András Németh: The Emergence of Education as an Established Discipline

The findings of international research on the development of educational studies as a university discipline show that German educational science, which had the strongest influence on the development of this discipline in Hungary, became established as a science in the modern sense of the word somewhat belatedly, at the beginning of the 20th century. The present study considers this specific trend of development, too, as it examines the main stages in the institutionalisation of pedagogy as an independent academic discipline at the arts faculty of the oldest university of Hungary, in Budapest, from the establishment of its department of pedagogy in 1814 to the middle of the 20th century. The process is analysed by the following criteria: (a) the foundation of an independent department of pedagogy and the appearance of academic faculty, including their number and qualification; (b) the main paradigms of scientific contents taught as university subjects and their changes; (c) the development of specific research methodology and published forms of scientific communication (monographs, handbooks, periodicals and textbooks); (d) the appearance and development of independent publishing institutions of professional communication; (e) changes in the number of higher academic degree holders in pedagogy and the recruitment of experts from the profession. The analysis revealed that the process of establishing educational science at the University of Budapest as an integral part of the system of academic disciplines had been completed by the 1930s as a result of the progress of the paradigm of Geisteswissenschaft; and that it resulted in the remarkable growth of the institutional framework and influence of pedagogy.

MAGYAR PEDAGÓGIA 101. Number 2. 213-238. (2001)

Address for correspondence: Németh András, Eötvös Loránd Tudomány¬egye¬tem, Tanár¬kép¬ző Főiskolai Kar, H–1075 Budapest, Kazinczy u. 23–27.

 
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