Session Information
17 SES 10, Collectivity Revisited: Dilemmas Of Mass Education Under Socialism (1945-1989)
Research Workshop
Contribution
Education enjoyed particular political attention in all socialist countries in Europe, since it was seen as a medium to translate the ruling egalitarian ideology into everyday social relations. This workshop aims to map up the varieties of how education was restructured in the wake of collectivist ideologies and to discuss the local interpretations of some key concepts – such as collectivity, creativity and personality – that framed these political programmes in Socialist countries after 1945. The concept of ‘establishing collectivities’ has special importance, in terms of state policy and in terms of individual dispositions of educators and/or party officials. Curricular and extracurricular activities centered around the collective were principal means of ‘normalizing’ students’ behavior. However, neither primary nor secondary education never gained overall uniformity. Both inside and outside the educational system dominant conceptions of collectivity were often contested. In fact, the post-1945 history of education in socialist countries in Europe could be regarded as constant attempts at revisiting collectivity under certain political circumstances, in institutions of ‘utopian’, ‘progressive’ or ‘experimential’ pedagogies or by certain educators.
Starting from these premises, the proposed workshop has two aims. On the one hand, it explores educational reforms and political programmes driven by the concept of collectivity under socialism. On the other hand, we’d like to scrutinize the ongoing reinterpretations of collectivity in formal and non-formal spaces, in domains such as educational experiments in theory and practice, artistic performances, and by means of pedagogical journalism. The presenters argue that the concept of collectivity can and should not be understood apart from inner political, economic and social tensions that characterize socialism. The workshop aims to improve the understanding of the shortcomings of egalitarian educational policy in socialist societies, and the ways in which it interacted with pedagogical, rhetorical and administrative strategies.
Based on a number of key cases, including Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, and former Yugoslavia, the workshop will address the following core questions:
(1) How did the concepts of collectivity and creativity assume new meanings that amounted to a ‘counter-pedagogy’ of the State-Socialist period in the USSR, Hungary and former Yugoslavia?
(2) Were educators in socialist countries equipped with a particular ‘theory’ of collectivity?
(3) To what extent was the discourse of collectivity relevant in creating a system of mass education, and in reducing or (re)producing social inequalities?
(4) What were the relations between particular communities and collective practices and socialist society in general?
(5) What was the influence of the concept of collectivity on gender issues?
(6) What was the role of compulsion in establishing collective identity by means of formal and informal education?
(7) How were collectivities related to nationalism and nationalist politics in specific areas and/or in the work of particular educators?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Burg, S.L. (1983). Conflict and Cohesion in Socialist Yugoslavia: Political Decision Making Since 1966. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. David-Fox, M. and G. Peteri (eds.). (2000). Academia in Upheaval: Origins, Transfers and Transformations of the Communist Academic Regime in Russia and East Central Europe. London: Bergin & Garvey. Denitch, B.D. (1976). The Legitimation of a Revolution: the Yugoslav Case. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1976. Hametz, M., Peto, A., and Szapor J. (eds) (2008) Tradition Unchained: Jewish Intellectual Women in Central Europe From the Late Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Berghahn books. Hodgson, S.M. and Z. Irving (eds.). (2007). Policy reconsidered: meanings, politics and practices. Bristol: Policy Press. Howlett, M., Ramesh, M. and A. Perl. (2009). Studying Public Policy: Policy Cycles and Policy Subsystems. Oxford: Oxford University Press. League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY). (1970). Rezolucija o razvoju vaspitanja i obrazovanja na samoupravnim osnovama (Resolution on the development of education and training on the basis of self-management). Beograd: Savez komunista Jugoslavije. — — — (1973). Platforma za pripremu stavova i odluka Desetog kongresa SKJ (The Platform for the preparation of positions and decisions of the Tenth congress of LCY) Beograd: IP Komunist. — — — (1975). Rezolucija Desetog kongresa SKJ (Resolutions of the Tenth congress of LCY). Split: Marksisticki centar. Rosenthal, G. (2004) “Biographical research”. In: C. Seale, G. Gobo, J. Gubrium, D. Silverman (eds) Qualitative research practice. London: Sage Publications Wachtel, A. and P.J. Markovic. (2008). “A Last Attempt at Educational Integration: the Failure of the Common Educational Cores in Yugoslavia in the early 1980s.” in State Collapse in South-Eastern Europe: New Perspectives on Yugoslavia’s Disintegration. Edited by L. Cohen and J. Dragovic-Soso. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 203-220.
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