bok’s seminal work on life outcomes of college, but there could have been more on learning gains with, e.g. reference to Arum and Rospia’s work in Academically Adrift (2011, University of Chicago Press). The book then, is outstanding at doing what it promises to do – talking in scholarly and rigorous detail about admissions tests. At the same time, the subjects and issues not covered indicate that there is still scope and need for researchers to continue engaging with the field of admissions research.

Being a historian: an introduction to the professional world of history and History in the making

As historians of education it ultimately befits us, more so perhaps than those working in cognate historical fields, to consider the purpose of our scholarship. The interchanges at the turn of the ...