Annual Report 2007, Ghent

Thirty-six papers were presented.

These included one symposium, 'An early Europeanization of education research' held over two sessions.
One panel was shared with another network, Children's Rights.

Various aspects of school culture formed the line of approach of six papers that either addressed the theme of "the senses in the history of education or  the working of the school beyond the school".

There were two sessions which included moving images - one specifically organised as a workshop to discuss how historians of education might use film and what methodological and theoretical approaches are called for.

One panel was organised to address the question of visualising disabilities through a range of disciplinary lenses: this format suggested ways that future panels might be brought together to develop understanding of film in the history of education.

Approaches to biographical studies and the uses of oral history were examined in papers that explored how one might understand a life through collective memories, through reading a school building design as a text of a life, and through archival work stimulated discussion regarding the nature of historical biographical exploration.
In particular the interpretation and application of memory was a theme that emerged in two papers. The theme of how ideas about education have been communicated through journals and especially how ideas have travelled across continents was taken up.
One paper addressed the question of how history of education is viewed from the point of view of policy makers.

There was a very strong audience for all of the sessions, ranging from over 15 to over 40.
All of the sessions were chaired and useful discussions were stimulated.
There were no technological problems and the venue and accommodation was comfortable and well equipped.


Discussing Conference Theme 2008, "From Teaching to Learning"

The network meeting discussed how it might proceed to further strengthen the network for the 2008 conference where the theme will be "From Teaching to Learning". There were offers or suggestions to organise panels or groups of panels on the following sub themes.

• The role of teachers in changing the structure of learning in the past.
• Theories and technologies of filming school: an interdisciplinary workshop and panel including specialists on the history of photography and film
• The role of individual women and especially women?s networks behind the men in the history of educational change.
• Children's rights and the history of school unions and protests.
• Visualization revisited: The history of medicine is a history of faith in images; what is the role of visual representation in the history of education?
• Moral frameworks: "aestheticising" images of suffering in the history of education
• Materialities: reading the school building as a text.
• Space and Place: aesthetic presentation and the spatial structuring of knowledge (office, library, museum).

The network continues to publish strongly and is committed to contribute a set of linked papers from Gent to the European Educational Research Journal.
During 2006-07 several publications have emerged from the network, including a book joint authored by Ian Grosvenor and Catherine Burke, School (Reaktion Press), which is due out at the end of 2007 and a Special Issue of the Journal History of Education based on the papers presented at the Dublin conference (2005) on the theme "The Body of the School Child in the History of Education" (March, 2007).
Other related publications include Ruth Watts' new book Women in Science: A Social and Cultural History.

Articles published include:

Working for Change Across International Borders: the Association of Headmistresses and Education for International Citizenship, by Joyce Goodman, in Paedagogica Historica, Volume 43 Issue 1 2007

Progressivism, Control and Correction: Local Education Authorities and Educational Policy in Twentieth-century England, in Paedagogica Historica, Volume 42, Issue 1 & 2 February 2006, by Ian Grosvenor and Kevin Myers

The Progressive image in the history of education: stories of two schools, in Visual Studies, vol 22, no 2, September 2007.