Celebrating fifty volumes of the multilingual journal Paedagogica Historica, this book contains contributions written by different generations of historians of education, and demonstrates that in an era where the history of education at university level is at risk, both the journal and the discipline are thriving. The book answers questions about the journal's beginnings, explores the national and transnational development of the history of education as a discipline, and turns to the future to address the shaping of new trends which will have a significant impact on the field in coming years. This book was originally published as a special issue of Paedagogica Historica.

Introduction: Shaping the history of education? The first 50 years of Paedagogica Historica Part I: The journal and the discipline 1. Paedagogica Historica: trendsetter or follower? 2. The International Standing Conference for the History of Education and Paedagogica Historica: a historical view on institutional strategies and practices Part II: National and transnational developments 3. The mythology of schooling: the historiography of American and European education in comparative perspective 4. History of education in Canada: historiographic "turns" and widening horizons 5. Cinquante années de débats et de recherches sur l'école française 6. From internal unravelling to transnational assembling: histories of education in Mexico 7. History of education research in Australia: some current trends and possible directions for the future 8. Connected and entangled histories: writing histories of education in the Indian context 8. History of education in Brazil: the construction of a knowledge field Part III: Shaping new trends 10. From dictatorship to democracy: history of education in Spain 11. History of education and the struggle for intellectual liberation in post-Soviet Baltic space after the fall of the Berlin Wall 12. Nature, nurture and neuroscience: some future directions for historians of education 13. Towards a history of e-ducation? Exploring the possibilities of digital humanities for the history of education 14. Mapping the discipline history of education

Jeroen J.H. Dekker is Full Professor of History and Theory of Education, and Head of the Department of Education, at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. A former President of the International Association for the History of Education, he is co-Editor-in-Chief of Paedagogica Historica, corresponding member of the Editorial Board of History of Education, member of the Editorial Committee of Groningen Studies in Cultural Change, Member of the Editorial Board of Pedagogiek, Member of the Advisory Board of the Journal Historia y Memoria de la Educación, member of the Editorial Board of Pedagogiek, and member of the scientific committee of Annali di storia dell'Educazione e delle Istituzioni Educative. He is also a member of the Leuven Research Community on Philosophy and History of the Discipline of Education, uniting main centers of research in Philosophy and History of Education in Europe and the USA. His publications deal with the social and cultural history of education, childhood and parenting.

Frank Simon is Professor Emeritus at Ghent University, Belgium. His research deals with pre-school and primary education in Belgium (education policy, teacher unions, the teaching profession), educationalization processes, everyday educational practice, classroom and curriculum history, education and cultural heritage, and Progressive Education (especially the biography of Ovide Decroly). He is a member of the advisory board of Sarmiento: Anuario Galego de Historia da Educación, Revista Brasileira de História da Educação, Revista Historia Caribe, Cadernos de História da Educação, Revista Mexicana de Historia de la Educación, Historia y Memoria de la Educación, and Historia de la educación. Anuario. He was editor-in-chief of Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education from 1992-2007, a member of the editorial board of History of Education Quarterly from 2000-2002, and treasurer (2001-2006) and chairperson of the International Standing Conference for the History of Education (ISCHE), 2006-2009.