Aristocracy and education in Europe from the late 18th to the 20th centuries

Social history oriented investigations represent a peculiar field in research regarding the history of educationemphasizing the socially determined nature of education.For example, they explore the participation and successfulness of individual social strata in the education system.The present thematic issue focuses specifically on education concerning members of the high nobility in a few chosen European countries.These researches gain a remarkably great significance due to the fact that in the former Socialist countries, for ideological and political reasons, this subject was not or only barely discussed.Since the 1980s, and especially after the Revolutions of 1989, educational historiography has been trying to make up for this laggardnessespecially valid for the 19th and 20th centuries.To mention just a few examples: in Hungary, Virág analysed the education of aristocratic men and women in the 18th and 19th centuries in her book that grew out of a doctoral dissertation (Virág, 2013).She specifically dwells on the career of tutors employed in the castles, including their relationship to the students and their parents.Furthermore, Virág dealt with the debate that sprung up around the advantages and disadvantages of private versus public education.With regard to Russia, Solodyankina's oeuvre deserves a mention; she analysed numerous aspects of the subject, such as language teaching, the role of the grand tour, choosing governesses, and their work methods (Solodyankina, 2017(Solodyankina, , 2018)).Country studies regarding the discussed time period were also completed in relation to Southern and Western Europe.Non-exhaustively, let us mention the thematic issue of the Spanish journal of the history of education Espacio, Tiempo y Educación, published in 2019 (vol.6, no. 2) and dedicated to the education of the elite, titled Society, Education and Elites in Europe during the 19th and 20th Centuries.In this issue, several writings featured that also discussed the traditional elite, that is: the aristocrats.Esteban