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This paper presents a sociologically informed analysis of the historically changing relation between education and society. Using a set of socio-geographical methods and longitudinal data from population censuses, we explore changes in the forms of educational inclusion and exclusion in the period 1961 to 2011. We analyse, more particularly, changes in the geographical segregation and clustering of both high- and low-schooled individuals, while geographical proximity determines the kind of social contacts people normally have. Our findings show, firstly, that the segregation of university-trained human capital within Belgium and its regions has remained high, in spite of the expansion of university education and the creation of "regional" universities. Highly educated individuals now increasingly attract one another; they increasingly search for an environment in which they are able to meet people with a similar educational background. Our findings show, secondly, different evolutions for early school leavers. While the overall decrease in the share of early school leavers has gone hand in hand with decreasing heterogeneity within Belgium, our analyses point to increasing divergences between Flanders, on the one hand, and Wallonia and Brussels, on the other. In large parts of Wallonia and Brussels, the labour markets suffer from comparatively high shares of early school leavers. We conclude that the coupling between education and society has changed in the period under consideration. We question, however, that education has become a dominant social system. We rather argue that historical analyses of geographical inequalities in educational participation shed light on the complexity and heterogeneity of society. Cet article présente une analyse sociologique de l'histoire de la relation entre l'éducation et la société. Par le biais d'un ensemble de méthodes sociogéographiques et de données longitudinales issues de recensements de la population, cette étude analyse les changements historiques dans les formes d'inclusion et d'exclusion scolaire dans la période 1961 à 2011 en Belgique. Nous analysons plus particulièrement les changements historiques de la ségrégation géographique et le clustering des individus hautement et peu scolarisées, sachant que la proximité géographique détermine le type de liens sociaux que tissent normalement les individus. Nos constats montrent, tout d'abord, que, en Belgique et dans ses régions, la ségrégation du capital humain formé à l'université est demeurée élevée malgré l'expansion de l'enseignement universitaire et la création des universités 'régionales'. Les individus hautement scolarisés de plus en plus s'attirent mutuellement les uns les autres; ils recherchent ainsi un environnement dans lequel ils peuvent rencontrer des personnes ayant un niveau de formation similaire. Nos résultats montrent, d'autre part, des évolutions différentes pour les abandons scolaires. Si en Belgique la diminution globale chez les 'abandons' va de pair avec une hétérogénéité scolaire décroissante, nos analyses indiquent des divergences croissantes entre la Flandre, d'une part, et la Wallonie et Bruxelles, d'autre part. Dans une grande partie de la Wallonie et de Bruxelles, le marché du travail souffre d'une proportion relativement élevée de jeunes qui quittent précocement l'école. Nous concluons que l'accouplement entre l'éducation et la société a changé au cours de la période analysée. Nous remettons cependant en question l'hypothése que l'éducation soit devenue un systéme social dominant. Nous soutenons plutôt que les analyses historiques des inégalités géographiques dans la participation à l'éducation mettent en lumiére la complexité et l'hétérogénéité de la société contemporaine. Dieser Aufsatz präsentiert eine soziologisch informierte Analyse des historisch veränderten Verhältnisses zwischen Erziehung und Gesellschaft. Anhand einer Reihe von sozio-geografischen Methoden und Längsschnittdaten aus Volkszählungen untersuchen wir Veränderungen in den Formen der Inklusion und Exklusion von Schulerziehung im Zeitraum 1961-2011. Wir analysieren insbesondere Veränderungen in der geografischen Segregation und Clustering von Personen mit hohem und niedrigem Schulabschluss, weil die geografische Nähe die Art der sozialen Kontakte bestimmt, die Individuen normalerweise haben. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen zum einen, dass die Trennung des von Universitäten ausgebildeten Humankapitals in Belgien und seinen Regionen trotz des Ausbaus der Hochschulen und der Schaffung "regionaler" Universitäten hoch geblieben ist. Hochgebildete Individuen ziehen sich zunehmend an; sie suchen vermehrt nach einem Umfeld, in dem sie Individuen mit einem ähnlichen Bildungshintergrund treffen können. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen zweitens unterschiedliche Entwicklungen für frühzeitige Schulabbrecher. Während der allgemeine Rückgang des Anteils der Schulabbrecher mit einer abnehmenden Heterogenität in Belgien einherging, deuten unsere Analysen auf wachsende Unterschiede zwischen Flandern einerseits und Wallonien und Brüssel andererseits hin. In weiten Teilen Walloniens und Brüssels leiden die Arbeitsmärkte unter einem vergleichsweise hohen Anteil von Schulabbrechern. Wir schließen daraus, dass sich die Kopplung zwischen Schulerziehung und Gesellschaft im betrachteten Zeitraum geändert hat. Wir stellen jedoch in Frage, dass Erziehung zu einem dominanten gesellschaftlichen Funktionssystem geworden ist. Wir argumentieren vielmehr, dass historische Analysen geografischer Ungleichheiten im Falle von Schulerziehung gerade die Komplexität und Heterogenität der heutigen Gesellschaft beleuchten. Este artículo presenta un análisis sociológico de la relación cambiante entre educación y sociedad a lo largo de la historia. Utilizando un conjunto de métodos socio-geográficos y datos longitudinales de los censos de población, analizamos los cambios en las formas de inclusión y exclusión educativa en el pertíodo de 1961 a 2011. Analizamos, más espectíficamente, los cambios en la segregación geográfica y la agregación tanto de individuos de alto nivel de escolaridad como de bajo nivel de escolar, considerando que la proximidad geográfica determina el tipo de vínculos sociales que normalmente desarrollan las personas. Nuestros hallazgos muestran, en primer lugar, que la segregación del capital humano con formación universitaria en Bélgica como al interior de sus regiones, se ha mantenido alta a pesar de la expansión de la educación universitaria y la creación de universidades 'regionales'. Las personas con un alto nivel educativo se atraen cada vez más entre sí y buscan cada vez más un entorno en el que puedan conocer a otras con una formación académica de simila [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early nineteenth century, the ideas of reform pedagogues gave rise to a didactic turn towards the visual that criticised an exclusive textual mediation of knowledge through books and lectures. To raise educational effectualness, teachers came under increasing pressure to incorporate high-profile media technologies into their lessons. Yet, top-down initiatives to implement new instructional technology often fell short of expectations when logistical and financial challenges and teachers' practices and preferences were not taken into account. However, most of the existing studies on the introduction and proliferation of high-profile educational technology in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Western education have focused on industry-led promotional efforts or governmental initiatives to introduce commercially produced media into the classroom. As such, they lend insight into the normative discourse surrounding the construction of the ideal of the tech-savvy teacher, but have mostly overlooked teachers' agency, as well as the difficulties teachers met in the implementation. This paper investigates how, between 1900 and 1940, Belgian secondary school teachers dealt with the tension between professional pressures and expectations on the one hand, and their individual preferences and possibilities on the other hand. It does so by comparing the discourse of educational media advocates and governmental actors with teachers' accounts of their visual media practices as documented in teachers' pre-class preparations and notes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of the history of primary education in Belgium by Depaepe et al. in 2000 has demonstrated how the idea of “order” structured classroom reality in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This “order” is not only visible in the internal organisation of schooling (e.g. division into year classes, a structured timetable, the use of the didactics of teacher-centred instruction), but also in the design of the curriculum. Good behaviour and moral decency were consistently prioritised over “intellectual knowledge”. Very similar paternalising practices – including the cult of order – were transported to the Belgian colony. The implementation of these practices, however, did not go smoothly, because the African context of missionary education was totally different from the Belgian educational context. Precisely as a result of these difficulties, the core characteristics and likewise mistakes of the transported “grammar of educationalisation” become even more apparent. On the basis of a variety of sources, this paper demonstrates that secondary education for boys in the Belgian colony of Congo was founded on the same educational norms and values that characterised nineteenth-century Belgian education. In this respect, order was considered theconditio sine qua nonfor discipline and self-discipline. But, in contrast to what Nikolas Rose has argued, the Foucaultian paradigm – although attractive and interesting – is not imperative in explaining the educational strategy of order. On the contrary, the development of the history of education as a science could benefit from a theoretical framework coming “from within” the discipline. Until today, the history of educational practice has been explained from a history of education perspective only to a limited extent. By exploring the duality of a didactic grammar of schooling, on the one hand, and an educational semantics of moralisation, on the other hand, this paper contributes to the development of a theoretical framework from within the history of education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Power over education and the upcoming generations has always been an important instrument in shaping religious and secular values. As a consequence, control over schools, pupils and teachers was, particularly in periods of war, an important means for bringing about acceptance of the new regime. The aim of this paper is to discuss priest-teachers’ wartime memories of German interference in Belgian education during Second World War, on the basis of a survey conducted in the 1970s. By looking at teachers’ memories, this paper contributes to a neglected field of study in the history of education and the historiography of Second World War. The analysis of the questionnaires illuminate how certain aspects of German educational policy were remembered by teachers and how they positioned themselves in the landscape of Second World War memory. As a result, this paper demonstrates that the survey not only offers an interesting source for investigating the war itself, but also sheds light on the changing post-war relationship between education, society and the state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In answer to economic needs and social demands, a structural innovation was introduced in secondary education in most West European countries, mainly in the 1960s. Contrary to the traditional schools, organized in vertical categories, the so-called comprehensive schools brought together all branches in one school. There was protest against this type of school from the start but it was mainly in the 1980s and 1990s that comprehensive schools came under siege. In most countries the comprehensive structures have been abandoned or adjusted to a more moderate form. This paper tries to explain the factors that stimulated innovation in the 1960s, and those that counteracted comprehensive education. As will be shown, these factors were not always related to ideological positions. In fact, the reasons for local educational authorities to "go comprehensive" (or not) were often practically rather than ideologically inspired. Theories of "dominant rationality" by Matthijssen and the "referential" by Jobert succeed in surpassing ideological parameters, and can be interesting tools to explain changing mentalities. However, a satisfying explanation for the history of comprehensive education cannot be offered without paying attention to everyday pragmatics, that - in the author's view - have been decisive for the evolution of comprehensive education. The paper will be illustrated with examples from the Belgian case. Comprehensive schools were introduced in Belgium in 1969. All state public schools went comprehensive in the 1970s, and the number of comprehensive private schools grew rapidly until growth ceased around 1980. The ongoing struggle between Catholic comprehensive and traditional schools led to a compromise created by the Catholic educational authorities, a fusion of comprehensive and traditional elements. This structure was imposed by the Flemish government as a unitary structure for all secondary schools in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium in 1989. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the educational project of Belgium’s acclaimed socialist and modernist architect Renaat Braem (1910–2001). While Braem is foremost remembered as a militant opinion maker, his work as an educator and an artist has received little scrutiny. When Braem was appointed interim director at the Antwerp National Higher Institute for Architecture and Urban Planning (NHIBS) in 1962, his first action point was not to change the curriculum. He instead reconstructed the physical configuration of the school. With an eye-catching staircase painting, he accentuated an important passage in the school building: the one from the administrative offices and library to the architectural studios. Claiming a central position in the institute, the staircase functioned as a stage and an auditorium on which an ideological and educational programme was enacted in an implicit, yet very physical manner. This article not only looks atwhatthe painting represents, but also athowit represents by applying Randolph Starn’s three categories of seeing: the glance, the measured view, and the scan. This threefold reading of the painting enables us to unpack (a) Braem’s educational project based on a socialist ideology and (b) the institutional climate of the 1960s. In the institutional debates, hovering between tradition and the rationalisation of education, Braem’s staircase painting proposed a third way. It revised the existing doctrines by reconciling the rational approach with a stronger focus on the human in the built environment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses the question of dissemination of nutritional knowledge in textbooks of household schools between 1890 and 1940. It starts by considering the nature of food recommendations in manuals that are used in Belgian household schools, and then deals with the sources that are referred to by those who give food advice, comparing the latter to the state of the art of nutritional knowledge. If, prior to 1925, school manuals referred to working-class households, paid attention to abundant and economical food, recommended meat, hardly cared about breakfast and connected food to health in a general way, the manuals of the late 1920s and 1930s discussed the average consumer, advised limited meat consumption, warned against unbalanced diets that could lead to specific diseases and recommended required amounts of calories and vitamins. Textbook authors rarely referred to their sources – and if they did, international names were hardly mentioned – which raises the question of the value of the information in these textbooks. Yet from the late 1920s onwards, more direct references were made to science and researchers, which may be linked to the strengthening of scientific authority within society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores political–educational debates regarding the concept of women’s emancipation in women and family programmes on Belgian television between 1954 and 1975. From the very beginning, the women’s episodes were regarded as explicitly educational. The episodes were created to increase women’s participation by means of their emancipation, but simultaneously continued to underline women’s segregation from men. Therefore, we want to reveal the paradoxical effects of this emancipatory educational project for women. This paper takes as its starting point the debate about the concept of women’s emancipation in the episode ‘From home economics to state home economics’ in 1964, in which the emancipatory notion was used explicitly for the first time in the women’s episodes. The highly debated status of this concept in viewers’ letters to producer Paula Sémer is intriguing. Women’s emancipation had very different meanings based on the viewers’ various cultural and ideological backgrounds and their positioning in discourse. Consequently, the letters reveal a highly ideological tension and therefore deepen our understanding of women’s emancipation as a normative, political and historically constituted concept. This helps to understand how different (political) actors have used this episode and concept to establish, maintain and traverse borders separating not only men from women but also emancipated from non-emancipated women. In spite of the emancipatory project, limits were established by ‘closing’ womanhood in terms of a proposed ideal of ‘emancipated womanhood’, linking women’s individuality to the collective and the state and simultaneously gendering the notion of citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For historians studying socially and historically marginalised groups, archives of disciplinary institutions often contain a range of valuable sources, some of which are autobiographical in nature. However, when using these intimate sources, researchers must fulfil legal requirements to comply with various norms on privacy protection. This balancing act between giving voice to vulnerable groups and respecting their privacy gives rise to several ethical dilemmas. This article provides a framework to assess the balance between privacy protection and the disclosing of names. It starts with a discussion concerning the methodological implications of anonymisation. It then discusses four issues pertaining to privacy protection when using autobiographical material from institutionalised individuals: (1) Can naming cause harm to living persons? (2) Can naming fight social stigma? (3) Does anonymisation make people invisible? (4) Does naming violate the posthumous privacy of the deceased? I use my own research on autobiographical documents of juvenile delinquents in Belgium (1890–1960) as a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over half a century since the last wave of political decolonisation, the handling of "dark" colonial histories remains topical. Influenced by the postcolonial turn, this study aims to examine, from a novel historical and comparative perspective, evolving textbook representations of Belgian colonialism and its legacy in Belgian and Congolese school history education since 1945. Its diachronic and synchronic narrative analysis identifies continuity and change, and convergences and divergences, in perspectives, emphases, and silences in textbook narratives. Pinpointing the influence of colonialism and postcolonial discourse on educational practices of representation, the study explores the sometimes contradictory influences on these practices of politics, academic historiography, popular historical culture, and processes of educationalisation. The analysis illuminates parallel shifts in the two countries from triumphalist colonialist ideologies towards more critical postcolonial perspectives. In relation to educational practices of representation, often aimed at socialising citizens into worldviews sanctioned by the political dispensation of the time, the traces of these shifts have reflected dominant societal discourses while being largely at odds with historiographical advances. These dynamics are evidence of a slow process of decolonisation of existing power structures and knowledge systems which only gradually gave way to a postcolonial world still in the making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article it is assumed that the documentary impulse that gave the impetus toCourage, a photobook on people in poverty published in Belgium in 1998, is related to how theGeneral Report on Poverty, published in 1994, accused the child welfare sector and protection services of having far too authoritative and coercive an approach. This article analysesCouragein relation to the issue of out-of-home placement of children in poverty following the framework proposed by Cara A. Finnegan in order to explore a rhetorical history of visual images. In this deductive approach the article pays attention to important moments in the life of photographs: production, reproduction, and circulation. This is combined with an inductive approach to generate a rhetorical understanding of the distinct generic characteristics of the visual artefact, in which attention is paid to the substantive as well as the stylistic characteristics of the images. The article attempts to analyse and explain systematically how symbolic acts and artefacts construe rhetorical processes on poverty, and explore how images of children and parents in poverty situations in the “rhetorical artefact”Couragecan become “objects to think with”. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines the various discourses, engaged in by social observers and experts alike, on the relationship between radio, music, and youth during the 1950s and 60s. Through articles, inquiries, and surveys led by Belgian pedagogues, psychologists, educators, social workers, and journalists, the author moves from the topic of radio to the larger subject of leisure, analysing the issues raised by these social actors regarding the way in which adolescents of the era listened to radio, music, and sound in general. By analysing these discussions, we see that several problems with the radio emerge: first, the issue of distracted listening; second, the issue with noise; and third, the issue with modern music. These concerns reveal that there existed, from an adult sociocultural perspective, a “good” way of listening to radio and “good” genres of music to appreciate. In conclusion, the author explains how the “pedagogy of leisure” was effectively a means for society to control and domesticate the cultural practices of the era’s youth. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This keynote consists of two parts. The first part offers some general observations from the past related to the power (and eventual powerlessness) of education. The aim is to create a framework with which the specific case, discussed in the second part, must be interpreted. Furthermore, it is emphasised that almost every pedagogical intervention which harboured the explicit aim of “forming” subjects had in itself a very normative and disciplinary nature. Yet these objectives, imposed from above, seldom functioned in the day-to-day reality as they were conceived by the opinion-makers and education agents. The educational activity’s political-ideological, fundamental principles do not allow us to directly deduce exactly what was retained by those subjected to the educational activity on the shop floor. The downside of the “power” of any education is indeed the “empowerment” of the individual. Whether one is happy for man to attain this quality or not, pedagogical interventions can give rise to emancipatory effects, even if they are intended to be primarily disciplinary. The Congo is naturally a prime case that would enable us to further explore this question. On the one hand, after independence, the pursuit of power over education was exposed in the continuity of colonial principles as well as in the struggle between the state and the church during the Mobutu regime. On the other hand, the dictatorial regime did not prevent the Congolese from becoming empowered through education; however, it appears as though a certain methodical utilitarianism was never far off. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This comparative analysis of Luxembourg’s early school (law) system reveals the extent to which European school systems reflect “national-cultural idiosyncrasies” apart from “structural isomorphism”. It first examines the legal soil into which the Luxembourg school system was implanted. Legislative pendular swings, reflecting shifts in power relations, cultural–linguistic affinities and so on, determined the direction in which the school system would develop. Indeed, these oscillatory motions had unexpected results, which the second section reveals by presenting similarities with laws that provided inspiration for the Luxembourg law. Despite criticism of Belgian policy, the Grand Duchy’s first school law system was very similar to it. The article then focuses on some key components of the Luxembourg system and identifies a pattern of borrowings: in more strictly administrative and pedagogical matters, the French and Dutch school laws served, while the Belgian school law constituted the reference for matters intersecting with religious interests. This synchronic analysis is extended by a diachronic analysis of the historical evidence for the selective borrowing of key components of the law. The final section suggests that incipient national–cultural particularities are perhaps to be found only on the level of “inner activities” of a school system’s organisation, and that they are the products of national historiography rather than historical features observable from a comparative–perspectivist viewpoint. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Starting from the Belgian historiography about the Congo, the article raises the question of the nature of image formation in the mother country as regards the psychological characteristics and intellectual potential of the Congolese. Two domains of study may already provide information in this regard. First, the image of the psycho-pedagogical dispositions of the “African” are readily derived from the school discourse that was developed in the textbooks. In their simplicity - elementarisation is simply a central didactic act - the textbooks show how much the image formation rested on a hardly concealed racist undertone. Second, the scientific discourse itself, of course, constitutes an important source of information. However, for this there are fewer studies available. Thus, I have here investigated one source diachronically in function of this question. It concerns the popularising journal Afrika-Overzee. On this basis, I come to the conclusion that one can speak only of a slow evolution in the stereotypical image of the “negro”. Apparently, the confrontation with the colony gave form not only to the “African” other but also to the bourgeois self. The old idea of the Congolese as a “primitive savage”, which went, from the outset, together with superiority feelings as regards Western culture, gave way more and more, also in the scientific discourse about psychology and pedagogy of the 1950s, to faith in the human progress of the “African black”. Perhaps, out of fear for the loss and the decline of the Western culture, the opportunities that were offered from the mother country for this remained extremely limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dans la presente contribution, nous examinons l'evolution des savoirs (comprise comme evolution des interpretations de l'interaction entre theorie et pratique) telle qu'elle apparait dans les initiatives “emancipatrices” de l'apres-68 en Flandre. Pour etudier cette evolution, nous nous appuyons sur des recits de vie (Life History interviews). En nous fondant sur la litterature concernant la genese de systemes de croyance (belief systems) (et ses consequences pour le rapport entre pedagogie “superieure” et “inferieure”), les modeles des phases de la carriere enseignante, Rezeption et Wirkung, ainsi que la periodisation des reformes de l'enseignement (Ivor F. Goodson), nous formulons d'abord l'hypothese selon laquelle l'insertion des savoirs “emancipateurs” dans un contexte neoliberal (annees 1980 et 1990) a donne lieu a la construction de savoirs hybrides. Nous distinguons trois types de savoirs qui ont ete de premier plan a des moments differents de l'histoire et que nous elaborons ensuite a l'aide du materiel oral recueilli et a l'aide de sources provenant des reseaux d'enseignement plus “traditionnels”: (1) Une unite revolutionnaire de la theorie et de la pratique (fin des annees 1960-debut des annees 1970). Dans ce premier type, les savoirs sont consideres comme une unite revolutionnaire, la pedagogie “superieure” dirigeant idealement la pedagogie “inferieure”. La valorisation d'une theorie depend de sa pertinence pour les praticiens dans le renversement des rapports de production. Neanmoins, comme la revolution tardait a se produire, les praticiens etaient vite decus et - dans l'elaboration ulterieure de l'heritage pedagogique progressiste - l'unite de la theorie et la pratique perdait son caractere revolutionnaire et utopiste. (2) Une unite de la theorie et de la pratique prescrite a l'interieur des structures “alternatives” et “progressistes” (annees 1970 et debut des annees 1980). L'unite de la theorie et de la pratique n'est pas abandonnee, mais elle est de plus en plus structuree et prescrite par les nouveaux mouvements sociaux et par les ecoles “alternatives” (dans la marge de la societe et de l'enseignement). Dans ce contexte, les savoirs emancipateurs recoivent une interpretation specifique (par exemple Freinet, la pedagogie institutionnelle) et a l'interieur de cette interpretation, certains elements sont accentues (par exemple l'engagement communiste de Freinet). Le resultat est un canon fige qui ne se montre plus que peu dynamique pour laisser de la place aux preoccupations de nouveaux venus. (3) Un type de savoirs compose d'elements varies selectionnes a differents niveaux de l'enseignement dans un contexte neoliberal (a partir du milieu des annees 1980). La transformation des savoirs se fait a trois niveaux: la Didaktik, la Padagogik et la Erziehungswissenschaft. Chaque niveau agit de facon differente sur la pratique de l'enseignement, en raison de sa relation specifique avec cette pratique. La naissance et le succes de ce troisieme type de savoirs a fortement decu les defenseurs d'une unite de la theorie et de la pratique (types 1 et 2 ci-dessus): ils se rendaient compte que non seulement cette unite s'averait difficilement realisable, mais en plus que l'heritage pedagogique progressiste pouvait facilement etre reparti sur differents niveaux et utilise dans une logique neoliberale, dans laquelle la recuperation des ecoles “alternatives” risque surtout de creer une image trompeuse, vendue aux clients: les parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines one of the first children's libraries in continental Europe, founded by Belgian feminists in Ghent around 1910. The transnational cultural transfer and transformation of the American children's-library paradigm is studied from the perspective of “entangled history”. The authors reveal a history entangled in transnational processes and partially overlapping intellectual networks of feminists, social and Lebens-reformers and progressive educationalists. It is contended that the American notion of children's libraries served the founders' feminist, educational, social and Lebens-reformist views. Discussion includes both national and transnational resonances, notably the interconnections with the Heures Joyeuses in Brussels and with similar Dutch initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]