Session Information
17 SES 07, Creativity and Democracy
Paper Session
Contribution
Despite obvious connections between the industrial sector and that of technical-vocational schooling and training (cf. Blankertz, 1969) the historical importance of industry-related entrepreneurship for education in the whole of Europe remains underappreciated. In social-cultural and educational historiography alike States and/or Churches, rather than the industry and associated networks, tend to be connected to attempts at societal reform (see, e.g. de Swaan, 1988). Yet, in many European countries evidence can be found of industrialist initiatives preceding those from a governmental or congregational side.
In view of economic interests and related values like efficiency, rationalization, etc., captains of industry needed to be innovative, and therefore also creative. In order to achieve innovation, however, actors from the economic sphere required input from the outside and in particular from the arts (literature, painting, philosophy, design, etc.). A key hypothesis of this paper, then, is that protagonists of the industry and the artistic-intellectual milieus of which they became part, were far less dependent on the formal structures that characterized state and denominational institutes’ organization. From a somewhat informal stage of society they may indeed have been able to act in a much more problem-focused manner. Whether this led to truly creative and innovative solutions remains a question to be answered. Some key players, in each case, were at once active in economy, politics, popular media and intellectual circles, which may well have enabled them to force through ideas at all levels, using alternative strategies in function of what they were aiming at.
In Luxembourg – the point of departure of this paper – one such aim around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was the integration of new social groups (chiefly immigrant workers) into a rapidly changing society, including the allocation of their ‘proper’ place within the social fabric. Assumed to have been established at least partly to serve this purpose were mining schools, technical-vocational schools and associated professional orientation centres. Concretely, the paper will study reform initiatives like these undertaken in The Grand Duchy and investigate to what extent they creatively combined existing elements from neigbouring countries and constituted innovative solutions. Luxembourg and its industrial-intellectual sphere will thereby be considered as points of circulation and transformation, as crossroads of ideas at the heart of Western Europe. Case studies investigated, like the ‘Institut Émile Metz’ in Dommeldange suggest this is warranted. Thus, a ‘psycho-physiological laboratory’ attached to this institution inscribed itself in debates on ‘psychometrics’, inspired by ‘pedology’, ‘pedological psychology’, ‘experimental pedagogy’, ‘child study’, etc. (cf. Depaepe, 1993), and refering back to the ‘social physics’ made popular by Adolphe Quetelet as of the mid-1830s.
Images, perhaps more than textual sources, visualize, propagate and/or question such currents in the area studied. Thus, for instance, unique glassplate negatives from a 2,248 unit large collection give insight into representations with regard to ‘experimental’ testing of students’ aptitude, etc., at the Dommeldange school. As part of a ‘perspectivist’ approach, such visual sources will be analyzed critically alongside textual ones.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
John Bartier, Le Saint-Simonisme. Naissance du socialisme en Belgique (Mémoire Ouvrière, Vol. 12), Brussels: PAC, 1985. Herwig Blankertz, Bildung im Zeitalter der großen Industrie. Pädagogik, Schule und Berufsbildung im 19. Jahrhundert. Hannover: Hermann Schroedel, 1969. Gottfried Boehm, “Sehen. Hermeneutische Reflexionen”. In: Ralf Konermann (Ed.), Kritik des Sehens. Leipzig: Reclam, 1999, pp. 272-298. John Cunliffe & Guido Erreygers, “The Enigmatic Legacy of Charles Fourier: Joseph Charlier and Basic Income.” History of Political Economy, 33, 3, 2001, pp. 459-484. Marc Depaepe, Zum Wohl des Kindes? Pädologie, pädagogische Psycholo¬gie und experimentelle Pädagogik in Europa und den USA, 1890-1940 (Studia Paedagogica, Vol. 14. Beiträge zur Theorie und Geschichte der Erziehungs¬wissenschaft, nr. 14). Leuven & Weinheim: Leuven University Press/Deutscher Studien Verlag, 1993. Michel Espagne, Archiv und Gedächtnis. Studien zur interkulturellen Überlieferung. Leipzig: Leipziger Univ.-Verlag, 2000. Sebastian Konrad & Shalini Randeira (Eds.), Jenseits des Eurozentrismus. Postkoloniale Perspektiven in den Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften. Frankfurt/M.: Campus, 2002. Matthias Middell, “Von der Wechselseitigkeit der Kulturen im Austausch. Das Konzept des Kulturtransfers in verschiedenen Forschungskontexten.” In: Andrea Langer & Georg Michels (Eds.), Metropolen und Kulturtransfer im 15./16. Jahrhundert. Prag - Krakau - Danzig - Wien. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2001, pp. 15-51. Karin Priem, “Photographic investigation of childhood: visual perceptions of poor children around 1900.” In: Christine Mayer, Ingrid Lohmann & Ian Grosvenor (Eds.), Children and Youth at Risk: Historical and International Perspectives. Frankfurt: Peter Lang 2009, pp. 35-48. Abram de Swaan, In Care of the State. Health Care, Education and Welfare in Europe and the USA in the Modern Era. Cambridge/Oxford: Polity Press, 1988. Geert Thyssen, “Visualizing Discipline of the Body in a German Open-Air School (1923-1939): Retrospection and Introspection.” History of Education, 36, 2, 2007, pp. 243-260. Bénédikte Zimmermann & Michael Werner, “Histoire Croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity.” History and Theory, 45, 1, 2006, pp. 30-50.
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