Europäische Verflechtungen gewerblicher Bildung im Industriezeitalter: Luxemburgs Staatshandwerkerschule, 1896-1940

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article traces the history of one of Luxembourg’s major technical schools – the École d’artisans de l’État or Staatshandwerkerschule – from its foundation in 1896 until the Second World War. The institution aimed at replacing traditional apprenticeship and offered both technically and artistically oriented three-year programmes for boys who had completed primary instruction. Its first permanent director, Antoine Hirsch, was among the leading Luxembourgian education experts of the first half of the twentieth century. Even though the institution played an important role in the Luxembourgian nation-building process, it was well integrated in transnational networks of knowledge circulation. Its creation was based on fact-finding missions to several European countries. Yearly study trips allowed the director, teachers and students to attend international exhibitions and conferences and to familiarise themselves with educational, artistic and industrial institutions in the neighbouring countries. The embrace of vocational guidance in the 1920s was equally part of larger European trends. The notion of entanglement is used to make sense of these semi-institutionalised border-crossing practices. It is argued that the multiple and steady engagement with “abroad” developed into an idiosyncrasy of Luxembourg as a small state.