Nearly every country today has universal primary education. But why did governments in the West decide to provide education to all children in the first place? In "Raised to Obey," Agustina Paglayan offers an unsettling answer. The introduction of broadly accessible primary education was not mainly a response to industrialization, or…

Traditional accounts of state expansion and of the rise of state schooling in the nineteenth century emphasize economic, political, and social development as well as conflict and domination. These accounts explain the introduction of new state structures, like ministries of education, rules of compulsion, and the general elaboration of…

This article traces the development of the wartime Japanese curriculum, which was deliberately designed to implement 'Japanese' approaches to science, and its relation to the previously dominant educational approach, learning by doing. It examines the work of Shiono Naomichi (1898-1969), who served as the curriculum and textbook revision director…

This paper explores relations between literacy education, ideology and politics, based on an analysis of educational reforms during Soviet and US military occupation in North and South Korea. Following the end of the Second World War, anti-illiteracy campaigns in the two Koreas became important means of political socialisation for Koreans amid the…

As the commemorations of the 100th anniversary of World War 1 draw to a close, it is timely to reflect on what we have learnt about that time in our history. This study used the "New Zealand School Journal" as a data source to investigate what school children were learning about the war at the time. In this article, we discuss the overt…

How is it that neoliberal education policies, often lacking evidentiary basis, come to be endorsed--often by the very people they alienate and marginalize? This work seeks to expose how this kind of exclusive policy is sold to a public through intricate hortatory tools. Using critical policy analysis with an emphasis on historical development and…

Whilst much has been written on the role and function of the elite schools in Hitler's vision for his "thousand-year Reich," this article focuses on an area within the history of the Ordensburgen that has not been examined -- that is, the content of training for particular groups given at these elite educational institutions during the…

Students learned in civics lessons in the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) that their socialist society uniquely guaranteed all individuals the right to work, and that, as good socialists, they had the duty to take on socially meaningful work. Using the example of a video recording of an East German civics lesson and its…

The author has lived in Japan over twenty-five years, teaching in higher education for more than twenty. He observes that it has been alarming to see the inroads of ideological activism in the academic community in Japan, which is having unfortunate effects on the curricula of many schools, including his own, Hokusei Gakuen University. In this…

The first two Peronist governments (1946-1955) introduced extensive social reforms that notably improved working conditions and systematised vocational training. Thereby the foundations of the Argentine welfare state were laid and the working masses were socially included to an unprecedented degree: thus, they also constituted the majority of…

Programmes of international educational exchange are not only carried out for educational purposes, but form an important part of modern-day public diplomacy. Through exchange programmes education and research are linked with foreign policy interests, which then in turn should affect the international contacts of universities and research…

This article looks at the way in which patriotism and citizenship were used almost interchangeably in educational circles during the first half of the twentieth century. It traces the development of patriotism, citizenship and civics teaching during this period by discussing the way in which the London County Council approached these areas in the…

This article examines how interest groups in Hong Kong have politicised national history, an unpopular school subject, for their own political ends and allied themselves with the PRC against the SAR government and its policy of not making it a single, independent, compulsory core subject in the school curriculum. The article argues that this has…

The development of the Irish system of education was, not unlike all critical aspects of Irish identity, fundamentally shaped by its relationship with its colonial neighbour. Prior to Independence in 1922, the system of education promoted was a fundamental part of a strategic effort to ensure cultural assimilation and political socialisation.…

This paper examines the nature and socio-political functions of Hong Kong's "Chinese history curriculum" during colonialism and since decolonization and argues that these functions have resulted in a curriculum characterized by rote-learning and geared towards social control. Students are initiated into the traditional, orthodox view of…