Sarah Van Ruyskensvelde

Towards a history of e-ducation? Exploring the possibilities of digital humanities for the history of education

In the past few years, worries about decreasing jobs or even the possible disappearance of the history of education as a field of study have frequently surfaced. Hence, the question arises as to whether the history of education, as a field of study, has a future – or is it, as many authors have remarked, in danger? This article starts from the idea that our field of study is definitely not alone in its struggle: many branches of the humanities have fallen victim to similar appeals of economic efficiency and relevance. In response to these developments, digital humanities in particular have been identified as a way out of the impasse. Therefore, this article explores the ways in which digital humanities or digital history can offer valuable contributions to the future of the history of education. This paper advocates that, although digital humanities or digital history cannot magically make our problems disappear, historians of education should further embrace the possibilities digital technology has to of...In the past few years, worries about decreasing jobs or even the possible disappearance of the history of education as a field of study have frequently surfaced. Hence, the question arises as to whether the history of education, as a field of study, has a future – or is it, as many authors have remarked, in danger? This article starts from the idea that our field of study is definitely not alone in its struggle: many branches of the humanities have fallen victim to similar appeals of economic efficiency and relevance. In response to these developments, digital humanities in particular have been identified as a way out of the impasse. Therefore, this article explores the ways in which digital humanities or digital history can offer valuable contributions to the future of the history of education. This paper advocates that, although digital humanities or digital history cannot magically make our problems disappear, historians of education should further embrace the possibilities digital technology has to offer for the investigation of our educational past. I argue that digital technology not only has the potential to make our lives considerably easier; it can also help in addressing new research questions, give new meaning to existing concepts within the history of education and further enhance the interdisciplinary character of our discipline.

Let us entertain you: an exploratory study on the beliefs and practices of teaching history of education in the twenty-first century

ABSTRACT Following recent studies that have mapped history of education research practices, this article aims to map contemporary history of education teaching practices. Drawing on data from interviews with history of education university lecturers and a global digital survey, we explore the rationale behind teaching practices and teaching beliefs in history of education. The starting point for our interest was a shared “sense of unease”: we had the impression that those teaching practices and teaching beliefs were driven more by a concern to meet students’ expectations and interests – to warrant their motivation and engagement – than by the content. The findings of our study provide evidence to support our concern. The contents, as well as the format of history of education courses, is changing towards what we provocatively would like to call, edutainment. This article aims to contribute to a critical self-reflection of history of education teaching worldwide.

The cult of order: in search of underlying patterns of the colonial and neo-colonial “grammar of educationalisation” in the Belgian Congo. Exported school rituals and routines?

Abstract An analysis of the history of primary education in Belgium by Depaepe et al. in 2000 has demonstrated how the idea of “order” structured classroom reality in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This “order” is not only visible in the internal organisation of schooling (e.g. division into year classes, a structured timetable, the use of the didactics of teacher-centred instruction), but also in the design of the curriculum. Good behaviour and moral decency were consistently prioritised over “intellectual knowledge”. Very similar paternalising practices – including the cult of order – were transported to the Belgian colony. The implementation of these practices, however, did not go smoothly, because the African context of missionary education was totally different from the Belgian educational context. Precisely as a result of these difficulties, the core characteristics and likewise mistakes of the transported “grammar of educationalisation” become even more apparent. On the basis of a variety of sources, this paper demonstrates that secondary education for boys in the Belgian colony of Congo was founded on the same educational norms and values that characterised nineteenth-century Belgian education. In this respect, order was considered the conditio sine qua non for discipline and self-discipline. But, in contrast to what Nikolas Rose has argued, the Foucaultian paradigm – although attractive and interesting – is not imperative in explaining the educational strategy of order. On the contrary, the development of the history of education as a science could benefit from a theoretical framework coming “from within” the discipline. Until today, the history of educational practice has been explained from a history of education perspective only to a limited extent. By exploring the duality of a didactic grammar of schooling, on the one hand, and an educational semantics of moralisation, on the other hand, this paper contributes to the development of a theoretical framework from within the history of education.

Between Pacification and Conflict: The History of Belgian Education and the Challenge of National Socialism

The history of education in Belgium can be understood in terms of three ‘cleavages’ that intersect Belgian society: the ideological cleavage between the Roman Catholic Church and the state, the Church–state conflict over the concrete organisation and purpose of education and the linguistic tensions between Flanders and Wallonia. These fracture lines have inflicted Belgian society, and its education system, since the start of independence in 1830. Since the tensions between the Church and the state were in fact the first to surface in the discussions about education,1 the first section of this chapter deals with the power struggle between the episcopal and state authorities in their efforts to establish power and control over education. Furthermore, the Church and the state also had different opinions as to what the ultimate goal of education should be. Generally, the Church held on to the elitist character of (secondary) education and attached great importance to the classical humanities. For a very long time, private Catholic schooling remained a bastion of French elite culture. Yet, from Belgian independence onwards, the Flemish movement contested the linguistic regime in schools that remained in large part Francophone. During the 1930s, a radicalised wing of this Flemish movement shifted towards Fascism and National Socialism and, as such, formed an important breeding ground for New Order ideas during the interwar and war years.

War in the Classroom: The Development of Catholic School Culture during the Second World War in Belgium

On 16 October 1940, the Principal of the Institut Saint-Louis in Brussels requested Archbishop Van Roey to give some directions about the organisation of schooling during the war because the occupation complicated school life. The German occupation of Belgium had created a new context in which schools needed to operate, and the establishment of a new political regime gave rise to new questions that local school administrations needed to answer. This chapter specifically deals with the question as to how the war affected daily school life. Was the German education policy really implemented in Catholic private schools, and how did teachers and pupils deal with the war on a daily basis? Historiography has dealt with specific aspects of schooling in the context of National Socialism and German occupation, but there are few ‘chalk face’ studies about how the war penetrated the classroom, how German measures were received locally and how teachers and pupils experienced the occupation.

Introduction: A Political History of Belgian Education during the Second World War

On 12 May 1945 two British newspapers published an article by the end of the war in Europe, stating that Belgian education had functioned as a weapon in the hands of the German-occupying regime. According to journalists of the News Chronicle and the Daily Telegraph, the Nazi system had exerted such an influence on children that, after the war, Belgian authorities would have to submit them to a ‘scientific purge’.1 At the opening ceremony of the Birkbeck College in London, even the English Minister of Education, Richard Austen Butler, claimed that Belgian education needed ‘a period of inoculation’. In his view, Belgian children had been the victims of a unilateral procedure of misinformation, since during the occupation ‘the individuality of children had not mattered’.2 Not only this speech, but also the presence of the Belgian Minister of Education at the ceremony was fiercely criticised in Belgium, by Catholics in particular. In a note of 22 May 1945, the Provincial of the Walloon Province of the Society of Jesus, Victor Le Cocq, argued that the speech and articles damaged private and public education and that nothing could support these false allegations. Contrary to the situation in the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, he argued, collaborators or exponents of the German regime had never replaced Belgian educators.3

Catholic Schools during the Second World War: Victims of German Indoctrination?

In the spring of 1945, the Allied Ministers of Education in London set up a Commission to investigate the re-education of teachers and pupils in the territories formerly occupied by Nazi Germany. The Commission proposed to implement ‘appropriate teaching methods’, based on the scientific results of psycho-technique, in Europe’s national education systems, as well as to introduce ‘counter propaganda’ in schools, such as educational films or radio that had the task of ‘facilitating the national feeling’ again.1 For Belgium, the Commission launched plans to de-Nazify Belgian education and introduce counter propaganda, in particular in the German-speaking territories of Belgium that had been annexed by Germany during the war. The aim of the Allied education reform plan for Belgium was to foster ‘faith in the reasonableness and good will of human beings, love of freedom, deep and abiding respect for individuality, [and] a generally humane and tolerant attitude’.2

A School Trip Down Memory Lane: Teacher and Pupil Memories of the Second World War in Belgium

In September 1944, the larger part of Belgium was liberated from what had been four years of German occupation. However, the end of the occupation did not immediately put an end to the tragedy of war. Shortly after the liberation, prisoners of war and political prisoners that had survived the concentration camps returned, revealing the true magnitude and full impact of National Socialism and the judeocide: