Towards Democracy in the Hungarian Science of Education and School-System

Through the developments of the education sciences and the education system, this study presents two major historical changes of the post World War II period in Hungary – hopes regarding democratic reconstruction and their quelling after 1945, and the aspirations of the years of political change in the 1990s following the collapse of the communist dictatorship to restore and develop a pluralised, democratic society and education system. Through the changes to the conditions surrounding education sciences, the first part of the study displays the consequences of the political dictatorship taking over power, regarding the development of scientific institutions, professional journals, the professional sphere and the lives of individual researchers. It introduces the illusions of the post-war years, the hope of constructing a democratic Hungarian society, the revival of various schools of pedagogy (human sciences, cultural pedagogy, nation-education, popular movements and reform pedagogy trends), and the real...