Soc/EDS 126; Topic #2,
(4/6 and 4/8/10):
Education for Democracy in the Common
School Era (1840s—1920s)
Revised 4/7/10
Announcements
• Reflection #1: due 4/13/10
• New people need to be assigned to groups to
write reflections; turn in group list
• Sections: Thursdays, 1:00-2:00 or 3:30-4:30,
Pepper Canyon 304
• Read Dewey on pedagogy in packet; title left
off syllabus by mistake
• Syllabus and Powerpoints at create.ucsd.edu
Political Economic Context
1840-1920s
• 1. Urbanization: by 1850: 10--20% urban; 1900 50%+
urban
• 2. Industrialization—especially in Eastern Cities
• 3. New Immigration:
• Internal
-- from Northeast to Midwest and
-- from South to North—especially Blacks after Civil War
• From Europe
– Ireland, Italy (Mediterranean countries)
– poor, uneducated, unskilled, Catholic
– competed for low-skill jobs
Horace Mann & the Development of the
Common School (1840s-1920s)
• A. Goals of Early Common (Public School) Movement
– 1. To provide equal educational opportunity
– 2. To provide free [tax-based] education
– 3. To close the economic gap and social antagonisms
between rich and poor
• B. Curriculum and Instruction Strategies—
Moral lessons for industrial society taught through reading
Common School took on new “Social
Integration" or Assimilation function
• 1. “Americanize” new immigrants who were a threat
to social order because they had different language,
cultural conventions, and religion
• 2. Why? Society in decline because of rural--urban
shift (Durkheim, Weber, Marx)
• 3. School (and church): formal institutions needed to
replace family which because of alienation and
anomie caused by urbanization, industrialization,
immigration
Depictions of the Irish
Depictions of the Irish
Announcements
• Reflection #1: due 4/13/10
• New people need to be assigned to groups to
write reflections; turn in group list
• Sections: Thursdays, 1:00-2:00 or 3:30-4:30,
Pepper Canyon 304
• Read Dewey on pedagogy in packet; title left
off syllabus by mistake
• Syllabus and Powerpoints at create.ucsd.edu
Black-White Tensions in
Common School Era
• Before Civil War, Blacks in North were “free,” but not
accorded civil liberties:
– Denied housing, voting, schooling
• Even after “Emancipation Proclimation” schools were
segregated
– 1896 Supreme Court decision (Plessy v. Ferguson
reaffirmed “separate but equal”
– 1954: Brown v. Board: segregation not
constitutional; Warren Court invoked “equal
protection clause”
The Contribution of Curriculum to
Contradictions within Common
Schools (1840-1920)
Professed Goal of Common School--reduce antagonisms between rich
and poor;
But McGuffey Readers interpreted this charge as:
Rich: learn sympathy for the poor; learn that ranking of rich and poor
is “God’s will;” is a “Natural” condition;
Poor: poverty is their natural condition; but can the poor work out of
poverty?
Therefore, helped to legitimate and rationalize the segregation of sons
and daughters of "old” wealthy families and sons and daughters
of poor families
Protestant messages within McGuffey Readers reinforced capitalism:
-- hard work as key to success
-- honesty
--gender roles
Contradictions Between Democratic
Impulse and Actualization in Practice
• Stratified Schooling
--The development of tracking
--Segregation of rich and poor, blacks and whites,
Catholics and Protestants
Lessons:
--Drill & practice/recitation inconsistent with call for
thoughtful citizens
--Reading and writing in the service of religious/moral
training defined in explicitly Protestant terms
Some Contradictions of
Assimilation Impulse
•
Goal: Impart common values to unite
peoples from different cultures who spoke
different languages (Italian, Polish, Greek,
Irish.) of new immigrants
But school used overtly religious (Protestant)
materials:
McGuffey Readers & St James Bible
Contributed to segregation of Protestants and
Catholics in separate schools
Common School and
Progressivism
•
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The “Progressive Movement”
--“child saving”
--protective social services
--child labor laws
--universal education
Dewey’s View of Education
and Democracy
Schooling to serve democratic ends:
Critical thinking
Prepare students for college and career:
Bring outside world in
Devolved into vocational education
“College prep” separated from “voc ed”