The contribution follows on from two problem perspectives mentioned centrally in the Network 33 call, namely “genders and their intersections” and the role of “biases in the form, content, access and opportunities of education”. The approach is historiographical, focusing on the phase in which educational science was established as a university discipline at the beginning of the 20th century in Germany. The focus is on the question of what findings existed at that time - even beyond educational science - regarding the meaning of sex and gender, but also other categories of difference, and what influence these have had on educational theory formation, but also on disciplinary practices of inclusion and exclusion. The work of the educational scientist and sociologist Mathilde Vaerting (1884-1977) and its (contemporary) (non-)reception will be discussed as an example.

Appointed to the University of Jena in 1923, Mathilde Vaerting was the first female professor of educational science at a German university. Her career was marked by marginalization and disavowal and ended when the National Socialists came to power. Even after the Second World War, she was unable to find a place in academia (Kraul 1999, 1987; Wobbe 1994, 1991). Her example, i.e. the openly aggressive and sometimes sexist hostility that permeated objective scientific criticism in the context of her (failed) habilitation project and as a professor in Jena (Plate 1930), represent the vehemence of the defense. The extent to which her biography and career confirmed her theory on sex and power is an irony of fate. This is one of the reasons why her name is hardly known in educational science today.

However, there is the assumption (which needs to be examined further) that her repression also has something to do with her scientific theses (Berner/Hofbauer 1923). Her focus was on analyzes of power and domination as well as the resulting conditions of oppression. In this context, at the beginning of the 1920s she had already pointed out in a paradigmatic way the importance of gender (later also of origin, race, etc.) as factor(s) in processes of inclusion and exclusion, findings that she judged to bo particularly relevant to the fields of educational science and praxis and scientific research in general (Berner 2024a forthcoming). Her social constructivist approach, with which she fundamentally questioned traditional assumptions and explanatory models of sex differences, can be viewed as quite unique in the academic context of her time, which was dominated by the so called “Geisteswissenschaftliche Pädagogik”. In particular, the methodological consequences that she drew from this with regard to empirical psychological and educational research can be read as an attack against established educational research and theory development (ibid.).

Vaerting's criticism was not only directed at pedagogy, but also at the new empirical-differential psychology and the developments in aptitude testing (Vaerting 1923, 1931). She accused them of reproducing the preconceptions concerning gender differences (e.g. with regard to intellectual strengths and weaknesses, personality traits, preferences and inclinations). She also criticized contemporary (child) psychology of suggesting the inferiority of the young generations compared to the old (Vaerting 1928). This would result in oppression of the adolescents by the adults, which manifests itself in extensive incapacitation and the denial of property and participation rights. Analogous to the gender bias in sex psychology, Vaerting speaks of a “major source of error” in previous youth psychology, because it believes it can "identify peculiarities that are specific to adolescence as such. But this is a mistake. [...] The psychology of youth today is not the psychology of youth as such, but the psychology of youth as it is characteristic of its current power situation" (Vaerting, 1929, p. 240).

The researchis based on extensive source material, including Vaerting's writings, which have hardly been analyzed to date, as well as sources and documents that document the "hegemonic" theoretical discourse. In her work, Vaerting dealt in many ways with the renowned representatives of academic pedagogy and progresive education. She also reconstructs gender theories and debates on the basis of relevant medical, psychological, sexological and anthropological literature. The analyses are guided by an approach from the history and sociology of science that is based on Ludwik Fleck's (2017) theory of "Denkstile" and "Denkkollektive". The rejection of Vaerting's theoretical and methodological positions and the findings derived from them with regard to constructions of difference will be examined as a conflict between competing "Denkstile". In addition, it is important to contextualize Vaerting's criticism of contemporary gender relations within the framework of the virulent gender debates. The matriarchy discourse of the time is of primary importance here - Vaerting (1921) herself referred to matriarchy theories, which were much discussed at the time (Berner 2024b forthcoming). Various concepts and terms from Fleck's work can be fruitfully applied and tested. The methodological errors and problems of interpretation cited by Vaerting can be interpreted in terms of Fleck's constraints of thought ("Denkzwänge") and the harmony of deception ("Harmonie der Täuschung") that is effective in the process. There are various indications, for example from the field of comparative anatomy and physiology, that gender research at Vaerting's time was guided by strong mental constraints. Results that did not conform to the prevailing stereotypes were repeatedly reinterpreted - subject to the harmony of deception - and contradictory results were marginalized. The fact that the conclusions drawn from the results were sometimes diametrically opposed had already led contemporaries to make ironic comments (Thompson 1903). The relevant writings of the American psychologist Helen Bradford Thompson were known to Vaerting and were quoted by her (Vaerting 1923). Where, for example, comparisons with the animals in evolutionary theories spoke in favor of the superiority of the female sex, the argument was simply reversed (Voß 2010); and outstanding achievements of girls and women in school or science were often interpreted as the result of typical female diligence and imitative instinct, which were then contrasted with male intellect and originality.

With her writings, Mathilde Vaerting took a critical approach to the oppression of women in their diverse lives, which means that she can be classified as part of the contemporary emancipation movement. By focusing on the reproduction of gender stereotypes in science, her analyzes also went beyond the gender debate that was common at the time. In fact, the gender of knowledge, problematized by Mathilde Vaerting, has been one of the key questions in gender research since the 1970s until today (Jähnert 2010). If Vaerting´s work had been received appropriately, it could have played a pioneering role in the discovery of gender bias and specially its role in educational research. In several ways, her style of thinking was not compatible with the academic pedagogy. It was focused on (social) difference rather than the universality of ideas and problematized power and oppression beyond a teleological harmony of ends. Her approach and knowledge base were interdisciplinary, sometimes eclectic, but open to empirical sciences and internationally informed. It should be noted that Vaerting formulated her theses and theories at a time when women's access to academic science was highly contested and open or latent resistance was widespread among male colleagues. Vaerting's analyzes were intended to shake the foundations of male hegemony in science. The fact that there was an awareness of this threat in those circles can be seen in the many 'findings' based on so called hard facts (from medicine, anatomy, physiology, anthropology etc.) that were published to serve the millennia-old prae-idea (“Prä-Idee”) (Fleck 2017) of congenital female deficiencies (e.g. Möbius 1900; Runge 1900; Krafft-Ebing 1902; Matthias 1929). Where no strategic calculation was at work, it were perhaps unconscious compulsions in thinking ("Denkzwänge) in the sense of Fleck.

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