The historiography of education is generally restricted to certain epochs and time periods. It has an above-average focus on the eighteenth century, for example - Rousseau, the philanthropists, or Pestalozzi stand at the center of attention. Just as prominently represented is work on the progressive education movement, whereby the German exponents - with the exception of Key or Montessori - finds disproportionate representation. The historiography of the school, in turn, very frequently sets out from the middle of the nineteenth century, while historical social education [Sozialpädagogik] magically arises in the period from 1880 to 1933. Conspicuously few works deal with the 1950s or 1960s, not to mention the period prior to 1750.

This issue presents a collection of contributions that relativize this focusing. In the «Research» section, Anja-Silvia Göing investigates the education concept of the «Zürcher Hohen Schule» - the precursor to the University of Zurich - that was founded by Zwingli. It was positioned between Humanism and Reformation and was influential across Europe for a very long time. Also in this section, Sabina Larcher and Karin Manz report on a research project that is creating a systematic database of the monthly issues of the organ of the Schweizerischer Lehrerinnenverein [Swiss Female Teachers' Association], a journal for women teachers that appeared for almost 100 years (1886-1982) and had a decisive influence on the development of the teaching profession and the professional image of women teachers in Switzerland.

The Special Topic section looks at a «classic work» of historiography pertaining to reform pedagogy. Meike Sophia Baader's approach, however, differs from the usual presentations insofar as she starts off from the premise of internationalization of the progressive education movement and identifies in its deep religiosity the basis upon which education was understood as redemption.

The «Discussion» section presents commentaries by several exponents of education from the United States, England, Germany, and Austria on the deliberately provocative thesis that there is a correlation between two phenomena that appeared in the school area in the last half of the twentieth century: the increasing importance of (educational) psychology in teacher education and the seemingly increasingly burn-out syndrome in teachers. The thesis on which the discussion is based posits that the increased importance of (educational) psychology in teacher education runs parallel to the societal trend towards psychologization in the second half of the twentieth century and effectively produces a cult of individualization and personality that is largely removed from the social and political context. Based on this is the central thesis, according to which on the one hand these idealizations preprogram the failure of both teachers and pupils, and on the other hand, there is only one language available for dealing with these painful experiences cognitively and emotionally, and that it is the language of therapy. The following commentaries, which are very various and clearly differ, show that the discussion has only just begun and point to the need for a specific history of teacher education that focuses on the general education subjects taught in teacher education programs.

The «Document» section focuses on a true «treasure» in the history of the school - the 105 responses, in part very voluminous, to the first comprehensive school inquiry in the Canton of Zurich that was conducted in the years 1771/1772. In her contribution, Esther Berner explains how this evaluation came about, what its purposes were, and how little it had to do with the School Reform Law passed in 1778. The documents themselves provide a picture of how the everyday reality in the schools in the eighteenth century was experienced and how lasting the complaints about the school have been (up to today) - concerning absences, discipline, lack of teacher training - and how great the danger is that lavish evaluations remain ineffective.