Project description
Installation research project “From Protomodernisation to Modernisation of Croatia’s School System” (18th and 19th Century) is part of scientific research conducted at Croatian Institute of History in Zagreb. The Project is fully supported by Croatian Science Foundation in duration of three and half years (September 1st 2014 – February 28st 2018). Project team consists of nine scientists and researchers employed at Croatian Institute of History. The objectives of this project are to determine, using modern methodological approaches and critically analysing archival material, factors that were of crucial importance in the process of creation and functioning of Croatia’s school system and for the influence this system exerted, to evaluate correlation of Croatia’s school system with the school system in the Habsburg Monarchy and its reflection on the network of power in the society in the period of (proto)modernisation.
School system as an educational subsystem of society touches upon and intertwines with political, economic, scientific, cultural, religious and family subsystems of society. In order to be able to understand societal development it is therefore necessary to understand school legislation and educational institutions which, through secondary socialisation, reproduced the desirable normative frameworks for the society within which they operated. Proto-modernisation and modernisation processes implemented during the 18th and 19th centuries were of key importance for forming the school system as an educational system that became an important factor in the emergence of modern civil societies. A research into the problem area of the school system requires a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach that differs essentially from the researches undertaken thus far and closed within the boundaries of the discipline.
The objectives of this project are to determine, using modern methodological approaches and critically analysing archival material, factors that were of crucial importance in the process of creation and functioning of Croatia’s school system and for the influence this system exerted, to evaluate correlation of Croatia’s school system with the school system in the Habsburg Monarchy and its reflection on the network of power in the society in the period of (proto)modernisation. The project will result in three volumes of documents that were of crucial importance for the development of Croatia’s school system, internet database on students studying at higher schools in the Monarchy, interactive map of educational institutions, a workshop for doctoral students, international scientific conference and an exhibition in the Croatian School Museum. One of the objectives of the project is to create prerequisites for expanding international cooperation and including various topics of history of Croatia’s education in internationally funded projects.
The project’s results will show the incorporation of Croatian youth in the institution of Habsburg Monarchy, the trends and influences of Church and State on the education in Croatia, as well as the influence of education on the formation of civic population. We consider history researchers, in particular those researching the history of the school system and institutional history to be among potential users of the research results. Furthermore, potential users are researchers of genealogy, experts in education sciences, jurists and law historians and, in particular, sociologists, since the knowledge about the functioning and the impact of the education system is necessary for understanding development of society and socialisation. We believe that this research will represent an important step forward towards a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to the history of Croatia’s school system. Furthermore, the research will contribute to accepting some new methodological patterns in the research of the history of the school system and, based on its systematic approach, provide basic guidelines and an indispensable source for compiling a more complex synthesis paper on the history of Croatia’s school system. In this respect, introductory studies in the planned volumes of material to be published will provide a framework for further scholarly analysis and elaboration of a number of specific topics from the history of the school system. We hope that the workshop for doctoral students, the publicly accessible Internet databases, the interactive map of educational institutions and regular updating of the project website will popularise research into and individual topics from the history of the school system. Furthermore, the proposed Internet database of students who studied at institutions of higher learning in the Monarchy will serve as a basis for analysing intellectual transfers and vertical social mobility, during the key period of the modern society in Croatian Lands.
