“Beyond the means of subsistence, it is difficult to think of anything more important than education to the well-being and sense of self-worth of most nineteenth-century Britons” (Florence Boos, “The Education Act of 1870: Before and After,” BRANCH).
Yet within Victorian periodical studies, education in its various dimensions has received little focused attention. The Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Journalism, for example, contains no topic entries on education or schooling; the entry on the professions and journalism contains scant mention of the teachers’ press. Perhaps because the “Education Question” was so broadly-encompassing, it has been difficult for press researchers to make inroads into this vast topic. This special issue aims to do just that, by inviting papers on the role of the press in theorizing the purpose of education, shaping various education debates, and educating readers. How did specialist, mainstream, and newspaper presses intervene in the most pressing questions about education and schooling before and after the Education Act of 1870? How did the press function as a space of instruction for an increasingly print-literate populace? How did the press help to define “education” itself?
Specific areas of investigation might include but are not limited to the following:
- the teachers’ press and professional journals for educators both in England and abroad;
- education in/and the imperial press;
- education debates in the established/mainstream press;
- famous educators and the press;
- special interest publications and organization journals like the Ragged School Union Magazine, Schoolmaster or the Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge;
- university and school magazines;
- illustration and education;
- press debates on the education of women and girls;
- reading, pedagogy, and serial publication;
- mechanics’ institutes and magazines;
- teaching and instruction in periodicals for children;
- the rise of print literacy and the press;
- deaf and blind education and the role of the press;
- domestic education and the press;
- practical advice and forms of everyday instruction in the press.
VPR invites essays of 5,000-9,000 words in length (including notes and bibliography) for the Winter 2017 issue of the journal. Notify the guest editor (Janice.schroeder@carleton.ca) of intention to contribute by July 1, 2016 with a 200-word abstract. Submission deadline for final draft of articles is December 1, 2016. Please prepare contributions according to the Chicago Manual of Style.
Issue: Winter 2017
Notify editor of intention to submit: July 1, 2016
Deadline for final submission: December 1, 2016
Email: Janice.schroeder@carleton.ca
Last modified 1 June 2016