The slow dichotomization of elementary classroom roles. 'Grammar of schooling' and the estrangement of classrooms in Western Europe (1830-1900)

Abstract

Before and during the era when mass elementary schooling took off, children populated classrooms in many roles and not only as learners. The traditional teaching situation was actually full of children in roles as instructors, inspectors, and helpers, among others. In this contribution, the dichotomisation of expected classroom roles, being a central aspect of the grammar of schooling, is in focus. This dichotomisation resulted in one adult and trained teacher controlling all relevant activity in the classroom and children being confined to only one function: learning. On the basis of teaching manuals for school management and the organisation of teaching from four European countries, the article presents evidence of the slow process of the marginalisation of children from other roles than learning. Children as “learners only” was a relatively late reality for elementary and primary classrooms in Western Europe. The article proposes an interpretation of these trends as being an estrangement of classrooms from other fields of practice, particularly concerning the increasing division of labour in the modern world and the activities of children as workers and carers outside classrooms.