Title: The Unique Interpretation of the Soviet Model in the Documents Shaping the Kindergarten Education of Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the 1950s
(Špecifická interpretácia sovietskeho modelu v dokumentoch determinujúcich výchovu v materských školách na území Maďarska a Československa v 50. rokoch 20. storočia) – PDF
Abstract: This research covers the socialist reform of kindergarten education in the Central and Eastern European macroregion. Within that, it focuses on the specificities of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The reform started in 1948 had an influence on the public education system and, within that, kindergarten education too in all countries of the Eastern bloc. This was based on adopting the concept devised in the Soviet Union which required the significant transformation of the existing pedagogical traditions. This was shown in the officially published content regulators. The research studying the history of socialist kindergarten education do not really focus on the fifties. The comparative analysis of the Czechoslovakian and Hungarian ‘curricula’ are considered a subject with no lack of interest in. The research examines whether unique specificities were let predominate in the documents of the two countries in scope despite the unification efforts of copying the Soviet model. We are trying to come to conclusion about latent elements behind the manifest content of the official instructions. To understand how this was implemented in Hungary, press articles of the era and reports in the national archives were also used. The objective is to differentiate our knowledge of kindergartens of the fifties on a national and macroregional level. Beside the descriptive source analysis of the interim curricula issued in 1953, the content regulators of the second half of the 1950s are compared using content structuring qualitative content analysis. The category system of the analysis was finalised using deductive reasoning along the translations of the Soviet source literature following the Soviet model and along kindergarten literature. The ‘curricula’ of the two countries considered the spatial dimension of the research show resemblance in several aspects. However, their volume, structure and main content differ. This might be the result of the small, nevertheless existing leeway given to the members of the reform process by kindergarten politics. This leeway created a unique adaptation despite the strong control of principles exercised in Moscow.
Author: Yvetta KÓGER
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17846/SHN.2025.29.1.111-141
Publication order reference: University of Pécs, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Ifjúság street 6., H-7624 Pécs, Hungary, mail: yvetta.koger@gmail.com
Source: Studia Historica Nitriensia, year: 2025, vol.: 29, number: 1, pages: 111-141
Key words: Kindergarten History; Socialist Kindergarten; ‘Unification’, Qualitative Content Analysis;
Language: ENGLISH
Funding: This research was funded by the PhD Research Grant of the New National Excellence Program (Új Nemzeti Kiválóság Program). This means that it was conducted with the professional support funded by the national research, development and innovation fund of the ÚNKP-22-3-II New National Excellence Program of the Ministry of Culture and Innovation.