The bureaucratization of groupings. Local and transnational dynamics of innovation in the introduction of age-graded school classes in compulsory education (Prussia, the US, and Spain, ca. 1830-1930)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Marcelo Alberto Caruso
• Subject Area: General Education and History of Education
• Term: from 2016 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 280705321

In this project, I reconstruct and analyze the long history of the implementation of age-graded classes in the field of compulsory education and consider this history as being a transnational process of the introduction of an innovation. Age-graded classes constituted a specific form for the grouping of students, in which the use of formalized and bureaucratic criteria for the formation of school classes replaced old forms of classification of students based on merit, moral criteria and attainments in individual school subjects. The idea of reorganizing entire school systems on the basis of age grading was certainly known since early modern times. Yet, only in the 19th century the idea of age grading increasingly advanced to the leading criterion for grouping students in schools, and for the definition of so-called normal school careers. This occurred in a setting, in which school reforms and particularly the composition of school classes definitely became objects of transnational observation, communication, and imitation. The project focuses on the local and transnational dynamics in the introduction of age graded school classes. With regard to the transnational dynamics, I took the distinction, largely adopted in the sociology of innovations, between innovator, early and late adopters to grasp the sequence of the introduction of the innovation and its varying pace. Following this distinction, I choose Prussia (innovator), the US (early adopter) and Spain (late adopter) for a comparative and transnational analysis. With regard to the local dynamics, a selection of urban school systems, selected on regional and demographic criteria as well as due to different structures in the field of school policies, is in focus. This selection will shed light on the different forms of the implementation of the new model for the grouping of students in the different countries. I will conduct case and comparative studies that include both the local rationales of the imposition and institutionalization and the international observation and transnational references. I integrate these analyses in a broader transnational history of the emergence of age grading as a central feature of modern school structures.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants