Convenors:
Gianfranco Bandini (Italy)
Sjaak Braster (The Netherlands)
Francisca Comas Rubí (Spain)
Sian Roberts (United Kingdom)

For additional information and to become involved, please contact the convenor Francisca Comas Rubí

Public Histories of Education – Annual Report 2024
Public Histories of Education – Annual Report 2023

Description and Main Objects: Although we have been talking about Public History for decades, we can now say today that it is a topic of great interest and topicality (Sevcenko, 2022; Noiret et al., 2022; Cauvin, 2022). In 1978, Robert Kelley linked Public History to the development – based on thematic knowledge – of research lines and specific studies linked to collective interests emerging from society rather than academia. In general, he made a connection between Public History and historians using the historical method outside academe (Kelley, 1978). Over the years, the concept of Public History has expanded, connecting with oral history, studies on collective memory and cultural heritage, or the so-called ‘history from below’ (Myers et al., 2018). In turn, not only was the choice of subjects to study reconsidered, but the entire process of historical reconstruction itself, aimed at being more participatory and collaborative thanks to cooperation between academic historians and society (Frisch, 1990; Noiret et al., 2022). Today, Public History seems to have ushered in an era of shared authority between academics, the public and community participation, making historical knowledge and narratives more inclusive and democratic (Facer et al., 2017; Ayers, 2018).

Historians of education have witnessed this evolution in Public History, although only in recent years have they included it on their own research agenda. Nonetheless, and looking back, we can see how educational historians who have been working for years with multiple audiences connected by an interest in history, memory and heritage, not only worked outside the academy and for the public, but did so in collaboration with these same audiences, sharing both the process and the final product with them.

Nowadays, there is a rapidly expanding interest in knowing how to produce a Public History of Education. Historiographical traditions developed in different contexts and countries to produce a history of education for and alongside the public are attempting to connect with the most topical trends in Public History. This is aided by the increasing digitisation of freely accessible resources on the web, providing information not only to educational historians but also to groups or individuals in general, in addition to the use of social media to connect audiences and share knowledge, memories and testimonies on issues with a shared common interest.

The dissemination of an increasingly pervasive mass media means scientific research results must be effectively communicated through television, radio, the web, and social networks. Nevertheless, very different communication techniques are now required in comparison to those used until now by traditional scientific communication. For this reason, we need to set a new paradigm of historical mediation in line with the model of Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST). This model comprises high-quality scientific outreach that is able to transmit historical knowledge to a wider public, with a view to countering pseudo-scientific approaches to the past – a source of many misconceptions and trivialisation.

In recent years, those of us proposing this Standing Working Group (SWG) – in close collaboration with other researchers in our network – have actively participated in the Public History of Education field, and its national and international expansion.

The new book series Public History in European Perspective edited by Thomas Cauvin and Karin Priem (De Gruyter Oldenbourg); the inception of the ISCHE Education & Pandemics Archive (Priem et al., 2022); collaboration with community centres in the UK (Gauld et al., 2021); involvement with Public History initiatives in Italy (Bandini, 2017; Bandini, 2019, AIPH, 2020); establishing research into Public History in Spain (Comas et al., 2022); participation in exhibitions (Del Pozo, 2019); editing a volume about public histories of education (Herman et al., 2022), and writing manifestos (Bandini, 2019; Herman et al., 2022) all demonstrate our clear interest in studying and disseminating the Public History of Education.

Keywords: History of Education; Public History; Digital Public History; Historical Narratives; Open Science.

The specific aims of this SWG are to:

• Build a shared definition of the Public History of Education, starting from different historiographical traditions developed on Public History worldwide
• Study the development of activities and products in the Public History of Education in order to map its presence at a global level, and determine how it affects the creation of qualified historical knowledge on schooling in the past
• Create a space for dialogue between public historians and historians of education
• Open up the possibility of cooperation and participation for historians of education (both in and outside academe) who are interested in this subject, as part of the activities proposed by the SWG
• Disseminate the results of this shared work
• Connect and collaborate with the IFPH (International Federation for Public History, https://ifph.hypotheses.org), as well as national associations and research centres, e.g. in Europe: AIPH – Italian Association of Public History, https://aiph.hypotheses.org; C2DH – Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History, https://www.c2dh.uni.lu.

The planned activities to achieve these goals are to:

• Hold regular working meetings to coordinate the group and its activities
• Participate in future calls for ISCHE congresses with proposals that encourage participation and the exchange of reflections and experiences
• Hold online workshops open to all ISCHE members to promote a dialogue on the Public History of Education and facilitate the dissemination of models, products and activities
• Hold panels specifically dedicated to the Public History of Education at congresses periodically organised by the national association of history of education, alongside the ISCHE, in order to promote the spread of a new historiographical culture at a national level, which will then feed into the development of a wider international debate
• Spread the achievements of the SWG’s work in different formats and settings, in addition to scientific publications – although not exclusively – possibly published within the ISCHE Global Histories of Education book series.

References:

AIPH (Italian Association of Public History), Manifesto of Public History of Education, 29 June 2020

Ayers, E. (2018). Everyone their own historian. Journal of American History, 105(3), 505-513. https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jay276

Bandini G. (2017). Educational Memories and Public History: A Necessary Meeting. In: Cristina Yanes-Cabrera, Juri Meda, Antonio Viñao (eds.). School Memories. New Trends in the History of Education, pp. 143-156, Switzerland Springer International Publishing, ISBN 978-3-319-44062-0

Bandini G. (2019). Manifesto of the Public History of Education. A proposal to connect academic research and social memory [Una proposta per connettere ricercar accademica, didattica e memoria sociale]. In: Bandini G., Oliviero S. (eds). Public History of Education: reflections, testimonies, experiences [Public History of Education: riflessioni, testimonianze, esperienze], pp. 41-53, Firenze: Firenze University Press, ISBN 978-88-5518-007-8, s. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/55993

Cauvin, T. (2022). Public history. A textbook of practice (2nd ed.). Routledge. Herman, F., Braster, S., Del Pozo, M.M. Towards a public history of education: A manifesto. In F. Herman, S. Braster, & M.M. del Pozo (Eds.). Exhibiting the past. Public histories of education (pp. 1-35). De Gruyter Oldenbourg. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110719871-001/pdf

Comas, F. & Motilla, X. (2022). La recerca en història de l’educació i història pública: el projecte “Història pública de l’educació a Espanya (1970-2020). Percepció social, memòria collectiva I construcció d’imaginaris sobre els docents i les seves pràctiques”. In XXV Jornades d’Història de l’Educació dels Països de Llengua Catalana: L’atracció pedagógica vers la mar durant el segle XX (pp. 352-357). Universitat de Barcelona, IEC. http://hdl.handle.net/2445/189861

Del Pozo, M.M. (2019). Madrid, Ciudad educadora 1898/1938. Memoria de la Escuela Pública. Ayuntamiento de Madrid.

Facer, K., & Pahl, K. (2017). Introduction. In K. Facer & K. Pahl (Eds.) Valuing interdisciplinary collaborative research (pp. 1-21). Policy Press.

Frisch, M.H. (1990). A shared authority: Essays on the craft and meaning of oral and public history. State University of New York Press; De Gruyter Oldenbourg.

Gauld, N., & Grosvenor, I. (2021). The role of commemoration in history and heritage: The legacy of the World War One Engagement Centres. In M. Keynes, H, Åström Elmersjö, D, Lindmark, & B, Norlin, Historical justice and history education (pp. 153-175). Palgrave

Macmillan. Herman, F., Braster, S., & Del Pozo, M.M. (Eds) (2022). Exhibiting the Past. Public Histories of Education. De Gruyter Oldenbourg. Kelley, R. (1978). Public History: its origins, nature and prospects, The Public Historian, 1(1), 16-28. https://doi.org/10.2307/3377666

Myers, K., & Grosvenor, I. (2018). Collaborative research: History from below. University of Bristol and the AHRC Connected Communities Programme. Noiret, S., Tebeau, M., & Zaagsma, G. (2022). Handbook of digital public history. De Gruyter Oldenbourg.

Priem, K., & Grosvenor, I. (2022). Future pasts: Web archives and public history as challenges for historians of education in times of COVID-19. In F. Herman, S. Braster, & M.M. del Pozo (Eds,), Exhibiting the Past. Public Histories of Education. (pp. 177-196), De Gruyter Oldenbourg.

Sevcenko, L. (2022). Public history for a post-truth era. Fighting denial through memory movements. Routledge. For additional information and to become involved, please contact: xisca.comas@uib.es