In times of social crises, Public Religious Pedagogy is emerging as "a new paradigm in the field of Religious Pedagogy" (Manfred L. Pirner). This paper aims to strengthen this approach through a critical review. To achieve this, the theoretical foundations of Public Religious Pedagogy will be examined more closely in order to investigate…

Did the liberal art disciplines at American universities have the highest failure rate between the 1970s and the early 2000s? Important theoretical traditions indeed believe that the liberal arts are the most threatened disciplines in the academy, while other theories have differing views. This paper reexamines the vulnerability of academic…

This article begins with a brief overview of how digital literacies have evolved in the context of recent technological and social changes. It then discusses three major domains in which digital literacies have made important contributions to language learning during this period: (a) agency, autonomy, and identity; (b) creativity; and (c) new…

In Germany, the Abitur is the highest qualification granted at the end of secondary education after 12 or 13 years of schooling; it provides a general university entrance qualification. Traditionally, written and oral examinations are required to obtain the Abitur. Until 1990, there were mainly decentralized examinations in mathematics in West…

Nearly 70 percent of American students enroll in postsecondary education immediately after graduating high school. Yet college and university completion rates remain highly disparate across social and economic groups. White students in the US are 20 percent more likely than Black and Latino students to graduate, and students from high-income…

The article explores the notions of children's intellectual 'ab/normality' that were conceptualised in the context of emerging special educational measures at the turn of the twentieth century and the concomitant notions of child development. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, the medical classification of 'idiocy' provided the framework for…

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted weaknesses in our education system and has prompted renewed conversation about the structure of education. This article argues that the conversation should be more geared to the why of education (i.e., the purpose of schools) rather than the how (i.e., the multiple ways of delivering education both for…

This History of Education Society Presidential Address comes at the society's sixtieth anniversary and provides a new conceptual framework that foregrounds recognizing a "racist-blind," and not a color-blind, ideology in the intentional and unequal design our educational past and present. It highlights systemic racism brought on by the…

Universities exert effort and expense in designing buildings to fit the current ontology and meet the perceived needs of society. This is not new -- historically, entire campuses were designed to manifest pedagogical and social ideals, like the "academical village" (Coulson, Roberts and Taylor, 2015) of Thomas Jefferson's imagination.…

The term "toilet" conveys different meanings; it may be seen as an isolated place or a public service, a secluded and dirty area or a symbol of civilisation and progress. In the film "The Phantom of Liberty" (1974), Luis Buñuel presented a formally dressed social group gathering over a meal in toilets around a table, with the…

Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the 15th century, education existed in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) with the goal of introducing young people into the society by teaching children the traditions and values of the community, as well as the meaning of life. However, Great Britain, during colonization, implemented their own form of education…

Commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) III, the purpose of this commentary is to describe school-based and school-relevant interventions and instructional approaches for children and youth with autism that have been developed and employed during that time period. The commentary begins with a brief…

The promise of a free, high-quality public education is supposed to guarantee every child a shot at the American dream. But our widely segregated schools mean that many children of color do not have access to educational opportunities equal to those of their white peers. In "Integrations," historian Zoë Burkholder and philosopher…

Throughout the late 1950s and 1960s, dozens of experimental colleges were founded across the United States. While these institutions are usually remembered as either a fringe movement of the 1960s or a niche for nonconformist students, this essay argues that their genesis was markedly mainstream. Drawing from popular trends, higher education…

Although educators frequently act as if curricula are as standardized as drug doses (300 mg of PBL t.i.d.), such is not the case. As a case in point, at its inception, Problem Based Learning was hailed as a major curriculum innovation, with the promise of enormous gains in learning outcomes. Very quickly, ecclesiastical debates arose as what was…