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This paper traces the incorporation of western educational histories in the development of normal-school curricula during the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China (1901–1944). It uses publication networks to show how the study of comparative educational history facilitated the international circulation of knowledge in the teaching profession, and how the “uses” of educational history were shaped by larger geopolitical forces.

This paper analyzes the international exchange of texts between normal schools in China and Japan and, subsequently, between normal schools in China and the United States. A database of 107 publications in the field of western educational history that were adopted in China reveals specific patterns of textual citation, cross-reference, and canon-formation in the field of educational historiography.

With conclusions derived from a combination of social network analysis and clustering analysis, this paper identifies three broad stages in China's development of normal-school curricula in comparative educational history: “Japan as Teacher,” “transitional period” and “America as Teacher.”

Statistical analysis can reveal citation and reference patterns but not readers' understanding of the deeper meaning of texts – in this case, textbooks on the subject of western educational history. In addition, the types of publications analyzed in this study are relatively limited, the articles on the history of education in journals have not become the main objects of this study.

This paper uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to uncover the transnational circulation of knowledge in the field of comparative educational history during its formative period in China.

This paper introduces key themes and debates in education and educational history that engage education's complicity in injustice and violence, as well as those that continue to position education as a vehicle for positive change and possibility. The paper introduces the papers that comprise the special issue “Challenges of Contested Spaces: Constructing Difference and its Legacies in Educational History”.

The paper canvasses pertinent historiographical, theoretical and methodological debates that shed light on education's dual capacity to empower and oppress.

Papers in this collection reveal the many ways that agendas justified in the name of education, training and reform have often invoked that name as justification for actions that harmed, discriminated or oppressed, and yet also, how despite this, education can still be imagined as a space of possibility and transformation.

The paper offers a summative introduction to the themes and papers of the special issue.

This paper examines China's historiography on foreign education since 1900, with an emphasis on the period since 1949. The understanding of “foreign education” in China during this period shifted rapidly from the Western-centered approach that had been introduced from Japanese during the late Qing dynasty and the Republic of China to the Soviet-centered approach that followed the founding of New China to a restoration of Western-centered approaches after the “opening” of the late 1970s and 1980s. The paper asks: how has the study of foreign educational history changed over time in the People's Republic of China, how has the broader discipline of history of education changed, and how have successive generations of historians of education conceived of their intellectual and political roles?

Grounded in archival documents and the published works of influential historians of education, this study notes the ways in which political regime change affected the construction and application of academic knowledge.

This study identifies four stages in the Chinese historiography on foreign education: a formative stage (from 1900 until the late 1940s); a difficult post-revolutionary recovery, followed by growth and then suppression (from 1949 until the mid-1970s); a period of achievement combined with an academic crisis (from 1978 until the early 2000s); and finally, a recent transition marked by theoretical innovation and global integration (from the 2000s until the present).

This study finds that a narrow focus on “practical utility” or service to politics and policy has perturbed historians of foreign education in China and stunted their field's development. A look back at early periods in the historiography offers a warning about the potential dangers of extreme ideological/political utilitarianism. These dangers existed not only in the history of foreign education but also in the history of education research more broadly. A close examination of these dangers can help twenty-first-century historians of education in China balance the practical, political and professional dimensions of their research. To grasp the meaning of foreign education, historical research needs to be politically independent.

Although historically based studies were once the only studies directly concerned with educational administration, enquiry is nowadays based primarily on modern theories of organization. An attempt is here made to demonstrate the continuing importance of historical perspective for educational decision.

This study examines EFL preservice teachers' life-history narrative. The objectives of the examination were to identify the preconceptions of teaching and teachers that the preservice teachers brought to teachers college, the sources and biographical origins of these preconceptions, and to what extent, if any, the preconceptions influenced their initial motivation to enroll in a teacher education program.

Using a life-history narrative as the method, the authors aimed at capturing and describing the critical moments in the preservice teachers' educational histories, the people involved in those moments (Clandinin and Conelly, 2000) and the sociocultural factors that might have influenced their preconceptions of teaching and the work of teachers as well as their decision to undertake teacher education.

The narrative analysis of the autobiographies has revealed that the preservice teachers still viewed teaching and teachers from altruistic perspectives. These preconceptions were based on the apprenticeship of observation and highly influenced by significant moments, the people they interacted with throughout their life and educational history and the sociocultural value of teaching and teachers in Indonesia. These preconceptions have influenced their genuine motivation to undertake teacher education and their commitment to the teaching profession. Several pedagogical implications for teacher education are also presented.

The authors’ study contributes to the scholarly conversations about the critical roles of life-history examination in the understanding of preservice teachers' motivation to undertake teacher education.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a micro historical account of the work of a key Chinese educational reformer, Tao Xingzhi (1891–1946), who transformed educational ideas from John Dewey to effect social and cultural change in 1920s–1940s China.

This paper examines English and Chinese language sources, including Tao’s poetry, to present a fresh analysis of Tao’s epistemological life history. It draws upon transnational historical approaches to chart the multidirectional circulation of progressive education philosophies around the globe. It also explores some conceptual dimensions of Chinese historical thinking and historiographical strategies.

Tao Xingzhi engaged in critical intercultural knowledge exchange in implementing educational reforms in China. He blended and critiqued Chinese and Deweyian educational philosophies to create unique educational reform, which involved reversing some of Dewey’s approaches as well as adapting others.

This paper foregrounds Tao Xingzhi’s agency in transforming some of Dewey’s ideas in the Chinese context and challenges studies that adopt an “impact-response” approach to Tao’s contribution, which suggest a one-way flow of knowledge from a “modern” West to a “traditional” China. It brings hitherto unexplored Chinese language sources to an English-speaking audience, particularly Tao’s poetry, to gain new historical insights into Tao’s educational reforms. It contributes to transnational understandings of the multidirectional flows of knowledge about Progressive educational philosophies around the world.

The purpose of this paper is to canvass debates arising from encounters between architectural and educational history and to introduce a themed section of four papers exploring aspects of the history of school design and the spatial arrangements of Australian schooling across the twentieth century.

This is an interpretive introductory essay that characterizes trends in historical and sociological studies of school space and materialities, and synthesizes the arguments and contributions of the four companion papers.

A case is made for greater exchange among educational, architectural and social historians and key insights and findings from the four papers concerning school space, design and educational ideas are summarized. Themes of community, citizenship and progressive education are highlighted.

The value of the paper lies in introducing the context and scholarly debates framing a collection of four papers that seek to open up new avenues for investigating the history of modern schooling through studying intersections between school space and design and educational purposes and aspiration.

Over the last few decades, there have been significant developments in history education, key among them being the recommendation for an inquiry approach to history teaching to improve students' ability to think historically. While the idea of historical thinking is widely researched, it appears that it has been approached from a conceptual perspective without a consistent focus on the mode of progression and the outcomes that the historical thinking concepts can achieve.

This paper draws from educational and historical theory and empirical research in history education to propose a framework that specifies the outcomes that a historical thinking classroom activity can aim to achieve.

The paper argues that the systematic deployment and mediation of disciplinary concepts and substantive knowledge are important means for achieving meaningful and relevant outcomes in history teaching. The paper highlights the need for teacher attention not only to historical theory but also to educational theory for an efficient outcomes-based history education.

This paper contributes not only to discussions on historical thinking but also to discussions on the stances of history which have attracted little theoretical discussion and research on their applicability to classroom teaching.

The challenge of writing a historical biography is interesting from several perspectives. The writer primarily seeks to provide a clear picture of the subject without imposing personal biases. Maintaining an objective perspective becomes more difficult when deciding which material to include or exclude. This challenge became very evident when we began to write about Mary Sheldon Barnes. She was a leading educator at the end of the nineteenth century in the United States. It is easy to overlook her writing in educational history, but her impact on teaching methodology is present today in most classrooms. She was a pioneer because she included “sources” or pieces of original documents and pictures in her first textbook entitled Studies in General History. Her educational contributions have been blurred for several reasons which are explored in this research.

The purpose of this article is to introduce the themed section of History of Education Review on “The History of Knowledge and the History of Education”, comprising four empirical articles that together seek to bring the history of education into fuller dialogue with the approaches and methods of the nascent field of the history of knowledge.

This introductory article provides a broad overview of the history of knowledge for the benefit of historians of education, introduces the four themed section articles that follow, and draws out some of their overarching themes and concepts.

The history of knowledge concept of “arenas of knowledge” emerges as generative across the themed section. Authors also engage with problems of the legitimacy of knowledges, and with pedagogy as practice. In addition, focusing on colonial and postcolonial contexts raises reflexive questions about history of knowledge approaches that have so far largely been developed in European and North American scholarship.

The history of education has not previously been strongly represented among the fields that have gone into the formation of the history of knowledge as a synthetic, interdisciplinary approach to historical studies. Nor have historians of education much engaged with its distinguishing concepts and methodologies. The themed section also extends the history of knowledge itself through its strong focus on colonial and postcolonial histories.