This article examines how one of the first initiatives in what now is known as "special education" came into existence in the historical context of the Netherlands. It focuses on the first private and autonomous institution for mentally retarded pupils, the so-called "School for Idiots", established in 1855 in The Hague by…

Over the last 5 centuries, successive generations of educators have engaged in a reevaluation of curriculum and pedagogy in an effort to reveal the mechanisms that underlie the mysteries of the educational process. The current debate in the USA over the nature of pedagogical reform, particularly in terms of teacher accountability, high-stakes…

This article explores whether private adventure and dame schools were anything more than "nurseries of ignorance" in nineteenth-century Wales. It traces the origins, development and make-up of these small schools, through an analysis of educational reports, biographical material, census returns and other sources. Private adventure…

The overworking of children is a popular stereotype of Victorian schooling. The familiar imagery of nineteenth-century education draws heavily on the Dickensian model of the brutal school, drawn from "Nicholas Nickelby"'s Dotheboys Hall and Gradgrind's school from "Hard Times". Though caricatures, Dickens's images of schools represented…

A conference to honour the memory of Brian Simon (1915-2002) was a privilege and a challenge for its organizing committee. Simon was an educationist and an activist, a chronicler and a critic. His intellectual field encompassed psychology, pedagogy and politics as well as history. His legacy was both to education and to its history. Any…

For historians who seek to engage the educational past primarily as a record of the actions of individuals and groups within particular historical contexts, rather than primarily as a series of linguistic or discursive effects, research convention offers two principal alternatives. The first, and far older, tradition settles its sights upon the…

Research into the history of Russian education has been primarily concerned with the sociopolitical dynamics of the educational field?concretely, with government policies on education and science, with the social composition of the teaching and academic corps, and with the broadly ideological attitudes and activities of government officials,…

Discusses the feminist work of Shena D. Simon. Conceptualizes two goals: (1) to move Shena Simon from the margins of history; and (2) to use biography to explore questions of political identity and gendered dynamics of political involvement. (KDR)

Focuses on the Napier High School Board of Governors and Mary Elizabeth Grenside Hewett, an 1883 New Zealand principal. Concludes that a review of the New Zealand database of women graduate teachers 1880-1930, and the exchange of women graduates from New Zealand and Great Britain, provides details of their international teaching careers. (KDR)

Place is material, conceptual and symbolic. Physically, the Library at Townsville College of Advanced Education was central, visible and distinctive. Internally, it provided a dramatically different environment from other college buildings. It functioned as the (metaphorical) "hub" of the external studies programme and, when the college…

Focuses on the contexts of current debates about the nature and the state of history of education, and the subject of history. States that educational historians are needed to define the truth about history by focusing on human existence and values, and to evaluate questionable facts espoused by those who may have ulterior motives. (KDR)

Examines the 1880s era of female volunteer instructors who made it their mission to teach art to the poor. Focuses on the contributions of the Home Arts and Industries Association as an example. Describes multiple benefits that this organization provided. (KDR)

Examines the work of Eric Ashby, a missionary of the technology age in Great Britain, an analyst of status quo and change proponents of higher education,; and an implementer of technology curricula. He warned in the 1950s that if Western academies did not adapt to/with technology, they would not survive. (KDR)

Discusses coeducation efforts at prestigious U.S. higher education institutions in the 1880s, specifically Columbia University and Barnard College (New York City). Concludes that narrative concerning women at these institutions includes the perspective that women were institution builders despite limited notions about female access and…

Discusses the educational history, in essay form, of Glasgow's (Scotland) higher education system, its relationship with the University Grants Committee and other civic/public universities of the twentieth century. Concludes that civic universities have lost their definingly unique characteristics by conforming to the format of other civic…