Go West!

Conceptual Explorations of “the West” in the History of Education

Bernhard Hemetsberger, Andreas Oberdorf

• Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
• Year: 2025
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9783111410197
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

The "West" is a central concept in public discourse, but its meaning is often unclear and open to manifold interpretations and ascriptions of belonging and exclusion: Who is part of the "West"? When and where is it located? How did its meaning change over space and time? Who are the mediators of the "West" and what is their interest in terms of culture and education? The "West" is often used without any critical questioning, though. This is also reflected in history of education research, especially with focus on transnational or transatlantic issues. Here, the "West" is a sort of "container" term or "fuzzy" concept that can refer to a variety of historical entanglements and cultural transfers in school systems and education, but also to conflicts and crises, accordingly. This book aims to stimulate a critical reflection and debate on ideas of the "West" in the history of education by gathering scholars from various fields of historical research. With a reflexive historical distance to current political incidents, in which ideas of the "West" are revived, the contributions in this book are intended to enable readers to evaluate representations of the "West" in current academic or public discourses and debates alike.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Searching for “the West” in the History of Education
• Between Evolutionary and Container Concept: Western Self-Assertions, German Westernizers, and the Spatialization of Political Thought
• The Best in the West? The “West” in and as School Crisis Narratives
• Reaching Modernity through Western Education? Debates and Practices in Modern Japan, 1853 – 1894
• “The West” from a Postcolonial Perspective of History of Education: The Construct “Europe” as a Conceptual Boarder
• French Discourses on the “West,” “Modernity,” and “Civilization”: The Example of francophonie républicaine
• Discursive Strategies of the Soviet Union in Legitimating the Western “Borrowing”: The (Re)Invention of the West and the Case of Programmed Instruction
• Americanization “Russian Style”: Russia’s Love–Hate Relations with America
• Letztes Jahr Titanic (1990) and Große weite Welt (1997) Documentary (Re‐)Presentations of the Transformation Process in and of the GDR
• In Pursuit of the Frontier: Changes at an American School in Switzerland
• Re-Thinking “Europe” with Central-Eastern Europe: Towards Non-Occidentalist and Decolonial Epistemics in/of Queer Studies
• Antagonists, Arbiters, and Allies: West German Historians and their American Colleagues
• List of Contributors
• Index