Convenors:
Pr Fabienne Serina-Karsky, Unité de recherche Religion, Culture et Société (EA 7403), Institut Catholique de Paris, France
Dr Luca Comerio, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italie
Dr Sarah Van Ruyskensvelde, Unité de recherche Education, Culture et Société, KU Leuven, Belgique

Other SWG’s founding members:
Martine Gilsoul, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Italie
Dr Jean-Baptiste Murez, Institut Catholique de Paris, France
Irene Pozzi, Università di Bologna, Italie

Keywords: Crises; Wars; Pandemics; Pedagogy; Commitment; Networks and communities; Actors; New education

Description and Main Objectives:

With this SWG, we propose to mobilise our researches with the aim of developing an international comparative study of the pedagogical models mobilised in periods of crisis between 1870 and 1950, in an approach that intends to retrace the itineraries of social actors engaged in inter and transnational phenomena (Vera & Fuchs, 2019).

By cross-referencing our previous studies relating to wartime and post-war periods, we see a desire to use different pedagogical methods, from early childhood to vocational training, to reinvent a lost identity as a state and democracy (Luc, Condette & Verneuil, 2020; Condette, 2014). If pedagogy is to be renewed and transmitted, it must be grounded both in theoretical models and in practices implemented by committed stakeholders in the education sector with a vision of transforming society, in a complex world in the Morinian sense of the term, i.e. a world in the grip of dialogical logics that can be understood as a continuous dialogue in which care is taken to ensure that one logic does not overshadow the other or others, and which enables us to welcome and accept contradictions (Morin, 2008).

The questions we wish to address are as follows: How are we thinking about reception and inclusion in educational institutions during and after tragic periods? What educational and pedagogical practices are implemented? Who inspired and instigated them? When returning to normality, how do we proceed in concrete terms, with economic issues, but also psychological issues due to trauma and exile, physical issues due to wounds, and spiritual issues too? What are the signs of a rupture with the previous period and what continuities emerge in the educational practices of the transition periods? How do they help to reform education?

The proposed study, which covers the period from 1870 to 1950, will show how different countries mobilise but also deflect pedagogy during periods of conflict, and debate it after defeats. After 1870, for example, there was a debate in France about the love-hate relationship between the German model of education, seen as excellent and held responsible for the defeat, and the French model, which needed to be rethought, even though, in the end, French state schools did not do very much to prepare pupils for the idea of “Revenge”, which teachers did not grasp very well (Lecaillon 2011). The gap between representations, discourse and practical applications in schools is therefore an interesting area for study.

In addition, the Fröbelian pedagogy, which was trying to establish itself through kindergartens, was confronted with the institutionalisation of a French pre-school set up by the Ferry laws, under the leadership of Pauline Kergomard (Mutuale & Weigand, 2019). During the First World War, the Montessori pedagogy was mobilised in the kindergartens of the Franco-Belgian refuges in the Paris region and envisaged in a curative dimension (Serina-Karsky, 2022), but when the country was rebuilt, its dissemination in the French pre-school came up against the same patriotic issues encountered earlier. In Belgium, particularly after the two world wars, there was also the question of how to erase the influence of pedagogues or educational reforms linked to the foreign enemy, or, on the contrary, how to adopt new ideas and practices. The arrival of the New Education movement in Italy after Fascism led to the development of new educational perspectives and practices with a democratic vocation, against a backdrop of profound questioning of the very concept of childhood and the function of education, which saw the coexistence of innovative impulses and conservative positions; this was the case, for example, with holiday camps, which under Fascism became one of the main instruments of propaganda: In the camps set up in the first few years after the Second World War by a wide variety of players (Catholic Church, major companies, public bodies), it is possible to read the signs (Ginzburg, 1989) of a vision still strongly linked to the principle of obedience and conformity typical of the regime, alongside the first attempts to apply the ideas of New education, for which the Ceméa movement and scouting are an important reference.

In addition to periods of world war, periods of pandemic will be worth exploring. For example, openair schools in the early 20th century were designed with health and hygiene in mind. This was also the case in the Italian countryside, which was hit by the scourge of malaria, with the primary objective of hygiene in pre-schools set up by a private institution founded by intellectuals who wanted to bring schools into contact with the peasants. The innovative practices of volunteer teachers who put their creativity at the service of literacy (by creating a school trunk, for example) deserve to be studied in greater depth to see their real impact. It will also be interesting to analyse the impressions of visitors (Ferrière, Lombardo-Radice, Patri…) who came into contact with these schools to see whether this led to better dissemination and facilitated, or not, state subsidies.

It will also be interesting to see whether the Montessori method, adopted in precarious contexts caused by war and natural disasters (Messina and Marsica earthquakes) or extreme family poverty (Agro romano and Calabria), has undergone variations in its didactic implementation to adapt to real conditions (lack of materials or teacher training problems). So can we still really refer to it as the Montessori method? What pedagogical principles are essential to maintain a certain ‘orthodoxy’ of the method and achieve visible improvements in families’ living conditions?

In addition, the work envisaged will make it possible to initiate a cross-study of the itineraries of unknown women educationalists who have been real links in the dissemination of educational practices, particularly through professional training, based on the notion of commitment, which develops differently depending on the context, in a field that can range from philanthropy to militancy. Following in the work of Daniel Hameline on the small world of New Education, this will be an opportunity to question the relationship that may have arisen “between the rhetoric heard or uttered and the actual practices of these thousands of ‘militants’ [and] in what way were they really innovators? In what way were they fooled by their singular discourse and their common emotion” (Hameline, 2017, p. 40-41).

Contribution to the studies of ISCHE:

This SWG will complement the SWGs currently in place at ISCHE, whose themes cover the fields of the history of education in and out of school, its various approaches and its theoretical and methodological developments. By adopting a perspective focused more specifically on periods of crisis, we intend to help shed light on a history of education that includes a vision of hope born of the educational challenges imposed by wars and pandemics in particular. The pedagogical approach allows us to integrate the significant contribution of often unknown actors in education and the networks in which they operate into the evolution of education systems, and to mobilise unknown sources, based on personal files, accounts and testimonies, in archives at several levels: local, national, in associations and humanitarian organisations working to disseminate innovative educational experiences in the first half of the twentieth century.

Proposed activities:

The activities we envisage for this SWG include annual symposia to be held as part of the annual ISCHE conference whose theme will be in line with the ISCHE general conference. Research work could be developed into publications of books and special issues in scientific journals with whom we already have partnerships. We are also considering to establish partnerships with the research teams of the SWG coordinators to enable wider dissemination of the work undertaken within the framework of the ISCHE, and which will make it possible to participate in international exchange programmes between our universities. The ambition is to use this SWG, which originally mobilised 3 different countries – France, Italy and Belgium – as a starting point to open up research on the dialogue between the notions of educational crisis and renewal to other countries and continents as part of the development of European research programmes.

Although the SWG will be held in French, it will also be open to researchers from other accepted languages. It will also be an opportunity to promote the work of young researchers. We believe it is important to contribute to the professionalisation of young researchers, hence the inclusion of doctoral students in the preparation of this SWG.