Metodo

International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Series | Book | Chapter

196970

Struggling with the historical attractiveness of psychology for educational research illustrated by the case of nazi Germany

Marc Depaepe

pp. 11-31

Abstract

On the basis of the existing literature (including my former work in the history of educational sciences), it is quite easy to formulate a number of hypotheses on the attractiveness of psychology for educational research. Generally speaking, one may assume that there has been during the twentieth century a growing interest for psychology in educational research. The takeover of "experimental pedagogy" by "educational psychology" in the United States as well as in the United Kingdom, even before the Second World War, may be very illustrative in this respect. In my essay, however, I want to warn for the simplicity of that kind of conclusions. For me, it remains essential that a historian of science tries to historicise his findings not only against the temporal and spatial backgrounds of the studied developments but also against the specific life stories of the individual researchers. It is hardly possible to understand the concrete relationship between psychology and educational research without such a contextualisation. This is further illustrated in the article by the case of educational psychology in Nazi Germany (mainly on the analysis of the Zeitschrift für Pädagogische Psychologie), in which Gerhard Pfahler (who was granted clemency after the war) played a key role. Such examples amply demonstrate that the search for processes in history always must be supplemented (and even corrected) by smaller-scale stories of everyday reality.

Publication details

Published in:

Smeyers Paul, Depaepe Marc (2013) Educational research: the attraction of psychology. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 11-31

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-5038-8_2

Full citation:

Depaepe Marc (2013) „Struggling with the historical attractiveness of psychology for educational research illustrated by the case of nazi Germany“, In: P. Smeyers & M. Depaepe (eds.), Educational research: the attraction of psychology, Dordrecht, Springer, 11–31.