special retrospective issue: reflecting on seven decades in the life of the journal || editorial...

Editorial Introduction: International Review of Education: A Journal of Many IncarnationsAuthor(s): Christopher McIntoshSource: International Review of Education / Internationale Zeitschrift fürErziehungswissenschaft / Revue Internationale de l'Education, Vol. 48, No. 1/2, SpecialRetrospective Issue: Reflecting on Seven Decades in the Life of the Journal (Mar., 2002), pp.1-20Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3445324 .

Accessed: 09/06/2014 17:33

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Review ofEducation / Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft / Revue Internationale de l'Education.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.56 on Mon, 9 Jun 2014 17:33:16 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=springer

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3445324?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF EDUCATION: A JOURNAL OF MANY INCARNATIONS

There are surely few journals that, in the space of 71 years, have been through four distinct incarnations and six different publishers as well as surviving a war and a period of co-option by a totalitarian regime. The International Review of Education has experienced all of this and has lived on to establish itself as the longest-running international journal on comparative education. In this issue we have decided to take a look back over the history of IRE and to survey certain major trends in educational thinking and practice as revealed in the contents of the review.

The journal was founded in 1931 by the distinguished German educationist Prof. Friedrich Schneider (1881-1974) of the University of Cologne. It was launched as a quarterly in 1931 and was initially published by the firm of J.P.Bachem in Cologne, with Schneider as editor and Paul Monroe, of Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, as co-editor. The title on the cover was in three languages: at the top the German title Internationale Zeitschrift fiir Erziehungswissenschaft, followed by the English International Education Review and the French Revue Internationale de Pedagogie. The first issue opened with a fanfare of enthusiastic messages from various distinguished educationists including Jean Piaget, Director of the International Bureau of Education, who saw the new journal as an organ of "scientific and social progress" - scientific in the sense that comparative education was a rela-

tively new field which needed to be systematically developed, and social in the sense that educators of different nations would benefit from mutual under-

standing and exchange of knowledge (Piaget). It must be emphasised that the journal was a unique forum within a

discipline that was just beginning to take its first tentative steps in Germany and elsewhere. It is significant, for example, that there was at that time not a single chair of comparative education in any German university - the first was established at the University of Hamburg in 1948. Schneider was truly a

pioneer in the field, as is shown by his article in the first issue, "Internationale Padagogik, Auslandspadagogik, Vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaft: Geschichte, Wesen, Methoden, Aufgaben und Ergebnisse" (International Education, Foreign Education, Comparative Education: History, Character, Methods, Problems and Achievements), in which he was at pains to create a systematic basis for the new discipline. The article incorporates a list of organ- isations aiming to promote international contacts among educators. The first issue also contained, inter alia, articles on educational trends in America,

International Review of Education - Internationale Zeitschriftfiir Erziehungswissenschaft - Revue Internationale de I'Education 48(1/2): 1-20, 2002. ? 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.



2

the comparative psychology of youth, girls' schools in France, educational policy in Austria, contemporary French pedagogy, and modern school architecture. Approximately a third of the articles were in German, a third in English and another third in French, with abstracts at the end in the two languages other than that of the article. The overall tone was one of progressive optimism and a striving for modernity. This is evident, for example, in the photographs (Figures 1 and 2) from an article on school architecture, written

Figures 1 and 2 (top and bottom). The brave new world of education as seen in 1931, exemplified by a semi-open-air classroom at Frankfurt am Main (from the International Education Review, Vol. 1, No.1, 1931/32).



3

Figures 3 and 4. Craft workshops at one of the Austrian Federal Educational Establishments, special schools for talented children from needy families. Above, carpentry; below, weaving (from the International Education Review, Vol. 2, No. 4, 1932/33).



4

by the architect himself, W. Schiitte. The pictures show a group of boys sitting in a crisply modern classroom with a convertible wall that has been com- pletely folded back, leaving the class half in the open air (Schiitte). A rather more traditional building is depicted in two photographs from the fourth issue of 1932/33, showing carpentry and weaving classes (Figures 2 and 3), from an article on the Austrian Federal Educational Establishments, special schools for talented children from needy families. While photographs appeared in many of the early issues, they were absent from the journal for about five decades and have only recently been reintroduced.

Early in its history the journal established the practice of having certain issues give emphasis to a particular topic, although special issues as such did not come until much later. The fourth issue for 1931/32, for example, focuses on education and work, with articles on unemployment and its educational implications, technical education in England, worker education in Germany and two articles on vocational training in the United States. The subject appeared again in the first issue of 1932/33 with an article on "Vocational Training in the German Economy" (Arnhold and Delling), illustrated by a photograph of Siemens employees doing gymnastics (Figure 5). The second issue of 1932/33 has several articles dealing with or touching on religion, a sensitive area which in recent years has been rarely ventured into. In the first article, Hermann Platz writes on Catholicism as an educational force in France. It is followed by a historical survey by Otto Eberhard on religious ecumenism in education, ranging from Comenius to movements such as the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches.

Figure 5. Gymnastics class for apprentices at a Siemens factory (from the International Education Review, Vol. II, No.l, 1932/33).



5

Eberhard's article reflects the international and irenic spirit of the early journal, a spirit which was soon to change as a result of events in Germany.

The dark years

The first issue of the fateful year 1933 appeared about a month after the elec- tions in which the Nazis came to power. Already the writing was on the wall. In an article on "German Pedagogy and the Character of the German Folk" Richard Miiller-Freienfels proclaimed: "We stand today . . . before a great turning point in German history, which will also be a turning point in German education. There has arisen a mighty political movement which, more than

any other in the past, has emblazoned the idea of the nation on its banner, and which will also bring education into line with nationality" (Miiller- Freienfels: 41).

Over the first two years of the Nazi government the journal strove to maintain its independence and openness, but in 1935 it underwent an abrupt change in the character. The word Wissenschaft was dropped from the German title, which became Internationale Zeitschriftfiir Erziehung. It acquired a new

publisher, the Weidmannsche Buchhandlung in Berlin. Schneider was dis- missed and replaced as editor by Dr. Alred Baeumler of the University of Berlin, a loyal Nazi supporter. Monroe was retained for the time being as co- editor. An information flyer from the publisher explained the change by citing financial reasons and the need to transmit information about German education in a "more unified way" internationally. However, it is clear that the inten- tion behind the re-structuring was to make the journal toe the National Socialist line. This is immediately apparent from the content of the first issue under Baeumler's editorship. The first article, by Albert Holfelder, entitled Das Ende der normativen Pddagogik (The End of Normative Pedagogy), praises Hitler's leadership and hails the demise of a pedagogy based on rational theorising and the advent of a new type of education in which "German youth is schooled in the virtues of action within the community" in such a way that "concrete political thinking in practical situations is awakened and developed" (Holfelder: 10).

The misappropriation of the journal and the stifling of the work of Schneider and others were tragic developments for comparative education studies and created a caesura in the educational development of Germany. It must have been galling for Schneider, in his enforced retirement, to witness the shackling and misuse of the journal he had launched so promisingly.

As long as Monroe remained co-editor, the journal strove to retain a certain international perspective and to include a number of articles that were not

overtly propagandistic. As before, it contained material in English and French as well as German.

In 1938 Monroe was replaced as co-editor by another, but less distin-

guished, American educationist, Isaac Doughton of State Teachers College



6

in Mansfield, Pennsylvania. By now the journal had been increased to six issues per year. The issues for 1938 continue to contain a certain amount of outright propaganda, as in the third issue of that year, which reproduces the preamble to a new law on the restructuring of German education. The text begins: "The German school is a part of the National Socialist educational order. It has the task, in association with the other educational forces among the people ... to form National Socialist human beings" (Anon.: 212).

At the same time, there were many articles - especially those from French- and English-speaking contributors - which contained little or no hint of the political allegiance of the journal - articles with titles like "Education of Adults in the USA", "Integration - its Meaning and Application for Education", "Trends and Novelties in Modern Education", or "A Sketch of the Evolution of Women's Education in the United States". In many cases these articles, while mostly descriptive rather than analytical, are a mine of information about educational policy and practices at the time. The book review section covered a wide variety of books published in Germany, France, Britain, the USA and elsewhere, and in every issue there was a "Notes and News" section containing short items of educational interest from many countries: changes in policy, important congresses, statistics on educational achievement etc. More or less the same mixture continued throughout 1939, with some strange juxtapositions - an article in German on "Mahatma Gandhi's School Programme" appeared next to one by Baeumler himself on "Race as a Fundamental Concept in Education".

In 1940, however, after the outbreak of war in Europe, the journal changed markedly. Doughton disappeared as co-editor, and the content became more stridently propagandist, with a greater proportion of the articles in German and fewer in French and English (exceptionally, there were also a few in Italian). A number of articles dealt with education in relation to the war effort, and the "Notes and News" section reflected the wartime pattern of alliances. At the same time, there was still room for an article such as "National Reconstruction through Education in India" by K.C. Purani of Calcutta in the third issue of 1940. Even in 1941, with the war in full momentum, it was still possible to find, alongside articles glorifying Nazi education, a straight- forward report in French on the organization of scholarly libraries, submitted by the International Bureau of Education in Geneva (Vol. 10, Nos. 3-4), and an article on the educational implications of Jakob von Uexkiill's environ- mental theories, advocating a progressive and child-centred form of education (Vol. 10, No. 2). Reflecting the German invasion of Russia, issue 3-4 of 1940 contains a hostile article on "Teaching and Teacher Education in the Soviet Union", based on information gained from a captured Soviet major who had been a teacher in civilian life.

The same issue contains a photograph that was clearly intended as anti- British propaganda, showing a group of Eton schoolboys doing military drill (Figure 6). They are marching out from a cloistered building past an antique cannon, with rifles shouldered, attired in their traditional tops hats, tail coats



7

Figure 6. A wartime anti-British propaganda photograph of Eton boys at pre-military training. The intended impression is one of militarism with a touch of pantomime (from the International Education Review, Vol. 9, No. 3, 1940).

and white bow ties, with military belts added as an incongruous touch. The intentional impression is one of militarism combined with a quality of pantomime farce. Juxtaposed with the picture was one of a group of German boys at a Hitler Youth camp, sitting peacefully on the grass around a guitar-playing teacher. By now the journal had acquired another publisher, Duncker and Humblot of Berlin, and had gone back to four issues a year, presumably because of paper shortages. The volume for 1941 was the last one to contain photographs for over two decades.

The years 1942 and 1943 were marked by an increasing preoccupation with the war. The first issue of 1942 contains an article on the deplorable state of English education as a result of wartime conditions, and the second issue has a report on the distorted image of German history conveyed in English school- books. In the third issue is a piece by Baeumler on World Democracy and National Socialism, which contains virtually nothing on education. By 1943 the entire contents was in German and the propaganda more strident than ever. The first issue of that year opens with an article on "Kulturpolitische Stiitzpunkte des USA-Imperialismus" (Cultural-Political Bases of United States Imperialism), attacking American educational efforts abroad as a front for promoting US hegemony. In between the propaganda, however, there were still articles on such subjects as multilingualism, education of children in the light of medical knowledge, and vocational education in different countries of the world. The volume for 1943, which only contained two issues, appears to have been the last published under the Nazi aegis.



8

Resurrection

There followed a gap of four years before the journal was resurrected in 1947, once again under the editorship of Friedrich Schneider, who was by then 65 years old and had spent the Nazi years writing books. After the war he resumed his academic career and founded an Institut fur Vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaft (Institute for Comparative Education) in Salzburg, Austria. There the journal appeared with a new publisher, Otto Miiller. The German title became once again Internationale Zeitschrift fiir Erziehungswissenschaft, while the English and French titles remained the same: International Education Review and Revue Internationale de Pedagogie. Schneider disowned the issues published between 1935 and 1943 and resumed counting the volumes from "year four". The trauma of the Nazi years and the war had clearly made a deep impression on him, and he returned to the editorship with a strongly Christian agenda. In his editorial, headed "A New Beginning", he writes: "One lesson from the terrible times we have been through is unmistakeable. That episode was only possible because human beings and peoples lost their religious foundation. If we wish to prevent the same thing from returning we must take care to lead the world back to religion and to bring up the youth in religious beliefs. In this respect we must take a clear stand. Thus, while paying all due regard to academic objectivity, the journal is founded on the Christian concept of education and represents the Christian image of the human being" (Schneider).

Commensurate with its Christian orientation, about half the articles in the first issue of the re-launched journal were on religious themes. One was on "Education and the Mystery of the Trinity", another on "The Renewal of Catechism". Two other articles, on "Building Vital Families" and "Education for Marriage and Family in Austria" were also written from a Christian point of view. Articles with no particular religious colouring included one by J.H. Drinkwater on "Education in England Now" and another by Fritz Deutzmann on rebuilding German education. The Christian tone was continued in subse- quent issues, with articles such as one by W.G. Schuwerack, in the second issue of 1947, preaching the need for the Christian concept of obedience. At the same time, the journal regained something of its pre-1935 variety of material, with subjects ranging from African schooling to the training of farmers and from English public schools to the educational use of the theatre in China. The last issue under Schneider's editorship appeared in 1951 and once again the journal temporarily disappeared.

Present incarnation

The re-birth of the journal in its present form took place in 1955, when it came under the aegis of the UNESCO-Institute for Education (UIE), whose Director, Walther Merck, was also the incumbent of the recently established Chair of



9

Comparative Education at Hamburg University. The journal was now to be under the wing of UIE but was to have the status of an independent academic periodical, with Martinus Nijhoff in the Hague as publisher. The English title was changed to International Review of Education and now came at the top. The German title reverted to its pre-1935 form, Internationale Zeitschriftfur Erziehungswissenschaft, and the French title was retained as Revue Interna- tionale de Pedagogie (later changed to Revue Internationale de I'Education). The journal was treated as a new periodical, and the volume for 1955 accord- ingly was numbered one. As in the early days, articles were in English, French or German, with summaries in the two languages other than that of the article (later an abstract in the language of the article was also included). The journal remained, for the time being, a quarterly. The new international Editorial Board included Friedrich Schneider, who remained a much respected figure in educational world and died in 1974 at the ripe old age of 92 (the first issue of that year contained a warm obituary of him by Horst Widmann). The other members of the Editorial Board were Walther Merck, Karl W. Bigelow of New York, Roger Gal of Paris and M.J.Langeveld of Utrecht. The editorial in the first issue described the aims of the re-born journal as follows:

"The International Review of Education . . . will provide a meeting-place for men and women from every country whose thoughts and actions deserve the attention of educationists throughout the world. Such men and women will usually, no doubt, themselves be professional educational thinkers and doers, but this will not always be the case: because education is today a matter of of universal cultural concern contributions will be sought from leading minds in many fields. One aim will be to inform readers as to educational theory and practice in various countries. Another - and perhaps the more important - will be to explore the extent to which such ideas and activities have elements of validity that transcend national boundaries. Such exploration will, of course, require continuing discussion and debate."

The newborn journal opened with a perceptive article by Isaac Kandel, headed "National and International Aspects of Education", highlighting a dilemma dating back at least to the time of Comenius in the 17th century: namely how to reconcile a universal and international vision of education with the specific needs and conditions of individual nations. Kandel argues that it is possible to work on an international level while at the same time recog- nising the essential differences between national educational systems. As an example he cites the "international study of examinations, which was con- ducted from 1931 to 1938 and showed how a common attack could be made on a common problem without imposing uniformity on any of the partici- pating nations" (Kandel: 7).

A glance at the articles in the first few issues after 1955 reveals that the newborn journal from the start strove to balance the national and universal/international perspectives. On the national side there were articles such as "Recent Trends in English Education" and "The Control of Teacher Education in the United States" (both in the third issue of 1955). On the



10

universal/international side there were reports of international congresses, articles with titles such as "International Linkages of Schools" (second issue of 1955) and papers on themes that transcend national borders, such as "Les lemons du jeu enfantin" (Learning from Children's Play, first issue of 1955) and "The Educational Aspects of Delinquency" (fourth issue of 1955). At this time the journal introduced the practice of publishing shorter articles or "notes" at the end of an issue. The book review section covered a broad spectrum of works in English, French and German on education and related subjects.

As well as balancing the national and the universal perspectives, the journal strove to meet the needs of various different clienteles. These can be broadly divided into two categories: on the one hand those involved in teaching and educational decision-making who read the journal for the practical information and insights to be gained from it; and on the other hand, academics in the educational field who read it to keep abreast of more theoretical, conceptual and methodological developments. As the global context has changed politically, economically, socially and technically, and as new educational orthodoxies and trends have emerged, so the articles in the journal have mirrored these developments.

At the most academic level, one of the ongoing debates in the journal has been about the nature of educational studies. "What has happened to good old pedagogy?" asked M.J. Langefeld in the first issue of 1958, and went on to lament the fact that in English the word "pedagogy" had largely been replaced by "education", which confusingly covered both the theory and the practice (Langefeld). In particular, there has been much debate in the journal about comparative education itself. To what extent can it be regarded as a science? Is its purpose to find universal principles, to compare individual cases or to collect information about different systems? Can it have an ideological agenda? And which academic disciplines should it draw upon - history, sociology, psychology, philosophy, economics, or perhaps a mixture of all of them?

A particularly searching contribution to this debate is provided by Andreas M. Kazamias (1962) in his article "History, Science and Comparative Education: A Study in Methodology". He begins by contrasting two views: one which, in the words of Isaac Kandel (1959), sees comparative education as essentially "a continuation of the study of the history of education into the present", and another which sees little value in the historical approach (on the grounds that historical phenomena are not generalizable) and turns rather to disciplines such as sociology, anthropology and political science. Kazamias defends the historical approach, claiming that "it is quite possible to catego- rize or classify historical phenomena and compare them for the purpose of making generalizations" (396). At the same time, he says, "sociology has also been found to provide the researcher of comparative education with well developed techniques and conceptual schemes" (397).

Discussions in IRE about the role and nature of educational studies have



11

continued at intervals. For example, the third issue in the journal's Silver Jubilee year of 1979 was a special issue on "Contemporary Educational Theory: An Analysis and Assessment". It had two wide-ranging articles - one by the guest editor James Bowen entitled "Towards an Assessment of Educational Theory: An Historical Perspective" and one by Torsten Husen on "General Theories in Education: A Twenty-Five Year Perspective". Other articles in the issue dealt more specifically with the philosophy, psychology, sociology and economics of education. A rare example of the neurophysio- logical perspective is provided by a highly interesting article in the first issue of 1979 by Maharaj Raina, headed "Education of the Left and Right" and dealing with the functioning of the two hemispheres of the brain. The author writes that if education is to develop both sides of the brain "it should plan learning experiences which provide endless opportunities for a balance between the right hemisphere's spatial-synthetic modality and left hemisphere's verbal-analytical modality" (14). Arguably the journal could profit from more articles of this kind that bring together the realm of education with that of neurobiology, biochemistry, neurophysiology and other sciences.

A good survey of the debate on comparative eduction is provided in the Editorial Introduction to the special issue on "Tradition, Modernity and Post- Modernity in Comparative Education", edited by Vandra Masemann and Anthony Welch (1997). They describe how the predominant post-war discourse in comparative education moved away from a historicist to a "scientific" approach which went under various names. "Most, if not all of these models of comparative research betrayed an unrelieved Enlightenment faith in the capacity of natural scientific models of research to form the basis of enquiry in all fields, and a functionalist set of principles in regard to society, with its characteristic distaste for difference and diversity" (394). Cultural minorities and marginal groups were ill-served by this approach. With the advent of post-modernism and its rejection of "grand narratives" the pendulum swung to an extreme form of relativism, which at first appeared to favour diversity, but in fact relegated it to "an abstraction, a formal category, without substance", still leaving the minorities and disadvantaged badly served (397). Thus, according to Masemann and Welch: "The intellectual dismantling of the Enlightenment project accomplished by postmodernism has indeed thrown the baby out with the bath water, actively ignoring the reality of social oppres- sion, and issues such as homelessness, poverty, health care, and child-abuse" (397). Postmodernism in its turn is already being superseded by what is some- times called "late modernism". But, as Masemann and Welch point out, the theoretical underpinnings of comparative education remain incomplete. "The critical task of outlining a more inclusive comparative education lies still undone" (398).

While these philosophical debates went on, the journal also reflected developments at the more down-to-earth level of educational practice. Here the articles mirror changes in the wider environment. Taking the level of technical development, for instance, the fourth issue of 1957 contains an article



12

by C.H. Dobinson on "The Impact of Automation on Education". Surprisingly, this does not deal with automation in education itself but rather with the educational and training implications of automation at the work place.

The same issue contains an impassioned article by Martin Keilhacker entitled "Die padagogische Situation der Gegenwart unter dem Einfluss der modernen Technik" (The Present Position of Education in the Face of the Influence of Modern Technology). Keilhacker laments that machines are increasingly determining the patterns of our daily lives, conflicting with our natural and organic rhythms and leading to increasing conformity and reduc- tion of individuality. Education, he says, must help us again to "see and experience the fullness of organic life, especially human existence with all its endless variations of age, gender, ethnicity etc., without disparagement" (407).

A decade later another accelerating trend in the modern world, namely urbanization, was having its impact on education. Urbanization was chosen as the subject for the very first special issue of the journal, number 4 of 1967, with Prof. A. Harry Passow of Teachers College, Columbia University, as the first guest editor. "The issues urbanization has posed for educational planners," he wrote in his Introduction "comprise the whole gamut of ends and means. Are the traditional goals of basic literacy enough in a technolog- ical society which requires more and more highly educated personnel? Can the school confine itself to the intellectual development of pupils or must it perform other social and welfare functions? When a segment of its popula- tion does not respond to its traditional curricula and methodologies, does the school adapt and change or does it remold the child?" (Passow: 389). These are questions that are still preoccupying educationists today.

The second special issue, number 2 of 1968, was devoted to an even more topical theme, that of the "Uses and Values of the Computer in Education", with Richard Wolf of the University of California, Los Angeles, as guest editor. At that time the world of computers was still in its infancy, as can be judged by Wolf's introduction, in which he wrote that the most common way of submitting data to a computer "is to punch information onto rectangular cards and to have the computer receive the information by sensing the pat- terning holes in these cards" (135).

In an article on "Computer-Based Instruction" (CBI), John E. Coulson reported: "New developments in CBI have been announced with consider- able fanfare, arousing intense hopes and equally intense fears. Proponents feel that CBI can place instruction on a more scientific footing, help alleviate teacher shortage, and generally upgrade the quality of instruction." At the same time opponents are concerned "that CBI may dehumanize education" (141). In Coulson's concept the computer is basically just a mechanical teacher who gives information to the student, tests his or her knowledge, corrects errors and determines when the student is ready to pass on to the next stage. The article was, somewhat unusually, accompanied by photographs, one of which (Figure 7) shows a woman learner using a system developed in 1959.



13

Figure 7. The shape of things to come: a learner using a computer-based instruction system developed in California in 1959. The typewriter was connected to a computer (centre background), linked to a rear-projection screen (from IRE, Vol 14, No. 2, 1968).

She has an electric typewriter linked to a "small digital computer" (massive by today's standards). The computer is connected to a slide projector, which throws images on to a big rear-projection screen in front of the learner. Coulson reported that in 1961 this type of system - using in effect an early form of personal computer - "was replaced by a multi-student system using a larger computer" (143). Later, of course, there was to be a shift back to the personal computer.

Other articles in the same issue dealt with such subjects as "Curriculum Planning by Computer", "Making the School Schedule by Computer" and

"Analyzing Student Essays by Computer". Although the authors were clearly very much aware of the potentially revolutionary effect of computers on education, it is unlikely that any of them could have visualised just how

revolutionary it would be. In 1986, there was a special number of IRE on "Educational Technology and Mass Media" (Vol. 32, No. 3), by which time personal computers had become commonplace, but we did not yet have the World Wide Web, on-line colleges and interactive compact discs - with all their vast implications for education. Clearly this is a subject that needs to be revisited regularly in order to keep pace with changes.

Looking for patterns in the overall coverage of the periodical, it is apparent that certain perennial themes have been covered repeatedly in different ways - themes such as curriculum, examinations, comprehensive versus selective



14

education, teacher training, preparation for work, educational policy. At the same time, other areas of focus have followed changes and trends within or outside education. Some of these have already been mentioned. In the post- Second-World-War period the growth of development aid from around 1950 has been reflected in an increasing number of articles both from and about

developing countries. More recently the phenomenon known as globalisation has become a matter of concern to educationists and has been addressed a number of times in IRE, notably the special issue edited by Birgit Brock- Utne on "Globalisation, Language and Education" (Vol. 47, Nos. 3-4, 2001).

New approaches within education have also been reflected in the journal's coverage. In 1968, for example, Philip Coombs launched the term and the

concept of "non-formal education" in his book The World Educational Crisis: A Systems Analysis. Since then the subject of non-formal education has been addressed with some frequency by contributors to IRE. In 1972 the UNESCO Institute for Education decided to give particular emphasis to lifelong learning in its programmes, and this development has again been reflected in the journal. Both of these concepts feature in the special issue on "Formal, Nonformal and Informal Structures of Learning", edited by Mazoor Ahmed (Vol. 28, No. 2, 1982). More recently, a landmark special issue on this theme was the one on "Lifelong Education" edited by Paul Belanger and Ettore Gelpi (Vol. 40, Nos. 3-5, 1994).

In the wake of the 1989 Jomtien conference on Education for All and more recently the Dakar World Education Forum in 2000, the issue of literacy and basic education has been the focus of an increasing number of articles. Other themes that have in recent years been given prominence in the journal include gender equity, education for peace and understanding, and the education of minorities and disadvantaged groups.

Contributions to the present issue

Turning to the contributions in this special issue, Robin Burs addresses the theme of "Education and Social Change". Her article is both a broad inves- tigation of how the theme has been covered in the journal over the years and, at the same time, a perceptive analysis of how education and social change are related and how this relationship is affected by the political and social context of the age. As she points out:

"Temporal as well as socio-political and economic contexts clearly frame educational agendas, suggesting a dependent position for education in the wider social framework. However, as the IRE contributors show, there is also a second voice,which looks for educational leadership, especially in the moral sphere, in order to initiate change."

The subject of education and development is searchingly covered in the article by Birgit Brock-Utne, who examines some of the paradigm shifts within the development effort and some of the major issues in the field of education



15

and development that have been addressed by contributors to the journal. In the 1960s, for example, articles on the subject tended to reflect the then dominant paradigm based on a more or less consistent model of development that was to be transferred top-down from the developed to the developing countries. By the time of the special issue on "Democracy and Development" (Vol. 39, No.6, 1993) the shift away from this paradigm towards a more equal partnership and a less standardised vision of development was already evident.

Other changes in paradigm are explored by Joseph Zajda in his article on education and policy. As he indicates, several policy shifts have taken place since 1955, both within the discipline of education (such as the increased use of interpretive/qualitative approaches in educational research instead of merely empirical/quantitative ones) and in the field of educational planning and its implementation (e.g. towards a concern to achieve equity and equality and away from the conservative notion of using education to create a "talent reserve"). All of these shifts are illustrated by Zajda with quotations from articles in IRE.

Yet another significant development within both the study and practice of education is investigated in the article by Albert Tuijnman, namely the way in which the concept of lifelong learning has come into its own within the educational debate. Commensurate with this development, and with the increasing importance given to lifelong learning in the work of UIE, the journal from the beginning of 1998 added to its declared aims that: "Education and learning throughout life are an important concern of this journal". Tuijnman also describes the shift from "lifelong education" to "lifelong learning" which, as he shows, is more than a matter of mere terminology but indicates an important change of approach.

The last article, by Kurt Schwippert, complements the other articles in the issue by providing some hard statistical data on the contents of the journal since 1955, differentiating the articles according to factors such as the authors' gender and nationality, countries dealt with, subject areas and research methodologies. This article, which represents an enormous effort of research and analysis, documents in a clear and concise way, many significant changes in IRE and how the journal has responded to political, ideological and social developments.

Looking to the future

Before concluding this introduction, there remain certain other developments in the journal that deserve to be mentioned. The present distinctive logo was adopted in about 1971 (Figure 10). In 1984 the publisher, Martinus Nijhoff, was acquired by the Kluwer Academic Publishers group, and since 1987 only the Kluwer imprint has appeared in the journal. In 1995 Spanish and Russian abstracts were added to the existing English, German and French



16

Figure 8. The cover of the very first issue, Vol. 1, No.1, 1931/32.



17

Figure 9. The International Education Review in 1948/49 during its brief post-war resurrection under the original editor, Friedrich Schneider.



18

INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF EDUCATION INTERNATIONAT E ZEITSCHRIt1 FUR ERZIEHUNGSWISSENSCHAFT REVUE INTERNATIONA LE DE PEDAGOGIE

XVn 1197112 SPECIAL NUI

Figure 10. The second issue of 1971, by which time the journal was well established under the aegis of UNESCO as the International Review of Education.



19

translations, and the practice of publishing certain special issues as books in the IRE Library series was initiated in the same year. The advent of digital technology has brought important changes in the operation of the journal. A decade ago all articles were sent on paper to the publisher for typesetting. Then came the use of computer diskettes and subsequently of electronic mail for the transmission of copy. Another radical change that has come with the digital age has been the introduction of on-line subscriptions, which began in 1999 and have grown steadily every year since then. It is not yet possible to say how IRE will respond to the new possibilities offered by the on-line medium, but clearly they have far-reaching implications for many aspects of the journal. Such technical developments, as well as ongoing changes in the world of education and its global context, lead us to believe that the future of IRE will be as interesting and challenging as its past and present.

Acknowledgement

The editor wishes to thank Annely Putz and Peter Unkart for their help in the research for this issue.

References

(All references are to the International Review of Education or to its predecessor, the International Education Review.)

Anon. Neuordnung des hoheren Schulwesens in Deutschland. 7(3): 212-216 and 7(5): 356-365.

Coulson, John E. 1968. Computer-Based Instruction. 14(2): 140-152.

Holfelder, Albert. 1935. Das Ende der normativen Padagogik. 4(1): 5-12.

Kandel, I.L. 1955. National and International Aspects of Education. 1(1): 5-17.

Kandel, I.L. 1959. The Methodology of Comparative Education. 5(3): 273.

Kazamias, Andreas M. 1962. History, Science and Comparative Education: A Study in Methodology. 8(3-4): 383-397.

Keilhacker, Martin. 1957. Die padagogische Situation der Gegenwart unter dem Einfluss der modernen Technik. 3(4): 399-409.

Langeveld, M.J. 1958. Disintegration and Reintegration of "Pedagogy". 4(1): 50-64.

Miiller-Freienfels, Richard. 1933/34. Deutsche Padagogik und deutsche Volkschar- akter. 3(1): 16-42.

Passow, A. Harry. 1967. Introduction to Special Issue on the Effects of Urbanization on Education. 13(4): 388-392.

Piaget, Jean. 1931. Message from International Bureau of Education. 1(1): 7-8.

Raina, Maharaj. 1979. Education of the Left and Right. 25(1): 7-20.



20

Schneider, Friedrich. 1947. Zum neuen Anfang. 1(1): 5-6. Quotation translated from the German.

Schutte, W. 1931/32. Der modere Volksschulbau. 1(1): 87-91.

Wolf, Richard. 1968. Computers: An Introduction. 14(2): 134-140.

CHRISTOPHER McINTOSH

The editor

Christopher McIntosh is Executive Editor of IRE and has taken on the additional role of guest editor for this issue. He holds MA degrees from the Universities of Oxford and London, and a D.Phil. in history from Oxford. He has written, among other things, a number of books in the area of history and biography, including a life of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. He was a writer and editor for the United Nations Development Programme in New York from 1989 to 1993 and has worked for the UNESCO Institute for Education as Head of Publications and Editor of IRE since 1994.

Contact address: Dr. Christopher McIntosh, UNESCO Institute for Education, Feldbrunnenstrasse 58, 20148 Hamburg, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]



special retrospective issue: reflecting on seven decades in the life of the journal || editorial...

Documents