Towards a New Understanding of the Child: Catholic Mobilisation and Modern Pedagogy in Spain, 1900–1936

2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
TILL KÖSSLER

AbstractDespite its importance, historical scholarship has largely ignored Catholic education as a historical force. This article argues that a closer look at Catholic education in Spain in the first decades of the twentieth century can widen our understanding of educational modernity and at the same time help us to grasp better the specificity and contradictions of religious political mobilisation in Europe. Catholic pedagogues and schools responded to the increasing politicisation of education, the changing demands of upper- and middle-class parents and challenges posed by the new psychological and pedagogical knowledge with fundamental changes in their educational practices. The article identifies the main developments in this contradictory shift, concluding that, first, it is highly misleading simply to identify the ‘new pedagogy’ of the early twentieth century with liberal democracy. This questions a sterile dichotomy of collectivism versus individualism in analysing social movements in the twentieth century. Second, the case study points to both the power and the inherent limits of Catholic mobilisation.

2019 ◽  
Vol 92 (258) ◽  
pp. 771-789 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liam Ryan

Abstract This article examines the life, thought and activism of the prominent Baptist minister John Gershom Greenhough. Existing scholarly and popular narratives generally focus on the key role played by Nonconformity in nurturing the labour movement in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Using Greenhough as a case study this article posits an alternative interpretation of this relationship, contending that the individualistic religious culture of Nonconformity was often deeply hostile to socialism. This hostility motivated Greenhough, and others like him, to abandon their historical allegiance to the Liberal party in the early twentieth century in favour of the Conservatives. More broadly, this article investigates the process of political and ideological conversion and challenges dominant historical readings that characterize anti-socialism as being synonymous with middle-class economic self-interest.


2015 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Retief Muller

The role of the Dutch Reformed Church’s mission policies in the development of apartheid ideology has in recent times come under increased scrutiny. In terms of the formulation of missionary theory within the DRC, the controversial figure of Johannes du Plessis played a significant role in the early twentieth century. In addition to his work as a mission theorist, Du Plessis was a biblical scholar at Stellenbosch University who was found guilty of heresy by his church body, despite having much support from the rank and file membership. This article asks questions regarding the ways in which his memory and legacy are often evaluated from the twin, yet opposing perspectives of sacralisation and vilification. It also considers the wider intellectual influences on Du Plessis such as the missiology of the German theologian, Gustav Warneck. Du Plessis’s missionary theory helped to lay the groundwork for the later development of apartheid ideology, but perhaps in spite of himself, he also introduced a subverting discourse into Dutch Reformed theology. Some of the incidental consequences of this discourse, particularly in relation to the emerging theme of indigenous knowledge, are furthermore assessed here.


Author(s):  
Nancy Stalker

Ikebana, the art of Japanese flower arranging, was first systematized in the fifteenth century, when it was limited to elite male practitioners. It was first widely practiced by women in the early twentieth century, but did not reach mass popularity until the 1950s and 1960s, with an estimated ten million students, over 99 percent of whom were female. While it was still considered by many to be a domestic skill for upper-middle-class housewives, it increasingly offered employment for postwar Japanese women as teachers and even as headmasters (iemoto) of their own schools, allowing women to engage in paid labor without violating traditional gender norms. This chapter traces the trajectory of job opportunities for women in ikebana, examining how educational reforms in the Meiji and postwar periods provided chances to study and obtain teaching licenses in ikebana and how the three largest schools—Ikenobo, Ohara, and Sogetsu—increasingly professionalized their corps of teachers.


Author(s):  
Robert Wuthnow

One of the more difficult aspects of middle-class respectability has been getting it right when it comes to displays of emotion—too little and a person seems stoical, indifferent, cold; too much and a person is likely to be accused of wearing their feelings on their sleeve, incapable of self-control, being dangerous, overzealous, a fanatic. Religion is a particularly interesting context in which to consider the display of emotion. This chapter examines how accusations of zealotry populated nineteenth- and early twentieth-century discussions of American religion. Zealotry was a contested idea that religious leaders, public officials, scholars, and the popular press discussed repeatedly. It was good, many commentators argued, for Americans to be zealous. But it was not good to be labeled a zealot. Zealots were led too much by their emotions. They were easily confused, frequently irrational, and sometimes dangerous.


Author(s):  
Thomas A. Hose

Many of the stakeholders involved in modern geotourism provision lack awareness of how the concept essentially ermeged, developed and was defined in Europe. Such stakeholders are unaware of how many of the modern approaches to landscape promotion and interpretation actually have nineteeth century antecedents. Similarly, many of the apparently modern threats to, and issues around, the protection of wild and fragile landscapes and geoconservation of specific geosites also first emerged in the ninetheeth century; the solutions that were developed to address those threats and issues were first applied in the early twentieth century and were subsequently much refined by the opening of the twenty-first century. However, the European engagement with wild and fragile landscapes as places to be appreciated and explored began much earlier than the nineteenth century and can be traced back to Renaissance times. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a summary consideration of this rather neglected aspect of geotourism, initially by considering its modern recognition and definitions and then by examining the English Lake District (with further examples from Britain and Australia available at the website) as a particular case study along with examples.


Author(s):  
Gregory Wood

This chapter explores early-twentieth-century employers' opposition to smoking in the workplace, focusing on a case study of smoking practices and shop floor disputes at the Hammermill Paper Company in Erie, Pennsylvania, during the long, hot summer of 1915. Uniquely detailed reports of working conditions and workers' behaviors in this large mass-production factory, written by a pair of curious labor spies, documented nicely the ongoing efforts of many workers to circumvent the company's prohibition of smoking. In response to the refusal of management to allow smoking, workers improvised an assortment of surreptitious strategies that would allow them to smoke at work and enjoy time away from their jobs. As the Hammermill case illustrates, the wide extent of worker subversion made the no-smoking rule a dead letter, much to the constant frustration of management and the spies themselves.


Author(s):  
Rebecca Onion

The Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the first children’s museum in the country, aimed its offerings at middle-class children who they saw as independent strivers. In discussing the types of science education available at their museum, the educators who ran the Brooklyn Children’s Museum showed how science education for boys in the early twentieth century was pitched at a higher level than the equivalent offerings for girls.


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