Education and written culture: on exercise books and school writings

Abstract

In the last few years the study of exercise books and other school writing has acquired a leading role in the field of the history of education. This text proposes to approach this field from the methodological perspectives of the social history of written culture. It reviews several of the research questions pursued up to now and suggests some others in order to underline the importance of the graphic, material and textual aspects of school writings. It focuses on a diachronic and transdisciplinary project, based on the need to integrate every written artefact into all the various activities that define written culture in schools at a given moment; moreover, school writings must be integrated into the social practices of contemporary scribal culture.