Implementing School Reforms in Late 18th Century Moravia : Minor Schools in Regional Perspective
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| Year of publication | 2025 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | This paper examines the implementation of late eighteenth-century educational reforms in Moravia, focusing on how Enlightenment ideals articulated in the General School Ordinance of 1774 were translated into practice at the local level. Drawing on extensive archival research including school reports (1780, 1787–1791, 1807), official correspondence, and local chronicles from Czech and Austrian archives, the paper reveals a significant gap between imperial vision and local reality. While the number of minor schools more than doubled between 1778 and 1805, qualitative transformation lagged considerably behind quantitative expansion, with Moravia showing notably lower rates of new method implementation compared to Bohemia. Through micro-historical case studies from different Moravian districts, the paper demonstrates how local factors (economic capacity, confessional composition, administrative strength, and geography) shaped reform outcomes more decisively than Maria Theresa's and Joseph II's mandates. Three concrete examples illustrate distinct implementation patterns: a Protestant community school maintaining independence despite poor conditions, a teacher abandoning his position when an impoverished community failed to pay the mandated salary, and a formally established school that barely functioned in practice. The Moravian case challenges simplified narratives of top-down modernization and demonstrates the necessity of regionally differentiated approaches to understanding educational reform in the Habsburg Monarchy. |
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