AEDE was founded by a group of teachers from Germany, Belgium, France and Italy on the 8th July 1956 at a Congress held in Paris and was attended by teachers from all over Europe.

Nowadays AEDE is a network of more than 10,000 teachers, heads, inspectors and officials in 21 national sections, from nursery school to university level. AEDE welcomes teachers and schools throughout Europe who wish to work together and collaborates with European and national institutions - EU Commission, EU Parliament, the Council of Europe, other organizations pursuing the same objectives: to create an awareness of European identity, based on common values, history and culture, fostering the European Literacy and committed citizenship. Its goal is to give a better chance to preserve our European culture and to strengths more our principles of democracy, tolerance, freedom and equality through education.