The History of Education and its Social Relevance: Approaches and Systemic Perspectives

Abstract

The history of education, together with related historiographical output, reveals an ambiguous picture, especially in France. Although the infatuation for commemorations and other memorial duties cannot be denied, doubt is cast upon its very presence and identity in scientific research and university education in the face of a new, growing demand for social relevance. The issue raised here is not so much an argument against its evolution within a group social movement that the historian has but little grasp upon, but rather the search for new forms of «making the history of education» in the face of these new demands. Viewed under the lens of a «model of analysis of historiographical activity», the issue posed on the plane of History in general will be to find historiographical configurations able to integrate a certain type of social relevance without, however, betraying the roots of historical research. Such so-called «translatable», historiographical output, are interlinked with and dependent upon the existence of a «historiographical habitus» that must be contributed to and reinforced by education practitioners, as well as a kind of «decisional memory-making» function. However this dual role is subordinate to certain philosophical and epistemological conditions, namely: to accept the existence of anthropological invariables; to conceive the history of society as a complex web woven from the various interdependent strands of societal features; to define the history of education as a historical anthropology of education; and to favour modelling (an example is provided) as a means of restoring the historical reality.