Living Laboratories of Educational Research.The Various Concepts and Forms of "Child Observatories" of Rousseau Institute

Author(s):

Beatrice Haenggeli-Jenni(presenting / submitting)Rita Hofstetter

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

17. Histories of Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

17 SES 07, Comparative Approaches

Paper Sesssion

Time:

2016-08-24

17:15-18:45

Room:

OB-H2.40

Chair:

Susannah Wright

Contribution

This contribution asserts that the "laboratory" is a matrix of educational sciences: lively and multifaceted, it renews the concept of "laboratory" (Hofstetter & Schneuwly, 2006; Topalov, 1999; Ratcliff & Ruchat, 2006). This at least is what our investigation in the heart of laboratories demonstrates, where the pioneers of the Genevan “school of educational sciences”, the builders of the Rousseau Institute, work during the first half of the 20th century. In fact, these actors are part of the "zeitgeist", being inspired by similar initiatives in Germany (Jena), the United States (Teachers College), and Great Britain (Institute of Education) (Hofstetter, 2010). Its protagonists were inspired by experiences done in the psychology laboratory of Wundt (D), the educational laboratories promoted by Wilhelm August Lay (D), the laboratory school of John Dewey (USA), the laboratory school of Grange-aux-Belles street (F) where Alfred Binet did his experiments, and the "Casa dei Bambini" of Maria Montessori (I).

To carry out our investigation, we will enter the spaces used as laboratories in Geneva by those who at the same time tried to build a new science and renew educational practices. Our research will take into account 1. the materiality of these spaces (places, instruments), 2. the procedures and approaches of those who worked there, and 3. the issues and causes they did advocate. This, in order to better understand the evolutionary configurations of these laboratories.

We based our work on studies in the domain of social history and sociology of sciences (Backhouse & Fontaine, 2014; Bourdieu 2001; Chaubet, 2014; Mucchielli, 2004). We used also the researches about the evolution of educational sciences in Europe and worldwide (Drewek & Lüth, 1998; Depaepe, 1993) and their relationships with other disciplines (psychology in particular, cf. Smeyers & Depaepe, 2012). We were especially interested in the works showing the close relations – both inseparable and irreconcilable – between educational sciences and New Education (Savoye, 2006; Hameline, 2002; Hofstetter & Schneuwly, 2006). We used conceptual and methodological tools of the transnational turn (Caillé & Dufoix, 2013; Douki & Minard, 2007; Werner & Zimmermann, 2003).

In Geneva, three places function as laboratories accompanying and allowing the construction of “sciences of education”. They are emblems, which may also reflect a paradigm shift that we will try to clarify.

The laboratory of experimental psychology (founded in 1890), in the basement of the Faculty of Sciences where the first interdisciplinary seminars took place, premise of the Rousseau Institute.
The Rousseau Institute / School of Education Sciences (1912) itself, explicitly considered by the actors themselves as a “living laboratory” of progressive pedagogy within the University (Bovet, 1919).
“New schools” (~1920) as living laboratories of educational renewal founded by the researches as “observatories of the child natural development”. “The New school, says Ferrière (1919, p. 3), is a laboratory of practical pedagogy”.

These three types of laboratories form as many matrices of educational sciences. There seems to be a shift between the pattern of the laboratory in the Faculty of Science and the one of the New schools: on one hand a scientist posture, on the other, a naturalist posture. A paradigmatic turning point? A generation gap? A disciplinary mutation (psychology vs. educational sciences)? Above this possible change, an experimentalist posture; a way to elucidate the dialectic?

Method

Approach To carry out this survey, we collected sources in public and private archives, mainly Archives of Rousseau Institute (AIJJR), International Bureau of Education (IBE), Jean Piaget Archives (AJP). The following investigation were accomplished: - places, instruments of the laboratories: for each laboratory, many photographs and, for the New schools, films have been collected and analyzed; annual reports allow to have a precise view on the material outline of the different laboratories; precise description of the places and instruments present in each of them could be elaborated; - procedures and approaches favored in the laboratories: the analysis of this aspect is done mainly on the basis of the scientific publications; a large data bases, containing several thousand items produced by all protagonists active in the laboratories, has been elaborated, with descriptors about methodology, content, type of text, editorial information - issues and causes they advocate: the main sources for analyzing these aspects are on one hand the many letters, manifestos, rules, projects necessary to build the laboratories; on the other hand, the many publications oriented toward professionals, politics and more generally the public space. Two other types of analysis were conducted in order to elucidate procedures and approaches and issues a causes: - a serial analysis of the “Pour l’Ere nouvelle”, the French review of the New Education Fellowship that was produced in Geneva by Ferrière until 1929 and was, in a certain sense, part of the laboratory “Rousseau Institute” - biographies of all protagonists, elaborated on the basis of many sources coming from the archives mentioned, but also from others These data allow to elaborate the context and background of the function and functioning of the laboratories.

Expected Outcomes

The first laboratory constituted the matrix for conceiving of education as a science. With measuring instruments such as chronoscopes, stereoscopes, dynamometers, Flournoy and Claparède measured, tested, compared to understand “the only object which is of universal interest: the man, its origin, its development, its future” (1892). The second laboratory, the Rousseau Institute/School of Education Sciences (1912), was to federate various sciences related to education and childhood and to favor an experimental approach to educational phenomena. In this “living laboratory” the practical work (observations, experiments, tests) was the common feature for students, researchers and teachers. Claparède and his collaborators renewed the concept of laboratory and shaped it as a place where everyday life and its natural environment were studied. With the third laboratory – New schools for educational renewal –, the researchers founded places of living as “observatories of the child’s natural development”. The environment of childhood, including school, was their main laboratory: a paradigmatic model where educational reform was considered as embodiment of scientific renewal (Haenggeli-Jenni, 2016). The "laboratory", – designating location, equipment, approach, and concept – is a space created in order to allow an experimental approach of the educational phenomena. It can indeed be regarded as matrix of educational sciences, at least in Geneva. Other “laboratories” will be compared to it in order to detect similar structures. A paradigmatic rupture exists between the first laboratory where the instruments of natural sciences were used, and New schools where children enjoy freely the benefits of nature. But we shall test also the hypothesis of a filiation: is the experimental approach of educational phenomena – with science as a credo – not close to the naturalizing approach of development, which postulates the inviolability of Nature to ensure the fulfillment of development?

References

Caillé, A. & Dufoix, S. (Ed.) (2013). Le tournant global des sciences sociales. Paris: La Découverte. Backhouse, R. & Fontaine, Ph (Ed.). (2014). A historiography of the modern social sciences. Cambridge : University Press. Bourdieu, P. (2001). Science de la science et réflexivité. Paris: Raisons d’agir. Bovet, P. (1927). La liberté, but ou moyen ? Pour l'Ere Nouvelle, 31, p. 176. Depaepe, M. (1993). Zum Wohl des Kindes? Pädologie, pädagogische Psychologie und experimentelle Pädagogik in Europa und den USA, 1890-1940. Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag. Douki, C. & Minard, P. (2007). Histoire globale, histoires connectées : un changement d'échelle historiographique ? Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, 5(54-4bis), 7-21. Drewek, P. & Lüth, C. (Ed.). (1998). History of Educational Studies. Gent: CSHP. Chaubet, F. (2014). Faire l'histoire des sciences sociales : le cas de la sociologie française », Histoire@Politique 1 (n° 22), 251-268. DOI 10.3917/hp.022.0251 Haenggeli-Jenni, B. (à paraître, 2016). Les relations science-militance dans le mouvement d’Education nouvelle (1920-1940). Berne : Peter Lang. Haenggeli-Jenni, B. (2012). L’Education nouvelle: débats autour de définitions conceptuelles et identitaires (1922-1940). In L. Gutierrez, L. Besse & A. Prost (Ed.) (2012). Réformer l’école. L’apport de l’Education nouvelle (1930-1970) (pp.19-29). Grenoble : PUG. Hameline, D. (2002). L’éducation dans le miroir du temps. Lausanne: LEP. Hofstetter, R. (2010). Genève, Creuset des sciences de l’éducation. Genève : Droz. Hofstetter, R. & Schneuwly, B. (Eds.) (2006). Passion, Fusion, Tension. New Education and Educational Sciences (end 19th cent. – middle 20th. cent.). Berne: Peter Lang. Hofstetter, R. & Schneuwly, B. (2006). Le laboratoire: matrice des sciences de l’éducation – l’exemple de Genève. In M. Ratcliff & M. Ruchat (Ed.). Les laboratoires de l’esprit. Une histoire de la psychologie à Genève 1892 1965 (pp. 63-77). Genève: Musée d’Histoire des sciences. Mucchielli, L. (2004). Mythes et histoire des sciences humaines. Paris: La Découverte. Ratcliff, M. & Ruchat, M. (Ed.). (2006). Les Laboratoires de l’esprit. Genève: Musée d’histoire des sciences. Smeyers, P. & Depaepe, M. (2012). The Lure of Psychology for Education and Educational Research, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 46 (3), 315-331. Topalov, (1999). Laboratoires du nouveau siècle : la nébuleuse réformatrice et ses réseaux en France 1880-1914. Paris-EHESS. Werner, M. & Zimmermann, B. (2003). Penser l'histoire croisée : entre empirie et réflexivité. Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 58(1), 7-36.

Author Information

Beatrice Haenggeli-Jenni (presenting / submitting)

University of Geneva (Switzerland)

Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences

Veigy-Foncenex

Rita Hofstetter

University of Genve

Geneva

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