The reception of German progressive education in Russia: on regularities of international educational transfer

Abstract

This article reports a historical case study of extensive educational transfer: the reception, adaptation, and use of German progressive education and German school reform ideas and practices in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. The reception of German educational ideas greatly enriched the theory and practice of the Russian school reform, contributed to the dissemination of progressive education ideas among the educationally interested public (teachers and parents), and contributed significantly to the development of an official plan for a comprehensive progressive educational school reform in pre-socialist Russia. Based on the findings of this and similar case studies, some general conclusions concerning the regularities of educational transfer processes – their presuppositions and motives, their contents and forms, and their functions for the recipients – are drawn, ending with a proposal for the development of an action-theoretical model of educational transfer processes.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Irina Mchitarjan studied German, educational science, and psychology at the State University of Novgorod, Russia. In 1998, she acquired a Ph.D. degree in educational science at the University of Bielefeld, Germany; and in 2005, her Habilitation degree at the University of Greifswald, Germany. From 1998 to 2005, she was Lecturer at the Institute of Educational Science and the Institute of Psychology at the University of Greifswald. From 2006 to 2010, she held a Heisenberg Fellowship of the German Research Foundation (DFG). From 2007 to 2008, she was a stand-in Professor of Educational Science, especially Intercultural and Comparative Education, at the Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg. In 2013, she was awarded membership in the excellence network academia.net by the DFG. Currently she is a Lecturer at the Institute of Educational Science of the University of Greifswald, Germany. Her research interests are the theory of cultural transmission, international migration and its implications for education, international educational borrowing and lending, international progressive education, and analysis of historical and intercultural educational research from a philosophy of science perspective.

Notes

1. This reconstruction is mainly based on a content analysis of the three central Russian journals for (progressive) education at the beginning of the twentieth century, Russkaya shkola [Russian School], Svobodnoye vospitaniye [Free Education], and Vestnik vospitaniya [Educational Messenger]. Analysed were 18 years (216 issues) of Russkaya shkola, 12 years (144 issues) of Svobodnoye vospitaniye, and 10 years of Vestnik vospitaniya (1901, 1902, 1904, 1907, 1910–1915). In addition, I studied the Russian educational monographs on German progressive education that appeared during this time period, documents of the contemporary Russian societies for progressive education, and the reports of the most important educational congresses in pre-socialist Russia (see Mchitarjan 1998). As concerns the reconstruction of the socio-economic and political context of the reception process, I relied mainly on the secondary literature.

2. The educational debate at the beginning of the twentieth century about more effective ways of teaching, given the industrialisation and modernisation of society, has interesting parallels to the current debate about the most efficient organisation of the school system and the learning process instigated by international achievement comparison studies such as PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study). Then as now, the debates are influenced by international comparisons and experiences.

3. Standard works on educational historiography typically place the era of the international progressive education movement between 1900 and 1933 (e.g. Scheibe 1994; for a critique, see Oelkers 1996).

4. For example, in Sammlungen von Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiet der pädagogischen Psychologie und Physiologie [Collection of Papers from the Areas of Educational Psychology and Physiology], Pädagogisch-psychologische Studien [Educational-Psychological Studies], and Zeitschrift für Psychologie [Journal of Psychology].

5. Trudy pervogo Vserossiyskogo s’’ezda po semeynomu vospitaniyu (1913, 1914), Dnevnik pervogo Vserossiyskogo s’’yezda po semeynomu vospitaniyu (1913), Doklady, preniya i postanovleniya 2oy sektsii 1go Vserossiyskogo s’’ezda po voprosam narodnogo obrazovaniya (1915), Doklady, preniya i postanovleniya 1oy sektsii 1go Vserossiyskogo s’’ezda po voprosam narodnogo obrazovaniya (1916), and Zhurnal obshchikh zasedaniy s’’ezda. Stenograficheskaya zapis’. Pervyy Obshchezemskiy s’’ezd po narodnomu obrazovaniyu (1912).

6. See Ventsel’ (1906), Kruzhok sovmestnogo vospitaniya i obrazovaniya detey v Moskve (1907–1912) 1912, Otchet o deyatel'nosti pedagogicheskogo obshchestva, sostoyashchego pri imperatorskom Moskovskom Universitete za 1903–1904 g. 1904, Kaydanova (1911/1912), Fortunatova, Shleger, and Fortunatov (1913/1914), and SARAE f. 1, op. 1, yed. khr. 332.

7. Educational journeys to Germany were undertaken, among others, by Shatskiy, Zelenko, Obukhov, Stepanova, Speranskiy, Orshanskiy, Gartwig, Levitin und Repin (Mchitarjan 1998).

8. Levitin ‘Tezisy iz dokladov. ‘Organizatsiya trudovoy shkoly'' [Theses from talks. ‘The organization of the producation school’], in Dnevnik pervogo Vserossiyskogo s’’ezda po voprosam narodnogo obrazovaniya (1913, No. 6, 3; see also, Levitin 1914/1915).

9. Ignatiev, in Ignatiev, Odinetz, and Novgorotsev (1929, XXII).

10. Ignatiev's commission and the Council of the All-Russian Educational Association held their meetings during the same period (May to July 1915) and the sessions of the council were placed such that they did not overlap with those of the Ignatiev commission. At least one member of the commission, I. V. Titov, was also a participant in the discussions of the Council of the All-Russian Educational Association. The resolution of the council on the topic of the planned school reform was published in the journal Russkaya shkola, immediately below a reprint of Igatiev's reform plans, and under the common heading ‘Reform of the higher school' (“Reforma sredney shkoly” 1915, 78–85; R. G. 1915, 107–109).

11. Krupskaya (1972); Blonskij (1973); Pistrak, in Karsen (1928); Shatskiy (1918); Zolotarev, Golubev, and Shatskiy (1918); Rumyantsev (1918); Ventsel' (1923); SARAE f. 23, op. 1, yed. khr. 45; and Pinkevich (1925, 59, 1930, 239f).

12. The present account is also incomplete on the side of the dependent variables, that is, those aspects of educational transfer processes that need to be explained. For example, sometimes the source of an educational idea is hidden rather than emphasised (as in the case of the Russian reception) (e.g. Steiner-Khamsi 2004).

13. I thank Rainer Reisenzein for his helpful comments on a previous version of this manuscript.