Pedagogy, Printing, and Protestantism: The Discourse on Childhood

Using Foucault’s history of discourse, this book examines the relationship between the invention of the printing press and the evolution of concepts regarding childhood and schooling. It is an interdisciplinary study of schooling, childhood, literacy, and protestantism in 16th-century Germany. Luke traces the agenda for the rearing and education of the young as outlined by the Protestant reformers and popularized by the advent of printing. Luther’s print-based religious campaign led to his call for universal public schooling to promote literacy—a fundamental requirement of the new theology. Luke identifies the development of an emergent discourse on childhood in the reformer’s tracts, school ordinances, personal correspondences, conduct, and household and medical guides. From a Foucauldian archeological perspective, then, Pedogogy, Printing, and Protestantism examines the conditions that enabled the emergence of early modern discourse on childhood.