In Würzburg, 2. and 3. April 2009, during the European year of the intercultural dialogue, an international congress took place which was organised by the “Forschungsstelle für historische Bildungsforschung: Schulwandbild” of the Universität Würzburg, with as topic: Wall charts, history and European identity. This congress is part of the international project on Europe and identity, in which the Forschungsstelle: Schulwandbild, department of the Julius-Maximilian University Würzburg, the Dutch National Museum on Education Rotterdam and the Danish National Library of Education Kopenhagen participate, with the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union.

The idea behind the project is that because of the mobility and the large spread of the wall charts among the citizens, the history already largely is a common history, which has influence on a European identity. As a visual medium, wall charts were at the centre of the European education from the second half of the nineteenth to the second half of the twentieth century. They are, next to school books, among the most important and influential educational appliances at school. Because of the fact that visualisation is an important component of the learning process, people are able to remember images that have been used in school, many years later. The fact that wallcharts have also been used to decorate the walls, has merely contributed to this process.

Lectures

The text of the lectures at the congress can be found below (in full text or a summary), in order of the congress program. A small biographical note of the speakers is added.

Prof.Dr. Andreas Dörpinghaus, University of Würzburg (Germany)

Prof.Dr. Andreas Dörpinghaus, University of Würzburg, opened the congress with a lecture on wall charts as a part of the cultural heritage and the research on the wall charts itself.

Biographical note: Prof. Dr. Andreas Dörpinghaus is since 2007 Professor of General Education and vice-dean at the Department of Philosophy II at the University of Würzburg. He is also managing director of the Institute for Education.

Ina Katharina Uphoff (Germany)

Jacques Dane (Netherlands)

Dr. Ina Uphoff, University of Würzburg, and Dr. Jacques Dane, Dutch National Museum on Education Rotterdam, gave in their lectures an introduction on the project "Wall charts, history and European identity".

Lecture: Ina Katharina Uphoff

Biographical note: Dr. Ina Katharina Uphoff is since June 2008 Academic Counsellor at the Department of General Education at Würzburg University. She studied educational sciences at the Gerhard-Mercator-Universität - Gesamthochschule - Duisburg, and Ph.D studies at the Bavarian Julius-Maximilians University Würzburg.

Lecture: Dr. Jacques Dane

Biographical note: Dr. Jacques Dane studied history at the University of Leiden (the Netherlands), Ph.D at the University of Groningen with a dissertation on Popular reading culture in Dutch Protestant families, 1880-1940. Since 2007 he is head of collection and research of the National Museum of Education, Rotterdam.

Susanne Grindel (Germany)

Dr. Susanne Grindel, Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research Braunschweig, held a lecture on images of Europe and European identity.

Biographical note: Dr. Susanne Grindel is a historian and research fellow at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, Braunschweig (Germany). She is currently working on representations of colonial pasts in French, English and German history textbooks of the 20th century.

Karl Catteeuw (Belgium)

Dr. Karl Catteeuw, Katholieke Hogeschool Brugge-Oostende, concentrated in his lecture on Belgian wall charts 1860-1960.

Lecture: Karl Catteeuw

Biographical note: Karl Catteeuw currently works as a coordinator for research and international projects at the Katholieke Hogeschool Brugge-Oostende, Belgium. He studied in Leuven, and worked at dthe History of Education Dept. of the Katholieke Universiteit. His Ph.D. deals with wall charts as useable sources for classroom history, especially in primary education.

Prof.Dr. Maria del Mar del Pozo Andrès, University of Alcalá (Spain).

Prof. Maria del Mar del Pozo Andrès, University of Alcalá, held a lecture with the title: "Nationalism, cosmopolitism and education in Spain: A first approach to educational wall charts (1830-1963)"

(Summary) In this lecture Prof. del Mar presented the first findings about educational wall charts used in Spain during the XIXth-XXth centuries, a field of research that for the moment is absolutely untouched by Spanish historians of education. The presentation had three parts. In the first one the main features of Spanish nationalism were discussed. The search for a Spanish identity in relation with the world, the understanding of “cosmopolitism” as a different concept than the one of the “Europeism”, and the educational consequences of these positions were analysed. In the second part the first results were presented about the use of the wall charts in the Spanish schools, and the different positions of the Spanish pedagogues and schoolteachers about the use of this educational material. Finally, the wall charts as a specific means for the teaching of History are looked upon and are put in a European perspective, especially in comparison with other educational materials like textbooks. Biographical note: María del Mar del Pozo Andrès is Associate Professor of Theory and History of Education in the University of Alcalá and Head of its Department of Psycho-pedagogy and Physical Education. Her main lines of research and publications are: the role of education in the building of national identities and history of curriculum.

Dzintra Liepina, Natalya Draudzina Gymnasium Riga (Latvia)

(Summary) The presentation of Dzintra Liepina, Natalya Draudzina Gymnasium Riga, was devoted to the role of images in history teaching in Latvia. The introduction referred to the main changes in approach to history education after the regaining the independence of Latvia in 1990-s. The first part of presentation illustrated the development in using images in history education in Latvia. The second part of the lecture dealt with opinions on role and didactical quality of images in textbooks and on the wall charts.

Biographical note: Dzintra Liepina, Mag.paed., is representing the History Teachers Association of Latvia. She is a history teacher in Riga, Latvia at the Natalya Draudzina Gymnasium.

Pim den Boer (Netherlands)

The title of the lecture of Prof.Dr. Pim den Boer was: "Teaching Europe's history: ideas, identities and identifications".

Biographical note: Prof. Dr. Pim den Boer (1950) is chair of European Cultural History at the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands). The history of history teaching is one of his research interests. He is representative of the University of Amsterdam in the organizing commission for the 21th International Congress of Historical Sciences in Amsterdam 2010.

Veronique Andre de la Porte (Belgium)

The title of the lecture of Veronique André de la Porte was : "Unspoke images: slavery in history education".

Unspoke images: slavery in history education

Biographical note: Veronique Andre de la Porte studied history at the universities of Antwerp and Rotterdam. Master-thesis: a case-study on slavery in Curacao between 1795 and 1863. More specifically: research on the treatment of slaves and the difference between law and practice, de iure vs. de facto.

Walter Müller (Germany)

Martijn Kleppe (Netherlands)

Prof.Dr. Walter Müller, Würzburg University, and Martijn Kleppe, Erasmus University Rotterdam, presented workshops.

Martijn Kleppe: Influence of images in history education

Influence of images in history education

Biographical note: Martijn Kleppe is a mediahistorian and working on a dissertation about Dutch iconic photographs at the Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He examines History Textbooks to determine which photos of events, persons and processes function as an icon.

Prof.Dr. Walter Müller: History-wall charts and history lessons

Prof. Müller asked the workshop participants to describe what they saw on the wall charts. It appeared that the participants from difeerent countries gave different interpretations of the events depicted.

History-wall charts and history lessons

Biographical note: Prof.Dr. Walter Müller is Professor of School Education at the University of Würzburg. He studied at the College of Education Nuremberg, doctoral studies at the Polytechnic University of Duisburg. He was research-assistant to Prof.Dr. Wolfgang Fischer (General Education) and Research Fellow School Education.

Hilda Amsing (chair) (Netherlands)

Biographical note: Dr. Hilda Amsing is an assistant professor at the University of Groningen, member of the editorial board of the international journal Paedagogica Historica and head of a teacher training college. She teaches modules on Dutch history of education and curriculum history. Her PhD dissertation (2002) is about the history of Dutch secondary education.