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Thinking and Teaching in a Democratic Way: Hilda
Taba and the Ethos of Brown
Article · January 2005
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Journal of Curriculum and Supervision
Spring 2005, Vol. 20, No. 3, 234-256
THINKING AND TEACHING IN A
DEMOCRATIC WAY: HILDA TABA
AND THE ETHOS OF BROWN
ELLEN MIDDAUGH, University of Califomia^Berkeley
DANIEL PERLSTEIN, University of Califomia^Berkeley
ABSTRACT: In the middle decades of the 20th century, Hilda Taba played a prominent role in efforts to help American schoolchildren develop the cognitive skills and
values necessary to think democratically. Drawing on the principles of progressive
education and on social psychological and cognitive developmental theory, Taba
directed Intergroup Education in Cooperating Schools, an anti-prejudice project
involving scores of cities in the United States. She then adapted the Cooperating
Schools program for K-8 social studies. Throughout, Taba sought to inculcate
shared democratic beliefs while encouraging the individual, autonomous thinking
necessary for self-representation, and to foster empathy toward the perspectives of
different cultures while developing critical intelligence and common, democratic
values. In her simultaneous attentiveness to classroom social relations and to pedagogy and curriculum, Taba created a powerful theoretical and practical framework
for democratic education.
I
t is a truism in education that schools reflect the society in which
they exist. If, then, the 1954 Brown decision outlawing segregation reflected powerful reformist trends in American society, one
would rightly expect these same trends to shape curriculum reform
within the schools. And, in fact, many leading educational organizations—^the National Education Association, the Progressive Education Association, the American Historical Association, the National
Council for the Social Studies, and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, to name a few—did attempt to bring the
integrationist ethos of Brown to bear on the actual process of education.^ This article examines one such attempt.
Between 1945 and 1948, Hilda Taba directed Intergroup Education in Cooperating Schools, a project sponsored by the American
'Daniel Perlstein, "American Dilemmas: Education, Social Science, and the
Limits of Liberalism," in The Global Color Line: Racial and Ethnic Inequality and
Struggle from a Global Perspective, ed. Pinar Batur-VaderLippe and Joe Feagin
(Stamford, CT: JAI Press, 1999), pp. 355-377.
Ellen Middaugh and Daniel Perlstein
235
Council on Education and funded by the National Conference of
Christians and Jews, Bringing together "specialists in child development, literature, social psychology, social studies, school-community
relations, curriculum, and evaluation," the project developed, implemented, and evaluated human relations curricula in dozens of cities
from Newark and Wilmington to Cleveland, St, Louis, Denver, and
Los Angeles, Project workshops promoted intercultural understanding and sensitivity among teachers and trained them in methods to
do the same with their students,^
Like multiculturalists today, project director Hilda Taba embraced calls for educators to develop students' empathy toward the
perspectives of different cultures and appreciation of their richness.
Still, she placed greater emphasis on the pow^er of critical intelligence and common, democratic values in the fight against bigotry.
To help students overcome social divisions and engage meaningfully
in the activities of citizenship, Taba synthesized Kurt Lewin's pioneering research on democratic group dynamics, Piaget's constructivist theory of learning, and progressivism's attentiveness to the intersection of learning and democratic life. Through her efforts, Taba
"greatly increased , , , the scope of the schools' war on prejudice,"
extolled progressive educator and former Social Frontier editor
Mordecai Grossman,^
The court-ordered desegregation of schools and, by extension,
the delegitimation of Jim Crow segregation in American society is
the most important legacy of the Brown decision. Still, the littleremembered effort of educators to develop a form of schooling consonant with America's democratic ideals constitutes another crucial
aspect of the campaign to integrate the schools, one that has much
to teach today's educators,
HUMAN RELATIONS IN THE 8TH GRADE
Intergroup Education in Cooperating Schools, in the words of
project director Hilda Taba, worked to "develop new materials, new
approaches, new techniques, and new ways of mobilizing school and
community resources for improving human relations and fostering intergroup understanding,'"* Taba treated intergroup relations as part of
a larger educational program, one that enhanced the autonomy, dignity, intelligence, and equality of each individual. She located the
Taba and Deborah Elkins, With Focus on Human Relations, a Story of
an Eighth Grade (Washington, DC: American Council on Education, 1950), p, v,
'Mordecai Grossman, "The Schools Fight Prejudice," Commentary iKpril 1946):
36,
''Hilda Taba and Deborah Elkins, With Focus on Human Relations, a Story of
an Eighth Grarfe (Washington, DC: American Council on Education, 1950), pp, v-vi.
236
Hilda Taba and the Ethos o/Brown
particular situation of minorities in universal patterns of social interaction, addressing not only the contributions made by different
groups but also the broader need for tolerance and understanding.
With an oversight committee that included crusading school superintendent Willard Goslin, National Council for the Social Studies
leader Mary G, Kelty, University of Chicago education professor Robert
Havighurst, and psychologist Kurt Lewin, the project epitomized the
integrationist ethos of mid-20th-century American liberalism.
In themselves, lessons on such topics as "the meaning of being
left out and the group's responsibility in making a place for all sorts
of people" did not require teachers to rethink the way they went
about their work. But Intergroup Education in Cooperating Schools
operated on the theory that education was most effective when specified information and concepts relating to human relations were
paired with "learning by self-discovery," After directing a few failed
class discussions, for instance. Cooperating Schools 8th grade teacher
Deborah Elkins realized that she achieved better results when the
children were "left to work things out for themselves, the teacher
serving merely as a guide, , , , Since an adult is not imposing her
ideas on them, the children are free to express their thoughts,"^
Although Hilda Taba encouraged Cooperating Schools teachers
not to impose their ideas, she also argued that by consciously restructuring students' experience of social life, teachers could redirect
their thinking. Teachers varied peer activities and arranged group
structures so that "children with different talents could make a place
for themselves," In addition to more conventional lessons. Cooperating Schools students explored human relations through panels,
debates, and service programs. After talking directly to one isolated
boy about "things he could do that would please other people,"
Deborah Elkins encouraged his classmates to befriend the boy. She
talked with one girl "jokingly about Mark's being 'such a good kid,'
and about how he thought she was too," At the same time, Elkins
placed Mark "into many different kinds of work-groups where he
could experience a close relationship with others of his own age,"
By the end of the year, several students listed Mark as a child they
would like to sit with. Giving students "time, a free atmosphere, and
a little guidance," Elkins concluded, did far more than mere platitudes or teacher-centered activities to develop "a willingness to accept and appreciate differences," For Hilda Taba, Deborah Elkins's
classroom epitomized the Cooperating Schools' seemingly paradoxical commitment to fostering free inquiry and individual critical in,, pp, 41, 101,
Ellen Middaugh and Daniel Perlstein
237
telligence while engineering the social environment to promote social equality and democratic values,^
The teaching of democratic human relations began with the diagnosis of students' situations and needs, Taba asked teachers to assess the "values and ways of behaving" students had "learned in
their families, on street corners, at work or at play," together with
the "problems and difficulties" students confronted as they made
"their way through the web of human contacts," A teacher might, for
instance, begin the school year by asking students to identify characteristics they liked and did not like in other children, to list their
worries in life, and to identify their hopes and dreams for the future,'^
Initial diagnoses shaped teachers' curricular choices. Units such
as "Eamily" or "American People" varied in topic according to the
concerns of the class. In a typical unit, students might, for instance,
share their own experiences through written work or discussion,
and read and analyze literature with a focus on such human relations issues as "family and peer loyalties among first-generation children," Alternately, they might conduct research and share information through panel discussions on different aspects of these human
relations issues, debate aspects of a human relations problem, or engage in role-plays that suggested different approaches to solving
them. To highlight how issues raised in the unit embodied a new^
perspective that students could apply to their own lives, units typically ended with an activity, such as a discussion of "What makes a
democratic family?"^
Teachers continued to diagnose and evaluate students' progress
throughout the course of their studies, and they continued to evaluate the degree to which their practices met students' needs. Through
class logs, conversations with parents and students, reading records,
and repeated use of sociometric questions, they "gradually accumulated insights on what happened to children, on what they believed
and valued, on what they could do or think," Even when not engaged
in formal experimentation or evaluation, teachers learned to incorporate direct evidence or examples to support their assessments,^
Repudiating the "dangerous impression that education for racial
and religious tolerance is a thing apart from a general effective education for democracy," Taba held that effective human relations
education, like all effective social studies, required attentiveness
%id,, pp, 32, 36, 41, 101,
'Ibid,, pp, 1, 3, 8-9, 13.
sibid,, pp, 55, 58-59, 68, 95,
'Ibid,, p, 189. Sociometry is a procedure used to study the organization of
groups and to classify the positions of individuals within them. See J, L, Moreno,
"Sociometry in Relation to Other Social Sciences," Sociometry 1/2 (1937): 211,
238
Hilda Taba and the Ethos (/Brown
to students' feelings, attitudes, and values, as well as their thoughts.
In her mind, "the main emphasis throughout" the Cooperating
Schools project was on "sensitizing the children to human values
and human feelings" and helping them to develop an "understanding [of] why people behave as they do in a variety of interpersonal
and group situations,"^"
Academic learning was therefore only one yardstick Cooperating Schools teachers used to measure their own and their students'
efforts, Taba did insist that teachers assess students' ability to "think
through a problem and consider a variety of possible solutions," to
see "that many solutions for their problems were in their own
hands," and to understand and to predict the "consequences of their
own and others' behavior," Still, she was equally insistent that teachers assess students' ability to avoid "ill-considered pre-judgments of
others," to "work in groups and to relate themselves to each other,"
and to "identify with people different from them,""
TEACHING TEACHERS
To model an approach to democratic education that simultaneously imparted knowledge about intergroup relations, promoted critical inquiry, and strengthened social bonds, Taba organized workshops in human relations for educators and community workers from
the districts participating in the Cooperating Schools project. For six
weeks during the summer, teachers, community workers, school
counselors, and administrators came together on university campuses
to develop programs in human relations for their own communities,
Taba selected a diverse group of participants from 56 American
cities. Workshop participants represented all regions of the United
States (about a seventh were Southerners), a variety of religious backgrounds, and "small numbers" of African Americans, The schools in
which participants taught served varied populations, ranging from
ethnically and religiously diverse working-class districts and Italian
immigrant communities to segregated black neighborhoods,^^
In their applications to the workshops, participants proposed a
problem or project relating to their school or community for the
, "Educational News and Editorial Comment: International and Intercultural Education," Elementary School Journal 45 (December 1944): 187; Hilda
Taba and Deborah Elkins, With Focus on Human Relations, a Story of an Eighth
Grade (Washington, DC: American Council on Education, 1950), p, vi,
"Hilda Taba and Deborah Elkins, With Focus on Human Relations, a Story of
an Eighth Grade (Washington, DC: American Council on Education, 1950), pp, 190,
202-204,
'^Hilda Taba, Leadership Training in Intergroup Education; Evaluation of Workshops (Washington, DC: American Council on Education, 1953), pp- 23, 124, 224,
Ellen Middaugh and Daniel Perlstein
239
group to consider. Staff then interviewed participants and diagnosed
them for "level and scope of awareness, generality and functionality
of thinking, awareness of techniques for studying the situation, and
the degree of interrelations between problems perceived and solutions offered,"^*
Small groups, to which participants were assigned on the basis
of common projects or diagnosed needs, constituted the heart of the
workshops. Typically, each group began with participants describing their problems and projects, then analyzing the underlying issues, and combining these issues into the general topics around
which the curriculum was organized.
In their small groups, participants sharpened their "description
and analysis of existing situations," Supplemented by lectures from
experts in a wide range of fields, workshop sessions then covered
"cultural groups in America, their problems, interrelationships and
reaction patterns," and the impact of "minority status or ethnic background" on children's development, "Each work group," Taba
stressed, "proceeded from concrete studies toward generalizations,
rather than starting with generalizations and following them with
concrete illustrations," This movement from their own experience
and interests to broad themes in social relations, long a staple of progressive education, enabled participants to master "fundamental
concepts," to develop "an experimental attitude," to acquire "the
tools and skills necessary for experimentation," and thus to address
new problems when they returned to their communities,^"*
Inevitably, the process of open-ended inquiry (in which hypotheses were as likely to be dead ends as to offer new insights) and
of replacing previously held beliefs with new understandings created
feelings of discomfort and confusion, "I felt more and more vague,"
one participant reported, "It was as though each start I made would
be discarded and a fresh start at the same level would be made," At
first, another participant recollected, "I wondered and floundered, "^^
Workshop participants, Taba concluded, "needed encouragement in accepting the fact that no new learning takes place without
confusion, and that confusion, therefore, can be a sign of progress,"
Making participants comfortable enough with this unsettling experience for them to seek new understandings rather than to revert to
old answers was a crucial pedagogical task,i^
In addition to the inevitable frustrations that come with exposure to new ideas, the irrational fears created by undemocratic social
,, pp, 24-25,
"*Ibid,, pp, 26-27, 48-49,
''Ibid,, pp, 153, 155-156,
" ^ , , pp, 42-43,
240
Hilda Taha and the Ethos o/Brown
relations constituted a central impediment to learning. To reinforce
new attitudes, staff sought to maximize interactions across every conceivable division operating in the participants' lives. They encouraged participants to stay in a single dormitory for the duration of the
six-week program and shaped informal activities to build personal
ties between people who under ordinary circumstances would have
remained distant. Staff initiated bull sessions in which isolated and
shy persons could cluster without fear. They sat at dinner with Southerners and invited African Americans to join the group, serving as
buffers and intermediaries if necessary. Meanwhile, in workshop discussions, organizers relied on participants whom they perceived to
possess more democratic attitudes to lead discussions. "Quickly,"
Taba observed, "group members caught on to the do's and don'ts of
this atmosphere, and began to help in maintaining it."^^
Social engineering not only enabled marginalized individuals to
become full participants in group life; attitudes of openness to others fostered participants' intellectual openness to new perspectives.
Thus, Taba believed, improved interactions engendered a more profound quality in the group itself. Before participating in a workshop.
Miss B had seen in her working-class Italian students only "moral
and intellectual imbecility." Afterward, she was able to see beyond
a student's ignorance of English grammar to appreciate her detailed
understanding of "the intricacies of the construction of my dress."
Having learned that different environments encourage different competencies and skills. Miss B "wrote an article exposing the arbitrariness of the yardsticks usually employed in school. "^^
Still, Taba did not want participants to leave her workshops
with a relativistic appreciation of the varying values and attitudes inculcated by different groups. Individuals "motivated by moral principles and activated by conscience," she argued, were willing to "risk
the displeasure of the people around them to pursue their ideals."
By promoting "reflective thinking . . . about moral situations," educators could help students move beyond the prejudices they had absorbed in daily life and develop "general moral principles."^^
Although Taba sought to promote specific attitudes and analytic
skills, she was convinced that teacher-centered instruction hindered
learning and civic action. Many workshop participants, she noted,
were "accustomed to a passive approach to learning—expecting answers and complete directions as to how to go about their projects.
"Ibid., p. 97.
i^Ibid., p. 192.
''Robert Havighurst and Hilda Taba, Adolescent Character and Personality
(New York: Wiley, 1949), pp. 7-8.
Ellen Middaugh and Daniel Perlstein
241
being overdependent on the authority of books and experts, and
minimizing their own role as experts of their own situations." Instead of dictating solutions to participants' problems, workshop staff
strove to foster participants' "sense of their active role in their own
learning and . . . responsibility for shaping their own projects. . . .
Adroit questioning, rather than answering, had to be the teaching
method. "20
By the end of the workshops, Taba observed, "new ideas began
to take hold and shape themselves into an orderly perspective." Participants increasingly traced problems in group relations to the conflict between "children's cultural backgrounds" and the culture of the
schools. Moreover, participants' initial "rather fuzzy, sentimental"
explanations for intergroup tensions gave way to "seeing them as
challenging, and capable of solution if the right tactics were used."
"Slowly," the floundering workshop participant reflected, "I came to
realize that we had been giving lip service to 'democratic procedures' for too long. By simply looking into and clarifying our own
thoughts we formed the basis for further building."^^
Taba did not rely on participants' feeling of accomplishment
alone to determine the success of the workshops. "More systematic
study of the areas and levels of insight" documented a "shift in the
quality of perception of problems." Comparisons of participants' responses to a case study in intergroup relations given at the beginning and end of the workshop demonstrated growth from "a mere
listing of areas of relationships" to responses in which "problems
were identified concretely." Other measures showed a similar shift
from "a tendency to list practically everything one could think of
among human relations problems" to "much more organized, focused, and selective reactions" and recognition of causal relationships. Equally important, participants showed a greatly increased capacity to imagine solutions to human relations problems to which
they could personally contribute.^^
Taba's evaluations measured the degree to which the workshops fostered social bonds. Participants were asked to choose
among their fellow participants to form a small group—once at the
beginning of the workshop and once at the end. By comparing the
number of times each participant was chosen, Taba was able to calculate the status of individuals and the distribution of choices
throughout the workshop. "Concentration of choices on a few indiTaba, Leadership Training in Intergroup Education; Evaluation of
Workshops (Washington, DC: American Council on Education, 1953), pp. 33, 42.
^ilbid., pp. 97, 133-135.
"Ibid., pp. 130-131, 133-134.
242
Hilda Taba and the Fthos o/Brown
viduals," she noted, "indicates a focusing of attention on a few, and
a corresponding tneagerness of association across the group." Over
the course of the workshop, Taba found, "closed cliques" and "the
usual barriers to interrelations" such as "sex, race, religion, [and]
place of origin" dissipated. A "high degree of social integration took
place," manifest in "the ease with which ideas and feelings are communicated, and the degree to which everyone in a group has a sense
of belonging and being part of it."^'
HILDA TABA—A LIFE IN EDUCATION
The Cooperating Schools project epitomized Hilda Taba's commitment to improving human relations and fostering democratic attitudes. Over the course of more than 30 years, she conducted research, designed curriculum, and organized professional workshops
for teachers. Through these varied means, Taba sought to increase
tolerance and understanding between racial and ethnic groups, parents and children, schools and communities, and police and young
people, as well as between individuals.
Born in Estonia in 1902, Taba received her undergraduate education at the University of Tartu. In 1926 she came to the United
States, where she continued her studies at Teachers College under
John Dewey and other progressive luminaries. William Kilpatrick
deemed her dissertation "a most serious effort to bring educational
methodology abreast of the best modern thought."^''
Taba returned to Estonia in 1930, but the University of Tartu
had no room for a woman on its faculty. Coming to the United States
for a second time, Taba spent three years teaching German at Dalton, an elite progressive school in New York City. Dalton was one
of the schools participating in the famed Eight-Year Study, a massive
project designed to promote progressive pedagogy in secondary
schools. In 1936, University of Chicago professor and Eight-Year
Study evaluation director Ralph Tyler recruited Taba, who was facing deportation, to evaluate social studies for the project.
Tyler made a habit of interceding with immigration authorities
on behalf of refugee intellectuals. Through his efforts, such scholars
as Fritz Redi, George Sheviakov, and Bruno Bettelheim found a
haven working on the Eight-Year Study staff at the University of
Chicago, Although in Tyler's estimation Taba "knew nothing about
"Ibid., pp. 114-115.
^''William H. Kilpatrick, "Foreword," in Hilda Taba, The Dynamics of Education: A Methodology of Progressive Educational Thought (London: Kegan Paul,
Trench, Trubner, & Co., 1932), p. xvi.
Ellen Middaugh and Daniel Perlstein
243
testing and curriculum," he deemed her "an extremely intelligent
person" who "could learn." Tyler found a place for Taba at Chicago.
Tyler, along with Taba and other colleagues, "invented the summer
workshop" in which high school teachers and administrators worked
with Eight-Year Study curriculum specialists and other scholars to
"devise ways of assessing the needs of their students and the opportunities and demands in their communities." The workshop became the model for Tyler's Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction and, in turn, for Taba's belief that educational objectives
should emerge from the study of students, the knowledge of subject
matter specialists, and the demands of society.^^
In 1938, following her work on the Eight-Year Study, Taba became director of the University of Chicago's Center of Intergroup Education, later the Center on Human Relations. There she would
spearhead the Cooperating Schools project. Taba brought with her a
synthesis of liberal political values forged in the Eastern European
battleground between Nazism and Soviet communism, an immigrants' sensitivity to cultural differences, and the educational values
of American progressivism.^^
ROOTS OF THE WORKSHOP MODEL FOR
INTERGROUP EDUCATION
In addition to her personal experience working with educational reformers, Taba's integrationist workshops reflected widespread interests among progressive educators and social scientists.
In the first half of the 20th century, liberal social scientists discredited
scientific racism and irrational forms of bigotry that impeded the full
participation of all citizens in American life. Such scholars as Franz
Boas, Otto Klineberg, Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Gunnar
Myrdal saw racial prejudice as an aberration from the American commitment to democratic rule, equal opportunity, and the dignity of
the individual. Seeing active, critical thinking as both an antidote to
"Ralph Tyler, "Education: Oral History Transcript," conducted by Malca Chall,
1985-1987 (Berkeley; University of California Regional Oral History Office, 1987),
p. 77; Ralph Tyler "Toward Improved Curriculum Theory; The Inside Story," Curriculum Inquiry 6 (1977); 254; Joseph O'Shea, "A Journey to the Midway; Ralph
Winifred Tyler," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 1 (4); 447-459; Theron
Raines, Rising to the Light: A Portrait of Bruno Bettelheim (New York; Knopf, 2002),
pp. 140, 146; Richard Pollak, The Creation of Dr. B: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheim (New York; Simon & Schuster, 1997), p. 97; William Van Til and Paul
Diederich, The Workshop (New York; Hinds, Hayden & Eldredge, 1945).
^^Hilda Taba, "Educational News and Editorial Comment—Education for
Democracy," Elementary SchoolJoumat 41 (1939); 242-243.
244
Hilda Taba and the Ethos o/"Brown
bigotry and a crucial element of democratic living, they actively allied themselves with progressive educators.^^
During the 1930s, as social psychologist Morton Deutsch would
recall, "the Great Depression, the rise of totalitarianism, the barbarities of Nazism, the Spanish civil war, and forebodings of a new
world war" reinforced the commitment of scholars to make their "intellectual work . . . socially relevant." In an earlier or later decade,
Taba might have demonstrated her social engagement by arguing
more strongly in favor of pluralist celebrations of cultural diversity.
In the mid-20th century, though, assimilationist tendencies dominated the thought of liberal reformers. With its focus on group
processes rather than on the identities participants brought to the
group, the workshop reflected these liberal notions of tolerance.^^
The integrationist impulse intensified during World War II. One
of the largest mass migrations in U.S. history brought millions of
African Americans to Northern and Western cities. The discrimination in housing, employment, and education that greeted them
demonstrated that racism was not a Southern problem and undermined America's war against fascism. "Racial and religious prejudice," as National Conference of Christians and Jews leader and veteran intercultural educator William Vickery argued, "threatened our
unity." In response, liberal social scientists and policymakers called
"for applying knowledge painstakingly accumulated by scholars to
the solution of intergroup problems."^^
Follow^ing World War II, intergroup curriculum focused increasingly on efforts to counter the "rigid, authoritarian trends" in participants' personalities and to promote "emotional re-education" through
group work. Reformers argued that analyzing and becoming sensitive
to the conflicts between any two groups (such as siblings, fraternities
or sororities, parents and children, teachers and administrators, police
and youth, and so on) w^ould discourage race- and religion-based
conflicts as well. As psychological approaches to group conflict became more popular, Taba, like many liberal educators, focused increasingly on individual understanding and development, on sensiPerlstein, "American Dilemmas; Education, Social Science, and the
Limits of Liberalism," in The Global Color Line: Racial and Ethnic Inequality and
Struggle from a Global Perspective, ed. Pinar Batur-VaderLippe and Joe Feagin
(Stamford, CT; JAI Press, 1999), pp. 355-377.
^^Morton Deutsch, "Kurt Lewin; The Tough-Minded and Tender-Hearted Scientist," foumal of Social Issues 48 (1992); 31-32.
^^William Vickery, "Ten Years of Intergroup Education Workshops; Some
Comparisons and Contrasts," foumal of Educational Sociology 26 (1953); 292;
Charles Dorn, Education in a Time of War (doctoral dissertation. University of California, Berkeley, 2003), pp. 5-7, 147-150.
Ellen Middaugh and Daniei Perlstein
245
tivity to the needs of others generally, and on harmonious relations
between any variety of groups.'°
Psychologist Kurt Lewin pioneered research on how features of
small groups shaped interpersonal tensions. Like Taba a refugee
from Europe's ideological wars, Lewin was convinced that scientific
psychology could help resolve social conflicts. While most psychologists had focused on individuals, Lewin demonstrated that altering
features of small groups could change behavior in them. To ensure
the relevance and applicability of his research, he developed a
process of "action research" in which he used a "cyclical process of
planning, action, and evaluation . . . to concurrently solve a problem and generate new knowledge."^^
Lewin achieved a breakthrough at a 1946 workshop for teachers and social workers who were strategizing about ways to combat
racism in their home communities. One evening, three participants
listened in as researchers analyzed the day's discussions. When one
of the participants disputed an interpretation of her behavior, researchers and participants joined in an animated discussion. Soon
the analysis sessions became the central focus of the conference.
Lewin and his colleagues became convinced that participants' reflections on their workshop interactions more powerfully illuminated
and altered intergroup tensions than did discussions of problems
from their home communities. Educators, civil rights activists, and
corporations all embraced the new training, or T groups.^^
While social scientists such as Kurt Lewin were exploring the
nature of groups, constructivist psychologists were developing new
understandings of the nature of thinking. Educational psychologists
had long documented how little students retain of their studies or
are able to transfer to new situations. Constructivists fashioned an
explanation for this failure and provided a theoretical basis for an alternative to rote instruction. "Fundamental aspects of knowledge," in
the constructivist view, "neither come preformed in the genes nor in
the environment, but are actively constructed by the developing
individual. "^^ Just as the environment influenced the individual, the
individual understood and transformed her environment to create
new knowledge. Teaching therefore needed to begin with an assessment of the child's current level of understanding and continup. 298.
''David Bargal, Martin Gold, and Miriam Lewin, "Introduction; The Heritage
of Kurt Lewin," foumal of Social Issues 48 (1992); 6, 8.
'^Leland Bradford, Jack Gibb, and Kenneth Benne, T-Group Theory and Laboratory Method (New York; John Wiley and Sons, 1964).
^'Geoffrey Saxe, Culture and Cognitive Development: Studies in Mathematical
Understanding (Mahwah, NJ; Lawrence Eribaum, 1991), p. 4.
246
Hilda Taba and the Ethos o/Brown
ally provide opportunities for the child to actively shape and reshape
ideas.
Throughout her career, Taba deftly applied psychological and
social scientific theories to the school setting. She began with the
Tyler workshop model and curriculum rationale and incorporated
Lewin's T Group and action research and constructivist theories of
development to create a new approach to human relations and intergroup education.^"*
TABA'S THEORY
"Any modern educator," Taba suggested, "knows that cultural
disparity between the home environment and the schools sets up
obstacles to learning. . . . Lower-class children" in particular "learn
habits and values from their . . . family and neighborhood environments which are different from and of'ten antagonistic to the habits
and values found in the middle-class school environment." Still,
Taba argued, the solution to a problem requires an explanation of
it. Thus, "the steps taken on behalf of intercultural education vary
according to one's theories regarding effective methods of developing tolerance and eliminating misunderstanding. "'^
The differing academic achievements typical of children with differing class or cultural backgrounds, Taba argued, did not reflect
hereditary deficiencies but rather were adaptations to different environments. "Character," she concluded in a study of a mid-sized Midwestern town dubbed Prairie City, "to a very great extent, is leamed
behavior." The young child "learns to behave morally in response to
reward and punishment from his family and others with whom he associates." At this level of development, Taba wrote, "[a] person lives
up to the moral expectations of those with whom he rubs elbows."^'^
Although the cultural mismatch between home and school
weighed especially on poor children, schools needed to help all children transcend their inherited cultures. Cultural transmission might
have served traditional societies well enough, but "ever-changing situations of modern life" precluded its effectiveness as a moral guide.
Modern citizens needed to construct from their experiences a set of
abstracted standards that could serve as a moral compass when encountering new and conflicting environments. Rather than helping
adolescents to "develop a coherent moral philosophy" compatible
'""Hilda Taba and Elizabeth Noel, Action Research (Washington, DC; Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1957).
''Hilda Taba, "Educational News and Editorial Comment; These Are Our Children," Elementary School foumal 50 (1949); 64; Robert Havighurst and Hilda Taba,
Adolescent Character and Personality (hiew York: Wiley, 1949), p. 185.
'Robert Havighurst and Hilda Taba, Adolescent Character and Personality
(New York; Wiley, 1949), pp. 6-8.
Ellen Middaugh and Daniel Perlstein
247
with modern society, schools inculcated "stereotyped concepts about
good conduct [that], when successful, lead to an inflexible and rigid
code of behavior. "^^
How to help students develop flexible, democratic philosophies was, in Taba's view, a "major problem" for educational research and practice. Like many liberal educators and social scientists,
Taba believed that social life could be engineered to be more democratic. By providing experiences that would encourage students to
apply democratic values to their lives, teachers and schools could
compensate for some of the deficiencies in students' environments.
"Feelings toward children, prejudices, [and] social distance maintained toward cultural differences," she urged, could be changed.^^
The pedagogy of the Cooperating Schools classrooms and
teacher workshops reflected Taba's ideas about both democracy and
learning. She continually strove to foster students' and teachers' appreciation for the perspectives, needs, and contributions of other individuals, and to build a climate of broad inclusion in the classroom
and the community. However, Taba's theory of intellectual development and learning as well as her understanding of democracy precluded a curriculum that demanded narrowly defined outcomes or
relied on direct communication of democratic values.
Invoking Dewey, Piaget, and Gestalt psychology, Taba argued
that "perception does not give us copies of things." A constmctivist,
she theorized that by imposing previously understood and emerging
meanings on our perceptions, we develop broad generalizations and
make sense of the world. Learning occurs when individuals perceive,
interact with, and give meaning to their environment. Therefore,
knowledge could not be handed down to students as an exact replica
but needed to be recreated in variation through experiences.*^
Taba's belief in learning by discovery was shaped not only by
her beliefs about how people learn but also by her beliefs about
democracy. Students and teachers could not very well be expected
to learn democratic values through antidemocratic practices. "Democd., pp. 95, 181, 189.
Taba, Leadership Training in Intergroup Education; Evaluation of
Workshops (Washington, DC; American Council on Education, 1953), p. v.
''Hilda Taba, The Dynamics of Education (London; K. Paul, Trench, Trubner
& Co., 1932), p. 37. Taba may have also been influenced by Vygotsky, whom she
cited well before he was widely known in the United States. Vygotsky argued that
children's superficial replications of adult-provided knowledge were pseudoconcepts lacking the logical organization of adult concepts. Like Vygotsky, Taba
warned teachers about mistaking students' ability to recite definitions or describe
concepts for true understanding, which emerged when children connected spontaneously developed ideas from their experiences to the abstract scientific concepts
that adults provided. See Hilda Taba, Teaching Strategies and Cognitive Functioning in Elementary School (San Francisco; San Francisco State College, 1966).
248
Hilda Taba and the Ethos o/'Brown
racy is . . . a way of living," Taba wrote. "We have to furnish children
with an opportunity to cultivate their ways of democratic living together; more important, we must not close, by imposing the forms
and concepts and attitudes of present day democracy on them, the
possibilities for the evolving of their own ways of democratic living
together.'"'o
TENSIONS AND DILEMMAS IN INTERGROUP EDUCATION
In the Cooperating Schools project, Taba worked to balance the
provision of content with a pedagogy that would build on selfdirected learners. On the one hand, she presented social scientific
theories addressing cultural influences on child development, the
nature of prejudice, and strategies for reducing it. Both the adult
workshops and the classroom units explicitly led teachers and students to more tolerant and understanding attitudes toward different
groups and the problems they faced, and toward a desire to confront
these problems. On the other hand, students and workshop participants were encouraged to focus on personally relevant problems.^^
Appeal to personal interests could, at times, foster narrow solutions to social problems. The project of one Cooperating School
workshop participant focused on easing conflicts among different
factions of teachers at her school, an effort that did not make
any obvious contributions to the amelioration of racial, religious, or
nation-based tensions and inequalities."*^
The goal of developing practical responses to social problems
also placed limits on participants' social analysis. One of 8th grade
teacher Deborah Elkins's students was often left to care for her baby
sister. The older girl "used to think the baby is so spoiled, and it
made me sad." After Taba's program, the girl "showed some sensible reasoning and practical application of the ideas we learned."
Now, the student reported, "when she cries I try to figure out why."
The girl's laudable commitment to understanding her younger sister's point of view and developing strategies to address the baby's
concerns left unexamined broader ways of looking at their conflict.
Attention to the fairness of child care responsibilities in the family,
the relationship of family responsibilities to family income, or the social provision of child care may not be appropriate in this situation.
Taba, The Dynamics of Education (London; K. Paul, Trench, Trubner
& Co., 1932), p. 215.
''^Hilda Taba, "A Workshop for Teachers," foumal of Educational Sociology 18
(1945); 551-560.
''^Hilda Taba, Leadership Training in Intergroup Education; Evaluation of
Workshops (Washington, DC; American Council on Education, 1953), pp. 3, 5-6, 10.
Ellen Middaugh and Daniel Perlstein
249
(We have no idea how much time the girl spent taking care of her
sister, whether she had brothers who were excused, and so on.)
Still, the lesson this student learned illustrates how the individual
problem solving could lead to individual solutions even at the abstract level (i.e., the general principle of fairly considering another
person's needs when solving an interpersonal problem), rather than
encouraging collective resistance to injustice.^^
Einally, Taba also sought to reconcile a relativistic appreciation
of the varying values of different communities with a more universalistic stance suggesting the greater worth of a personal philosophy
grounded in generalizable moral principles. Taba realized that the
tension between commonality and difference, manifest across the
history of the United States, could not be resolved in a curriculum.
On the one hand, she stressed the importance of understanding the
perspectives of others and not judging practices and beliefs arising
from different sets of concerns or experiences as inferior. On the
other hand, while preaching cultural pluralism, Taba applauded universal goals of tolerance, inclusion, and equality.
INTERGROUP RELATIONS AND THE SOCLAL STUDIES
In 1951, Taba accepted a position at San Erancisco State College. There she embarked on a long collaboration with educators in
nearby Contra Costa County, a collaboration that culminated in the
1966 "Comprehensive Social Studies Program for Grades K-8." The
Taba Curriculum Development Project, as it came to be known,
sought to adapt the program of the Cooperating Schools to the demands of the standard social studies curriculum. Taba remained
committed to deepening students' understandings of themselves and
their world; to teaching them to think independently, abstractly, and
rationally; and to fostering the social and academic knowledge and
skills necessary for participating effectively and humanely in a
rapidly changing world."'^
No less than special programs in intergroup relations, the regular social studies program needed to be grounded in a synthesis of
social science and the "core values" of a democratic society. "Belief
in the worth and dignity of every human being, personal freedom,
equality and justice for all, peace and order among men, economic
well-being for all, and a sense of personal responsibility for, and
'''Hilda Taba and Deborah Elkins, With Eocus on Human Relations, a Story
of an Eighth Grarfe (Washington, DC; American Council on Education, 1950), pp.
143-144.
''''M. C. Durkin, Thinking Through Class Discussion: The Hilda Taba Approach
(Lancaster, PA; Technomic Publishing, 1993).
250
Hilda Taba and the Ethos o/"Brown
brotherhood with, one's fellows," Taba maintained, constituted "a
basic foundation for all curriculum planners and teachers.'"'^
"Recent world events and the social ferment caused by the transforming effect of technology," Taba argued, had "created new demands for social literacy." Instead of preparing students to solve the
as yet unforeseen problems they would confront as adults, social
studies classes imposed an "obsolescent" curriculum. "Teaching for
'coverage' of descriptive, factual know^ledge," Taba charged, "burdented] the memory without training the mind." The Taba curriculum,
on the other hand, focused on "durable knowledge, such as powerful generalizations, significant ideas, and concepts." The ultimate goal
was "continuous development of an increasingly complex mental organization . . . with which to view the world and to solve problems"
of a diverse and pluralistic democratic society.'^^
Taba's social studies curriculum was geared toward providing
"learning experiences which stimulate the development of cognitive
structures without depriving students of autonomy and self-activity
in generating new forms of conceptualization and of thinking." She
recognized that children rarely understood concepts exactly as they
were presented to them. Students were far more likely to master
concepts if given a chance to explore them in depth and repeatedly
grapple with the differences between their own understandings and
the understandings of others. Focusing on a well-chosen, significant
concept was more valuable than being exposed to a muddled, scattered set of misunderstood ideas.'*^
Taba organized the social studies curriculum around highly abstract generalizations that embodied important aspects of the human
condition. Such organizing ideas as power, cultural change, conflict,
and cooperation helped students synthesize large amounts of information and understand crucial social issues. The curriculum included a base set of concepts but no specifics. Behavioral objectives,
content, teaching strategies, and instructional materials were both
dictated by their power to deepen students' understanding of core
ideas and varied according to the needs and interests of the students
in a particular classroom. Similarly, in evaluating teaching strategies
and student learning, Taba focused on cognitive skills, such as stuTaba et al., A Teacher's Handbook to Elementary Social Studies: An Inductive Approach (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley), p. 9.
"**Norman Wallen et al.. The Taba Curriculum Development Project in Social
Studies (Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley, 1969), p. 2.
•"^Hilda Taba et al., Thinking in Elementary School Children (San Francisco:
San Francisco State College, 1964), p. iii.
Ellen Middaugh and Daniel Perlstein
231
dents' ability to "transform raw data into useable concepts, generalizations, hypotheses, and theories.'"'^
The social studies project confirmed Taba's reputation as an authority on curriculum theory, development, and design. It helped popularize the "spiraling" of concepts that reappear throughout the grades
and the organization of activities around concepts and ideas, as well
as inductive instructional strategies through which students organized
data, formed concepts, and then applied generalizations. As curriculum theorist and social studies educator James Banks argues, Taba's
intercultural work "had a significant impact on her famous social studies curriculum." She continued to attend to the interplay of thinking,
feelings, knowledge, attitudes, and values in democratic education.
Like the intergroup lessons, the social studies curriculum was geared
toward fostering the kind of abstract thinking that Taba fek was necessary to handle social problems, including those of race relations.''^
Still, the social studies curriculum was not structured to lead students to confront social conflicts, and it offered students fewer opportunities to apply their knowledge to social problems. Focusing
on individual cognition, the curriculum gave short shrift to the social
outcomes central to the intergroup project. Earlier, when determining the success of interventions, Taba had not limited herself to asking whether students thought differently; she also asked if a more
democratic society was created in the classroom. Were friendships
more varied and diverse? Were more voices heard? The social studies curriculum constituted a retreat from such questions.
Taba's curriculum was part of a broad movement to reform social studies. Advocates of "the new social studies" expected students
to mimic the techniques used by social scientists to discover knowledge in primary sources. "Our intent," proclaimed new social studies
partisan James Oswald, "was to be scientific, not impositional, to rely
on data and multiple-analyses. . . . Mundane citizenship education
and history would blossom anew as social science education." The
new social studies' inquiry-based approach would not only develop
Taba, Teaching Strategies and Cognitive Functioning in Elementary
School Children (San Francisco: Sari Francisco State College, 1966), p. 77; Norman
Wallen et al., The Taba Curriculum Development Project in Social Studies (Menlo
Park, CA: Addison-Wesley, 1969), pp. 74-77; Hilda Taba et al., A Teacher's Handbook to Elementary Social Studies: An Inductive Approach (Reading, MA: AddisonWesley), pp. 25-26.
"•^James Banks, "Multicultural Education: Historical Development, Dimensions,
and Practice," in Review of Research in Education, Vol. 19, ed. Linda DarlingHammond (Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association, 1993),
p. 36. See also Jack R. Fraenkel, "The Evolution of the Taba Curriculum Development Project," Social Studies 85 (July-August 1994): 149.
252
Hilda Taba and the Ethos o/Brown
children's understanding of social scientific concepts; it also would
encourage students' "conscious development of coherent individual
world views based on reality, flexible toward future change."5°
The new social studies mirrored a broader retreat by liberal educators in the 1950s and 1960s from the civic engagement manifest
in the Cooperating Schools project. The belief that a technically superior curriculum could simultaneously deepen intellectual engagement and strengthen democratic values was epitomized in the work
of Jerome Bruner and Benjamin Bloom. By learning not only the
findings of academics but also the processes they used in arriving at
their conclusions, students, Bmner argued, could more fully engage
their world. So, too. Bloom's taxonomy seemed to offer a nonideological framework of knowledge and skills with which to constmct
a curriculum. 51
Ironically, as Hazel Hertzberg notes, the new social studies,
even though designed by social scientists, neglected social and political conflicts emerging in American society. The focus on the
process of actively learning about social life, which constituted a liberal response to the intellecmal and political repression in the 1950s,
struck many educators and, no doubt, students as an avoidance of
hotly contested political issues a decade later. ^^
And then, by the end of the 1960s, with conservatism newly triumphant in American politics, support for new social studies research and development dwindled. Meanwhile, the very grammar of
schooling seemed to block curricular innovation. Although Hilda
Taba remained committed to teaching students a democratic way of
thinking, her social studies curriculum lacked the Cooperating
Schools project's focus on confronting social problems. Nevertheless, like the new social studies more broadly, the Taba curriculum
failed to achieve a secure place in the schools. The prospects of
even relatively depoliticized efforts to promote democratic thinking
and values were—and remain—uncertain.^^
5°James Oswald, "The Social Studies Curriculum Revolution: 1960-1975," Social Studies 84 (January-February 1993): 14-17; Edwin Fenton, Teaching the New
Social Studies in Secondary Schoois: An Inductive Approach (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966); Jack Fraenkel, "Building Anthropological Content into Elementary School Social Studies," Social Education 32 (1968): 251-253.
'^Edwin Fenton, Teaching the New Social Studies in Secondary Schools: An
Inductive Approach (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966).
52Hazel Hertzberg, Social Studies Reform, 1880-1980: A Project SPAN Report
(Boulder, CO: Social Science Education Consortium, 19B1).
"David Tyack and William Tobin, "The 'Grammar' of Schooling: Why Has It
Been So Hard to Change?" American Educational Research foumal 31 (1993):
453-479; James Oswald, "The Social Studies Curriculum Revolution: 1960-1975," Social Studies 84 Qanuary-February 1993): 16-20; Jack Fraenkel et al., "Improving
Ellen Middaugh and Daniel Perlstein
253
THE LEGACY OE HILDA TABA:
EORESHADOWING TRENDS IN SOCIAL STUDIES, CIVICS,
CHARACTER, AND MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION
Among the most fascinating aspects of Hilda Taba's work is its
familiarity. The particulars have changed: few teachers today recount
their struggles with the children of Italian immigrants or discuss the
merits of legal segregation. Still, Taba's world bears striking resemblance to our own. Her teachers worried about their students' character, constructive use of time, and ability to work in diverse groups
and diverse contexts. They struggled with appropriate responses to
domestic violence, gang activity, bullying, exclusion, and fights in
school. Workshop organizers strategized to increase sensitivity to the
plight of minorities and to increase tolerance of cultural differences.
Curriculum developers stmggled to encourage teaching for depth
and cognitive growth. If one changed the details, we could very well
recognize today's schools.
Several aspects of Taba's work have reappeared in current efforts for democratic education. The use of sociometric devices to
chart classroom status and encourage diverse groupings of students
foreshadows Elizabeth Cohen's extensive work on cooperative learning. Taba's description of a four-day session in w^hich a diverse group
of workshop members share their experiences and confront each
other's stereotypes would fit quite nicely into an AmeriCorps diversity training session. Taba's repeated concem that learning be active,
relevant, and tied to the needs of the context as well as the individual learner can be seen in service learning and civic education. A
number of modern constmctivist social studies texts that spiral repeatedly to central themes so that students can grapple with "big
ideas" throughout the developmental cycle draw on an approach
Taba introduced in her K-8 social studies curriculum. ^'^
Tensions in Taba's ideas also echo in debates in contemporary
character and moral education. Like Taba, today's character educators strive to foster shared community values that are flexible
enough for real-life situations without impeding an appreciation for
Elementary Social Studies: An Idea-Oriented Approach," Elementary SchoolJournal
70 (1969): 154-163. Hilda Taba, "Implementing Thinking as an Objective in Social
Studies," in Effective Thinking in the Social Studies: 37th Yearbook of the National
Council for the Social Studies, ed. Jean Fair and Fannie R. Shaftel (Washington, DC:
National Council for the Social Studies, 1967), pp. 25-50.
^''Elizabeth Cohen and Rachel Lotan, eds.. Working for Equity in Heterogeneous Classrooms: Sociological Theory in Practice (New York: Teachers College
Press, 1997); Hilda Taba, "A Workshop for Teachers," foumal of Educational Sociology 18 (1945): 551-560; S. G. Grant and Bruce VanSledright, Constructing a Powerful Approach to Teaching and Learning in Elementary Social Studies (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 2001).
254
Hilda Taha and the Ethos (/Brown
diversity. At the same time, moral developmentalists seek to foster
young people's critical moral thinking without neglecting their own
adult responsibility to inform children of the lessons learned by previous generations. The problem of how to take individual and diverse needs into account without resorting to complete relativism is
a continuing struggle in these fields.^^
Like Ralph Tyler, Taba rejected a curriculum that was organized
around "thousands of specific learning objectives" rather than "generalized learning objectives" through which students "discover principles that enabled them to meet new situations successfully." Just
as educators struggle today to delve deeply into history and social
studies while attending to the myriad topics required by content
standards, Taba sought to transform the endless drilling of students
to recall poorly understood facts and ideas into lessons in which students use the data of history and the social sciences to test their
evolving ideas.^'^
Finally, in her commitment to help teachers determine with evidence students' intellectual, social, and moral growth, Taba confronted standardized tests devised largely for measuring the mastery
of factual knowledge and relying largely on what students could
demonstrate with "pencil and paper." The failure of today's accountability programs to measure the more complex and creative
forms of mental activity such as divergent thinking continues to
haunt expectations and policy driven by the notion that "more content is better. "57
CONCLUSION
Like Piaget and other progressive educational psychologists,
Hilda Taba stressed the importance of the peer community in children's development of mutual respect. Hov/ever, whereas Piaget
imagined that peer-level interactions necessarily provided an equalstatus context for social learning so long as they are not hindered by
adult authority, Taba directly confronted variations in status among
peers. She attempted to level the social playing field in the classRyan, "The Missing Link's Missing Link," Joumal of Education 179
(1997): 81-90; Clark Power, "Democratic Schools and the Problem of Moral Authority," in Handbook of Moral Behavior and Development, Vol. 1: Theory; Vol. 2:
Research; Vol. 3: Application; ed. William Kurtines and Jacob Gewirtz (Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum, 1991), pp. 317-333.
5^Ralph Tyler, "Toward Improved Curriculum Theory: The Inside Story," Curriculum Inquiry 6 (1977): 252.
"Wilford Aikin, The Story ofthe Eight-Year Study (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1942), p. 19.
Ellen Middaugh and Daniel Perlstein
255
room so that students could interact freely without withdrawing or
submitting to the authority of higher-status classmates.
Like John Dewey, Taba saw democracy as a kind of "learning
community." In Taba's mind, intergroup education workshops were
"experimental ventures." By scientifically testing "hypotheses and
methodologies," the workshops could determine "which procedures
are most effective" in producing "a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience," which Deweyan educators believed to be the core of democratic life.^^ Moreover, method matched
vision: like the model democratic citizen, Taba continually assessed
and adjusted her theories as she worked with students and teachers.
She embodied what philosopher Maxine Greene described as "one
of our most powerful traditions—a rather remarkable populist tradition, a tradition of trust in human intelligence, a confidence in a democratic way of living that human beings could be educated to create
and recreate."5^
Like Kurt Lewin, Taba believed that social scientists could engineer group life in classrooms and communities to promote more democratic relations. Like Ralph Tyler, Taba argued that educational objectives could emerge from consideration of experience of the
learners, the knowledge of subject matter specialists, and the demands of contemporary democratic society, filtered through "an appropriate philosophy of education and an appropriate psychology of
education." Although, as historian Herbert Kliebard argues, the faith
that common values could be found did little to address underlying
educational and political conflicts, it provided the basis for a curricular program that challenged bigotry as part of a wider campaign to
democratize teaching and learning.^°
It is not uncommon today for teachers to see the fostering of
tolerance and other democratic values as crucial components of their
work. Still, it is often unclear what theories animate their lessons and
on what basis they might know if their efforts are having any impact.
Under such conditions, classroom practices often fail to mirror
rhetorical invocations of democracy. Taba helped teachers sort out
what exactly they meant by social consciousness or social concern
Taba, Leadership Training in Intergroup Education; Evaluation of
Workshops (^&shkigxon, DC: American Council on Education, 1953), pp. 105, 112;
John Dewey, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (New York: Macmillan, 1916), p. 87.
'^Maxine Greene, "Kenneth Benne: Poet of the Limits, Poet of Possibility,"
Educational Theory 42 (Spring 1993).
^Joseph O'Shea, "A Journey to the Midway: Ralph Winifred Tyler," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 7 (4): 456; Herbert M. Kliebard, School Review
78(2): 260.
256
Hilda Taba and the Ethos q/"Brown
in order that they could actualize it in their teaching. She helped develop tests on such matters as the application of principles in social
problems, through which teachers could begin to determine the degree to which they were achieving their expansive goals. This commitment to holding schools as accountable for the teaching of democratic values as for narrower ends endows Taba's work with
contemporary relevance and
^
ELLEN MIDDAUGH is a doctoral student in Human Development and Education at the University of California-Berkeley, Tollman Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720;
phone: (510) 430-3347; e-mail: ellenm@berkeley.edu. DANIEL PERLSTEIN is Professor of Education at the University of California-Berkeley, Graduate School of Education, 3525 Tolman Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-1670;
phone: (510) 643-8042; fax: (510) 642-4803; e-mail: danperl@uclink4berkeley.edu.
Aikin, The Story ofthe Eight-Year Study (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1942), p. 19.
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