Marcelo Caruso - Böcker

During the institutionalization of mass schooling in the 19th century, teaching large groups of children became both a necessity and a matter of regulation. For officials and inspectors the systematization of classroom interactions was important for effective results. However, while systematization could bring about the constant attention of children and their uninterrupted work, interactions themselves were difficult to control. Rationalized models of classroom organization provided alternatives for managing large groups before age grading became the dominant pattern of organizing interactions. The contributions in this volume explore diverse paths of transition towards modern classroom organization in different countries, allowing transnational perspectives and comparisons.

New polities emerged during the processes of decolonization. The break with the colonial past was not only political, but also more general. While conventional wisdom defines education as a field of action reproducing society in time, decolo-nization placed broader and more radical demands on the field: to produce a new society. For this purpose, new forms of education and schooling were required, although the importance of inherited institutions and practices in education were still significant. This collection of chapters offers scholarly insights into this problem by covering different processes of decolonization and the challenges of education in the last two hundred years.

Large scale assessment influences national and international educational policy debates and reforms. Assessment data is increasingly used as a government instrument. However, within the contemporary realm of the current global testing regime both the cultural and the historical conditions of assessment are often neglected. This volume is therefore devoted to the reconstruction of "assessment cultures" (interpretation patterns, discourses, instruments, practices) and their involved groups of actors. The contributions cover examples of Western European, Eurasian, East Asian, Latin, and North American as well as international settings and refer to epochs ranging from the early modern period up to the current context.

This present work brings to light the educational project developed by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) during the period of the armed liberation struggle against the Portuguese colonial regime in Guinea Bissau (1963-1974). The work goes further to explore the practices of education in the period after independence until 1978. It includes an extended analysis of reports and printed material produced by the PAIGC, and expands its sources to oral testimonies, exploring the individual and collective experiences on education under the colonial regime, that finally led the Party militants to develop their concept, practices and materials for the militant education project. An invaluable contribution to the history of education in Guinea Bissau in specific and African and World history of education in general, the present work leads the reader through the paths of education during e colonialism, and the challenges to the process of decolonize education during and after the armed conflict for independence and liberation.