集体传记法与教育史研究:可能性与可行性的探讨

Prosopography And The Research of History of Education: Investigation of Possibility and Feasibility

集体传记法是学术界日趋重视的一种研究方法,最早被运用于西方古代政治史的研究中,以探究社会政治行动的根源和社会结构变迁的问题。20世纪历史学家开始尝试将其延伸应用到社会史、科学史、宗教史、经济史等各个研究领域。本文通过梳理集体传记法的内涵与发展历程,了解不同研究领域对集体传记法的使用情况,尝试对这一方法在教育史领域运用的可能性与可行性进行初步的探讨。

Prosopography,or collective biography,as a research method,has received growing attention from the scholars in academic circles. The method investigated the characteristics of a group of actors in history by means of a collective study of their information such as geographical origin,family situation,religious belief,educational background,career history,economic status,social networks and so on. The method use statistical analysis tools to get the information about the common non individual of the whole group,and then explain some of the social and historical problems. Prosopography,as a research tool,was firstly used to study ancient political history,to explore the origin of ancient social political actions and the changes of social structure the historians in the 20th Century tried to extend its use to various fields,such as social history,the history of science and the history of religion,and so on. In this paper,through the analysis of the connotation and development of prosopography,we try to make a preliminary discussion on the possibility and feasibility of this method in the field of history of education.