Module Catalogue 2024/25

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

This module aims to develop student’s knowledge and understanding of:

• The history of education as an academic field of study.
• The nature and provision of schools and schooling in western society and the utility of various models to describe and explain educational change.
• The political, social, economic, cultural and pedagogic context of educational provision and change.

Outline Of Syllabus

This module asks such questions as: What counted as ‘education’ in past societies? What did it mean to be ‘educated’? What counted as a ‘good’ education? What are the sources of evidence? Who was being ‘educated’ – by whom, how, and to what ends– what was it for? What was the experience of education by teachers and students? What was the attitude towards education – to what extent was this informed by contemporary views about: parents and parenting, children and childhood, pedagogy, gender, class, race, society or the State? How can we account for educational change and to what extent was this shaped by contemporary political, religious, social or cultural factors? This module critically engages with the debates and issues surrounding these questions relating to the nature and impact of educational provision in western societies and the utility of various models to explain educational change.

Lectures will explore the range of social, political, cultural and educational contexts within which key primary source documents or academic articles for analysis will form the focus on the following week’s seminar session.


Lecture Programme

BLOCK 1: The Ideal Citizen: Schools and Schooling in Ancient Society
SESSION 1: Arête and paideia: Homer, the Educator of Greece; Education and the Greek City-State;
Romanitas: Rome and Empire

BLOCK 2: Education for a Christian society: Schools and Schooling from the Sixth to the Sixteenth Century
SESSION 2: Imperium christianum: the Middle Ages
SESSION 3: Humanism: Educating the Renaissance Man
SESSION 4: Dissent and orthodoxy: Reformation and Counter-Reformation

BLOCK 3: The Rise of Mass Popular Education: Schools and Schooling from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century
SESSION 5: The E nlightenment background
SESSION 6: The growth of national systems of schooling I: Europe and the United States
SESSIONS 7-8: The growth of national systems of schooling II: England

BLOCK 4: The Nation State: Schools and Schooling in the Twentieth century
SESSION 9: School Building programmes: motivations and consequences
SESSIONS 10: Continuity and change: School space and educational practices

SESSION 11: Education and the totalitarian state: Germany 1933-1950; Soviet Education and socialism
SESSION 12: Education in the 21st Century

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

To build on and develop:
• The knowledge and understanding from EDU 1001 of the broad narrative of the historical development of schools and schooling in Western society.(A1; A3; A4)
• An understanding of the wider historical social, political, economic, cultural and pedagogical contexts of educational ideas, provision and change. (A3)
• An appreciation of the complexity of the term, ‘education’ and an understanding of how it has developed in relation to historical perceptions and conceptions about schools and schooling. (A3; A4)

Intended Skill Outcomes

• Collect and select relevant information from a variety of sources including journals, archives, databases, reports, monographs, web pages and research papers. (B1; B2)
• Evaluate the impacts of ‘how we get to knowledge’ (epistemology) on the methods selected and the nature of the evidence that is consequently generated. (B4)
• Select a range of relevant primary and secondary sources, including theoretical and research-based evidence, to extend their knowledge and understanding of ‘education’ historically. (B2; C4; C5; C8)
• Organise and articulate opinions and arguments in speech and writing using relevant specialist vocabulary, including by means of well prepared, clear and confident presentation and coherent, concise written documents. (D1; D5)
• Use ICT in their study and other appropriate situations. (D2)
• Use library and other information sources skilfully and appropriately. (D3)
• Organise an effective work pattern including working to deadlines. (D7)

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

This module aims to help students develop their knowledge and understanding of how schools and schooling have developed since Homeric times. Lectures will explore the range of social, political, cultural and educational contexts within which particular primary source documents or academic articles for analysis will form the focus on the following week’s seminar session. During each lecture there will be opportunities for students to work in small groups to discuss and compare contemporary understandings, attitudes and concerns about schools and schooling. This is further extended by the tutor- and student-led seminar sessions are also intended to reinforce and assess key skills and knowledge outcomes listed above.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Submitted work tests intended knowledge and skills outcomes and develops key skills in research, reading and writing. The essay evaluates the students knowledge and understanding of the subject in-depth, their capacity to construct and organise an argument that is coherent and which demonstrates critical engagement.

General Notes

N/A