Network
NW 17 Histories of Education
Title
Continuity and Change in Knowing and Knowledge
Abstract
The general call invites us to consider continuity and change “in approaches, producers and those who apply knowledge”. Historical perspectives on education are clearly significant in this endeavour. In this special call we encourage contributions which interrogate how knowledge is trusted and valued or critiqued and delegitimised, how different technologies and actors have come to support (or hinder) the development and dissemination of knowledge, and how it is used and misused for framing crises and policies. We also encourage contributors to consider how our research practices can recognise complexity and help us understand and navigate global challenges.
The Call
We welcome submissions in the forms of individual papers, panels, workshops, round tables and posters which address one or more of the following questions/themes. We are open to a range of historically engaged approaches and strategies, including interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary ones. This special call invites theoretically and methodologically daring submissions based on established perspectives and new trends. The Network is particularly interested in novel approaches to constructing research topics and exploring lesser-known sources to deepen our understanding of body-sensory as well as intellectual experiences related to knowing and knowledge. References are offered below as starting points and inspiration. We encourage participants to explore:
Continuity and change in what counts as trusted and valued knowledge
We invite critical (and other) engagements with what knowledge has been deemed worthy of production and dissemination, and how this has stayed similar or differed over temporal, spatial and institutional contexts. Contributions could examine what has been considered ‘new’ knowledge, and how this comes to gain legitimacy, but also how that which was valued new knowledge has become unpopular and delegitimised. They could consider the types and forms of educational knowledge that have been valued by different people at different times, whether produced locally, nationally, globally, or between all of these, and consider on what grounds (and according to who) knowledge is valued or devalued.
Actors, technologies and shifting ecosystems of knowledge
The general call for papers focuses on actors and technologies involved in the production and dissemination of knowledge. We encourage contributions which critically interrogate or otherwise ponder the involvement of a range of actors and technologies. What individuals and organisations, in different temporal, spatial and institutional contexts, have been involved in the production and dissemination (and consumption) of knowledge? Have organisations and individuals collaborated or competed with one another in this endeavour? What actors involved in the production and dissemination (and consumption) of knowledge have been valued and trusted and on what grounds? Have technological developments (digital or other historical technologies) been valued or discredited?
Analysing challenging contexts and complexity
The general call draws our attention to significant global challenges, and complex times as well as to the situated and contingent nature of knowledge. The historiography of education is uniquely positioned to raise awareness and encourage critical thinking. It does this by exploring how knowledge is constructed and disseminated, and by demonstrating that what was once considered true and acceptable can become questionable. We invite participants to query the ways in which our practices as researchers can address complexity. How have historians of education navigated complexity and uncertain futures? What light can they shed on how educators and education have navigated complexity and global challenges in the past? Can we challenge ourselves to go beyond the search for patterns and narratives? Does institutional memory help us appreciate processes of knowledge production or hinder our appreciation of different ways of knowing? What is the role of new digital technologies in our practices, and how they can facilitate or restrict our engagement with the educational past?
Contact Person(s)
Tamar Groves (tamargroves(at)unex.es), Susannah Wright (susannahwright(at)brookes.ac.uk), Ana Luisa Paz (apaz(at)ie.ulisboa.pt), Geert Thyssen (geert.thyssen(at)hvl.no).
References
Depaepe, M. (2017). More than an antidote against amnesia... Some historiographical, theoretical, and methodological reflections on the History of Education. Pedagogika, 67(3): 329-350.
Flury, C., & Geiss, M. (2024). Making a case for computer literacy: the German Informatics Society and the emerging field of computer education, late 1960s–early 1990s. Paedagogica Historica, 61(5), 815–833.
Goodman, J. (2017). Circulating objects and (vernacular) cosmopolitan subjectivities. Bildungsgeschichte: International Journal for the Historiography of Education, 7: 115-126.
Goodson, I. (2010). Times of educational change: Towards an understanding of patterns of historical and cultural refraction. Journal of Education Policy, 25(6), 767–775. doi.org/10.1080/ 02680939.2010.508179
Grosvenor, I., & Roberts, S. (2025). “Another way of seeing” education pasts and presents: Art, education, and activism. Paedagogica Historica, 61(5), 679–697. doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2025.2464677
McGregor, H. (2014). Exploring ethnohistory and indigenous scholarship: What is the relevance to educational historians. History of Education, 43(4): 431-449.
Marker, M. (2015). Borders and the borderless Coast Salish: Decolonising historiographies of indigenous schooling. History of Education, 44(4): 480-502.
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Tröhler, D. (2023). Comparative education or epistemological power games for world domination. Comparative Education, 59(3): 458-474.
Tröhler, D. (2013). Truffle pigs, research questions, and histories of education. In T. S. Popkewitz (Ed.), Rethinking the history of education: Transnational perspectives on its questions, methods, and knowledge (pp. 75-92). Palgrave Macmillan.
Van Ruyskensvelde, S. (2014). Towards a history of e-ducation? Exploring the possibilities of digital humanities for the history of education. Paedagogica Historica, 50(6): 861–870.
Van Ruyskensvelde, S., Thyssen, G., Herman, F., Van Gorp, A., & Verstraete, P. (Eds.)(2021). Folds of past, present and future: Reconfiguring contemporary histories of education. De Gruyter.
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Ydesen, C. (2019). Introduction: What can we learn about global education from historical and global policy studies of the OECD? In C. Ydesen (Ed.), The OECD’s historical rise in education (pp. 1– 14). Palgrave Macmillan.