Thinking Education beyond Borders – The Pedagogic Correspondence Legacy of Wilhelm Rein as an Access to Historical Transnational Contacts and Networks of Educational Reform

of Educational Reform The article wants to present the first research results from a project in progress that aims on the scientific edition of and basic research on the pedagogical correspondence legacy of Wilhelm Rein (1847– 1929), who was one of the internationally most influential educationalists and teacher educators of his time. It wants to approach the phenomenon of networking education from a historical perspective and emphasize that transnational contacts and networks are not a new phenomenon in the field of education but that common objectives and motives traditionally have brought together educationalists from diverse realities. The sources analyzed date from 1869 to 1929. They constitute one of the most extensive surviving professional correspondence legacies that prove and display widespread cross-country and cross--cultural historical professional contacts and networks among educationalists that have partly substantially influenced the development of modern educational theory and practice of educational systems from all over the world. This contribution will give first insights into the source corpus and the (research on) the network structures in question.