History of Education Summerschool 2025 KU Leuven, Belgium

The Fourth History of Education Summerschool jointly organized by Prof. Sarah Van Ruyskensvelde (KU Leuven), Prof. Pieter Verstraete (KU Leuven), and Prof. Johannes Westberg (University of Groningen) – took place in Leuven in September 2025. This international Summerschool brings together doctoral students and early career researchers in the history of education to exchange ideas, sharpen ethodological skills, and engage critically with pressing historiographical questions.

The overarching theme of the Summerschool’s fourth edition was “Voices and Silences in the History of Education”. Historians of education have long been attentive to the stories of institutions, policy makers, and reformers. Yet many educational experiences remain unrecorded or marginalized in the archives—those of pupils, parents, teachers, or broader communities who rarely left written traces. This Summerschool invited participants to reflect on how to identify, interpret, and give scholarly attention
to such silences, and how to critically examine the voices that dominate educational historiography.

Following a new approach, students wrapped up their thoughts, ideas and insights in a memorandum which can be downloaded below.

Memorandum HoE Summerschool 2025