The 19th century saw the rise of mass schooling. School acts were published, increasing number of teachers were trained and hired, and children increasingly attended schools. This development was strongest in Europe and North America, with schooling in the USA, France and Prussia leading the way. While this development with its national and…

This article discusses how an increased interest in the global, the international and the cross-national may be informed by the recently renewed focus upon the social and economic history of education. The history of school buildings in a comparative framework offered here illustrates how such approaches also have important contributions to make…

The figure of the public intellectual and the act of public pedagogy are fairly central to varieties of critical pedagogy. Public intellectuals have historically been those who speak truth to power and challenge dominant ways of thinking, and critical pedagogy argues that academics have to take up this call, leaving the ivory towers and entering…

In our post-truth society, mobilizing "facts" and "evidence" has never been more important. We live in an age that is paradoxically information rich due to the proliferation of Internet Communication Technologies (ICTs) and information poor due to the spread of misinformation. Academic research outcomes are traditionally…

This article examines the 1988 Dawkins reforms to Australian higher education and the creation of a unified national system. The article is based on two propositions. The first is that as historians we should examine educational reforms in a changing society not only for what they propose, but with a look backwards to understand their place within…

This article argues that the history of mass education as it was written in Great Britain between 1870 and 1914 became an important site for debating what it meant to be British and the nature of progress. In particular, it explores different perspectives on when and where to begin a history of mass education, whom or what to make central to it,…

At the Jewish History Museum and Holocaust History Center in Tucson, Arizona, photographs, text, and audio displays present Jewish histories alongside local histories of African-American, Latinx, and Native peoples -- among others -- in Southern Arizona, where Jews comprise only 2-3% of the population. In documenting our pedagogical tools for…

Abstract Martin Trow was among the most influential scholar in Higher Education studies in the second half of the 20th century. He is best known for his conceptualisation of the development of Higher Education into three stages--elite, mass and universal systems. This article considers, first, his intellectual method and the underpinning theory…

Although modern systems of mass education are typically defined in their opposition to violence, it has been argued that it is only through an insistent and critical focus upon violence that radical thought can be sustained. This article seeks to take up this challenge in relation to Walter Benjamin's lesser known writings on education. Benjamin…

Rather than being banal and uninteresting, Western women's public toilets may be seen as educational spaces. While prolific in number and usage, they have typically escaped research attention. This paper argues that the common inclusion of toilet texts in these places renders them not only interesting but also worthy of inclusion in accounts of…

Glenn Savage (2014) poses a serious issue to the field of public pedagogy: to articulate what "form" of public is being evoked in and by the research. In this article, I will conceptualize the formation of a prophetic public, one that exhibits both critique and hope, hallmarks of the prophetic stance. This research is grounded in a…

In this article we explore examples of public pedagogical actions and interventions, reading them through a social justice education framework lens. In our discussion we start with definitions of social justice, public pedagogy and case study methodologies. Then, we look at a variety of international examples to highlight the pervasiveness of…

This paper aims to question anew the popular and supposedly self-evident affirmation of education, in its modern incarnation as in its historical notion. The "naive" questions suggest that we have recently taken for granted that education ought to be for the masses, that it ought to be upbringing, and that it is better than ignorance.…

In this paper, the authors provide an overview of the unschooling movement, highlighting the important philosophical differences, among other differences, between unschooling and homeschooling. They then argue that to the extent that traditional schooling is a project of massification--increasingly dominated by a neoliberal ethos in our…

Higher education system in India facing daunting challenges from within--forces from within the institutions, and from outside within the country, and from global forces. The system needs major and somewhat pressing, if not emergency reforms. At the same time, we are confronted with a variety of dilemmas in reforming higher education. It is argued…