Evolving perspectives

Zoltán András Szabó / Lajos Somogyvári /
Imre Garai / András Németh (Eds.)

Evolving perspectives

The development of Hungarian
educational science after 1945

Editorial Contributor: Bence Ruzsa

Berlin · Bruxelles · Chennai · Lausanne · New York · Oxford

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024058976

Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Cover design by Peter Lang Group AG

Founder’s Note

The project has been supported by the National Research Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH/OTKA), grant number: 127937

ISSN 1861-9770

ISBN 978-3-631-91016-0 (Print)

E-ISBN 978-3-631-91017-7 (E-PDF)

E-ISBN 978-3-631-93157-8 (E-PUB)

DOI 10.3726/b22599

© 2025 Peter Lang Group AG, Lausanne (Switzerland)

Published by Peter Lang GmbH, Berlin (Germany)

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Acknowledgement

Hereby, we would like to thank László Galántai, who significantly contributed to the research project with his methodological advice. We would also like to say thank you to Jamil Toptsi for his valuable suggestions regarding the text of the book.

Table of Contents

Zoltán András Szabó, Lajos Somogyvári, Imre Garai, András Németh

Hungarian educational science during and after the period of ‘actually existing socialism’ – a diverse and complex research topic

András Németh

Research history, theoretical background, methodological characteristics

Bence Ruzsa, Emese Lukovszki, Beatrix Vincze, Imre Garai

Transformation of the scientific institutional settings of education sciences in the decades after the consolidation of the Kádár-regime

Bence Ruzsa, Zoltán András Szabó

The recruitment of students in the Party College of the Hungarian Working People’s Party (1949–1956)

Lajos Somogyvári, Zsuzsanna Polyák

Towards a new interpretation framework: Political religion and socialist pedagogy in Hungary

Tibor Darvai

Educational psychology and scientific recruitment: Candidates and academic doctors at the intersection of educational science and psychology in 1950s–1960s Hungary

Attila Czabaji Horváth, Zsófia Albrecht, Andrea Daru, Dorina Szente, Györgyi Vincze

Contributions to the question of scientific qualifications in the field of education in Hungary between 1970 and 1990

Erzsébet Golnhofer

A ‘moment of autonomy’ for higher education pedagogy. The Higher Education Pedagogical Academy: 1970–1972

Appendix 1

Authors of the book

Zoltán András Szabó,¹ Lajos Somogyvári,² Imre Garai,¹ András Németh^1,3 Hungarian educational science during and after the period of ‘actually existing socialism’ – a diverse and complex research topic

This volume comprises several papers, summarising a long-term research endeavour conducted between 2018 and 2024. The project, titled ‘The past and present of the Hungarian educational science – development of a discipline, scientific communication (1970–2017)’, aimed to examine the development of educational science in the last third of the 20th century and the period following the turn of the millennium. The studies focus on different aspects of socialist pedagogy, including its key figures, the characteristics of their institutional background, and their scientific contributions.

In his essay, András Németh offers insight into the research history, focusing on various theoretical and methodological considerations. He begins by presenting a brief history related to the self-reflection of the discipline itself, highlighting the outcomes of significant German workshops and investigations, as well as recent developments in Central and Eastern Europe. The Hungarian research group introduced in this volume continues this discourse, basing its analysis on two theoretical pillars: Rudolf Stichweh’s concept of science and an understanding of how totalitarian regimes sacralised politics in the first half of the 20th century, drawing on the works of Emilio Gentile and Carl Voegelin. Utilising archival sources and contemporary publications, the participants concluded that a new phase in Hungarian educational science began in the late 1960s, marking a departure from the trends of previous decades. New scientific infrastructures and socialisation patterns emerged, resulting in the formation of new professional communities and scholarly products. The subsequent papers in this volume provide detailed evidence to support this assertion.

The contribution of Bence Ruzsa, Emese Lukovszki, Beatrix Vincze, and Imre Garai, entitled ‘Transformation of the scientific institutional settings of education sciences in the decades after the consolidation of the Kádár-regime’, explores the peculiarities in the formation of the academic institutional base for education in Hungary after 1945. It offers a systematic description of how the elements of the institutional system underwent continuous organisational changes until the 1960s. The research, based on the analysis of archival sources, periodicals, and relevant journals from the period, reveals the position of educational research institutions up until the regime change in 1990, considering the scope afforded by legislation and the educational policy guidelines of the ruling communist party. Furthermore, the study provides insight into the penetration of Marxist-Leninist ideology into the educational structure of scientific universities. The history of the ‘college’, a communist party-affiliated institution of higher education tasked with training ideological functionaries and embedding itself into the system of higher education institutions, is also introduced in the paper.