The Development of Historiography of Education in England,(1868-1993): A Pioneering Study

Author: Yu-Wen Chou(Department of Eduction, National Taiwan Normal University)

Abstract：

In 1868, R. H. Quicks book : Essays on Educational Reform was pub-lished, which was the first book written by an Englishman on the history of education. From that time onwards, the study of the history of educa-tion in England has progressed, and it has changed from the old tradition to the new approach.
The main purpose of this essay which consists of four parts : introduc-tion, historical development, characteristics, and conclusion, is to study the development of the historiography of education in England and to find some implications for the historical research on Chinese education.
By and large, characteristics to have the folloging the historiography of education on England can be concluded:
1. The process of the development of the historiography of education was closely related to the change on the teacher-education courses. When the teaching of the history of education gradually lost its ground on the teach-er-education courses from 1960s onwards, however, ironically an academic discipline, the history of education, was made.
2. The traditional Whiggish approach of the history of education, which claimed a single, isolated, linear and progressive perspective, has been crit-icized. The watershed of change was the introducing of the so-called 'new' history approach, which emphasized the ideas of 'total history' and 'history from below'.
3. The themes of the study of history of educaiton changed from old topics, such as great thinkers, educators, legislation and institutions, to new ones, such as local history, women's history, the history of the working-class, child history, comparative history and so on.
4. Not until the 1960s did the theories and methods of social sciences, es-pecially sociology, come to be used by the historians of education.
5. The new methods and techniques, such as interview and statistics wre not introduced until 1960s.
6. Official archives were used by the traditional historians as the primary sourses. However, from 1960s onwards, the non-archives sources, such as personal letters, diaries, novels, newspapers, pamphlets, and so on, become more and more important. Besides, due to the influence of the 'new' history, oral visual sources, such as tape-recordings, films, pictures, paints, and so on, came tobe used grad-ually.
7. After 1960s, the historians of education paid more attention to the is-sues after the Second World War than those in the nineteenth century. Historical perspectives upon current educational issues were one of the main trends.
8. The History of Education Society was established in 1967, which was the landmark of professionalisation. Two periodicals : History of Education So-ciety Bulletin(twice a year) and History of Education (quarterly) were published by the Society.
9. Diplomas of Higher Education and high degrees in the history of educa-tion, such as MA, MPhil and PhD came to increase gradually from 1960s onwards, when the teaching of the history of education in the teacher-edu-cation courses came to decrease.

《Full Text》