PUBLICATION "LEARNING TO READ, LEARNING RELIGION" HONORED AS "HONOR BOOK" IN THE CONTEXT OF THE "EDITED BOOK AWARD 2025"
Results of an initiative of the Reading Primers SIG have recently gained prominent recognition:
The “Edited Book Award Committee” of the “Children’s Literature Association” (ChLA) unanimously voted for the volume Learning to Read, Learning Religion. Catechism primers in Europe from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries to be recognized as an Honor Book for this year’s “Edited Book Award”. The honored book, edited by Britta Juska-Bacher, Matthew Grenby, Tuija Laine and Wendelin Sroka, has been published in 2023 by John Benjamins, Amsterdam:
https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/books/9789027254955.
The ChLA, with headquarters in Purcellville, VA (USA), is a non-profit association of scholars, critics, professors, students, librarians, teachers and institutions dedicated to the academic study of literature for children (
https://www.childlitassn.org/). The “Edited Book Award” is presented annually by the ChLA to recognize the contribution of outstanding collections of essays to children's literature scholarship and criticism. Eligible titles have been published two years prior to the award date.
In a message to the editors of Learning to Read, Learning Religion Naomi Lesley, professor in the English department at Holyoke Community College and Edited Book Award Committee Chair of the ChLA, states: “Each of the committee members noted the unique contribution this volume made to the field, and recognized the thoughtfulness of its editorial design as well as the impressive archival work and coordination involved. Thank you for your efforts to bring this book into the world!”
With all editors and many authors being members of the RP-SIG network, the award acknowledges the efforts of all those who have been involved in the preparation of the volume. The award is a welcome support to increasing the visibility of historical primer research internationally, and not least an incentive to continue the transnational historical study of reading primers as a research field that crosses the boundaries of countries, languages, and monodisciplinary scholarship.
“Sustainability and Educational Media” – IGSBi Conference 2024 in Augsburg (Germany)
From September 27 to 29, 2024, the Annual Conference of the International Society for Research on Textbook and Educational Media took place at the University of Augsburg (Germany) under the topic “Sustainability and Educational Media”. Academics and publishers from nine European countries and Japan discussed a wide variety of aspects of the topic from historical and current perspectives.
Newsletter of the Reading Primers Special Interest Group
New Publications
Tina Dietrich: Lehr-Lern-Materialien zur Holocaust-Literatur. Exemplarische Untersuchungen zum historischen Lernen im Literaturunterricht [Teaching-Learning Materials on Holocaust Literature. Exemplary Studies on Historical Learning in Literature Lessons] (Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt 2025)
Link to the summary, to the table of contents and to the introduction of this book: https://www.klinkhardt.de/verlagsprogramm/2709.html
Ewa Andrzejewska / Eva Matthes / Sylvia Schütze / Jan Van Wiele (Eds.): Bildungsmedien für Erwachsene. Educational Media for Adults (Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt 2024)
Free download of the whole book (Open Access)
Eva Matthes / Christine Ott / Sylvia Schütze / Dieter Wrobel (Eds.): Kontinuität und Wandel von Wissen in Bildungsmedien. Continuity and Change of Knowledge in Educational Media (Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt 2024)
In the school context, knowledge in educational media is aligned with laws, educational standards and curricula; in non-school contexts, it is usually less strongly regulated, but still orientated towards agreements or guiding principles.
Educational media knowledge is sometimes surprisingly persistent; at the same time, the content of educational media can be seismographs for change, sometimes even developing “subversive” potential by undermining guidelines. Their potential in both respects can only be categorised in relation to references and knowledge productions outside the educational medium.
The contributions in this volume consider the multifaceted nature of the concept of knowledge and offer multi-layered approaches to the complexity of the topic. In addition to subject-related research on educational media knowledge, there are studies on the implementation of pedagogical-didactic knowledge, analyses of media-material pre-figurations of knowledge transfer and acquisition as well as reconstructions of socio-cultural knowledge and its historical or cultural-historical presentation.
Link to the table of contents and to the introduction
Jasmine Annette Dorigo: Lehr- und Lernmittel für den Sprachunterricht im ladinischen Sprachraum Südtirols. Eine historisch-didaktische Analyse von Mehrsprachigkeit [Learning and Teaching Supplies for Language Teaching in the Ladin-speaking Areas of South Tyrol. A Historic-Didactical Analysis of Multilingualism] (Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt 2024)
Teaching institutions of the Ladin valleys of the Dolomites are known for their multilingualism. Multilingual teaching needs respective supplies for learning and teaching.
The goal of the publication is to analyse especially important learning and teaching supplies for language teaching at Ladin primary schools of Badia Valley (Gadertal) and Valley Gardena (Gröden). The teaching and learning supply analyses affect both the historical schoolbooks that trace back to the parity schools (1948), as well as the contemporary supplies that are used currently (2023) in Ladin primary schools. The main focus lies on language didactics. Overall, the learning and teaching supply analyses give an insight into the development and changes at Ladin schools of South Tyrol between 1948 and the 21st century.
Link to the table of contents and to the introduction