‎Laurent Brassart, Martino Lorenzo Fagnani, Luciano Maffi, Omar Mazzotti (eds)‎
‎Demeter in the Classroom. Agricultural Education for Children, Eighteenth-Twentieth Centuries‎

‎, Brepols, 2026 Paperback, 252 pages, Size:156 x 234 mm, Illustrations:6 b/w, 5 tables b/w., Language: English. ISBN 9782503608228.‎

Reference : 71211

‎Summary Agricultural education for children has played a key role in shaping the younger generation, connecting school, agriculture and nature. This volume explores the topic at the European level, analysing the role of institutions, state policies and pedagogical models in modelling the teaching of agriculture to children from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Through an interdisciplinary approach that weaves together the history of education, rural history and the history of science, the authors display how the teaching of agricultural practices contributed to the economic and social development of different European realities. The book brings together contributions spanning from France to Italy, from the United Kingdom to Spain, from Sweden to Hungary and Romania, among other cases, providing a comparative picture of the different national experiences. The pages address crucial issues such as the training of primary school teachers, the use of school gardens, the transmission of agricultural knowledge in textbooks, the circulation of pedagogical ideas and models of teaching spaces. The studies gathered in this volume are essential for understanding the evolution of socio-environmental relationships in Europe from childhood and early youth, crucial moments in the formation of the individual. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. From field to classroom and back. Policies, practice, and knowledge transmission Laurent Brassart, Martino Lorenzo Fagnani, Luciano Maffi and Omar Mazzotti Part 1 - Agriculture, education, and the state 2. Teaching agriculture to French children and teenagers. The longterm political realization of an old educational project (1760-1940) Laurent Brassart 3. "Back to the Fields!". Elementary agricultural teaching in Italy between the late nineteenth century and fascism Erminia Irace and Manuel Vaquero Pi eiro 4. Hope and fear in post-war Romania. Emotions, politics, and agricultural education (1919-1929) Ionela Zaharia-Schintler Part 2 - Circulating ideas 5. Women and the "new agriculture". Imaginaries, discourses and possibilities in Enlightened Spain Elena Serrano 6. Agricultural education for children and the circulation of models. From central Europe and France to southern Europe, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Martino Lorenzo Fagnani 7. Farming futures. Building agricultural education in Britain in the long nineteenth-century Steven King 8. "Fra i campagnuoli" [Among the peasants]. Italian textbooks for rural schools (1861-1929) Elisa Marazzi Part 3 - Teaching to the teachers 9. Agricultural education in primary schools in Sweden c. 1850-1919. Central directives and local implementations Sofia Carlfjord and Patrick Svensson 10. Elementary teachers and the modernisation of beekeeping in Hungary in the late nineteenth century Attila N bik 11. Agricultural education in Italian primary school public policies (1861-1900) Omar Mazzotti and Luciano Maffi‎