Abstract
Europe has played a major role in the history of education. Many educational ideas and practices have originated in this part of the world, not through a homogeneous ‘European’ evolution, but through innovation, collaboration and conflict involving different persons, social groups, cultures and nations. Some paradigms, like those of classical Greece, have repeatedly been revived, criticised and reinterpreted. Educational ideas and practices developed in Europe have contributed to humanistic and democratic elements in modern education; but they have also contributed to repressive practices, both inside and outside Europe.