Fake news can affect people in negative ways. A recent line of research has demonstrated that when people are exposed to fake news they can form false memories for the events depicted in the news stories. We conducted a meta-analysis to obtain an estimate of the average rate of false memories elicited by fake news. Thirteen articles were included in the final analysis, revealing that nearly 40% and 60% of the participants reported at least one false memory and belief (respectively) after fake news exposure, while each participant remembered or believed 22% of the total number of fake news presented. Individual differences may affect the rate of false memory formation following exposure to false memories. We therefore examined moderating effects of individual difference variables assessed in the included studies. Participants with better analytical reasoning skills and a high level of interest in the news topic were least likely to report false memories for fake news, with level of interest being also a facilitating factor in remembering true news. No effect was detected for cognitive ability and objective knowledge. Our results provide insightful and practical information in the context of world-wide misinformation dissemination and its impact on people's beliefs and memories.

In the United States and Europe, para-university institutions have often been viewed as postsecondary institutions that satisfy some needs not addressed by universities. Such para-universities might be technical institutes or research centers affiliated with a parent university and/or a nation-state. In stateless nations, however, para-universities have acquired certain characteristics that, compared with nation-states, distinguish them in their rationale and development. In the Basque Country of Spain, the Basque Studies Society—an institution not born from, or linked to, any parent university—sought to unite the promotion of science and indigenous culture with a demand for educational and political autonomy. The Basque case reveals instructive contrasts that separate para-university practice from that of its European and American counterparts. This article analyzes para-university practice and activities during the first two decades of the Basque Studies Society (1918-1936). With its emphasis upon political autonomy as well as the absence of an established nation-state and the lack of a university that served as a base, this case study challenges traditional conceptions of the para-university in its essence and praxis.

This article examines two venues where historians of education have in the past addressed serious, publicly significant questions: commissions of inquiry and courtrooms where education rights and educational injustices are litigated. The article argues that these two examples demonstrate historians’ particular skills and abilities as evidence-gatherers, clear communicators, strong generalists, and experts in making sense of change over time. The article also suggests that these particular skills and abilities can be the basis for historians’ continued contributions to answering questions of public significance.

This essay considers the usefulness of history of education, first, through the history of Australian university-based teacher education and then through the history of how, in the postwar period of schooling expansion, the provision of public schooling was transformed discursively from a policy solution into a policy problem—with opposing viewpoints from “left” and “right” projected through the print media. With a particular focus on “conservative” critique, two contrasting snapshots are presented of public writing from the 1970s-1980s to illustrate how, by this period, the focus of public debate about education policy in Australia was no longer on the principles and logistics of widening access, but on questioning the trustworthiness of the schools themselves—what and how they were teaching the nation’s children. The essay concludes by proposing that history itself is constantly invoked in debates about schooling by people who are trying to explain what needs to be changed or preserved.

In this essay, we explore the concept of path dependence through the example of the long-standing issue of racialized exclusionary school discipline. We argue that historians of education can reduce policy makers’ tendency to continue down existing policy paths (especially unhelpful ones), a phenomenon known as path dependence. We use racialized school discipline as a case in point. We also argue, however, that path dependence as an analytical tool can be “too much of a good thing” because it discounts the viability of ever-present options to change course. The real challenge lies in creating processes of path alteration that impose costs on policymakers for readopting policies shown to have such deleterious effects.

From a Nordic and British perspective, the history of education is a vibrant field of knowledge production. It invites scholars from the humanities and social sciences to investigate the continuities and changes in education over time, as well as Bildung, nurturing, learning, and teaching. By underlining the breadth of the history of education and using Nordic and British examples, I argue that the field is not shrinking but growing. A broader definition of the field expands the field’s scope beyond historical studies of formal schooling. It also enhances the field’s significance and reveals how it has a meaningful role in research policy, and practice.

In 2023, Claudia Goldin received the Nobel Prize for her groundbreaking research in economics. In this article, I use Goldin’s research to reflect on the role of history of education in academic research. I argue that Goldin’s remarkable achievement underscores the need for historians of education to reach a wider disciplinary audience in the humanities and social sciences. Goldin’s success lies not in isolating her focus to a subfield, but in connecting historical research to wider concerns in the discipline of economics. Goldin’s research thus reminds us of the skills required of historians of education: to understand the research interest and terminology of other research fields, and to use historical methods to address the key problems that those research fields explore. That is, we need to learn how to apply historical methods to what are essentially nonhistorical problems.

In recent years, justices on the US Supreme Court have made explicit historical arguments about US schools in order to promote a broader role for religion in US public schools. For example, in Espinoza v. Montana (2020), Chief Justice Roberts cited the late historian Carl F. Kaestle to buttress his arguments, but did so in a way that misrepresented Kaestle’s nuanced account. This article compares the justices’ historical arguments to the best evidence from the historical record. The essay argues that historians of education—whatever their political beliefs—can and should guide policy by providing reliable, accurate historical information.