Description: What has happened to "emancipatory" educational models in the neo-liberal Flemish context since the 1960's? Proceeding from hypotheses about continuity and change between higher and lower pedagogy, our work so far (as part of a Rezeptions- and Wirkungsgeschichte; research funded by the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders) has been focused on the gap between, and the transformation processes of, evolving theoretical discussions and practical development. Studies by New Education "icons" as well as their critical reading and interpretation in Flemish progressive publications constitute the primary sources. In the scope of this symposium, records, institutional developments, and life stories of privileged witnesses will also be explored. As a result, it will be possible to draw a more complex and accurate picture of the appropriation of the progressive heritage through transformation processes than has hitherto been available. First, we will analyse the institutional development in connection with the progressive mental legacy. The theoretical framework is tested against the actual interpretation by pioneers. Second, we will present our findings about agency, that is, the operationalization of this progressivism into the pedagogical mentality. Third, we will confront the pedagogical everyday history with the initial hypotheses. In this way, we hope to arrive at an understanding of how progressive pedagogical knowledge wends its way through national individualities and from higher to lower pedagogy.