General Assembly ISCHE 41, Porto 2019 19 July 2019 17:30-19:00 - International Standing Conference for the History of Education - ISCHE ...
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International Standing Conference for the History of Education
General Assembly
ISCHE 41, Porto 2019
19 July 2019
17:30-19:00
1
Documents for General Assembly Porto 2019
I. Agenda for General Assembly, Porto, 19 July 2019
II. Minutes of General Assembly, ISCHE 40, Berlin, 2018
III. President’s Report
IV. Treasurer’s Report, 1 January–31 December 2018
V. 2019 Budget and Proposed ISCHE Budget 2020
VI. Laudation for ISCHE First Book Award 2019
VII. Laudation for ISCHE Early Career Conference Paper Award 2019
VIII. Request of the Brazilian and Portuguese History of Education Associations
IX. ISCHE Language Policy
X. Nominations for Executive Committee
XI. Proposal for a new Standing Working Group
2
I. Agenda for General Assembly on 19 July 2019
1. Approval of the Agenda
2. Approval of the General Assembly Minutes, Berlin 2018
3. President’s Report
4. Treasurer’s Report 2018 and 2019
5. Proposed Budget 2020
6. Exculpation of the Executive Committee
7. ISCHE 2018 First Book Award
8. Early Career Conference Paper Award
9. Portuguese as an ISCHE Language
10. ISCHE Language Policy
11. Election of new EC Members
12. ISCHE 42 Örebro 2020
13. ISCHE 43 Milan 2021
14. Discussion and approval of a new SWG
15. Additional recommendations from membership
3
II. Minutes of General Assembly, Berlin 2018
International Standing Conference for the History of Education
General Assembly, Berlin, Germany, 31 August 2018
Executive Committee Members Present: Rebecca Rogers (RR) (President), Noah Sobe (NS)
(Treasurer), Karin Priem (KP) (Secretary), Inés Félix (IF), Ian Grosvenor (IG), Simonetta
Polenghi (SP), Miriam Southwell (MS), Angelo Van Gorp (AVG), Diana Vidal (DV). In
addition, 95 other ISCHE members were present.
ISCHE President Rebecca Rogers called the meeting to order at 3:15pm and welcomed ISCHE
40 attendees to the ISCHE General Assembly.
1 Approval of the Agenda
No changes to the agenda were proposed. Ruth Watts moved to accept the agenda. Kate
Rousmaniere seconded. The motion unanimously carried by voice vote.
2 Approval of the General Assembly Minutes, Buenos Aires 2017
No changes were proposed to the 2017 General Assembly minutes. Kate Rousmaniere moved
to accept the agenda as distributed. Ruth Watts seconded. The motion unanimously carried by
voice vote.
3 President’s Report
Rebecca Rogers began her final report as President, noting her sense of honor to be present for
this historic anniversary during which we will be honoring four esteemed colleagues for their
contributions to our Association. Before briefly presenting these colleagues, however, she
addresses ISCHE’s accomplishments over the past year.
Institutional Issues: As reported last year ISCHE now has its own bank account and is
officially recognized as a non-profit organization in Germany, thanks in large part to secretary
Karin Priem’s dealings with our lawyer and German bank establishments. This introduces new
levels of professionalism in our accounting, which the EC would like to make less burdensome
for our treasurer through an agreement with the European Educational Research Association
(EERA), which also manages the ECER conference. Over the past year the officers of ISCHE
have been engaged in conversations with EERA to help deal with financial and administrative
issues related to being in based in Germany, as well as logistical details in relation to our
membership and local organizing committees. Our concern is to allow EC members to focus
more on the programmatic nature of our Association. We would like EERA to help us develop
a conference management tool, which will relieve the local organizing committees of much of
the logistical burden of organizing a conference: contact with evaluators, collecting money,
organizing the conference. We are also considering merging this tool with the membership
management system, currently done through Taylor & Francis. The cooperation with EERA is
also meant to ensure we don’t need to have a German-speaking EC member in order to deal
with the business of being an association based in Germany.
4
Our membership campaign in 2018 was far more successful than last year. As of August 27,
2018, we have 338 members, including 85 students. There are the highest figures we have had
since we became a membership organization three years ago, and confirms our hypothesis that
last year’s decline was related to the location of the conference in Buenos Aires. Among this
year’s members, there were 151 renewals (virtually everyone from 2017 when we recorded 169
members). Members in 2018 come from 43 different countries and 87 members also subscribe
to PH. We have had less success increasing the number of national associations who become
members: seven societies have paid their dues like in 2017.
ISCHE continues to pursue its goal to attract early career researchers offering a reduced
membership fee as well as organizing an early career travel fund for the second year. We
received 13 submissions for such support and distributed travel funds to 7 people. Again the
decision was made to support graduate students who were close to defending not beginning
PhD students, and the selection process took into account both need and merit. People with
tenure-track or permanent jobs were not a priority. Rebecca Rogers noted that the effort to
endow a 40th anniversary travel fund that would generate income for the future was not a
success and seems to suggest that our membership is not inclined to contribute to this sort of
initiative. ISCHE will continue however in the future to allocate such funds from its
membership income. Finally, ISCHE also continued to support travel funds for a few students
to attend the History of Education Doctoral Summer School.
Communication, Website, Historical Memory: Rebecca Rogers has pursued the practice of
sending out two to three presidential newsletters to registered members and she urges members
who don’t receive them to let the officers know. These letters are then posted on the website,
thanks to the diligent efforts of the early career researcher on the committee, Inês Felix. The
latter has also done a great job developing the section on the website devoted to Early Career
Researchers and welcomes information about jobs and post-doctoral fellowship that might be
of interest to our membership.
Rebecca Rogers also communicates regularly with the presidents of National Associations and
reiterates the EC’s interest in getting regular news from these associations. She notes as well
the possibility of sharing the ISCHE logo for initiatives of our member associations.
Thanks to the previous president Eckhardt Fuchs, ISCHE’s archives from the late 1970s until
the early 2000s are now catalogued and available for consultation at the Bibliothek für
Bildungsgeschichte Forschung (BBF) here in Berlin. As paper archives diminish, the EC is in
active discussion with the archivists at the BBF about how to preserve our digital archives from
2000 forward. We anticipate making a further request for funding to the Stichting PH to help
us in these efforts.
Capacity building: Over the years, ISCHE has become increasingly engaged in supporting
scholars and scholarship in the history of education. Among the recent initiatives, Rebecca
Rogers is pleased to note that the ISCHE book series “Global Histories of Education” has
attracted quite a few proposals since it was first announced in 2016. Diana Vidal, who
coordinates this initiative for the EC, reports that 1 monograph has successfully completed the
peer review process, and 2 edited volumes are in the final stages. At least 2 books should appear
in our series next year! The President expresses her thanks to the committee in charge of this.
The ISCHE First Book Award is a similar initiative to support our field. The 2018 award was
given to Jon Shelton for his book entitled, Teacher Strike! Public Education and the Making of
a New American Political Order. Once again Rebecca Rogers expressed her thanks to the
multilingual book award committee that Frank Simon has chaired for the past two years. She
notes that the committee would like to see more submissions in all of the ISCHE languages and
that submissions for 2019 are due September 28, 2018.
5
Members continue to show their interest in organizing Pre-Conference Workshops. Three such
workshops were organized in Buenos Aires in 2018; another three were organized in Berlin:
Funding Mass Education; Visual History of Education; Shifting the Frames on ‘Femininity’.
Standing Working Groups also continue to thrive: seven are running currently and three new
groups will be presented latter in the GA. The titles and end-dates of the seven groups are the
following: Mapping the Discipline History of Education [ends 2019]; Touching Bodies [ends
2019]; Objects, Senses and the Material World of Schooling [ends 2020]; Migrants, Migration
and Education [ends 2021]; Réformisme(s), Progressisme(s), Conservatisme (s) en éducation :
quelles argumentations critiques ? [ends 2021]; History of Laic Education: concepts, policies
and practices in the world [ends 2021]; Growing up in out-of-home care: Histories of children
and youths in foster families and residential homes [ends 2022].
As mentioned earlier with respect to institutional development, ISCHE is actively engaged in
supporting early career researchers, notably through financial support to attend the annual
conference or through support for the History of Education Doctoral Summer School. This
year’s summer school was in Riga and was attended by 28 students from 17 different
nationalities, one-third of which were from outside Europe. Approximately 235 students have
participated since 2010 and their presence in our annual conference is evidence of the success
of the summer school. Next year’s summer school will be in Liverpool from July 13-16, 2019.
New Initiatives: Last year we asked the general assembly to approve an initiative to create an
ISCHE Conference Abstracts Database, which was also generously funded by the Stichting
PH. Thanks to Noah Sobe and Annemarie Valdes, this database is now available for
consultation. ISCHE 31 (2009) through ISCHE 39 (2017)—with the exception of 2012, which
will be added later––are now on-line. This is over 1700 records and all told is over 700,000
words of text. If you go to ische.org/abstracts-database you can now search, using the password
2018. Beginning with 2019 memberships each member will get their own separate log on. This
is an exciting opportunity for members unable to attend every meeting to discover who is
working on topics of interest to them, as well as to chart international historiographical
developments.
Following up on the initial History of Education Salon on “Education and the Body”, the next
ISCHE salon will include videos of conversations with Jeroen Dekker, Marc Depaepe, Joyce
Goodman and Ruth Watts about their involvement with ISCHE. These are all ISCHE members
who have received honorary life memberships. The website will also include an interview of
Frank Simon ––“Frank Simon: A personal story about everyday educational realities”––by
Sjaak Braster and Maria del Mar del Pozo who have generously offered us the possibility of
reposting for our members. Once again Rebecca Rogers reminds ISCHE members that the EC
welcomes proposals for other such History of Education Salons.
Rebecca Rogers concluded by thanking the local organizers, the EC and all ISCHE members
for their contributions to making ISCHE such a dynamic and inclusive association, and noted
her pleasure at serving as President over the past three years. Before giving the floor to treasurer
Noah Sobe, whose second term concludes here in Berlin, she wishes to express special thanks
for all he has done for ISCHE first as secretary during Eckhardt Fuch’s Presidency, then as
treasurer under her Presidency; Noah was an essential force in moving ISCHE into its new era,
as a membership association, generating income, and developing the range of programmatic
activities just described.
4 Treasurer’s Report and Proposed Budget for 2019
NS thanks the EC committee for excellent cooperation during his mandate as ISCHE treasurer.
He stresses that ISCHE has grown tremendously in terms of its budget and operational financial
6affairs. A further highlight is the growing number of individual membership. NS presented a
Treasurer’s report and proposed a budget for 2019 (Appendix 1). He also introduced the plans
of the EC to implement a cooperation with the European Educational Research Association
(EERA) for administrative purposes. With this cooperation, the EC will modify its contracts
with Local Organizers of ISCHE conferences: ISCHE will collect conference fees in the future
and run the conference management tool. NS asked for a motion to approve both the
cooperation with EERA and the 2018 budget. The General Assembly voted for a motion
presented by Christine Mayer and seconded by Pablo Pineau to accept the treasure’s report. The
motion carried unanimously without abstentions.
5 Exculpation of the Executive Committee
RR asked the General Assembly for a motion to accept the reports presented and exculpate the
officers of ISCHE. Clémence Cardon Quint presented the motion and Kay Whitehead
seconded. The motion unanimously carried by voice vote.
6 Honorary Life-Time Membership: Jeroen J.H. Dekker, Marc Depaepe, Joyce Goodman, and
Frank Simon
RR announces that ISCHE will honor four outstanding colleagues of each decade of ISCHE’s
existence and presents short CVs of J. Dekker, M. Depaepe, J. Goodman and F. Simon on the
basis of the laudations that have been included in the conference package. The colleagues were
called on-stage and presented with Honorary Life-Time Membership plaques, and received an
enthusiastic ovation on the part of the General Assembly.
8 ISCHE First Book Award
RR announced the awarding of the ISCHE First Book Award to Jon Shelton (University of
Wisconsin–Green Bay), “Teacher Strike! Public Education and the Making of a New American
Political Order” (Chicago, Illinois USA: University of Illinois Press, 2017). She thanked the
selection committee (Frank Simon, James Albisetti, Inés Dussel, Solenn Huitric, and Elsie
Rockwell) and noted that Shelton’s work is an excellent piece of research on the recent history
of education. Jon Shelton’s research offers a very clear and insightful analysis of the political
context in which teacher strikes occurred in the US in the 60s and 70s (in large cities including
New York City, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Philadelphia, and St. Louis). It further provides
an interesting analysis of the relationships of teachers’ unions to the Black activism movement
and other civil rights movements. The author’s writing style is agreeable and allows the reader
to follow easily the line of argument. The subject also offers links to current events. The analysis
of teacher strikes is embedded in an in-depth study of the working conditions of teachers, while
also addressing intersections with other social movements as well as racial and gender
inequalities. The book covers an impressive range of sources: unions’ archives, city archives,
newspapers and magazines, among others. Very creative is the way in which the author
reviewed letters sent to jailed union leaders, seeking to understand the impact of media
discourses in citizens’ opinions; these letters are an innovative source and they offer a good
entry point to public opinion. The main argument of the book is the breakdown of the labor-
liberal alliance during the 1970s, which paves the way for the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s
and 1990s. While the book adopts a relatively classical historical approach, it is to be
commended for its thorough and dense study of teacher union mobilizations. It raises new
questions and brings new perspectives to this topic. This book makes a substantial contribution
to the fields of labor history and educational history. Jon Shelton came to the podium to receive
his prize and thanked ISCHE for its support.
79 Early Career Conference Paper Award
RR announced the awarding of the ISCHE Early Career Conference Paper Award to Sophie
Rudolph (University of Melbourne, Australia), “To ‘Uplift the Aborigine’ or to ‘Uphold’
Aboriginal Dignity and Pride? Indigenous Educational Debates in 1960s Australia Teacher
Strike! Public Education and the Making of a New American Political Order.” She noted that
Sophie Rudolph’s paper is based on primary sources and all of the relevant literature the paper
documents educational debates in politically turbulent 1960s Australia about the racism faced
by Aboriginal people. In doing so it deals with a question that was central to conference and
demonstrates ‘that questions of emancipation through education are not straightforward’ and
that ‘educational provision must be thoughtfully negotiated with communities.’ The paper also
raised issues about the extent to which cultural hybridity has a place in emancipation debates.
In its analysis of the operation of a particular set of ‘racial logics’ the paper is a fine addition to
postcolonial literature. Sophie Rudolph came to the podium to receive her prize and thanked
ISCHE for support.
10 ISCHE 41 Porto 2019
Luís Grosso Correia reported on preparations for ISCHE 2019, to take place in Porto, Portugal,
16–20 July on the theme “Places and Spaces of Education”.
11 ISCHE 42 Örebro 2020
Johannes Westberg reported on plans being made for ISCHE 42 which will take place in
Örebro, Sweden. The proposed theme is the “New Social History of Education”.
12 Election of New ISCHE President
Current ISCHE President Rebecca Rogers noted that the ISCHE Constitution stipulates that to
be eligible for election as ISCHE President an individual has to have been serving on the
Executive Committee for at least one year at the time of his/her election. She noted, that in
accordance with ISCHE tradition, the EC was proposing a candidate to the General Assembly
and the EC recommended Karin Priem. Because the ISCHE Constitution specifies that election
for ISCHE President take place by vote, RR noted that ballots were being distributed and that
Karin Priem needed to achieve a majority of votes cast in order to be elected to the position.
The ballots were collected and counted by two current members of the EC (Simonetta Polenghi
and Diana Vidal) and two former presidents (Frank Simon and Kate Rousmaniere). Later in the
meeting, once the ballots had been counted, Ian Grosvenor announced that Karin Priem had
achieved a majority of votes cast (88 out of 95). Karin Priem accepted and the assembly
congratulated her on her election to the ISCHE Presidency.
13 Election of New EC Members
Rebecca Rogers noted that the General Assembly needed to fill two vacant positions on the
Executive Committee and that in accordance with the procedures established in the ISCHE
constitution three nominations have been received (and made available in the conference
package). Marc A. Van Overbeke (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA) and Beatrice Vincze
(Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary) were invited to come to the podium and gave statements
regarding their interest in serving on the EC; Inés Dussel (CINVESTAV, México) sent a video
statement regarding her candidature for the EC. The election took place by vote and ballots
8were distributed, collected and counted by two current members of the EC (Simonetta Polenghi
and Diana Vidal) and two former presidents (Frank Simon and Kate Rousmaniere). Later in the
meeting, once the ballots had been counted, Ian Grosvenor announced that Inés Dussel (90 out
of 95) and Marc A. Van Overbeke (66 out of 95) had achieved the majority of votes cast and
the assembly congratulated them on their election to the ISCHE EC committee. Beatrice Vincze
has achieved 44 out of 95 votes.
14 Discussion and Approval of Revised Byelaws
RR explained that the ISCHE byelaws require the approval of the GA and that the EC was
recommending an approval of the byelaw changes with regard to Standing Working Groups by
adding the following phrase at the end of paragraph 7.1 (Establishing a new SW): “If a SWG
completes its mission before the conclusion of its five year term, the convenors may voluntarily
cease operations by informing the EC in writing of this decision” and by adding a new
paragraph: “7.3. All SWGs must issue a public call for papers for sessions to be held at the
annual meeting. These should be disseminated on the ISCHE website at least one month before
the submission deadline. SWGs review and make acceptance determinations on the proposals
they receive. On a motion proposed by Marc Depaepe and seconded by Pablo Pineau the byelaw
revision was accepted unanimously.
15 Discussion and approval of new Standing Working Groups
Three proposals for the establishment of new Standing Working Groups entitled “Material
Hermaneutics and Remediation as Challenges in Visual Studies in Histories of Education,”
“The History of Educational Funding: Models, Debates and Policies in an International
Perspective (1800-2000),” and “Gendering Local, National, Regional, Transnational and
Supra-National Histories of Education” were discussed and accepted by voice vote. It was
clarified that the SWG on “Gendering Local, National, Regional, Transnational and Supra-
National Histories of Education” has five convenors.
16 Other Business
Members asked about whether regional workshops to attract members from poorly represented
geographic locations are still under consideration. Rebecca Rogers responded that the EC would
certainly consider such initiatives but the decision in the past years has been to try to facilitate
the presence of scholars from these areas in our annual conference.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 5:00 pm.
Respectfully submitted
Karin Priem
Secretary of ISCHE
Luxembourg, October 2018
Rebecca Rogers
President of ISCHE
Paris, October 2018
9III. President’s Report (Sept 1, 2018–June 30, 2019)
I would like to start my first report as ISCHE President by thanking all members of the
Executive Committee for their work and support. Together we accomplished a lot and managed
to discuss and address many smaller and bigger issues that needed attention and problem
solving. In my report I want to specifically highlight the following developments of our
association:
Institutional Issues
As of September 15, 2018, ISCHE has embarked on a very successful and productive working
partnership with our ISCHE office in Berlin. Angelika Wegscheider and Katrin Sohnrey are
responsible for all the work related to accounting, administration and our exchanges with the
German legal authorities. A significant amount of paperwork had to be completed in order for
ISCHE to be accepted as a non-profit organization for another term. The Berlin office also
supports us in developing a conference management tool which will be run by ISCHE in
cooperation with local organization committees. We are also considering future options for
merging this tool with the membership management system currently managed by Taylor &
Francis. With respect to membership fees, a fact check by our office has resulted in an
opportunity to negotiate lower membership fees for the upcoming term due to more favorable
foreign currency exchange rates. Another issue concerns ISCHE’s relationship and
collaboration with national history of education associations. Our Berlin office has launched a
survey to collect reliable data and we will continue to improve communication with national
associations. With the help of the Berlin office, we were also able to professionalize accounting,
which includes constant follow-ups on our financial situation and increased efficiency in
designing conference budgets and preparing our tax declarations in Germany.
2019 so far has been a very successful year for our membership campaign. On May 28, 2019,
we had 384 members, including 50 students and 227 membership renewals. This is the highest
number of members since we became a membership organization four years ago, and confirms
that ISCHE is developing well. We currently have members from 45 different countries, and
89 members also subscribe to PH.
ISCHE continues to pursue its goal of attracting early career researchers by offering a reduced
membership fee as well as by organizing an early career travel fund. In 2018–19, ISCHE funded
13 early career researchers to attend the ISCHE conference in Porto and 9 PhD candidates to
attend the Histories of Education Summer School in Liverpool.
The Brazilian and Portuguese History of Education societies have asked ISCHE to accept
Portuguese as a fifth official ISCHE language. The Executive Committee has unanimously
acknowledged the substantial contribution of the Portuguese-speaking community to our
society and decided that this request should lead to a broader discussion on ISCHE’s language
policy. The Committee agrees that the potential impact of increasing language diversity within
ISCHE is something that deserves serious consideration and discussion and should lead to an
officially established working group on ISCHE’s language policy.
Communication and ISCHE Archive
I have pursued the practice of sending out two presidential newsletters to registered members
and would like to ask members who do not receive them to let the officers know. These
newsletters are then posted on the website, thanks to the support of the early career researcher
on the committee, Inês Felix, and our Berlin office.
10As already mentioned, our Berlin office, has also launched an initiative to improve
communication and exchange with the presidents of national associations, and I would like to
reiterate the EC’s interest in getting regular news from these associations.
Thanks to previous ISCHE presidents Eckhardt Fuchs and Rebecca Rogers and former ISCHE
treasurer Noah Sobe, all materials in ISCHE’s Conference Abstracts Database from the late
1970s until 2017 are now catalogued and available for consultation at the Bibliothek für
Bildungsgeschichtliche Forschung (BBF; Research Library for the History of Education) in
Berlin. The Executive Committee has started to explore, together with the archivists at the BBF,
how to preserve our digital archives, and we hope that first steps will be taken soon.
Capacity Building
Over the years, ISCHE has become increasingly engaged in supporting scholars and scholarship
in the history of education. Among these initiatives, the ISCHE president is pleased to announce
that the first volume in the ISCHE book series Global Histories of Education – The
Transnational in the History of Education: Concepts and Perspectives, edited by Eugenia
Roldán Vera and Eckhardt Fuchs – has been published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2019.
Congratulations on this achievement! A book launch has been organized and the president
encourages ISCHE members to take advantage of the 20% discount offered by the publisher
from July 14, 2019 until August 11, 2019. Diana Vidal, who coordinates the book series for the
EC, reports that several proposals are under review and two more volumes are in the final stages
to be published in 2020. The president expresses her thanks to the committee in charge of this.
ISCHE’s First Book Award is another initiative to support young and emerging scholars in
our field. The members of the 2019 ISCHE First Book Award Committee read and assessed
eleven submissions (four in English, six in German and one in Spanish) and decided that this
year’s award should go to Natasha Periyan for her book The Politics of 1930s British Literature:
Education, Class, Gender (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018). The president thanks the
committee, which was chaired by Frank Simon, for its excellent work and all applicants for
having shared their scholarship with the international committee set up for this award.
ISCHE’s Early Career Conference Paper Award is yet another initiative to support our
young scholars. The committee has given this year’s awards to Barbara Emma Hof (University
of Zurich) for her paper “The Turtle, the Mouse, and the Invention of Constructivist Learning
Theory” and to Maria Luce Sijpenhof (University of Alcalá) for her paper “A Transformation
of Racist Discourse? Colour-blind Racism and ‘Biological’ Racism in Dutch Secondary
Schooling (1968–2017).” The president thanks both the selection committee and all those who
submitted papers and shared their scholarship on the history of education. The committee would
like to see more submissions in all of the ISCHE languages. Submissions for the 2020 Award
are due in September 2019.
Our members continue to be active in Standing Working Groups: We currently have seven
working groups, and one new Standing Working Group entitled “Observatory for the History
of Education” will be annoucned at the General Assembly at ISCHE 42. The seven groups are
as follows: “Visual Studies in Histories of Education” (2018–2023); “Gendering Local,
National, Regional, Transnational and Supra-National Histories of Education” (2018–2023);
“The History of Educational Funding: Models, Debates and Policies in an International
Perspective” (2018–2023); “Growing Up in Out-of-Home Care: Histories of Children and
Youths in Foster Families and Residential Homes” (2017–2022); “Migrants, Migration and
Education” (2016–2021); “REFORPRO: Reformism(s), Progressivism(s), Conservatism(s) in
Education: What Critical Argumentations?” (2016–2021); and “History of Laic Education:
Concepts, Policies and Practices around the World” (2016–2021).
11As mentioned earlier, ISCHE is actively engaged in supporting early career researchers,
notably by providing them with financial support to attend the annual ISCHE conferences or
the History of Education Doctoral Summer Schools. This year’s summer school was held in
Liverpool and attended by 18 female and 6 male students from 16 different nationalities.
Approximately 259 students have participated since 2010 and their participation in our annual
conference is evidence of the success of the summer school.
Finally, I am happy to announce that ISCHE will continue with its History of Education Salon.
We will experiment with new forms of academic writing by making use of digital tools and a
website that will be run by the journal Encounters in Theory and History of Education. The
new History of Education Salon on “Histories of Education: Trends, Absences and Futures”
will be launched during the ISCHE Tertulia in Porto. Videos from last year’s Salon with Marc
Depaepe and Joyce Goodman, both of whom have been granted honorary life memberships of
ISCHE, will soon be available on the ISCHE website.
I would like to thank the local organizers, the EC and all ISCHE members for their contributions
to making ISCHE such a dynamic and successful association. Finally, I wish to express special
thanks to Simonetta Polenghi and Myriam Southwell, whose terms end at ISCHE Porto. Both
have been wonderful colleagues and have considerably contributed to the successful work of
the Executive Committee.
Karin Priem
ISCHE President
12IV. Treasurer’s Report, 1 January–31 December 2018
13V. 2019 Budget and Proposed Budget 2020
1415
VI. Laudation for ISCHE 2019 First Book Award
ISCHE Book Award 2019
Natasha Periyan
University of Kent, UK
For her book entitled:
The Politics of 1930s British Literature. Education, Class, Gender. London:
Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.
Natasha Periyan’s book is very well-written and argued, and presents an in-depth study of the
links between pedagogy and the literary field in Great Britain as seen through the works and
writings of several important British writers from the 1930s, such as Virginia Woolf, W. H.
Auden, George Orwell, Winifred Holtby and Graham Greene. Periyan argues that the
engagement of these writers with education sheds light on how they conceived of politics, class
and gender relationships at the time; and that it is an important approach to understand how
class and cultural codes were being refashioned in that pivotal decade. The study explores a
wide range of primary sources. These include published fictional works and earlier drafts kept
in archives, journalistic pieces, lectures and conference papers, as well as personal diaries.
Taking a literary historical approach, Periyan’s is a careful and meticulous study – her analysis
of the draft manuscripts in particular show the changes the authors made and the emphasis they
wanted to give to their texts.
Particularly interesting are chapter 2, on the views on education of Winifred Holtby and Vera
Brittain (two left-leaning feminist writers), and chapter 4, on Virginia Woolf’s perspectives on
the intersections between education, class and gender. Chapter 3, on Graham Greene’s ‘The
Old School’ – a 1933 compilation of school memories designed to tell the ‘horrors’ of elite
public schools – is also very telling of a particular attitude on elitist education that was later
applied to all schools.
Periyan adopts a very innovative approach. She overcomes the limits of discourse analysis to
include the study of social, gender and class dynamics as they manifested themselves in the
works of 1930s writers. One of the major assets of this book is the fact that it offers a “bridge”
between the history of education and literary studies. We learn about the way educational
experiences and practices shaped literary styles, as well as the political ideals and gender
identities of some major writers of the 20th century. Periyan’s study makes for fascinating
reading, and it certainly provides a fresh look at an important moment in history that witnessed
extensive debates about the democratization of schools and culture.
In short, The Politics of 1930s British Literature: Education, Class, Gender offers well-
documented and convincing research, as well as highly original insights into a troubled decade.
It makes a substantial contribution to the fields of literary studies and history of education.
2019 ISCHE First Book Award Committee
Frank Simon (Chair), James Albisetti, Inés Dussel, Damiano Matasci, and Pablo Toro
16VII. Laudations for Early Career Conference Paper Awards 2019
ISCHE Early Career Conference Paper Awards 2019
Barbara Emma Hof
University of Zurich
For her paper entitled:
The Turtle, the Mouse, and the Invention of Constructivist Learning
Theory
Based on archival sources from the Rockefeller Archive Center and the Heinz von Foerster
Papers at the University of Illinois and publications by constructivists Barbara Emma Hof
fascinatingly documents how in the 20th century there was a shift away from the ‘black box’ as
a metaphor to describe the inner workings of school behaviour to the idea of the ‘turtle’ as a
model of learning. As an epistemic tool, the artificial turtle enabled researchers – psychologists,
educationalists and mathematicians alike – to realize mechanically and electronically what they
conceived to be the process of learning. Organised into three theoretical sections which
illustrate three different approaches to representing learning using the turtle model she offers
an engaging account of constructivism as a psychological theory of learning.
Maria Luce Sijpenhof
University of Alcalá
For her paper entitled:
A Transformation of Racist Discourse? Colour-blind Racism and
“Biological” Racism in Dutch Secondary Schooling (1968-2017)
Drawing on critical race theory and frames of colour-blind racism, Maria Luce Sijpenhof’s
study in the context of a perceived re-emergence of biological racism explores institutional
racism in Dutch secondary schools. She uses an analysis of history textbooks, interviews with
mostly ‘white’ former Dutch secondary school teachers and with former mostly ‘Black’
students and found that textbooks employed colour-blind racist frames regarding black history
and that white former teachers consistently made use of colour-blind discourses to make sense
of ‘race,’ while only a small number of those interviewed utilized racially essentialist and anti-
racist discourses. She persuasively demonstrates that colour-blindness continues to be an
influential force in education despite the growth of biological racism.
17VIII. Request of the Brazilian and Portuguese History of Education
Associations
18IX. ISCHE Language Policy
Since its creation in 1978, ISCHE has steadily grown and created strong international links and
collaboration within the field of History of Education. When the founders of ISCHE first
convened in Oxford in 1978, their project was to found a European Standing Conference for
the History of Education. In Leuven, in 1979, the association adopted the name International
Standing Conference on the History of Education (in 1980 this became the International
Standing Conference for the History of Education). In Leuven the working language was
English but participants were told that they could submit papers in French or German with a
two-page abstract in English. By 1984, the issue of adding Spanish as a fourth working language
emerged. The Executive Committee began discussions for a meeting in Salamanca in Spain in
1985 and finally Spanish became the official fourth working language alongside English,
French and German in the early 1990s. Discussions about adding a fifth language, notably
Portuguese, have resurfaced regularly over the past thirty years. It should be noted that neither
the ISCHE Constitution nor the byelaws make reference to the existence of official languages
or to a language policy, despite long-standing discussions about the issue and deliberate efforts
to promote multilingual panels in our conferences.
For ISCHE 41 in Porto, the Brazilian and Portuguese History of Education Societies
requested, through their presidents, that the possibility of Portuguese becoming one of
ISCHE’s official languages be discussed in the next ISCHE General Assembly in July
2019. In recognition of this request, the Executive Committee proposes a discussion on
Portuguese becoming one of the official working languages of ISCHE in the General
Assembly in Porto.
Due to the importance of this discussion and no matter the result, the Executive Committee
recognizes the need to develop a language policy that responds to the multilingual nature of our
association.
We are aware of the impact of ISCHE’s language policy on the quality of scholarly exchange
and communication. The heterogeneous and multicultural composition of ISCHE’s
membership creates a complex language situation and several languages coexist side by side.
To strengthen international contacts, intellectual exchange and cooperation between all those
who work in the field of History of Education, the Executive Committee would like to promote
a flexible language policy that respects multilingualism in order to ensure that language does
not become a barrier to inclusive practices of communication. Therefore, the Executive
Committee feels the need to deploy a broad language policy that facilitates and fosters our
multilingual and collective conversations.
We request the General Assembly to authorize the Executive Committee to establish an
ISCHE language policy working group that is to propose a language policy which will be
collectively discussed at ISCHE 42 in Örebro and submitted for approval by the Executive
Committee at ISCHE 43 in Milan.
The working group should be guided by the following principles:
ISCHE’s language policy should
• be flexible, adaptable and useful to its members as a tool for improving communication
and worldwide exchange;
• prevent the risk of language segmentation and support our (self-)perception as an
international, multilingual and plural organization;
• respect ISCHE’s legislative and administrative constraints of communication; establish
standards for implementing ISCHE’s conference tool.
19X. Nominations for Executive Committee Member
1) Antonio Canales Serrano
2021
2) Beatrix Vincze
2223
XI. Proposal for a New Standing Working Group
Observatory for the History of Education
The suggestion that we should set up a Standing Working Group called “Observatory for the
History of Education” is inspired by the idea of regarding ISCHE as a “site” from which an
international community of historians is able to “observe” the scope of its work by seeking to
obtain a more wide-ranging and in-depth knowledge. Since 2014, most of us have been
involved with SWG “Mapping the History of Education”, which is devoted to “mapping” the
trends of publications in academic reviews and the research outputs of doctoral theses, as well
as discussing the question of “where” the History of Education should be institutionally
located. As the successors of “Mapping the HE”, which is being terminated in the 2019
Conference, our underlying objective is to strengthen the collaboration between researchers in
every continent. The purpose of this is to give continuity to these studies in the belief that the
History of Education as a specialist field, is of value to the whole community of ISCHE,
regardless of what research area each of us is involved in. As well as studies of journals and the
academic output of theses, we wish to draw particular attention to the teaching of the History
of Education in teacher-training courses. What syllabus should be designed for its Curriculum
? To what extent can the internationalization of research be found in the teaching of the History
of Education and in which countries? How far is there a dialectical exchange between national
and international teaching standards in the History of Education? The need for this inquiry can
be explained by the fact that in empirical terms, we have noted a reduction in the workload that
the discipline has experienced in several parts of the world, which has been a cause of concern
for its role in teacher-training. Thus, in light of the growing complexity and internationalization
of higher education, it seems to us that it is worth investigating to what extent this trend has led
to the strengthening of the History of Education and the question of its permanence and degree
of exposure in the Curriculum. In addition, we also intend to reflect on what forms the
boundaries of the History of Education and its links with other areas of Education and the
Human Sciences, at a time when the design of the humanities is being reshaped within
universities. The community of ISCHE historians is provided with the necessary means to carry
out studies of this nature, since the theoretical input and appropriate methodology of the “Clio
workshop” are available, as well as the benchmarks for the assessment of Education and the
Social Sciences.
Keywords: History of Education; Mapping the HE; Observatory of the HE.
Proponents: Antonio Francisco Canales Serrano (Spain); Lajos Somogyvári (Hungary);
Marisa Bittar (Brazil); Thérèse Hamel (Canada).
Bibliography
ALDRICH, Richard. The three duties of the historian of education. History of Education.
London, V.2. p. 133-143, n. 2, 2003.
GOODMAN, Joyce; MARTIN, Jane. (2004): Editorial: History of Education—defining a field,
History of Education, 33:1, 1-10.
LOWE, Roy. Do we still need the History of Education? Is it central or peripheral? History of
Education, 2002. V. 31, n. 6, 491-504
HOFSTETTER, Rita; PICARD, Emmanuelle, FONTAINE, Alexandre, Huitric Solenn.
Mapping the discipline history of education. Paedagogica Historica. International Journal of
the History of Education, 50/6, 2014, p. 871-880.
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