The Creation of New International Networks in Education: The League of Nations and Educational Organizations in the 1920s

Abstract

There is hardly any doubt that the First World War interrupted most of the international educational relations that had reached their peak in the two decades before the outbreak of the war. In virtually all areas of education – the educational system, educational science, teaching and learning, child welfare, and the educational professions – international organizations and congresses had been established at this time. Exhibitions at world’s fairs attracted numerous educators and teachers; an intensive international exchange of students and teachers led to mutual communication and cooperation. Nevertheless, the growth of these international educational relations was lacking a central body for the coordination of all these activities and for making them more effective. Various attempts in Europe and the US to found an international bureau of education since the 1870s had been unsuccessful, and the beginning of the war in 1914 seemed to nullify these institutionalized forms of international collaboration and well‐established networks. However, the war did not tear them apart. Many of the projects of the prewar period were reestablished, as were international organizations and congresses. But in contrast to its earlier phase, the internationalization process in the 1920s became much more institutionalized, and the previously existing networks that had been rather weak now found an organizational basis for their – in many cases very similar – efforts and goals.