D
Delila D
Guest
You clearly have some divergent topics in mind already and it's difficult to make any recommendations without knowing precisely what kinds of sources you will have access to and timeline you have to write this in. However, as someone who has taught European history at the college level, I'll offer my two cents based on what I think would make fascinating education-related research papers.
Some suggestions:
1) The rise of the intelligentsia in 19th-century Russia (not quite directly related to mainstream education, but suggested because there has been much written on the intelligentsia in the 18th and 19th centuries by scholars like Marc Raeff and others)
2) Humboldt's educational reforms and their impact on shaping continental European and even American education in the nineteenth century
3) Middle-class Victorian attitudes towards children, child rearing, gender differences, and education (suggested also because sources abound on the subject of Victorian England)
These ideas should yield countless secondary sources and some primary ones from which you can eventually produce an interesting thesis.
In regards to "narrow[ing] it down," I am of the belief that this can only be done once you have looked at a number of sources. You have to read the literature available in academic journals, edited volumes, monographs, and even consult what primary sources you can before you can arrive at a "thesis" (and here I imagine you mean statement, rather than the actual collective research paper work). At best, what I can suggest you do is consult a few books, essays, and articles on a topic, and develop a working "hypothesis" or broad research question that will be shaped by your research. This is probably the best approach.
Good luck!
Some suggestions:
1) The rise of the intelligentsia in 19th-century Russia (not quite directly related to mainstream education, but suggested because there has been much written on the intelligentsia in the 18th and 19th centuries by scholars like Marc Raeff and others)
2) Humboldt's educational reforms and their impact on shaping continental European and even American education in the nineteenth century
3) Middle-class Victorian attitudes towards children, child rearing, gender differences, and education (suggested also because sources abound on the subject of Victorian England)
These ideas should yield countless secondary sources and some primary ones from which you can eventually produce an interesting thesis.
In regards to "narrow[ing] it down," I am of the belief that this can only be done once you have looked at a number of sources. You have to read the literature available in academic journals, edited volumes, monographs, and even consult what primary sources you can before you can arrive at a "thesis" (and here I imagine you mean statement, rather than the actual collective research paper work). At best, what I can suggest you do is consult a few books, essays, and articles on a topic, and develop a working "hypothesis" or broad research question that will be shaped by your research. This is probably the best approach.
Good luck!