The role of history of education as an organizational framework for educational knowledge has been pivotal in the creation and diffusion of educational knowledge. However, there remains a gap in empirical research concerning the semantic structure of history of education knowledge and its transnational transmission. This study addresses this gap by employing complex network science and natural language processing techniques to construct semantic networks for history of education textbooks in German and Chinese. The goal is to explore the early development of the discourse system within the field of "history of education" and investigate the aspects of stability and variability in the process of transnational transmission.

To achieve this, a comprehensive collection of 125 history of education textbooks published in Germany from 1794 to 1933 and 59 history of education textbooks published in China from 1901 to 1948 was systematically compiled. Subsequently, a computer-processable full-text corpus with a total word count of approximately 25.8 million was created through optical character recognition. The study utilizes distribution-based semantic proximity metrics to reconstruct the semantic networks between high-frequency words in the two corpora.

The results indicate that the semantic networks of both German and Chinese history of education textbooks exhibit similar overall topological structures, comprising around six interrelated conceptual core categories. For instance, German history of education textbooks encompass key categories, including the institutional foundation of education centered around "school and teacher," family education with "child and parent" as the core, curriculum and teaching emphasizing "student and teaching," philosophical and religious category focusing on "human and spirit," and a category labeled "educational theory," with "education and pedagogy" at its core. These categories are intricately linked by historical elements at the heart of the network, establishing the foundational discourse system in German history of education textbooks. Remarkably, this methodology unveils connections between categories, challenging preconceived notions present in German history of education. Notably, terms like Bildung and Pädagogik, traditionally emblematic of German pedagogy, do not hold a central position in the network. Further comparative analysis reveals an isomorphism between the semantic categories of Chinese and German history of education textbooks, with differences in local topological structures, such as historical categories not occupying a central position but being connected to specific semantic categories. Additionally, China's distinctive educational institutions, figures, and ideas are embedded in specific positions in the network. In the next phase, the study plans to introduce time and social dimensions to examine the dynamic mechanisms of knowledge structure replacement in history of education textbooks, along with the social background (or institutional conditions) of history of education knowledge producers. The methodological framework proposed by this study offers a new approach for researching discourse systems in pedagogy from a comparative perspective.

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