Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Faculty of Humanities and Social Science - History of Education

(DFG project supervised by Marcelo Caruso)

Project Description

The research project reconstructs and analyzes the long history of implementing age-graded classes in compulsory schools as a transnational process of introducing an innovation. In this context, age-graded classes are defined as specific forms of groups in which formal bureaucratic criteria replaced older, more pedagogical practices of grouping school children according to their level of proficiency in different subjects and moral criteria. Although this notion had existed in Europe since the early modern period, it was only in the 19th century when the idea of organizing entire school systems on the basis of age-graded classes slowly became the leading criterion for grouping children in school and thus evolved into a key constituent of a ‘normal’ school career. These processes took place in a context when school reforms in general and modes of forming school classes in particular became topics of transnational observation, communication and imitation. In order to trace and examine these processes, the project focuses on the local and transnational dynamics of the implementation of age-graded classes.

With regard to transnational dynamics the project distinguishes between innovator, early adopter and late adopter – a concept originating from the sociology of innovation – to discuss the varying sequences and different paces of the implementation processes of age grading. Contexts that serve as a template for comparison include Prussia (innovator), the U.S.A. (early adopter) and Spain (late adopter). Regarding local dynamics the project examines a selection of urban school systems that differ regionally, demographically and in the structure of their school politics in an effort to shed light on the modes of implementation of this classroom organization model in the three countries.

The project conducts case studies and performs comparative analyses that explore the dimensions of local implementation and institutionalization as well as international observations and cross-border references which are central to this innovation. It seeks to integrate these dimensions into a larger transnational history of the emergence of age-graded classes as a specific characteristic of modern school structures.

  Project Financing

The project is funded by the German research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG).

Project Head

Prof. Dr. Marcelo Caruso

Project Team

research assistants: Fanny Isensee, Daniel Töpper

student assistant: Anna Lindner