The Department of the history of education

INRP
19 mail de Fontenay
BP 17424
69347 Lyon cedex 07
Tel. : +33 (0)4 72 76 61 79
Fax +33 (0)4 72 76 61 81

The history of school subjects – school curricula, content, teaching methods, practices, exercises, exams, etc. – is a field of immense investigation in which the SHE research work is authoritative. In 2004-2005, it has covered more specifically reading, writing, spelling, French, Greek, Latin, history, mathematics, science and more generally on technical and vocational teaching. The teaching levels under scrutiny range from primary level to higher education, which will be looked at in a more in-depth study from 2005 onwards.

Research work on this subject covers more particularly :

To reinforce knowledge transmission, two mass media have played a major role for over two centuries: school textbooks and the teaching press.
The tens of thousands of titles that are involved are dealt with through two important projects:
• The Emmanuelle database: a computerized directory of French textbooks from the Revolution of 1789 up to now.
• The information of teachers and education providers: a serial history of the teaching press

 

One of the approaches adopted here concerns schools, whose systematic inventory and mapping on a national level have made possible a rigorous analysis of the effects of network and context beyond the traditional monographic approach. In 2005, schemes have been in progress in relation to secondary schools dating from the ‘Ancien Régime’, private boarding schools in the Paris region, primary schools, schools of technical education in a dozen French departments as well as teacher training schools in thirteen academic regions.

• technical teaching from the Revolution of 1789 until today
• the economic and financial history of education
• an inventory of sources on the history of teacher training: teacher training schools
• the directory of French secondary schools (16th to 18th centuries)

The SHE contributes to analysing the role of all those involved in the education sector by favouring the prosopographic approach (for ancient times) and the putting together of oral archives (for recent times). Current schemes review the role of technical teaching inspectors, professors from Arts and Science Faculties, political witnesses and stakeholders under the governments of R. Monory, L. Jospin and J. Lang.

• the oral history of education
• the history of school management
• history and oral archives of education

 

Apart from the resources and research that come under the four headings above, the SHE has a global and versatile role in the field of research. Areas reviewed include, in particular, the building up of the bibliography of the history of French education, which is a showcase for the subject matter, the publication of the journal Histoire de l’éducation (26th year) and the enhancement of an Internet site with more and more comprehensive on-line information and resources, which is accessed by a growing number of people.