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This paper is an examination of the history of Scottish religious education (RE). Focusing on 1962–1992, it distinguishes the temporal processes that unfolded during this period to identify the circumstances that led to a serious case of neglect of the subject, especially in the non-denominational sector. Next, it highlights the less emphasised but important issue of how RE ‘survived’ in public education, going on to explicate the antecedents of a paradigm shift in the subject. Finally, curriculum reforms undertaken in the subject from the 1980s onwards are described, showing how these reforms helped to transform Scottish RE into an ‘academic’ subject well aligned with the curricular principles of ‘5–14’, the country’s first (1992) ‘educational’ RE programme. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although engineering education has played important roles in China’s growing power and influence on the world stage, engineering education policy since the Reform and Opening-up in the late 1970s has not been well documented in current English-language scholarship. Informed by historical and sociological studies of education, engineering and engineering education, this paper attempts to address this scholarly gap by relating contemporary Chinese engineering education policy-making to its broader historical, cultural and ideological contexts. Based on analysis of policy documents and reports released by the Chinese government and engineering schools, and drawing on prior scholarship of Chinese (engineering) education policy, this paper employs the concept of ‘past/forward’ as an analytic lens to interpret and understand four major areas of engineering education policy change in contemporary China: institutional reform, disciplines and majors, training objectives, and curriculum reform. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Through the example of the establishment, functioning, and closing of bilingual schools during the Soviet occupation of Hungary, this paper aims to introduce this segment of public education in Central-Eastern Europe. In the period between 1945 and 1989, the learning of Russian as a compulsory subject was introduced, teaching other languages was restricted, and Hungarian-Russian bilingual schools were launched. The features of their establishment can be connected to political and professional power relations in different sub-periods within the structures of closed language policy. The objective in both states was the education of committed political elite. The first school was established by direct political control and closed because of the 1956 revolution. The second school was established in 1974, through professional and political compromises. The third school opened at the end of the period, as part of a top-down development project involving 14 schools. A number of European target languages (still including Russian) were introduced, which can be regarded as the opening up of language education policy. Relying on sources, documents, and personal recollections, the study aims to reveal the dynamics of the interrelations between controlled language education, University and the changes in Hungarian economic, social, domestic, and foreign policy in the given periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to highlight the prominence and relevance attached by the Franco dictatorial regime to emotions and sentiments in primary education textbooks. The authors of school textbooks employed a singular writing style, which enabled them to permeate the regime's ideology within the primary education community and classroom. Overcoming the censorship of their textbooks lent the authors a measure of authority derived from the government, increasing the schoolbook's relevance as the instructional resource par excellence. The sentimental narrative, reinforced by figurative, pseudo-poetic language and precise instructions on how and what to feel, represents prescriptive texts and reveals the objective of emotionally homogenising and indoctrinating the children in order to socialise them politically and religiously, moulding their socio-political self and identity within the pattern established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the process of production and regulation of school textbooks in Poland under communist rule. The stages of textbook approval were as follows: selection of authors; editorial work at the publishing house; discussions in the commissions of the Ministry of Education; decisions of the censorship office. It is argued that the Polish United Workers’ Party (i.e. the Polish communist party) played a dominant role at every step of this process. The question of possible influence of the Soviet communists is also addressed. Some changes in the textbook approval process are traced in time, with emphasis put on sustainability of the principle of dominant position of the party. The constraints of power of the communist regime in the field of education are briefly discussed, with the human factor given most serious consideration. There had always been a shortage of people, from the party’s point of view, ready to implement rules, and far too many of those who undermined them. This analysis is based on the archival holdings of the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of Poland and of the censorship office. Teachers’ press and other publications dealing with school textbooks and history of education in the People’s Poland have also been used. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Greek historiography of interwar education policy unproblematically accepts the assumption that the bone of contention between the ‘Liberal demoticists’ and the ‘Conservative purists’ was the language issue; particularly whetherdemoticorkatharevousashould be the language of instruction in schooling. This paper aims to challenge this assumption arguing that neither were the camps as homogeneous as has been traditionally assumed nor was the language what ultimately provoked the controversy. What was at stake here was the national and social ideology of education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyses the creation of the schools called ikastolas throughout the Basque Country from the 1960s onwards. The name ikastola refers to a unique school model whose major characteristic is to teach the majority of subjects in the Basque language, or euskera. It outlines the reasons why some of these schools took a co-operative organisational form and describes their major characteristics. The first part analyses the opportunities created under the Francoist regime for this kind of school, despite the repressive character of the dictatorship in other fields. The second part of the paper examines the important influence of the Mondragón co-operative movement, especially through its financial institution, in the creation of these educational co-operatives. The third and last part emphasises the role played by social mobilisation in defence of the Basque language in the creation of these schools and how this factor tied in with a co-operative governance system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of physical education in Labour Universities (1955–1978) during Franco’s regime as an instrument of indoctrination and declassing of the working class. The conclusions obtained after the study and the analysis of various primary sources indicate that, initially, physical education was used as an instrument of indoctrination for the purposes of achieving the social and ideological model of Franco’s regime after the Fascist uprising (1936–1939). However, this initial orientation became less relevant in the 1960s, in favour of the inherent aspects of sport, which contributed to the declassing of the young workers. In fact, Labour Universities became national benchmarks in the area of sports within the education system. Physical education lost its indoctrinating and declassing roles after the General Law of Education was passed in 1970, and the focus shifted instead to its role as an activity for participation, education and comprehensive training. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Until around 10 years ago, the conventional wisdom in educational historiography held that the start of the Civil War (1936–1939), marking as it did the placing of education at the service of the war effort, involved a rupture, in both the Republican government and the “rebel” or Franco camp, with the preceding years as to the educational politics and the pedagogical discourses. However, in the last few years a number of works have been published which, without denying the changes that undoubtedly occurred, emphasise the continuities in the discourses. This article sets out to elucidate and clarify just what there was of rupture and or continuity in educational politics and politico-pedagogical discourses during the years of the Civil War. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the establishment of legally mandated Protestant training in the Australian state of Victoria and the Canadian province of Ontario. Fearing moral decay at home and a menacing world environment seemingly unfavourable to the ‘British way of life’ in the 1940s, educators asserted that religion, and specifically Protestant Christianity, was the only means by which the moral core of their British democracy could be preserved. The teaching of religious instruction was highly controversial in both places. Supporters of the new curriculum believed the religious courses would strengthen the British identity and moral backbone of the Canadian and Australian nations, while opponents argued that imposing religion in the classroom was antithetical to British ideals of freedom and toleration. Educators struggled to reconcile these divergent views on how religion fitted into a wider British identity, and the resulting tension exposed the points of ethnic and cultural fracture that undermined the credibility of Britishness after 1950. The very efforts to impose a unifying sense of Britishness were so controversial and problematic that they ultimately required an alternative understanding of what it meant to be a citizen of Ontario or Victoria. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For Palestinian nationalists in Mandate Palestine, British education policy was a source of constant frustration. The shortage of schools, the lack of local control over the curriculum, and the marginalization and de-politicization of Palestinian history constituted major grievances. Proceedings from the Peel Commission reveal much about the rationale behind this policy, particularly the bias toward "rural" education and the attempts to control teachers. Drawing on and complementing the work of A.L. Tibawi, this article seeks to shed light on the nationalists' protests by examining both the responses of officials brought before the Commission, as well as the government's history curriculum during the Mandate. In doing so, the research shows that education policy was constructed to maintain the underdevelopment of Palestine and to hinder state-building efforts that could compete with those of the Zionists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]