Tradition and innovation

transational transactios in the history of education

Abstract

This dossier proposes a transnational approach, highlighting border crossings that generate hybridization between educational knowledge and school practices. The polarity between tradition and innovation is central, being historically tensioned since the 18^th century, when the modern school began to reconcile cultural preservation with preparation for the future. In the 19^th century, evolutionism influenced educational theories and justified the graded school, while the New School movement criticized tradition and advocated for innovative methods. Throughout the 20^th century, historical events destabilized linear notions of time and progress, prompting conceptual revisions in both pedagogy and historiography. Tradition, associated with the preservation of knowledge, and innovation, linked to progress and creativity, became strategic categories to qualify educational practices and discourses. The articles in this dossier analyze various events and sources to investigate, from a transnational perspective, how tradition and innovation confronted and intertwined within educational discourses and practices.