Call for Papers for the History of Education Conference

2024 Annual Conference: Transnational, Global and Imperial Histories of Education

As with other areas of historical study, the history of education is a global field. The ‘transnational turn’ from the late twentieth century has led to the emergence of new approaches and theories that have added complexity and nuance to historical research in education. Meanwhile, growing interest in aspects of imperial and postcolonial history has generated fruitful areas of research on what Eckhardt Fuchs and Eugenia Roldán Vera (2019) have described as ‘the entanglement and mutual relationships of influence between colonizers and colonized’. This interest is increasingly apparent across a range of articles published in History of Education and elsewhere. It has been further encouraged by scholarship that helps recover histories of Indigenous education and by academic institutions’ ongoing efforts to recognise their own imperial histories.

However, what we now describe as ‘transnational’ has a much longer history: people and ideas have circulated in different contexts for centuries, indeed for millennia, long before the existence of national borders as they are currently conceived. This conference therefore invites papers on all aspects of the history of education in its transnational, global and/or imperial dimensions, including on pre-modern periods of the past.

We welcome papers that focus on any region(s) and countries of the world, and on education, broadly conceived. We are keen to understand education in its broader sense and welcome explorations of educational experiences in later life, in workplaces, in the community, within families, as well as in formal institutional spaces of learning. Similarly, we conceive of transnational, global, and imperial histories very broadly to cover any study of education that goes beyond national boundaries, or which considers the movement of educational ideas and practices beyond countries or even continents. How has education varied across communities, nations, empire, and regions of the world over time? How have imperial ideas influenced education and/or knowledge production? How have racialised/gendered and/or classed identities varied over time and across space?

Please note that the list included below is indicative and is far from exhaustive. We welcome any papers that address an aspect that broadly connects to issues of the global, transnational and/or imperial in the histories of education. Nevertheless, papers may address the conference theme through a consideration of some of the following:

• Education in imperial, global and transnational settings
• Transnational movements, networks of people and the circulations of ideas and/or books in education
• Transnational, global, and imperial identities as expressed in and through education
• Missionary education
• Postcolonialism and/or the decolonialising of education
• Anti-colonial struggles in education
• Representations of empire in educational materials
• Travel, transnational mobility, and global citizenship
• Histories of ‘internationalism’ in education
• Comparative studies in the history of education
• Education and diasporas

Please submit your proposed paper title and abstract of no more than 200 words to Dr Jody Crutchley at crutchj@hope.ac.uk by 21 June 2024.

For more information, please visit their website: Conference – History of Education Society

Postgraduate Panel at the History of Education Society Annual Conference 

Creative Campus, Liverpool Hope University 

Friday 1st of November – Sunday 3rd of November 2024

The History of Education Society (HES) UK would like to invite students to submit abstracts for the Postgraduate Panel at the 2024 Annual Conference. This panel is a longstanding feature of the HES conference, allowing new researchers to present a 10-minute paper on their current research.

Papers in this session do not need to address the conference theme, which this year is ‘Transnational, Global and Imperial Histories of Education’. The panels are likely to take place on the Saturday afternoon of the conference, i.e. 2 November 2024.

Please submit a title and abstract (max. 200 words) to the PGR Reps on the HES executive, Elena Rossi (Elena.Rossi@magd.ox.ac.uk) and Susan Birch (s.birch@unimail.winchester.ac.uk) by 21 June 2024.

Alternatively, postgraduate students are invited and encouraged to submit 20-minute papers that address the conference theme: these, if accepted, will be included in the main conference sessions. Please see the separate call for papers if you want to do this.

Student bursaries 

A limited number of bursaries will be available. These will contribute towards the expense of attending the conference. Applications will be open to those presenting either full 20-minute papers or shorter 10-minute papers. Details of the bursaries and how to apply will be advertised at a later date.