CEDRHE

Founded in 1992 by Pierre Guibbert, Le Cedrhe is the heritage conservation and research library specializing in the history of education at Montpellier University's Faculty of Education.

The CEDRHE conserves collections of books from the 18th to the 21st century, school objects, a collection of still films, a collection of wall maps and plates (20th century), and the archives of the Montpellier academy teacher training colleges (19th-20th century).

Documentary collections

Documentary collections are listed in the BIU catalog.

What makes Cedrhe so special is that it holds a rich collection of 17,000 French textbooks and teachers' books, covering all levels and disciplines, from Jules Ferry's school to the present day (some textbooks date back to the 18th century).

The collection also includes collections of journals on the history of education and older journals in the field of educational science, works on pedagogy and didactics (19th, 20th and 21st centuries), official texts on education (19th and 20th centuries), and current collections on the history of education, the history of mentalities, and works on new education and alternative pedagogies.

The BIU's collection of still films (ancestors of the slide), also listed in the BIU catalog, is one of the richest in France, with around 3,000 volumes.

Cedrhe works closely with the Diderot library in Lyon, the former repository of the INRP (Institut national de recherche pédagogique) collections, and is a member of the CollEX-Persée digitization project committee.

The FDE and Cedrhe conserve heritage objects, including science teaching aids, audiovisual material, maps, wall plates, art plates and plaster casts, an inventory of which is available on the University of Montpellier's Historical Heritage Service website.

Cedrhe also works closely with the Hérault departmental archives to preserve the archives of the teacher training colleges of the Montpellier academy.

Cedrhe's research focuses on the socio-history of education (19th-20th century), the history of sociability (biographies of players and identification of sociability networks), the material history of education (history of pedagogical practices and tools), the history of new education pedagogies (genesis and development of the Decrolyan, Montessori and Freinet movements), the history of libertarian education (role of players and networks), the history and current status of alternative pedagogies in France, the education of the child in nature.

Several doctoral theses are currently in progress.

These themes are the subject of regular publications.