Education and Vulnerability. On the Historiographical Analysis of the German Educational Discourse on Punishment in the “Short” 19th Century

Although the contemporary educational discourses in the 19th century considered educational punishment one of the most effective means of education, and a though it was frequently used in the educational practice, its history in the Germanspeaking countries has been only rudimentarily researched. This is even more astonishing as the history of educational punishment must be understood as a history of violent educational practices. In this article, the question shall be pursued of how a historiography of educational punishment in the 19th century could be theoretically and methodologically based. The research is guided by the thesis that educational punishment must be understood in the sense of exploiting the child’s vulnerability.