Exhibiting the Past

Gradually the historians of education have broken out of the traditional school museums — which are no longer the sole places to communicate research findings with the wider public — and gone beyond the traditional publication formats. Indeed, they started exploring how to work with the [educational] past in the present, experimenting with presenting the educational past in new ways, and reflecting on how these new forms of mediation and musealisation of sources impacts the research and the (hi)stories told. By zooming in on three themes, musealisation, new ways of exhibiting, and historical storytelling —, this edited volume illustrates the vitality of the history of education, as field of study, and demonstrates its adaptability to the “changing contexts” of its public function. So, rather than being an “endangered species”, the historians of education seem to get fit for the future by showing traditional craftsmanship as well as “engagement with” and “appropriation of” (interdisciplinary) approaches of thinking with the past in the present for wider audiences — stances which are richly illustrated in the various contributions. With respect to public issues, history matters. With the worldwide interest for historical issues related with gender, religion, race, nation, and identity, public history is becoming the strongest branch of academic history. This volume brings together the contributions from historians of education about their engagement with public history, ranging from musealisation and alternative ways of exhibiting to new ways of storytelling.