Cloistered Boyhood. Becoming a Man at Boarding Schools in Germany and England, 1870 to 1930
Final Report Abstract
In examining boarding schools, the project aimed to explain how the ideas and practices of ‘masculinity’ changed in the education of middle-class boys in Great Britain and Germany between 1870 and 1930. From a historical perspective, boarding schools were particularly suited for such an investigation, because the interplay between different actors such as teachers, peer groups and families is well documented for such extensive institutions. Yet, as elite institutions they were also characterized by a specific, mostly homosocial, “order of growing up”. In this regard, British and German boarding schools were similar, while they had a different significance with regard to their specific place within the two societies. The study focused on a selection of five boarding schools to examine the transformation of masculinity. It did so by applying a multi-perspective approach which analyzed boarding schools as gendered spaces as well as examined the changes of ideals and practices of masculinity. The study contributed to the history of masculinity and gender as well as to comparative German and British history. It demonstrated that since the late 19th century the bourgeois ‘man’ was increasingly defined by the healthy and hardened, young, ‘masculine’ body. This development somewhat contrasted with the physical violence often experienced in boarding schools and led, among other things, to the introduction of family-style forms of education and co-education. The changes took place in both British and English boarding schools, albeit at different times and with different intensities. These variances could be explained by the different educational tradition and social significance of boarding schools in both countries. Despite these differences, the study demonstrated how around the turn of the 20th century boarding schools in Great Britain and Germany were transformed into institutions which served middle-class families to enable their sons - and later also their daughters - to secure their social status.
Publications
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Retreat into the “pedagogical province”? Boarding schools and the changing perception of “nature” in German secondary education around 1900. Paedagogica Historica, 56(1-2), 85-100.
Gerster, Daniel
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Zwischen Volksmasse und christlicher Familie – Vergemeinschaftungsvorstellungen in der katholischen Internatserziehung im frühen 20. Jahrhundert. Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Religions- und Kulturgeschichte, 114(114).
Gerster, Daniel
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„Hinaus aus dieser Pestluft, diesem Höllenpfuhl!“ Großstadtleben und Internatserziehung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert - eine Spurensuche am Beispiel Hamburg, in: Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg (Hrsg.), Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg 2020, Hamburg 2021, 96-116.
Daniel Gerster
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Charakterbildung: Ein bürgerliches Konzept sozialer Distinktion und seine ambivalente Geschichte. Ein deutsch-britischer Vergleich, in: Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 62 (2022), 99-118.
Daniel Gerster
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Global Perspectives on Boarding Schools in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Palgrave Studies in the History of Childhood, 1-33. Springer International Publishing.
Gerster, Daniel & Jensz, Felicity
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Global Perspectives on Boarding Schools in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Palgrave Studies in the History of Childhood, 2022. Springer International Publishing.
Gerster, Daniel & Jensz, Felicity (Eds.)
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Korrespondenz - Ersatztagebuch - Entwicklungsbericht: Schülerbriefe als Quellen. Das Beispiel der Internatsschule Pforta im deutschen Kaiserreich, in: Daniel Gerster/Carola Groppe (Hg.), Schülerinnen- und Schülerleben im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert. Aufwachsen, Alltag und Freizeit von Schülerinnen und Schülern höherer Schulen im deutschen Sprachraum und ihre Erforschung, Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt 2023, 119-140.
Daniel Gerster
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Schülerinnen- und Schülerleben im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert. Aufwachsen, Alltag und Freizeit von Schülerinnen und Schülern höherer Schulen im deutschen Sprachraum und ihre Erforschung. History of Education, 1-3.
Ruoss, Thomas
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“Equipping a Child for Life’s Battles”? Sources and Methods in the History of Boarding Schools. History of Education, 53(1), 144-156.
Gerster, Daniel & Jensz, Felicity
