History of education in Greece: achievements, shortfalls, and challenges

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article aims at discussing the History of Education in Greece as a field of knowledge. It focuses on achievements, shortfalls, and challenges that affected pathways and critical junctures in the historiography of Greek education. Until the mid-1970s, historiography of Greek education had been closely related to positivism and historicism. It provided a reasonably stable body of knowledge, advocating an idea of an educational mechanism operating autonomously from the social system, contradictions, and conflicts of the social groups. From the mid-1970s onwards, when History of Education was gradually consolidated as an academic discipline, it was oriented in the direction of social change, attempting to document historically the critical role of education in this regard. Over the last decade, despite a remarkable progress towards internationalisation of research work, History of Education in Greece seems to be at a critical juncture. It faces challenges in terms of teaching status in university and a renewal of research perspectives.