Studies in the History of Education and Culture / Studien zur Bildungs- und Kulturgeschichte

Counting on Computers: New Information Technologies and Curricular Change in East Germany, 1960s to 1990 is a compelling exploration of socialist ambitions for a computerised future and how computer technology was imagined to reshape education and socialist society in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It delves into the positive visions of a computerised future embraced by the country's one-party leadership, and examines how these visions influenced educational policy and curricula as computers were introduced into workplaces and schools.

The book provides readers with a comprehensive perspective on the historical development of computer education in the GDR, highlighting the crucial links between the integration of computers in different sectors of the educational system, as well as in society and the socialist economy at large. By uncovering this lesser-known aspect of East German history, the book sheds light on the intricate and multifaceted relationship between technology, ideology, and education.

Did religion disappear with modernization and the secularization reforms that changed the relation between religion and state throughout the European empires and nation states from late nineteenth century onwards? Or was religion rather transformed becoming a part of the new social and national imaginaries on the road from European empires to African, Middle Eastern, European Union- and Post-Soviet nation states? What are the historical roots behind the divisions of state, church and education that characterized the late nineteenth and during the twentieth century? What has been the role of education in this context, both with regard to political reforms targeting the education systems and with regard to broader public enlightenment efforts and modernization of the state?
Connecting scholars across the fields of history and historical sociology of education, church history and historical religion research and political history, and covering the time span from the early modern period and up until the present, this volume explores how education reform has functioned as an arena for the political project of secularization and in which way this contributed to transforming and revitalizing religion.

The twentieth-century process of secularization does not mean that institutional church and Christian ideas were irrelevant for twentieth-century societal projects – such as the introduction of democracy, the improvement of school and education, the framing of national identities – or in the establishment of welfare-states. On the contrary, this publication is built on the presupposition that secularization runs parallell with the sacralization of the state. It can be argued that Christianity has been decisive for how the modern European society evolved in the twentieth century, e.g. concerning how Christian history and Christian values were a part of the new national and social imaginary where re-enchantment and re-sacralization of the state were central elements.

In this publication, the aim is to highlight the role of Christianity in the twentieth- and twentyfirst-century welfare-state modernization process with the focus on schooling and education. A central perspective is the impact of cultural Protestantism during the twentieth century. The publication is comparative and will investigate education in Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands via chapters on curriculums, textbooks, politicians, and political debates.

This book thematizes the tension between education, politics, and religion in Norway after the Second World War, with an emphasis on the years between 1945 and 1970, and throws a new light on Norwegian school and education in the post-war period. The Norwegian educational landscape in the years after the Second World War must be seen against the development of the welfare state, and it appears as a part of the social democracy project typical for Norway at that time. The Labour Party, which held a prominent position in the educational landscape in the post-war decades, is normally regarded to have been an important driving force behind secularization of schools in Norway, not least because the total number of weekly lessons in religious education gradually was reduced. This book problematizes this thesis and enlightens how important politicians and policymakers within the Labour Party defended religious education. A central point is that this defense must be seen within the frames of a liberally oriented protestant theology. Thus, the study highlights the diversity of ideas in Norwegian politics in the post-war period and demonstrates how important impulses in Norwegian politics can be viewed against a wider international background.

Children and youth belong to one of the most vulnerable groups in societies. This was the case even before the current humanitarian crises around the world which led millions of people and families to flee from wars, terror, poverty and exploitation. Minors have been denied human rights such as access to education, food and health services. They have been kidnapped, sold, manipulated, mutilated, killed, and injured. This has been and continues to be the case in both developed and developing countries, and it does not look as if the situation will improve in the near future. Rather, current geopolitical developments, political and economic uncertainties and instabilities seem to be increasing the vulnerability of minors, especially in the wars and armed conflicts currently being waged not only in Europe, but on almost every continent. How can risks children and youth are exposed to in times of transition be reduced? Which role do state agencies, non-governmental organisations, as well as children’s coping strategies play in mitigating the vulnerabilities of minors?

This volume addresses risks to which children and young people are exposed, especially in times of transition. The focus is on different groups of children in the European wartime and post-war societies of the Second World War, ‘occupation children’ in Germany, teenage National Socialist collaborators in Norway, and more recent cases such as child soldiers, refugee children, and children of European “Islamic State” fighters. The contributions come from international scholars and different academic disciplines (educational and social sciences, humanities, law, and international peace and conflict studies) and are based on historical, quantitative, and/or qualitative analyses.

In the history of education, the question of how computers were introduced into European classrooms has so far been largely neglected. This edited volume strives to address this gap. The contributions shed light on the computerization of education from a historical perspective, by attending closely to the different actors involved – such as politicians, computer manufacturers, teachers, and students –, political rationales and ideologies, as well as financial, political, or organizational structures and relations.

The case studies highlight differences in political and economic power, as well as in ideological reasoning and the priorities set by different stakeholders in the process of introducing computers into education. However, the contributions also demonstrate that simple cold war narratives fail to capture the complex dynamics and entanglements in the history of computers as an educational technology and a subject taught in schools.

The edited volume thus provides a comprehensive historical understanding of the role of education in an emerging digital society.

The history of travel has long been constructed and described almost exclusively as a history of "European", male mobility, without, however, explicitly making the gender and　whiteness　of the travellers a topic. The anthology takes this as an occasion to focus on journeys to Europe　that gave "non-Europeans" the opportunity to glance at "Europe" and to draw a picture of it by themselves.

So far,　little attention has been paid to the questions with which attributes these travellers endowed "Europe" and its people, which similarities and differences they observed and which idea(s) of "Europe" they produced. The focus is once again on "Europe", but not as the starting point for conquests or journeys.　From a postcolonial and gender historical view, the anthology’s contributions rather juxtapose (self-)representations of "Europe" with perspectives that move in a field of tension between agreement, contradiction and oscillation.