Curriculum history or the educational construction of Europe in the long nineteenth century

Although it is generally acknowledged that the building of mass schooling systems must be
considered in close relation to the emerging nation-states of the long 19th century, few published
studies discuss the interrelation between the actual foundation of the (nation-) states and the
introduction of the modern school. This article examines the role that constitutions play in
the construction of national citizens as an expression of a particular cultural understanding of a
political entity, and then discusses European examples, indicating how the particular constitutional
construction of the citizens of European countries almost immediately triggered the need to
create new school laws designed to organize the actual implementation of the constitutionally
created citizens. The focus is on the specific need to ‘make’ loyal citizens by creating the symbiosis
between the nation and the constitutional state and by emphasizing the cultural differences between
the individual nation-states and their overall curricula. The article concludes with a formulation of
research desiderata which envision a transnational curriculum history that is emancipated from
both national and global research agendas, enabling a European education history that respects
cultural distinctions rather than levelling them into one grand narrative