Kristen D. Nawrotzki

Froebel is Dead; Long Live Froebel! The National Froebel Foundation and English Education

The German pedagogue Friedrich Froebel lived from 1782 to 1852. The pedagogy that made Froebel famous was encompassed in his Kindergarten, a set of strictly defined methods and activities for the education of young children, which he developed and refined in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Froebel’s Kindergarten reached England in the mid‐1850s, where it attracted a small but enthusiastic group of followers and practitioners. By 1900, Froebel’s followers in England had become awakened to movements in child study and psychology and Froebel’s prescriptions did not hold up to ensuing criticism. In most histories of English education, the story of Froebelian education in England stops there, with the so‐called death of Froebelian early childhood pedagogy and its replacement with an eclectic range of pedagogies and institutions based variously on the work of Sigmund and Anna Freud, Margaret McMillan, John Dewey, Susan Isaacs, Maria Montessori and others. This article picks up this dropped thread, examining the English neo‐Froebelian movement after the death of Froebelian methods by the start of the twentieth century. Based on analysis of the organizational records and publications of the Froebel Society, National Froebel Foundation, NSA and other professional groups connected with early childhood and progressive pedagogy, this article identifies several turning points in the institutional and ideological trajectory of neo‐Froebelians in the most turbulent and decisive period of twentieth‐century English pedagogical and policy debate. More specifically, this article shows that Stuart Hall’s theories of identity politics—as well as Eric Hobsbawm’s and Terence Ranger’s concept of invented tradition—can help us make sense of the apparently paradoxical persistence of ‘Froebel’ discourse in interwar and 1940s progressive English educational discourse despite what appeared to be a complete disavowal of Friedrich Froebel, the man and his pedagogy on the part of those wielding his name.

Parent–School Relations in England and the USA: Partnership, Problematized

Over the last 45 years, educational inequality has been a focus of national policy and of social scientific study (mostly in that order) in both the USA and England. The compensatory education programs in both countries beginning in the 1960s marked a watershed in terms of government commitment to using education to fight poverty as well as in the role of social science research in educational policymaking (Nawrotzki et al. 2003; Silver and Silver 1991). National education policies and programs in England and the USA have come to focus on promoting achievement-related attitudes and behaviors among parents of children at risk of underachievement in general and on getting teachers to encourage and support the at-home and at-school involvement of these parents in particular.

The Development of Early Childhood Education in Europe and North America

1. Introduction: The Longue Duree: Early Childhood Institutions and Ideas in Flux Harry Willekens, Kirsten Scheiwe and Kristen Nawrotzki 2. The Spread of Infant School Models in Europe during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century Jean-Noel Luc 3. Religious Cleavages, the School Struggle and the Development of Early Childhood Education in Belgium, France and the Netherlands Harry Willekens 4. Development and Diffusion of Early Childhood Education in Italy: Reflections on the Role of the Church from a Historical Perspective (1830-2010) Eva Maria Hohnerlein 5. The Roles of the State and the Church in the Development of Early Childhood Education in Spain (1874-1975) (5) Carmen Sanchidrian 6. From Poverty Relief to Universl Provision: The Changing Grounds for Child Care Policy Reforms in Norway Arnlaug Leira 7. Split Paths: Early Childhood Education and Care in the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic (1949-1990) Franz-Michael Konrad 8. Saving Money of Saving Children? Nursery Schools in England the USA Kristen Nawrotzki 9. Towards Early Childhood Education as a Social Right: A Historical and Comparative Perspective Kirsten Scheiwe 10. Professional Profiles in Early Childhood Education and Care: Continuity and Change in Europe Pamela Oberhuemer 11. Modernising Early Childhood Education: The Role of Germans Womens Movements After 1848 and 1968 Meike S. Baader 12. Womens Activism on Child Care in Italy and Denmark: The 1960s and 1970s Chiara Bertone 13. Early Education and the Unloved Market of Commercial Child Care in Luxembourg Michael-Sebastian Honig, Anett Schmitz and Martine Wiltzius 14. Preschool, Child Care and Welfare Reform in the United States Sonya Michel 15. The History of Kindergarten as New Education: Examples from the United States and Canada, 1890 to 1920 Larry Prochner

Introduction: The Longue Durée — Early Childhood Institutions and Ideas in Flux

Across Europe and North America (and in other parts of the world to which we can claim no expertise), we have witnessed in recent decades a spectacular development of institutions and arrangements designed for the education and care of young children (those under compulsory school age) outside the family. In no society have young children ever been raised by their parents alone, but, with a few exceptions, collective education and care in the past took place within networks of individuals who knew each other and who were tied to each other by complex social obligations (e.g. networks of kin or neighbourhood solidarity). The early childhood education and care (henceforth ECEC) which has come to define the life of young children in contemporary societies is of a wholly different nature: it is always regulated and often directly supplied by the State; its establishment has most often been the result of intentional policies pursuing specified social goals; and the individuals providing the services do so for money and not on the basis of personal ties with the parents or children.