Through a pupil's eyes […]. A “chalk face” study on ideological conflict in a Flemish school during World War II
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the ways in which World War II ideologically interacted with education and social networks within a school context, on the basis of a pupil's diary. More specifically, this paper looks at pupils’ active involvement in contesting the patriotic school climate and deals with the effects of what happens when the predominant school's belief or value system is questioned “from below”.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a case study of ideological conflict in a Flemish school, the Sint-Jozefscollege in Turnhout, during the second half of 1940. It is primarily based on the diary of one pupil.
Findings
The author argue that the diary can reveal the ways in which the war did or did not penetrate language and daily school life and that this type of research enables us to grasp the many complexities of past society, or even, to some extent, offers a corrective for the “grand narrative” of both educational and World War II history, which unavoidably present some generalisations. This paper suggests that this grand narrative could benefit from the confrontation with personal documents that focus more on private interpretations of these big events.
Originality/value
As a result of the prevalent use of “traditional” written sources in historiography, the history of war-time schooling “at the chalk face” in large part remains virgin territory. The diary is one of few sources that leave us with an idea of pupils’ experiences in the period under review.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank both supervisors Professor Dr Marnix Beyen of the University of Antwerp and Professor Dr Marc Depaepe of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven for their advise and inspiring remarks. Special thanks also go to Angelo Van Gorp and members of the Research Group Political History of the University of Antwerp for their comments and suggestions that have contributed to the significant improvement of this paper. Finally, very special thanks go to the Van Acker family for sharing their memories with the author. In their honor, the author dedicates this paper to Juliaan (1925-2009).
Citation
Van Ruyskensvelde, S. (2014), "Through a pupil's eyes […]. A “chalk face” study on ideological conflict in a Flemish school during World War II", History of Education Review, Vol. 43 No. 1, pp. 62-77. https://doi.org/10.1108/HER-08-2012-0026
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
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