VU Amsterdam Summer School: Cold War Educational Ideals

The Cold War was a period that sparked many educational initiatives, ranging from top-down international initiatives such as UNESCO, many national educational reforms, a stunning amount of local initiatives to further educational opportunities for their pupils, to the very mundane initiatives of computer clubs –advocating for autodidactic learning.

Building on recent publications, the aim of this course is to describe the fundamental changes in the educational systems in various countries during the Cold War: from pupils and parents demanding new subjects to be taught (or old subjects to be addressed in new ways), to teachers introducing new subjects. Moreover, we will discuss how these initiatives influenced national and international educational thought.

Read more about the course and the learning objectives here.