Congresses Dedicated to the Analysis of Education: a Historical Approach Proposals for three articulated symposia at the ECER congress 2002 in Lisbon organised by the European Educational Research Association (EERA) Network 17 History of education BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF A DISCIPLINARY FIELD IN EDUCATION (END OF 19TH - FIRST HALF OF 20 TH CENTURY) THE ROLE OF INSTITUTES AND CONGRESSES Coordinators: Rita Hofstetter and Bernard Schneuwly, University of Geneva Section des sciences de l'education - FPSE - Universite de Genève Uni Mail - CH-1211 Genève 4. e-mail: Rita.Hofstetter@pse.unige.ch ; Bernard.Schneuwly@pse.unige.ch Symposium 1 The history of institutes specialised in educational research and teaching Gerhard Benetka (Vienna) ; Martin Lawn (Birmingham) ; Valerie Lussi, Rita Hofstetter & Bernard Schneuwly (Geneva) ; Symposia 2a and b Congresses dedicated to the analysis of education: a historical approach Kevin J. Brehony (Reading) ; Lu's Miguel Carvalho, Jorge Ramos do î & Ana Lœcia Fernandes (Lisbon) ; Marco Cicchini (Geneva) ; Marc Depaepe, Frank Simon & Angelo Van Gorp (Leuven and Gent) ; Eckehardt Fuchs (Mannheim) ; Philipp Gonon (Trier) ; Charles Magnin & Astrid Thomann (Geneva) Concept for three articulated symposia at the ECER congress 2002 in Lisbon organised by the European Educational Research Association (EERA) Network 17 History of education BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF A DISCIPLINARY FIELD IN EDUCATION (END OF 19TH - FIRST HALF OF 20TH CENTURY) THE ROLE OF INSTITUTES AND CONGRESSES Rita Hofstetter and Bernard Schneuwly, University of Geneva In most occidental States, two strongly interwoven phenomena appear at the end of the 19th century that transform fundamentally the thinking on education. - Generalisation of schooling, development of systems of education, institutionalisation of teacher education, all this guaranteed by public instruction that is organically and by law related to the State. As a consequence, these transformations reinforce pedagogical theorising. - The birth of new scientific disciplines that are concerned with the human being and with society and that postulate the necessity and the possibility of empirical approaches to understand social phenomena. Universities undergo at this very moment a thorough transformation (professionalisation of scientific research, growing delimitation of disciplines, unity of research and higher education, growing importance of professional education at university) that models also the development of social sciences. Several new social sciences take as their objet the analysis of educational questions. These two major phenomena develop the pedagogical reflection and lead to a progressive professionalisation and specialisation of educational research. This process continues during the first half of the 20th century, inside and outside university: academic chairs are created; courses and diploma in pedagogy are proposed; institutions specialised in educational research are founded; journals, series, textbooks are edited; scientific associations are created; congresses are organised; researchers and professionals coming from different disciplinary backgrounds specialise in the study of educational problems. In other words, a new disciplinary field is emerging, linked to educational domains; this field takes more and more social form of academic disciplines. Their main characteristics are: institutions specialised simultaneously in research and education; clearly defined objects/contents of research that are commonly accepted; organised networks of communication; careers and practices guaranteeing the socialisation of new researchers; rules and social conventions. All these are instruments of production and transmission of knowledge that guarantee the unfolding of a scientific discipline. The process of institutionalisation - one could also call it process of disciplinarisation - is characterised, for the disciplinary field linked to education, by a strong relationship with socio-professional and political and administrative demands that educational research has to take into account. The process is also in relation with the scientific/academic world whose criteria of legitimacy are partly integrated; at the same time the process is specified by the fact that it concerns a pluridisciplinary field. The French name of the field - educational sciences - proposed by Claparede, shows this fact in a particularly clear manner. The planned symposium are aimed at contributing to a better understanding of the process of institutionalisation in focussing particularly on the study of institutes specialised in educational research and teaching on one hand (symposium 1), on congresses dedicated to educational matters on the other hand (symposium 2 and 3). The analysis of institutes and congresses are, in our view, a promising way to study the evolution of the links between disciplinary field and professional fields of reference and to observe the disciplinary boarders that ceaseless move, inside the field itself and concerning the relationships with other disciplines.