UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
EPE 797
HISTORICAL RESEARCH ON EDUCATION
Spring Semester 2004: University of Kentucky
Instructor: John Thelin
Thursday Evenings, 7:00 to 9:30 in 122 Taylor Education Building
Prospectus:
The aim of this advanced graduate seminar is to introduce you to the logic and design of
writing about significant, substantive issues in the history of education. Whereas many
courses emphasize the specific subject matter about a particular era or institution, here the
emphasis is on discerning how historians of education frame a research question, develop
analytic approaches, and then gather and make sense of diverse data sources. All this is
meant to help you in your own writing, whether it be for an article, a dissertation, or a
research proposal.
The premise of this course is that scholarship on the history of higher education is not a
passive spectator sport. Rather, it is an active, dynamic pursuit – subject to critical
exploration, insights, discoveries, and even disappointments. And, one of our concerns will
be to develop ways to make historical writing about higher education pertinent to policy
discussions and deliberations dealing with contemporary issues.
The approach will be to sample some varieties of historical writing: for example, local and
state history, biography, autobiography, memoirs, fiction, policy analyses, and institutional
chronicles. You will gain experience at balancing levels of information – ranging from
primary documents and secondary sources to “cliometrics” and historical statistics. We will
read these works critically, with an eye on such concerns as style, logic, fallacies of
argument, and strengths of influence.
Readings and Required Texts:
Please purchase the following required works:
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David E. Kyvig and Myron A. Marty, Nearby History: Exploring the Past
Around You
Burton R. Clark, The Distinctive College
Louis Auchincloss, The Rector of Justin
Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot, The Good High School
Ellis F. Hartford, The Little White School House
William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, The Elements of Style
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Supplementary Readings and Documents:
Selected readings and reports will be available either on reserve or as hand-outs. Some
examples of the kinds of work I plan to place on reserve include the following studies and
documents:
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Wilson Smith, “The New Historian of American Education: Some Notes for a Portrait,”
Harvard Educational Review (Spring 1961) vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 136-143.
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Ruben Donato and Marvin Lazerson, “New Directions in American Educational
History: Problems and Prospects,” Educational Researcher (November 2000) pp. 4-20
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Louise Blecher Rose, “The Secret Life of Sarah Lawrence,” Commentary (May 1983)
pp. 52-56.
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George Keller, “Trees Without Fruit: The Problem With Research About Higher
Education,” Change magazine (January/February 1985) pp. 7-10.
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Linda Eisenmann, “Reconsidering a Classic: Assessing the History of Women’s Higher
Education a Dozen Years after Barbara Solomon,” Harvard Educational Review (Winter
1997) vol. 67, no. 4, pp. 689-717.
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John R. Thelin, “The Search for Good Research: Looking for ‘Science’ in All the
Wrong Places,” The Review of Higher Education (Winter 1986) vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 151158.
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Carlo Cipolla, Literacy and Development in the West (1969)
Also, selected bibliographies and articles will be handed out in class.
Course Format:
Each class session will be a combination of discussion, lecture, and student presentations
Assignments and Evaluations:
You are expected to attend all class meetings and to participate actively in class discussions.
Reading assignments for each week should be completed prior to class meeting. Your
semester grade also will be based on your work on a major paper, a group project, and essay
assignments. Please be certain to keep a back-up copy of all your papers.
Assignments will be weighted as follows for determining a student's grade in the course:
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Autobiographies of Institutions: An analysis of a novel about campus life as a potential
source of institutional data and biographical information. (weight of “one”)
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Organizational Saga: An essay in which you incorporate the research concepts discussed
by Burton Clark in The Distinctive College or Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot in The Good
High School into your own research agenda. (weight of “one”)
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Images and Institutions: An analysis of institutional behavior and heritage in terms of
metaphors. (weight of “one”)
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A major research paper involving your own original work that incorporates the concepts
and insights of the semester’s discussions. (weight of “two”)
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Substantive contribution to class discussions (weight of “one”)
Office Hours: My office is 136A Taylor Building at the University of Kentucky, Lexington
campus. My E-Mail address is as follows: jthelin@uky.edu Office telephone is (859)
257-4997. I will hold office hours from 6:00 to 7:00 prior to class meeting and after class.
In addition to these regular hours I am available to meet with you by appointment.
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