The people, the poor, and the oppressed: The concept of popular education through time

Popular education is a concept with many meanings. At the beginning of the nineteenth century - with the rise of national systems of education - it was related to the idea 'education for all'. In the twentieth century it became related to education for underprivileged groups like the poor, and in the course of the twentieth century popular education had to do with education of the oppressed. This introductory article focuses on these several meanings with the help of historians of education who presented their work at the 31st session of the ISCHE in Utrecht, 2009.