Aim of the conference:

The research into the development of teacher education is especially important for the history of pedagogy and schooling. Throughout history, it is largely the pedagogical ideas future teachers have acquired during training that have actually been implemented in educational practice. The quality of teacher education has always been dependent on broader cultural and historical circumstances, academic and political trends, organizational and systemic solutions, and theoretical and pedagogical influences.

The geographical scope of the symposium includes countries of Central and Southeast Europe. While the term “Central Europe" is open to interpretation, it can be understood here as referring to the countries in which the Hapsburg or Austrian-Hungarian monarchy played a dominant role in the historical development of education, which is why we invited experts from those countries to participate in the research project. The term "Southeast Europe" is similarly not unambiguous, but we can most certainly include in it all those states that have emerged on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. This geographical and historical framework offers interesting possibilities for analyzing the common influence of the Habsburg or Austro-Hungarian monarchy, as teacher education in this area has largely developed under the strong influence of the legislation and pedagogical trends within it.

The time frame of the symposium includes the period from the middle of the 18th century, when the institutional forms of education began to take shape in Central Europe, until the 1980s when the most dramatic political and social changes took place in the former Eastern block countries.

The thematic framework of the symposium is focused on the development of the organizational forms of teacher education at all levels of schooling, where most attention is paid to the education of elementary school teachers. This development will be analyzed in terms of its dependence on the political, cultural, economic and social circumstances of individual countries. In addition, the development of teacher education must also be understood in the context of current theoretical pedagogical trends.

The purpose of the symposium is to consider the institutional development of teacher education in the countries of Central and Southeast Europe, in particular the following aspects:

• the political, cultural and economic background that affected the institutional forms of teacher education;
• the dominant pedagogical concepts of certain periods;
• the professional and academic debates and controversies accompanying reform efforts in this area;
• the role of private institutions in teacher education in these processes;
• the identifiable developmental trends of teacher education in some subjects;
• the strength of influence of the pedagogical traditions formed during the Hapsburg or Austro-Hungarian monarchy Empire on these processes.

Location:

• University of Maribor – Lecture Room in the North tower