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As an introduction to the Special Issue 'Power relations, preservation and voice. Writing histories of education with autobiographical materials,' this article reviews the state of the art of autobiographical work in history of education research. Moreover, it argues that although writing histories of education with autobiographical materials is not a 'new' phenomenon, incorporating yet unknown or overlooked sources can bring fresh insights and perspectives to the field. This arises from the potential of autobiographical materials to complement reigning understandings of the past with alternate narratives. Yet, this introduction also points to challenges in working with such materials – particularly when we consider their work in constructing, presenting and performing a particular self. In this introduction, we start by discussing the term 'autobiographical materials' and tracing the development of using these kinds of materials in research. We then go on to explore various theoretical and methodological issues around working with autobiographical materials, in relation to production, preservation, access and the intellectual frameworks that we as researchers choose to employ. Finally, we introduce the articles that comprise this Special Issue. As a whole, this Issue offers a careful and considered re-visitation of the challenges and potentials inherent to working with autobiographical materials, further enriching the ongoing debate over power relations, preservation and voice when writing histories of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question "What does this have to do with everything else?" refers to ecological thinking. In this article, we use an ecological approach to explore the interrelationships between the incidence of the influenza pandemic of 1918–19, its trajectories and impacts on education. Our emphasis on children and their environment, as specific ecological arrangements, allows the mapping of associated social, institutional, cultural and material contexts and relations, alongside axes of experiences, behaviours and choices during a life-threatening crisis. To achieve this we apply the multiple perspectives that an ecological approach demands and use four different sources of evidence, from Sweden, Portugal, England and Spain, respectively: a teacher obituary, a magazine article, a school Log Book and an artist's drawing. Each piece of evidence helps to identify lines of articulation and strands of entanglements projected in time and space. Their joint ecological reading enables the grasping of glocal connections, uncovering a few tesserae of a much larger mosaic, and pointing to the inherent potential of an educational-ecological approach to the study of past pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on two different versions of the childhood and life history of a female "child of a Russian" who grew up in the Soviet occupation zone and the later German Democratic Republic (GDR). Besides a biographical-narrative interview, there is also a published text on the author's childhood memories. The article concentrates on the childhood of the author/interviewee, since the published version does not provide any information on her later life, and picks out two so-called "key scenes" that appear in both the published version and the interview, comparing the different versions with each other and examining them for ruptures, inconsistencies and changes. For the purpose of better understanding the analysis of these scenes, a third scene is added, which, however, only comes up in the interview. The analysis pursues the question of whether different presentations of a scene have something to do with the methodological particularities of an oral autobiographical narration as opposed to a written one, and what kind of knowledge is gained from contrasting two different self- testimonies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]