Thinking education beyond borders - – Wilhelm Rein's Pedagogical Correspondence Legacy A transnational and comparative analysis of manifold historical pedagogical contacts and transnational pedagogical-reformative discourse

• Applicants: Dr. Katja Grundig de Vazquez; Professorin Dr. Sabine Reh
• Subject Area: General Education and History of Education
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 467183060

The proposed project is intended as a contribution to basic research within the framework of a transnational and comparative history of education. The goals are data processing and content analysis of the international educational correspondence of Wilhelm Rein (1847-1929) as well as the free availability and reusability of the research results and data. The source texts (letters to and from Rein) from the years 1869-1929 are transcribed into digital full texts in TEI/XML, indexed and evaluated in terms of content. A cleanly structured, citable, digital corpus is successively being created as a reusable basis for content evaluation. The source evaluation combines classical hermeneutic, qualitative and quantitative approaches with Digital Humanities methods. Research questions, indices and research results will be derived deductively as well as inductively. The basic aim is to gain insights into the reception and transfer of pedagogical theories, motives, and practices documented by the correspondence estate. A central research interest of the project is to make visible and analyze the positions, influence and work of actors who are underrepresented in the history of education due to factors of inequality. In particular, the involvement of such pedagogical actors in the reform and modernization of pedagogical structures, theories and practices will be investigated. In the context of the project, pedagogical reform is assumed to be a unifying and ambiguous motif that (a) has enabled or necessitated the inclusion of diverse actors in this contact structure and (b) has both facilitated and hindered professional understanding and the development of pedagogical discourses, structures, and practices across these boundaries. The main focus will therefore also be on whether pedagogical reform has demonstrably been a major motive of contemporary pedagogical exchange and in which thematic contexts pedagogical reform has been discussed. It will be investigated whether or which different connotations of pedagogical reform can be identified, whether or to what extent pedagogical reform as a common motif has fostered a professional exchange across borders, and whether or to what extent different connotations or uses of the motif pedagogical reform have led to disturbances in professional communication. In addition, bio-bibliographical data and insights into contact and network structures between the correspondents involved will be obtained.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants