Research at the BBF

To intensify research activities with the unique library and archival holdings offered on site, a research department was set up in the BBF in 2012. The Director of the BBF, Professor Dr. Sabine Reh, simultaneously holds a Professorship for History of Education at the Humboldt-University in Berlin. Researchers at the BBF are involved in the national and international conferences and publication activities of the community of researcher on the history of education.

The research conducted at the BBF targets processes of change and continuities in education since the early modern times. Aspects of social and cultural history are focused. The history of forms of institutionalization  – be it with regard to schools and instruction or professionalization of staff - is explored as well as the manifold forms of pedagogical knowledge. Based on the existing holdings and their projected expansion, the BBF targets the genesis of reflectional categories for the advice of policy-makers and pedagogical practitioners. At the BBF, the research activities are concentrated in two areas:

• Historical practice of instruction and education
• Pedagogical knowledge – institutions, practices and actors