Die Einfuhrung von Klassenstufen und der herausfordernde Umgang mit Heterogenitat – Die Stadt Lissabon in den 1880ern

The emergence of a graded primary school system posited the group and not the individual as the focus of the work in schools. However, the ideal of homogeneous school classes revealed, the gap between the abstract model of the division of schools into classes and the difficulty of managing the heterogeneity of schoolchildren. The belief in a rational organization of schooling embodied in class teaching and the context of an intended expansion of school attendance promoted the development of graded schools with many classes. Yet the new system did not always work as intended. This, however, led to reforms rather than to the rejection of the new model of graded schools. The analy- sis of the school policies of the city of Lisbon and the active engagement of local school councils shows that different attempts to reorganize school classes and to streamline the advancement of the pupils in order to guarantee the homogeneity of school classes met with only little success. It was only in this context that the question of age for grouping chil- dren in school classes may have gained traction.