Learning in nowhere: individualism in correspondence education in 1938 and 1950

This article seeks to investigate the individualistic ideas, practices, and student identities that developed in correspondence education in the mid twentieth century. In doing so a number of questions about the individualistic pedagogy and identities in correspondence education are posed. How was individualism to be achieved? What pedagogic practices were used? Who could students learn from? What was the desired identity of the students? How were the student’s material circumstances understood? In attempting to answer these questions the article aims to increase understanding of the individual pedagogy and the construction of the ‘independent learner’ at work in correspondence education during its golden age.