This article presents a state of the art of the history of education in Western and Southern Europe by 'cutting together-apart' (Barad) 'knotting-s' (Ingold), in terms of both discipline formation and historiography across and beyond countries in these regions. It (dis)entangles national and regional particularities in terms of approaches, themes…

History of education reveals that the perimeter of a school subject as well as the manner of teaching it may vary according to the time period, the country, its political situation and its economic needs. Furthermore, if it clearly depends on the level of the learners and on the school itself, sometimes the teacher's preoccupations can adapt it.…

In September 1977, all of France's middle schools implemented the so-called "collège unique" reform in the seventh year, i.e. the elimination of tracking (or streaming) and the mixing of all pupils and teachers for the first year of secondary education. This article examines the genesis and implementation of this reform from the point of…

The "Belle Époque" quest for a modern beauty (an 'art nouveau') extended into France's system of free primary schooling, established in the 1880s by the Third Republic to educate the popular masses. Design reformers' belief in the underlying unity of the fine and applied arts, and their growing emphasis on the importance of individual…

Reading methods are valuable cultural and educational objects. They guide students into the world of the written word and, since the end of the nineteenth century, they have associated letters, sounds and words with illustrations. In French schools, in the reading methods published between 1880 and 1960, the word 'boxing' was often associated with…

The aim of this article is to situate the teaching body of the "écoles d'arts et métiers" in their historical context in nineteenth-century France, and to discuss the history of the specificity of teaching in technical schools. The success of this form of vocational education is commonly ascribed to the prominence it gave to manual work.…

Focused on the period between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, this paper explores the pan-European dissemination of policy proposals articulating "éducation permanente" as involving reforms in the architecture of initial and post-initial education in the direction of promoting 'a long life of learning'. It seeks to identify the key…

This article explores the intersection of aspects of imperialism and internationalism in discussion of cinematography at the League of Nations, at the International Council of Women (ICW), and as they played out in the imperial, national and local flows around educational cinematography in the work of Suzanne Karpelès at the Institute of Buddhist…

This paper unveils the body_machine as a key element of dynamic mental maps that have come to shape both educational praxis and research. It traces and analyses instances in which the human and the mechanical encountered each other in metaphorical, material and visual forms, thereby blurring to some extent the boundaries between them while…

This article focuses on the circulation of a single artefact, the "Museu Escolar Brasileiro" (Brazilian School Museum) and its use in education through the pedagogical method of object lessons. Concentrating on the activities of particular individuals and enterprises (Menezes Vieira, Oliveira Lopes and Maison Deyrolle), within three…

Education was an instrument in Christian missions' and colonial powers' civilisation projects. At the same time, education was also instrumental in fostering opposition. This article approaches perceptions of education mainly from the perspective of Norwegian Lutheran missionaries in French colonial Madagascar during the 1940s. The focus is on how…

In 1897, four French Franciscan sisters arrived in Ethiopia, having been summoned there by the Capuchin missionaries. In 1925, they ran an orphanage, a dispensary, a leper colony and 10 schools with 350 girl students. The students were freed slaves, orphans and upper-class Ethiopian and European girls. After providing a brief background to the…

This paper discusses the contributions of the Dominican Sisters and Sisters of Mercy in running schools for female deaf children in Ireland during the period 1846 to 1946. The schools were established as part of an attempt to educate Catholics in the Catholic faith and provide literacy to female deaf children. In assuming the challenge of…

In 1924 the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published a volume investigating the teaching of school history in former belligerent states in Europe. The project sought to reconcile former enemies through mutual understanding and educational exchange and reflected a widely held belief that although the military conflict had finished, its…

In nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Europe, the age of the governess coincided with the age of nationalism. This paper explores the connection between them in the specific context of intercultural education by foreign governesses. It argues that nationalism, with its focus on the identification and projection of a distinct national…