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Resources

The IBE Documentation Center is a hub for research and learning. Its special collections are available to all researchers, regardless of academic affiliation. Read about their work in action, as well as opportunities for further research.

FEATURED RESEARCH

  • Rita Hofstetter
    Professor, University of Geneva; Co-director, ERHISE (Research Team on Social History of Education)

    Based on the rich archives of the IBE, ERHISE (Research Team on Social History of Education) is carrying out large-scale collective research, subsidized by the SNSF, on how educational internationalism was operationalized from the IBE. Our research analyzes the configurations of educational internationalism at the time of its first institutionalization on a global scale. We examine the “causes” invested by its actors and map the networks that contributed to the construction of the IBE. We argue that the genesis of the institutionalization of international education unfolded during the interwar period. The IBE, filling a gap in the League of Nations’ competencies, constitutes an emblematic example of this evolution. Founded in 1925 on the initiative of the Rousseau Institute (Geneva) to promote peace through science and education, and also to federate all other international agencies involved in the process, the IBE became, in 1929, the first permanent intergovernmental organization in education. After 1946, BIE and UNESCO cooperated. Since 1969, IBE became an integral part of UNESCO. Based on the conceptual and methodological tools of the transnational turn, using diverse scales of observation in time and space, articulating different levels of analysis (local-global), our research analyze, from a Geneva institution dedicated to an international vocation, some key aspects of the configurations of educational internationalism. We try to enrich knowledge on phenomena such as the process of globalization, the actors involved in this process, the causes they invest and the procedures they resort to, considering them from the specific field of education policies and their configurations.

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  • Joyce Goodman
    Professor of History of Education, University of Winchester

    My research in the IBE archives concerns the contribution to comparative education by women employed at the IBE during the interwar period and their links with women educators internationally and with international women’s organizations pursuing equality and peace. I have used the IBE’s personnel files, together with the IBE correspondence files, to build up a picture of the women’s background, their activities and the international educational, peace and women’s networks in which they engaged on behalf of the IBE and in a more personal capacity. Reports in the IBE Bulletin have enabled me to trace the origins and organizational trajectories of publications in which women were involved, and to piece together the women’s involvement as the IBE negotiated its position on the terrain of education alongside other international organizations in Geneva and beyond as the latter became increasingly interested in education.

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  • Lukas Schemper
    SNSF Postdoctoral Researcher, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

    I am investigating the IBE’s humanitarian activities during the Second World War as an example of how an international organization can quickly adapt to a changing international environment. Although not in its initial mandate, in 1939, IBE created an intellectual aid service for prisoners of war, who wanted to pursue studies, training or receive other forms of education through the receipt of handbooks, long-distance courses or “camp universities”. My research also explores the IBE’s collaboration with other humanitarian actors such as national aid agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). The IBE’s archives hold five boxes containing correspondence, statistics and background information on its activities during the war and shed light on an early example of how education matters in humanitarian settings.

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  • Richard Kohler
    Docent, University of Education Zurich; Adjunct Lecturer, Pädagogische Hochschule Thurgau

    The IBE was an important source for my research on the biography of Jean Piaget (Jean Piaget, London: Continuum, 2008; Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), as well as for my dissertation (Piaget und die Pädagogik, Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt, 2009). As the director of the IBE from 1929 to 1968, Piaget left countless reports, letters, articles, course materials and drafts. These provide an insight into the goals, strategies, and working methods that Piaget pursued with his commitment for educational improvements. They also illustrate the cooperation and networks that Piaget built up in order to influence the ministries of education in line with the “new education”. The evaluations and research work that Piaget initiated or commissioned at the IBE also served this purpose. Since not all sources were accessible at the time of my research, the archives of the IBE should still contain a lot of exciting material waiting to be discovered.

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  • Jaci Eisenberg
    PhD in International History, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

    I consulted the IBE archives while researching my doctoral thesis on the contributions of American women – “double outsiders” – to interwar international Geneva, that is, the League of Nations universe. One of my case studies focused on educational issues in and around the League, and the IBE archives proved invaluable to this end for its holdings on Fannie Fern Philips Andrews (1867-1950). Andrews was a fervent advocate for promoting peace through education. Correspondence retained in the IBE archives demonstrated that she possessed invaluable contacts with US government officials and philanthropic entities that officials at the IBE believed they could leverage to mutual benefit. The IBE archives also provided rich materials about how Andrews’ endeavors related to other international educational efforts of the era.

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Research support

The IBE provides researchers with opportunities to exchange knowledge and promote their work, while also striving to make additional resources available to everyone.

Bibliographic research help

Explore a list of broad topics and related bibliographies connecting with the collections that the IBE curates. Many publications in this ever-growing list are based on research of the IBE collections.

The International Bureau of Education
  • Avanzini, G., Darcy de Oliviera, R., Egger, E., Roller, S., Stick, R., & Suchodolski, B. (Eds.) (1979). The International Bureau of Education in the service of educational development. Paris: UNESCO.
  • Bajomi, I. (2020). Les relations d’un État autoritaire, la Hongrie, avec l’Institut Rousseau et le Bureau international d’éducation (1922-1943). Relations Internationales, 183(4).
  • Boss, C. (in progress). Le Bureau international d’éducation (BIE), un centre de documentation mondiale sur l’éducation: Analyse du processus de construction (1925-1952). PhD thesis. Geneva: Université de Genève.
  • Boss, C. & Brylinski, É. (2020). Le Service d’aide intellectuelle aux prisonniers de guerre du Bureau international d’éducation (1939-1945). In J. Droux & R. Hofstetter (Eds.), Internationalismes éducatifs entre débats et combats (fin du 19e – premier 20e siècle) (pp. 243-276). Bruxelles: Peter Lang.
  • Brylinski, É. (2021, forthcoming). Formuler les recommandations internationales de l’instruction publique: Un mode opératoire manipulé, et manipulateur? In M. Vergnon, R, d’Enfert & F. Mole (Eds.), Circulations en éducation: Passages, transferts, trajectoires (19e-20e siècle). Grenoble: Presses universitaires de Grenoble.
  • Brylinski, É. (in progress). Sociogenèse d’une coopération intergouvernementale en éducation: Production d’une charte universelle de l’éducation pour asseoir la paix (1929-1958). PhD thesis. Geneva: Université de Genève.
  • Butts, M. (1944). The International Bureau of Education. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 235, 10-16.
  • Dottrens, R. (1959). A Pedro Rosselló. Revue Internationale de l’Éducation, 5(3), 265-269.
  • Ducret, J.-J. (1990). Jean Piaget: Biographie et parcours intellectuel. Neuchâtel: Delachaux et Niestlé.
  • Hameline, D. (1993a). Adolphe Ferrière. Prospects, 23(1), 373-401.
  • Hameline, D. (1993b). Édouard Claparède. Prospects, 23(1), 159-71.
  • Hameline, D. (2005). Relater sa pratique ? Les tentations d’Adolphe Ferrière (1879-1960): Entre compte rendu d’évaluation et libellé de propagande. Revue française de pédagogie, 153(1), 67-80.
  • Hofstetter, R. (2015). Building an “international code for public education”: Behind the scenes at the International Bureau of Education (1925-1946). Prospects, 45(1), 31-48.
  • Hofstetter, R. (2017). Matrizes do internacionalismo educativo e sua primeira institucionalização em uma escala global: O exemplo do Bureau Internacional de Educação no Entreguerras. In J. Gondra (Ed.), Histõria da Educação, Matrizes interpretativas e internacionalização (pp. 47-98). Brasil: EDUFES.
  • Hofstetter, R., & Érhise (2021, forthcoming). Le Bureau international d’éducation, matrice de l’internationalisme éducatif. Pour une « charte des aspirations mondiales de l’éducation » (premier 20e siècle). Bruxelles: Peter Lang.
  • Hofstetter, R., & Mole, F. (2018). La neutralité revendiquée du Bureau international d’éducation. Vers une éducation nouvelle généralisée par la science piagétienne (1921-1934). In X. Riondet, R. Hofstetter & H.-L. Go (Eds.), Les acteurs de l’éducation nouvelle au XXe siècle. Itinéraires et connexions (pp. 195-223). Grenoble: Presses universitaires de Grenoble.
  • Hofstetter, R., & Schneuwly, B. (2013). The International Bureau of Education (1925-1968): A platform for designing a ‘chart of world aspirations for education’. European Educational Research Journal, 12(2), 215-230.
  • Hofstetter, R., & Schneuwly, B. (2020). Orchestrer l’internationalisme éducatif depuis le Bureau international d’éducation. Conquêtes, confrontations, compromis (1927-1934). In J. Droux & R. Hofstetter (Eds.) Internationalismes éducatifs entre débats et combats (fin du 19e – premier 20e siècle) (pp. 63-94). Bern: Peter Lang.
  • Hofstetter, R., & Schneuwly, B. (2020a). The International Bureau of Education: A precursor of the UNESCO and the factory of its pedagogical guidelines? (1934-1968). Encounters in Theory and History of Education, 21, 24-51.
  • Hofstetter, R., & Schneuwly, B. (2021). L’objectivité et la neutralité comme ressorts de l’internationalisme éducatif ? Le Bureau international d’éducation. (1925-1968). Relations Internationales, 183(4).
  • Hofstetter, R., & Schneuwly, B. (2021a). Piaget, diplomata do internacionalismo educacional. Do Bureau Internacional de Educação à Unesco (1929-1968). In R. Freitas (Éd.), Circulação e internacionalização de saberes e práticas científicas em Psicologia, Ciências Humanas e Educação – questões históricas e contemporâneas. Belo Horizonte: Centro de documentação e pesquisa Helena Antipoff (CDPHA).
  • Hofstetter, R., & Schneuwly, B. (coll. Boss, C.) (2020). L’Institut Rousseau et son Bureau international de l’éducation: Cœur pédagogique de l’univers civilisé, où le sang afflue et reflue sans cesse. In R. Hofstetter, J. Droux & M. Christian (Eds.), Construire la paix par l’éducation: Réseaux et mouvements internationaux au XXe siècle. Genève au cœur d’une utopie (pp. 177-210). Neuchâtel: Alphil.
  • Kohler, R. (2009). Piaget und die Pädagogik: Eine historiographische analyse. Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt.
  • Kohler, R. (2014). Jean Piaget. London: Bloomsbury.
  • Loureiro, C. M. B. (in progress). La coopération pédagogique promue par le Bureau international d’éducation (BIE): Les interconnexions avec l’Amérique latine (1925-1952). PhD thesis. Geneva: Université de Genève.
  • Müller, U., Carpendale, J. I. M., & Smith, L. (2009). The Cambridge companion to Piaget. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Munari, A. (1994). Jean Piaget. Prospects, 24(1), 311-27.
  • Perret-Clermont, A. N., & Barrelet, J.-M. (Eds.) (2008). Jean Piaget and Neuchâtel: The learner and the scholar. New York, NY: Psychology Press.
  • Robert, A. D. (2021, forthcoming). Le Bureau international d’éducation et l’Éducation nationale française. Échanges, circulations d’idées et de pratiques (1950-1970).
  • Rosselló, P. (1943). Les précurseurs du Bureau International d’éducation: Quelques pages de l’histoire de l’éducation. Geneva: Bureau International d’Éducation.
  • Rosselló, P. (1944). Forerunners of the International Bureau of Education, a hitherto unrecorded aspect of the history of education and of international institutions (M. Butts Trans). London: Pub. under the auspices of the Year Book of education, in association with the University of London Institute of Education, by Evans Brothers Ltd.
  • Ruchat, M. (2002). Figures de l’arriéré scolaire et caricatures d’Edouard Claparède : Genève, 1908. Revue d’histoire de l’enfance « irrégulière », 4, 113-126.
  • UNESCO IBE (2015). In Focus: 90 years of excellence in education. Geneva: UNESCO-IBE.
  • UNESCO IBE (2017). A visual history of the IBE/ Une histoire visuelle du BIE. Geneva: UNESCO-IBE.
  • Vidal, F. (1994). Piaget before Piaget. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Xypas, C. (1997). Piaget et l’éducation. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Internationalization and international governance of education
  • Droux, J., & Hofstetter, R. (2015). Constructing worlds of education: A historical perspective. Prospects, 45(1), 5-14.
  • Fuchs, E. (2007). The creation of new international networks in education: The League of Nations and educational organizations in the 1920s. Paedagogica Historica, 43(2), 199-209.
  • Fuchs, E. (2007). Children’s rights and global civil society. Comparative Education, 43(3), 393-412.
  • Hofstetter, R. (2010). Genève: Creuset des sciences de l’éducation: fin du XIXe siècle – première moitié du XXe siècle. Geneva: Droz.
  • Hofstetter, R., J. Droux, & M. Christian (2020). Construire la paix par l’éducation: Réseaux et mouvements internationaux au XXe siècle : Genève au coeur d’une utopie. Geneva: Éditions Alphil – Presses universitaires suisses.
  • Jones, P. W. (2007). Editorial: Global governance, social policy and multilateral education. Comparative Education, 43(3), 321-23.
  • Jones, P. W. (2018). International policies for Third World education: UNESCO, literacy and development. London: Routledge.
  • Kulnazarova, A., & Ydesen, C. (Eds.) (2017). UNESCO without borders: Educational campaigns for international understanding. London: Routledge.
  • Maurel, C. (2010) Histoire de l’UNESCO: Les trente premières années, 1945-1974. Paris: L’Harmattan.
  • McCowan, T., & Unterhalter, E. (2015). Education and international development: An introduction. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
  • Moody, Z. (2016). Les droits de l’enfant: Genèse, institutionnalisation et diffusion (1924-1989). Neuchâtel: Éditions Alphil – Presses universitaires suisses.
History of education
  • Droux, J., & Hofstetter, R. (2020). Protection and education of children and young people. In O. Hidalgo-Weber & B. Lescaze (Eds.), 100 years of multilateralism in Geneva, from the LoN to the UN (pp. 299-313). Geneva: Suzanne Hurter.
  • Fitzgerald, T. (Ed.) (2020). Handbook of historical studies in education: Debates, tensions, and directions. Singapore: Springer.
  • Haenggeli-Jenni, B. (2017). L’éducation nouvelle entre science et militance: Débats et combats à travers la revue pour l’ère nouvelle (1920-1940). Bern: Peter Lang.
  • Hofstetter, R., & Schneuwly, B. (Eds.) (2002). Science(s) de l’éducation, 19e-20e siècles. Entre champs professionnels et champs disciplinaires / Erziehungswissenschaft(en), 19.-20. Jahrhundert. Zwischen Profession und Disziplin. Bern: Peter Lang.
  • Hofstetter, R., & Mole, F. (2019). Disparités et dispersions constitutives de la mouvance de l’Éducation nouvelle. Revue des sciences de l’éducation, 41(2), 263-77.
  • Magnin, C. (2001). La Maison Des Petits et l’Institut Rousseau. In C. Renevey Fry (Ed.) Pâtamodlé. L’éducation des plus petits 1815-1980 (pp. 134-41). Geneva: Service de la recherche en éducation/Musée d’ethnographie.
  • Magnin, C., & Hofstetter, R. (2006). Éducation Nouvelle et changements éducatifs: Éléments de définition et pesées d’une influence. Paedagogica Historica, 42(1-2), 1-14. (and other contributions to this special issue “New Education: Genesis and metamorphose”).
  • Martin, J., & Goodman, J. (2011). Women and education: Major themes on education. London: Routledge.
  • Muller, C. A., & Lussi, V. (2001). Émergence des sciences de l’éducation: La question de l’anormalité scolaire. Genève 1897-1937. Carnets de Bord, 212-222.
  • Muller, C. A., Day, C., & Van Veen, D. (2001). Aspect of the disciplinary constitution of sciences of education: The “prototype” of the Institute Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Geneva (1912-1933). In C. Day & D. Van Veen (Ed.), Educational Research in Europe Yearbook 2001 (pp. 93-107). Leuven-Apeldoorn: EERA.
  • Ratcliff, M. J., & Ruchat, M. (Eds.) (2006). Les laboratoires de l’esprit: Une histoire de la psychologie à Genève, 1892 – 1965. Collection Institut J.-J. Rousseau. Le Mont-sur-Lausanne: Ed. Loisirs et pédagogie.
  • Rury, J. L., & Tamura, E. (Eds.) (2019). The Oxford handbook of the history of education. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Schneuwly, B. (2007). Emergence des sciences de l’éducation en Suisse à la croisée de traditions académiques contrastées: Fin du 19e-première moitié du 20e siècle. Bern: Peter Lang.
Historical textbook research and textbook studies
  • Altbach, P. G., & Kelly, G. P. (Eds.) (1988). Textbooks in the Third World: Policy, content, and context. New York, NY: Garland Pub.
  • Apple, M., & Christian-Smith, L. (Eds.) (2017). The politics of the textbook. New York, NY: Routledge.
  • Brugeilles, C., & Cromer, S. (2008). Comment promouvoir l’égalité entre les sexes par les manuels scolaires ? Paris: UNESCO, 2008.
  • Bryan, A. (2012) “You’ve got to teach people that racism is wrong and then they won’t be racist”: Curricular representations and young people’s understandings of race and racism. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 44(5), 599-629.
  • Carrier, P., Fuchs, E., & Messinger, T. (Eds.) (2015). The international status of education about the Holocaust: A global mapping of textbooks and curricula. Paris: UNESCO.
  • Choppin, A. (1980). L’histoire des manuels scolaires. Une approche globale. Histoire de l’éducation 9(1), 1-25.
  • Choppin, A. (1992). Les manuels scolaires: Histoire et actualité. Paris: Hachette.
  • Choppin, A. (2002). L’histoire du livre et de l’édition scolaires: Vers un état des lieux. Paedagogica Historica, 38(1), 20-49.
  • Choppin, A. (2008). Le manuel scolaire, une fausse évidence historique. Histoire de l’éducation, 117, 7-56.
  • Dijk, T. A. van, & Atienza, E. (2011). Knowledge and discourse in secondary school social science textbooks. Discourse Studies, 13(1), 93-118.
  • Faure, R. (2015). Netzwerke der Kulturdiplomatie: Die Internationale Schulbuchrevision in Europa 1945-1989. Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
  • Firer, R., Abd al-Razzāq Adwān, S., & Pingel, F. (2004). The Israeli-Palestinian conflict in history and civics textbooks of both nations. Hannover: Verlag Hahnsche Buchhandlung.
  • Fitzgerald, F. (1979). America revised: History schoolbooks in the twentieth century. Boston: Little Brown & Co.
  • Foster, S. (2011). Dominant traditions in international textbook research and revision. Education Inquiry, 2(1): 5-20.
  • Fuchs, E. (2011). Current trends in history and social studies textbook research. Journal of International Cooperation in Education 14(2), 17-34.
  • Fuchs, E., Niehaus, I., & Stoletzki, A. (2014). Das Schulbuch in der Forschung: Analysen und Empfehlungen für die Bildungspraxis. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
  • Fuchs, E., & Bock, A. (Eds.) (2018). The Palgrave handbook of textbook studies. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Furrer, M (2004). Die Nation im Schulbuch, Zwischen Überhöhung und Verdrängung: Leitbilder der Schweizer Nationalgeschichte in Schweizer Geschichtslehrmitteln der Nachkriegszeit und Gegenwart. Hannover: Verlag Hahnsche Buchhandlung.
  • Giordano, G. (2003). Twentieth-century textbook wars: A history of advocacy and opposition. New York, NY: Peter Lang.
  • Haggarty, L., & Pepin, B. (2002). An investigation of mathematics textbooks and their use in English, French and German classrooms: Who gets an opportunity to learn what?, British Educational Research Journal, 28(4), 567-90.
  • Johnsen, E. B., & Sivesind, L. (1993) Textbooks in the kaleidoscope: A critical survey of literature and research on educational texts. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press .
  • Moreau, J. (2003) Schoolbook nation: Conflicts over American history textbooks from the Civil War to the present. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
  • Pingel, F. (2010). UNESCO guidebook on textbook research and textbook. Paris: UNESCO.
  • Repoussi, M., & Tutiaux-Guillon, N. (2010). New trends in history textbook research. Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society, 2(1): 154-70.
  • Roldán V. E., & Fuchs, E. (Eds.) (2018). Textbooks and war: Historical and multinational perspectives. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Sammler, S. (2018) Textbook research: Past achievements, current developments, future challenges: A Georg Eckert Institut Researcher’s View. Didacticae, 4, 74-84.
  • Walker, J. (Ed.) (2005). Directory of historical textbook and curriculum collections. Chicago, IL: Association of College and Research Libraries.
History of international organizations and international organization studies
  • Amrith, S., & Sluga, G. (2008). New histories of the United Nations. Journal of World History, 19(3), 251-74.
  • Devin, G. (2016). Les organisations internationales. Paris: Armand Colin.
  • Gorman, D. (2019). International cooperation in the early twentieth century. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
  • Herren-Oesch, M. (2009). Internationale Organisationen Seit 1865: Eine Globalgeschichte Der Internationalen Ordnung. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
  • Iriye, A. (2004). Global community: The role of international organizations in the making of the contemporary world. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
  • Kott, S. (2011). International organizations: A field of research for a global history. Studies in Contemporary History, 8(3), 446-50.
  • Kott, S. (2011). Les organisations internationales, terrains d’étude de la globalisation. Jalons pour une approche socio-historique. Critique Internationale,52(3), 9-16.
  • Laqua, D. (Ed.) (2011). Internationalism reconfigured: Transnational ideas and movements between the World Wars. New York, NY: I.B. Tauris.
  • Mazower, M. (2012). Governing the world: The history of an idea. London: Allen Lane.
  • Müller, B. (Ed.) (2013). The gloss of harmony: The politics of policy-making in multilateral organisations. London: PlutoPress.
  • Reinalda, B. (2009). Routledge history of international organizations: From 1815 to the present day. London: Routledge.
  • Rittberger, V., Zangl, B., Kruck, A., & Dijkstra, H. (2019). International organization. London: Red Globe Press.
  • Sluga, G., & Clavin, P. (Eds.) (2017). Internationalisms: A twentieth-century history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Grants and fellowships

The IBE offers several grant and fellowship opportunities to researchers from developing countries, to pursue projects that require in-depth research on the IBE Documentation Center’s holdings, draw on staff expertise, and participate in various projects.

Grants and fellowships list

Each year, the IBE offers short-term Library Research Grants, to promote scholarly use of its historical collections. In 2021, the IBE will offer several grant opportunities to researchers from developing countries, to pursue projects that require in-depth research on the IBE Documentation Center’s holdings, draw on staff expertise, and participate in various projects.

 

We invite you to check in Fall 2021 for updated information.

Further resources

Engaging with similar projects, digital databases, and peer institutions, to enrich and expand research opportunities.

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