History of education in Greece: achievements, shortfalls, and challenges

ABSTRACT

The article aims at discussing the History of Education in Greece as a field of knowledge. It focuses on achievements, shortfalls, and challenges that affected pathways and critical junctures in the historiography of Greek education. Until the mid-1970s, historiography of Greek education had been closely related to positivism and historicism. It provided a reasonably stable body of knowledge, advocating an idea of an educational mechanism operating autonomously from the social system, contradictions, and conflicts of the social groups. From the mid-1970s onwards, when History of Education was gradually consolidated as an academic discipline, it was oriented in the direction of social change, attempting to document historically the critical role of education in this regard. Over the last decade, despite a remarkable progress towards internationalisation of research work, History of Education in Greece seems to be at a critical juncture. It faces challenges in terms of teaching status in university and a renewal of research perspectives.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic discipline
• research methods
• History of Education
• historiography of Greek education
• teachers’ education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Alexis Dimaras, “Historiography of Education” [in Greek], Synchrona Themata 11, no. 35–37 (1988): 191–7; Alexis Dimaras, “Historiography of Modern Greek Education: Beginning and Legislation (1821–1967)” [in Greek] in Historiography of New and Modern Greece (1833–2002). Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on History, ed. Paschalis Kitromilidis and Triantafyllos Sklavenitis (Athens: Centre of Modern Greek Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2004), 475–93.

² Christina Koulouri, “Historiography of Modern Greek Education: Continuities and Ruptures (1967–2002)” [in Greek], in Historiography of New and Modern Greece (1833–2002). Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on History, ed. Paschalis Kitromilidis and Triantafyllos Sklavenitis (Athens: Centre of Modern Greek Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2004), 495–511; Apostolis Andreou, “Historiography of Modern Greek Education: A Periodisation” [in Greek], Theseis 45 (1993). http://www.theseis.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=431; Panagiotis Kimourtzis, “The History of Education through the History of Paideia” [in Greek], in Scientific Meeting in memory of K. Th. Dimaras, ed. Triantafyllos Sklavenitis (Athens: Neohellenic Research Centre, 1994), 111–19; Sifis Bouzakis, “Historiography of Greek Education: Creation, Development, Influences, Perspectives (1824–2006),” Educational Research and Review 4, no. 12 (2009): 596–601.

³ Katerina Dalakoura, Sofia Chatzistefanidou, and Antonis Chourdakis, Historiography of Greek Education: Reassessments and Prospects [in Greek] (Herakleion: School of Philosophy Publications, 2015).

⁴ Bouzakis, “Historiography of Greek Education,” 596–8.

⁵ Andreou, “Historiography of Modern Greek Education.”

⁶ The “Great Idea” (Megali Idea in Greek) had been a political programme for consolidation of the Greek-inhabited territories bordering the newly formed Greek kingdom. It emerged in the mid-nineteenth century as an irredentist ideology, claiming historical arguments reinforced by romanticism of that period. Τhe end of the “Great Idea” dates back to 1922, when the Greek troops suffered a defeat, leading to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis and population exchange between Turkey and Greece: Misha Glenny, The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, 1804–2012 (London: Granta, 2012), 45.

⁷ Kimourtzis, “The History of Education,” 113.

⁸ Koulouri, “Historiography of Modern Greek Education,” 498.

⁹ Christos Antoniou, Greek Teachers’ Training (1828–2000). Teachers’ Colleges, Academies and Departments [in Greek] (Athens: Patakis, 2012).

¹⁰ Theodore Zervas, “How Functional Are Greek Teaching Programs? Teacher Training and Job Placement in Greece’s Most Struggling Profession,” Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies 2, no. 4 (October 2016): 349–56, https://doi.org/10.30958/ajms.2-4-4.

¹¹ See, indicatively, the following: Mathaios Paranikas, Sketch of the Educational Situation in Greece from the Capture of Constantinople (1453) to the Beginning of the Present Century [in Greek] (Constantinople: A. Koromilas, 1867); Georges Chassiotis, L’instruction publique chez les Grecs: Depuis la prise de Constantinople par les Turcs jusqu’à nos jours. Avec statistique et quatre cartes figuratives pour l’année scolaire 1878–1879 (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1881).

¹² See, indicatively: George Venthylos, Legislation of Primary Education 1833–1883 [in Greek] (Athens: Vlastos, 1884); Christos Lefas, History of Education [in Greek] (Athens: Textbooks Publishing Organisation, 1942).

¹³ Bouzakis, “Historiography of Greek Education,” 597.

¹⁴ Stephanos Rossis, History of Pedagogy from Ancient Times to the Present [in Greek] (Athens: Vasileiou, 1924); Dimitrios Moraitis, History of Pedagogy [in Greek] (Athens: Typois, 1927).

¹⁵ This is a development compatible with the reorientation of Greek society after 1922. In this sense, it is legitimate to argue that after the collapse of the Great Idea, a group of scholars revitalised the historiography of Greek education with new topics and approaches.

¹⁶ Bouzakis, “Historiography of Greek Education,” 598.

¹⁷ The term is used correspondingly with Roy Lowe’s term of “the uncritical English tradition” in the history of education, see Richard Aldrich, “Education for Survival: An Historical Perspective,” History of Education 39, no. 1 (2010): 1–14, https://doi.org/10.1080/00467600802331895.

¹⁸ Eleni Koukou, Kapodistrias and Education (1827–1832), B, The Educational Institutes of Aegina [in Greek] (Athens, n.p., 1972).

¹⁹ Eleni Belia, Education in Laconia and Messinia over the Kapodistrean Period (1828–1832) [in Greek] (Athens: Papoulias, 1970).

²⁰ Charles Tuckerman, The Greeks of To-day (1872) (New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1872).

²¹ Alkis Angelou, Secret School: The Chronicle of a Myth [in Greek] (Athens: Hestia, 1997).

²² Konstantinos Chatzopoulos, Greek Schools in the Era of the Ottoman Rule (1453–1821) [in Greek] (Thessaloniki: Vanias, 1991).

²³ Gary McCulloch, “New Directions in the History of Education,” Journal of International and Comparative Education 5, no. 1 (2016): 48, https://doi.org/10.14425/jice.2016.5.1.47.

²⁴ Koulouri, “Historiography of Modern Greek Education,” 495.

²⁵ Faculties of Education were established by law decree in 1983. Their mission, as defined by the relevant institutional framework, is to combine teacher education and academic teaching and research in the field of Education Sciences. They offer courses for graduate, postgraduate, and PhD students.

²⁶ Alexis Dimaras, ed., The Reform that Never Was. History Sources 1895–1967 [in Greek] (Athens: Estia, 1974).

²⁷ Bouzakis, “Historiography of Greek Education,” 598.

²⁸ Anna Fragoudaki, Educational Reform and Liberal Intellectuals. Unfruitful Struggles and Ideological Impasses in the Years between 1920–1940 [in Greek] (Athens: Kedros, 1997).

²⁹ Konstantinos Tsoukalas, Dependence and Reproduction. The Social Role of the Educational Mechanisms in Greece: 1830–1922 [in Greek] (Athens: Themelio, 1977).

³⁰ Frank suggests that there is a global system, that it discerns between centre/metropolis and periphery/dependent countries, where metropolis countries exploit the economic surplus of dependent ones. Unlike the Modernisation School, which attributes education development to internal factors such as institutions, dominant culture, lack of investment, corporatism, and models of governance, Frank maintains that education in the dependent countries manifests itself as a technology of borrowing or imitation, which, essentially, perpetuates underdevelopment: Cristóbal Kay, “André Gunder Frank: From the ‘Development of Underdevelopment’ to the ‘World System,’” in The Journal Development and Change 36, no. 6 (November 2005): 1177–83, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0012-155X.2005.00455.x.

³¹ Stefanos Pesmazoglou, Education and Development in Greece 1948–1985: An Asymptotic Relationship [in Greek] (Athens: Themelio, 1987).

³² Sifis Bouzakis, Modern Greek Education (1821–1998). Dependent Development [in Greek] (Athens: Gutenberg, 1986), 132.

³³ Koulouri, “Historiography of Modern Greek Education,” 504.

³⁴ Charalambos Noutsos, Secondary Education Curricula and Social Control [in Greek] (Athens: Themelio, 1979).

³⁵ Anna Fragoudaki, The Textbooks of Elementary School. Ideological Coercion and Pedagogical Violence [in Greek] (Athens: Themelio, 1978).

³⁶ Nikos Terzis, The Pedagogy of Alexandros P. Delmouzos: A Systematic Examination of His Work and of Activities [in Greek] (Thessaloniki: Kyriakidis Brothers, 1981).

³⁷ Dimitris Charalambous, “Educational Policy and Educational Reform in Post-War Greece 1950–1974” [in Greek] (PhD diss., Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 1990).

³⁸ Decisive in this direction has been the contribution of Ziogou-Karastergiou, who set a framework for discussion on the history of women’s education in the 1980s: see Sidiroula Ziogou–Karastergiou, Girls’ Secondary Education in Greece (1830–1893) [in Greek] (Athens: Historical Archives of the Greek Youth, 1986).

³⁹ Iosif Solomon, Power and Order in the Modern Greek School. A Typology of School Places and Practices (1820–1900) [in Greek] (Athens: Alexandreia, 1992).

⁴⁰ Dimitris Foteinos, History of Secondary School Curricula 1950–1980: Between Ideological-Political Regulation and Pedagogical Reform [in Greek] (Athens: Gutenberg, 2013).

⁴¹ Achilleas Kapsalis and Dimitris Charalambous, School Textbooks: Institutional Development and Contemporary Problems [in Greek] (Athens: Metaihmio, 2008).

⁴³ Indicatively, we mention Dimitra Makrinioti, Childhood in Elementary School Textbooks 1834–1919 [in Greek] (Athens: Dodoni, 1986); Ioannis Betsas, Sofia Avgitidou, and Anastasia Tsiompanou, “Representations of Childhood in Greek Language School Textbooks: From Rural to Urban Childhood,” Paedagogica Historica 57, no. 6 (2021): 675–94, https://doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2020.1762678; Panoraia Lemoni, “The Role of Images in Primary School Textbooks” [in Greek] (PhD diss., University of Ioannina, 2011).

⁴⁴ Giorgos Kokkinos and Panagiotis Gatsotis, “World History in Greek school History: The Power of Inertia from the 19th Century to the Present Day” [in Greek], Themata Istorias tis Ekpaidefsis, no. 6–7 (Spring–Autumn 2007): 5–78; Charis Athanasiadis, Withdrawn Books: Nation and Taught History in Greece, 1858–2008 [in Greek] (Athens: Alexandreia, 2015).

⁴⁵ See indicatively, Theodore G. Zervas, The Making of a Modern Greek Identity: Education, Nationalism, and the Teaching of a Greek National Past (Boulder, CO: Columbia University Press, 2012); Peter Mackridge, Language and National Identity in Greece, 1766–1976 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Anna Fragoudaki and Thalia Dragona, “What is Our Fatherland?” Ethnocentrism in Education [in Greek] (Athens: Alexandreia, 1997).

⁴⁶ Koulouri, “Historiography of Modern Greek Education,” 505.

⁴⁷ Roy Lowe, “Education and National Identity,” History of Education 28, no. 3 (1999): 231, https://doi.org/10.1080/004676099284591.

⁴⁸ Tuckerman, “The Greeks of To-day (1872),” 175–6; Neoklis Kazazis, “Greece and Hellenism: The Children of the Greeks” [in Greek], Hellenism 8 (April 1905), 168–9; Spyridon Lampros, Speeches and Articles 1878–1902 [in Greek] (Athens: Sakellariou, 1902), 58–9.

⁴⁹ Christos Patrinellis, “The Secret School Once Again,” Eranistis 25 (2005): 321–36; Angelou, Secret School.

⁵⁰ Efi Gazi, “Scientific” National History: The Greek Case in Comparative Perspective (1850–1920) European University Series (Berlin: Peter Lang Verlag, 2000), 103–8.

⁵¹ Alkis Angelou, “Education in the Greek enslaved countries” [in Greek], History of the Greek Nation, vol. 10, ed. Ioannis Theodorakopoulos et al. (Athens: Athens Publishing, 1974), 366–7.

⁵² Makrinioti, Childhood in Elementary School Textbooks, 21–48.

⁵³ Paschalis Kitromilides, “Imagined Communities and the Origins of the National Question in the Balkans,” European History Quarterly 19 (1989): 149–94.

⁵⁴ Christina Koulouri, History and Geography at Greek schools, 1834–1914 [in Greek] (Athens: Historical Archive of Greek Youth, 1988).

⁵⁵ Mackridge, Language and National Identity in Greece; Theodore Zervas, Formal and Informal Education during the Rise of Greek Nationalism (Chicago: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

⁵⁶ Andreas Andreou, Sofia Iliadou, and Ioannis Betsas, Frederica’s Children or Marshall Plan’s Kids? Students of the Royal Educational Institutions in Post-War Greece (n.p.: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2012).

⁵⁷ Dimitris Foteinos, “Images of the Body: The Greek Physical Education Curriculum since the Second World War,” History of Education 41, no. 6 (2012): 807–22, https://doi.org/10.1080/0046760X.2012.749753; Vassiliki Theodorou and Despina Karakatsani, Strengthening Young Bodies, Building the Nation, A Social History of Children’s Health and Welfare in Greece (1890–1940) (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2019).

⁵⁸ Peter Burke, History and Social Theory (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), 19.

⁵⁹ Six out of the nine University departments of Elementary Education hold teaching positions with a specialisation in the field of History of Education. In Preschool Education departments, this ratio is 5:9. On the other hand, all four departments of Philosophy and Pedagogy, which educate prospective teachers of secondary education, are staffed with Professors of a speciality related to the History of Education.

⁶⁰ McCulloch, “New Directions,” 50.

⁶¹ In the case of Greece, where the University faced the consequences of a deep economic crisis from 2010s onwards, inadequate staff reproduction led to renegotiating subject areas offered to prospective teachers. In some cases, History of Education was included in other courses related to the foundations of education. At the same period, humanities and educational studies seem to lack career prospects. Research interest on the topic brings considerable information about a globally widespread transformation of methods and techniques of teaching towards “edutainment and student consumerism”: Nele Reyniers, Pieter Verstraete, Sarah Van Ruyskensvelde, and Geert Kelchtermans, “Let Us Entertain You: An Exploratory Study on the Beliefs and Practices of Teaching History of Education in the Twenty-First Century,” Paedagogica Historica 54, no. 6 (2018): 837–45, DOI: 10.1080/00309230.2018.1515234.

⁶² Marc Depaepe, “Why Even Today Educational Historiography Is Not an Unnecessary Luxury: Focusing on Four Themes from Forty-Four Years of Research,” Espacio, Tiempo y Educación 7, no. 1 (2020): 227–46, https://doi.org/10.14516/ete.335.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Panagiotis Kimourtzis

Panagiotis Kimourtzis is Full Professor of History of Education and Educational Policy (University of the Aegean, Greece). He has been invited as Maître de conferences at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales-Paris and as Honorary Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Education-University College London (UCL). He is now President of the Greek Society of Education Historians. He directed the Historical Archives of University of Athens (1990–2003). He now leads the Historical Archive of the University of the Aegean and the Cine-Science Seminar. He has been honoured by the French Ministry of Education with the distinction “Chevalier dans l’ Ordre des Palmes Académiques”. Research interests: Economics of Education in Greece: nineteenth and twentieth century; The Greek “Homo Academicus”; Symbolic Power during the constitution of the Greek State (1830–1862): Ceremonies, Discourses, Symbols, and other rituals.

Ioannis Betsas

Ioannis Betsas is an Assistant Professor in History of Education at the Department of Primary Education of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His research interests focus on History of Education, Elite Education, Educational Change, and Education Policy. He has participated as a researcher in various research projects in Greece and the European Union, in scientific conferences as a speaker and member of organising and scientific committees. He is a member of Scientific Unions focusing on History of Education and Education Policy. He has written three books, published scientific essays in Greek and English, papers in Greek, and international conference proceedings.