Shaping the History of Education?

In 1961 the Centre for the Study of the History of Education at Ghent University, Belgium published the first issue of the multilingual journal Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education. This book celebrates its fiftieth volume. In fourteen contributions written by different generations of historians of education, it demonstrates that in an era where the history of education at university level is at risk, both the journal and the discipline are pulsing, and alive and kicking. Was the journal a trendsetter or a follower, and which position did it take with respect to the International Standing Conference for the History of Education? These are questions addressed in the first section of this book. In the second section, a number of articles show national and transnational developments of the history of education. In their diversity, they make clear how the national and the transnational together characterize the discipline. They show why journals in this domain should stimulate the development of broader concepts and theories in order to put national and regional cases in a broader scientific context and to make them attractive for international readership. In the last section authors turn their minds to the future of the history of education. They write about the shaping of new trends and about moving beyond borders, focusing on, among other things, the challenge of neurosciences and of digital humanities. This book was originally published as a special issue of Paedagogica Historica.