Jože Jurančič – A Teacher in the Service of the Nation

Between the two world wars, left-leaning teachers in Slovenia developed a specific pedagogical paradigm grounded in empirical research on the impact of the social environment on children, which supported alternative didactic approaches to teaching. A notable representative of this paradigm was Jože Jurančič, a pre-war teacher and communist. This paper presents his fascinating life story and describes the didactic features of his teaching in various regions across Slovenia. After the war, Jurančič was imprisoned on Goli Otok. Despite his fate as a political prisoner, in 1957 he published a polemical article in which he criticized the leading Slovene theorist of post-war socialist pedagogy for his dismissive stance toward the progressive pre-war efforts of left-leaning teachers and for relying too heavily on Soviet pedagogical doctrine. This polemic reveals significant disagreements among Marxist-oriented educators, provides valuable insight into the discontinuities between pre-war and post-war pedagogy, and opens up the possibility of interpreting post-war pedagogical thought as more pluralistic in its conceptual foundations.