Characteristics of Curriculum Formation and Aspects of the Education of Children Deprived of Parental Care in the End of 18th Century – Beginning of 19th Century Lithuania

Abstract

Regardless of the current interest in parenting, socialization, custody and other forms of parental care it must be noted that there is still a research shortage of the child care system, the curriculum content and the education process, that would analyse phenomenon in retrospective and reveal the real impact of education system development to the successful socialization of children deprived of parental care in Lithuania. Even if specific interdisciplinary, educational or historical research on the development of the education system in Lithuania can be presented, the aspects of the education of children deprived of parental care are still not disclosed qualitatively and comprehensively. Because of that the article discusses the state of the education system of the end of 18th century – beginning of 19th century Lithuania, based on theories of education science and published sources of educational history while aiming to characterize the main factors influencing formation of the formal curriculum. With the help of qualitative content analysis of period’s historical sources research seeks to characterize philosophical attitudes and practices considering formal education. The research also applies comparative analysis of features of education paradigm of didactic and of formal education in Lithuania based on main attributes considering realization of education process, including organizing, physical space, content of subjects, teacher-student relation, precondition for development of student’s personality etc. While characterizing the content and implementation of the formal curriculum, article pays special attention o the issue of education means of children who were deprived of prenatal care, raising the hypothesis, that their education was mainly based on the activities of chore curriculum.