Contribution
Description: At the beginning of the 20th century, for many actors (also in education), science means progress and hope in the construction of a new society. Closely articulated to the new science of the child (Child study), i.e. educational sciences in a large sense, New education - used here to designate a large heterogeneous pedagogical movement taking various forms and names according to the countries where it emerges - embodies this hope. Its promoters claim a new conception of education based on scientific knowledge of the child's development and of education. At the same time, pedagogy and science of education gets a new status. Henceforth admitted as a real science, it begins to constitute as a new disciplinary field within social sciences. New education militants found associations, organise meetings and congresses to share their theories, and publish papers, journals, articles to distribute their ideas. Pour l'Ere Nouvelle is one of them. Founded in 1922, it is the French-speaking New Education Fellowship's organ. It assembles a wide range of articles: some are basic texts relating New education experiments while others are substantial papers presenting reform theories fundamentals. The authors of these articles are as diverse as their contents: teachers, pedagogues, doctors, professors, academics write to make common cause. Through a detailed and systematic analysis of Pour l'Ere Nouvelle contents, this research aims to understand the type and diversity of connections between New education and Educational sciences, the interdependence and mutual influences of the two social fields and the construction of Educational sciences as a disciplinary field in the 20th century. This work is part of a doctoral thesis studying relations between New education and Educational sciences through an international perspective from 1922 to 1950. Focused on the journal Pour l'Ere Nouvelle, it compares its contents to the one's contained in the English and German speaking corresponding journals, The New Era and Das Werdende Zeitalter.
Methodology: In our contribution, the analysis will focus on ten years of publications of Pour l'Ere nouvelle between 1922 (date of foundation) to 1932 (before nationalism governments in Europe) to allow a very detailed reading of contents. Only weighty articles have been selected for the analysis. This excludes, for example, publicities, news, and book reviews. We have selected them using each issue's table of contents according to three main criterions forming three categories: 1. authors, 2. subjects, 3. bibliographic references. In our contribution, we first present the editorial context and structure of the journal, its actors and representatives. Second, we proceed to a close look of each category's index through a quantitative perspective to draw information from connections between authors, type of article and bibliographic references. Finally, we propose a qualitative analysis of each article's content trying to point out themes, theories, claims, and convictions linked to the disciplinary field of Educational sciences. The main questions are: what kind of knowledge is taken over by New education coming from Educational sciences; and inversely; what is the influence of New education on the contents of Educational sciences? How do the main actors position themselves in the complex relationship between New education and Educational sciences?
Conclusions: This research expects to bring to the fore type, function and impact of relations between New education and Educational sciences. It tries to show the mutual necessity of both demands and philosophies for the development of pedagogy and school reform. It intends to point out both the specificities and the similarities of these two social fields basing its analysis on the concept that New Education is a militant educational movement while Educational Sciences is a scientific disciplinary field and that their interrelationship changes their respective status.
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