For roughly half a century the high time of world exhibitions coincided with the expansion of mass schooling. World exhibitions both reflected and further promoted the educationalization of the world. As has been widely evidenced for the history of education, world exhibitions on the one hand played a crucial role for initiating and facilitating transnational transfer processes. On the other hand international exhibitions were arenas where educational achievements could proudly be represented in nationalistic terms.

This paper argues that world exhibitions also played an important role in fostering international cooperation and standardisation in the field of education. World exhibitions were meeting places of experts. International conferences on education were organised at the exhibitions, the first one taking place in Philadelphia in 1876. Although education systems were implemented on the national (and sometimes local) level, certain issues needed to be discussed internationally.

This paper analyses three instances of envisaged and actual international cooperation and standardisation through world exhibitions. Firstly, it analyses various propositions for the creation of an International Bureau of Education that were made at and after international exhibitions during the 1870s. Secondly, the paper uncovers a variety of debates on educational standardisation that dominated the international congresses on education held at the Exposition universelle of Paris in 1889, ranging from the mutual recognition of diplomas to more controversial topics such as the status of female primary teachers. Thirdly, the paper uncovers the increasing academic mobility of professors and students as represented and discussed at the exhibitions around the turn of the century.

Following the approach of governmental internationalism, it is analysed how influential actors tried to channel international cooperation and standardisation for their own profit. For all the featured cases the paper asks who were the individual and institutional actors that set the agendas for cooperation and standardisation projects. Who would decide about the shape of institutions and structures? Where would headquarters of planned international bureaus be located? Who profited from the arrangements and who was excluded?

This paper connects to debates on the transnational in the history of education. As a piece of historical scholarship, the research is based on the analysis of text documents. The paper builds upon sources from France, Germany, Japan and the United States. Sources include most importantly reports on education published after world exhibitions. Further publications in late-nineteenth century pedagogical journals and monographs are also used. Unpublished sources are also exploited on a case-by-case basis.

This paper conceptualises and empirically analyses world exhibitions and international congresses of the late nineteenth century as forums where decisions about educational cooperation and standardisation were made. It therefore contributes to a global and transnational history of education during the long nineteenth century.

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