Zakład Historii Nauki, Oświaty i Wychowania Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego w latach 1959–2009

Abstract

The origins of the Department of History of Science, Education and Upbringing in the Institute of Pedagogy of the University of Gdańsk date back to the second half of the 1950s. Starting studies in pedagogy in the then Higher Pedagogical School in Gdańsk in 1958 triggered activities aiming at the creation of an organizational structure that would guarantee the adequate course of studies and scientific development of the staff. One of those activities was the creation, in 1959, of the Chair of History of Education and Upbringing, which was renamed as the Department of History of Education and Upbringing in the beginning of 1970s. The first head of the Chair, and then the Department was Professor Kazimierz Kubik. After his retirement in 1980, the Department was directed by Professor Klemens Trzebiatowski. In years 1983–2005, the head of the Department was Professor Lech Mokrzecki. Since 2005, the Department has been directed by a University of Gdańsk Professor, Romuald Grzybowski. For over half a century, the staff of the Department have conducted intensive scientific research, originally only locally and regionally, and with time also nationally and internationally. Numerous books, articles and scientific conference papers are material evidence of the scientific activity of the scientific-didactic staff of the Department, and so are the scientific conferences organized or co-organized by some of the Department researchers. Another proof of the Department’s vitality is the participation of its employees in the process of training and developing new academic staff. The realization of the ambitious scientific-didactic tasks, undertaken by the Department staff over the five decades, was favoured by factors such as stability of the academic staff combined with its systematic refreshing, good interpersonal relations in the Department, and most of all the creative personalities of the successive heads. Owing to this, the Department has not only survived, but is dynamically developing. This is confirmed by new scientific publications and the scientific development of the Department’s staff.