Presented by:

Dr. Paul A. Rodríguez

Social Diversity and Differentiated Schooling

Analytic FrameworkThe Early Progressive Era

Political Economy Schooling Ideology

UrbanizationIndustrialization“New” immigrationWorker responses to industrial managementMonopoly capitalismTaylorizationCentralization in governmentBureaucratization

Compulsory schoolingCentralized control of school boardsProgressive schooling for “social efficiency” versus progressive education for development democracyCurriculum: from classical to differentiated Learning by doingVocational educationExtracurricular activitiesSchooling for social stability & employable skillsSchooling for equal opportunity & for meritocracy

Modern or “new” liberalism Darwin’s influence on truthProgress via expert planningFrom virtue to rational ethicsIncreased nationalism“New” psychologyScientific racism & eugenics“Positive” versus “negative” freedom

The Political Economy of the Progressive Era

Urbanization:A shift from rural to urban lifeAlso, matters of culture and the quality of life.

Not on had the number of European immigrants more than tripled, but now only 22% were the “old” immigrants; the remaining were new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe: Italy, Greece, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania and other countries.

There was open and restricted immigration. Meaning, restrictions were placed on several groups of people because they were considered inferior.

Industrialization

Many found work in the mines, steel mills, factories and slaughterhouses.

By the modern age of business and industry had succeeded the age of agriculture.From Skilled Artisanship to Monopoly Capital

The number of manufacturing establishments more than doubled from 1860 to 1890, and the total production of manufactured goods increased at an even greater rate.

Taylorization: Scientific Management and SkillTaylor efforts was to break down each complex, skilled task

into component parts—simple moves that an unskilled person could be taught in a short time.

This “de-skilling” development led to a need for fewer skilled e workers, a greater number of unskilled workers and a corresponding decrease in workers’ wages and power to decide on the conditions of their labor.

All possible brain work should be removed from the shop and centered in the planning or laying-out department; and this task specifies not only what is to be done but how it is to be done and the exact time allowed for doing it.

Significance for Women and Office WorkBy 1900, 90% of all women who worked outside thee home

were working in just four different areas: domestic service (39%); manufacturing, particularly in the textile, clothing and tobacco industries (25%); agriculture, especially among Black women in the South (18%); and the profession, teaching & nursing (8%).

Worker Responses to Industrial ManagementWorkers (including women) tried to fight against the new

scientific management by forming unions in various kinds of labor, including office work.

Neither African Americans arriving from rural America nor immigrants from predominantly rural portions of Europe, nor skilled artisans, nor women working outside the home for the first time were accustomed to the managed regimen of the factory system.

Populism Populists opposed the effects of industrialism itself. It

expressed opposition to the way in which industry was organized.

Populist opposed the effects of industrial capitalism on costs of farm production, that were increasing and on prices for farm products, which were declining.

Opposed the growing legislative financial assistance to big business and industry, such as the millions of dollars’ worth of land granted by the government to the railroad industry.

SocialismFounded in 1877, developed an agenda that was similar to the

Populists.Socialists’ base was primarily urban, not rural and there was a

certain amount of competition between Socialists and Populists for worker support.

ProgressivismThe progressive era, (roughly the 1890s through the 1920s)

saw government regulations over business and industry that sought to end the conflict between labor and ownership without altering the unequal power relations.

The Progressive reform at the state level tended in part to follow the federal model of establishing appointive regulatory bodies to oversee commerce, politics and labor relations.

Progressive Urban ReformReform of city government amounted essentially to scientific

management of the cities in ways that might be considered analogous to the scientific management of the worker in industry.

Centralization of Power and ExpertiseIt eliminated the ward system of balloting, creating instead

a system in which aldermen were elected at large from throughout the city.

The common person was diminished in another way that was similar to what had happened to municipal government reform: decisions were made not through public debate but by administrative experts with formal training in areas of curriculum and pedagogy.

The claim to legitimizing their decision making, even if democratic processes of decision making were sacrificed.

New Liberal Ideology: Natural LawThe belief in natural law that was founded on the

discoveries of Newton, Bacon and other scientists was modified by the discoveries of Darwin, (1859), On the Origin of Species

This suggested that truth itself was not permanent and therefore could not be known with absolute certainty.

Scientific RationalityDewey began to emphasize the importance of expert

knowledge and scientific method as a way to achieve reason. Dewey, believed that the scientific method was the method of

intelligence itself. This thinking in many new liberals was to foster distrust of the

thinking of the majority of common citizens in favor of reliance on experts as the arbiters of reason.

However, Dewey argued that a society run by a class of experts would inevitably function to serve the interests of experts at the expense of the majority. The world had suffered more at the hands of experts than at the hands of the masses.

From Virtue to Rational EthicsIt was no longer taken for granted that what was moral and

good was revealed for all time in religious texts.Moral liberals believed it was a rational way to solve the

problem of preserving an allegiance to moral life when the religious bases of morality were being challenged by scientific findings.

ProgressFor classical liberals, human progress was virtually

inevitable and would eventually emerge from the temporary chaos of rebellions and revolutions.

NationalismEconomic, political and educational reforms were

increasingly justified in the national interest, and it was taken for granted that some of the primary purposes of the school were national in scope.

FreedomThe dominant conception of freedom in America’s classical

liberal era was earlier described as “negative freedom” to emphasize the idea that freedom was achieved through lack of interference from the government.

Some have referred to the modern liberal conception of freedom as “positive freedom” to indicated the new liberal belief that the conditions for freedom require positive government action rather than a noninterventionist, laissez-faire government.

Through government interventions the freedoms of the least powerful could be protected.

To them society was one corporate organism and the misfortunes of some members had an inevitable impact on all members.

This way of thinking was used to justify the right and responsibility of those in power to regulate society for the good of all.

New PsychologyGeorge Herbert Mead argued that human values,

perception, identity and behavior are all importantly shaped by social interactions, particularly those within the various groups of which a person is a member.

This dispelled the idea that learning is exclusively, or even primarily, a rational and intellectual process.

These views provided greater support for educating children and youth by emphasizing physiological, emotional and social dimensions of schooling.

Progressive EducationProgressive education is a simple term applied to a set of

phenomena so complex that scholars continue to debate exactly what progressive education was.

Two Strands of Progressivism: Developmental Democracy and Social Efficiency1880s, critics of the schools were already describing such

problems as:

1. Failure of the traditional classical curriculum to interest and motivate students.

2. High dropout rates at both elementary and secondary levels.

3. Growing problems of juvenile delinquency & illiteracy among urban youth.

4. Waste & inefficiency in school management practices in neighborhood-controlled schools.

5. Irrelevance of the traditional curriculum to the “real” needs of modern industrial society.

Developmental-democracy: the conception in which it was believed that direct participation by all citizens in the decision-making processes of political and economic life, once begun, would develop individual and social capacities for problem solving through rational means.

Social-efficiency: focused on achieving an orderly society in which political and economic institutions represented the interests of the governed through the application of the best principles of scientific knowledge and expertise.

They believed that under modern urban conditions, schools could best prepare students for participation in a democratic society by identifying the ‘evident or probable destinies’ of different groups of students and educating them for these respective destines.

It assumed that: the traditional classical and needs of students; learning should be based on activities rather than on rote; school aims, content and processes should reflect social conditions; a primary aim of schooling is to help solve social problems.

Deweyan DevelopmentalDewey believed that democracy was important not only

because it stood for freedom and equality but because of its educational consequences.

He believed that schools had failed to stimulate the intellectual capacities of most children because they had not taken the nature of the child into account.

The Nature of the ChildChildren are by nature actively social creatures.Children are by nature constructive—they like making

things.Children are creatively expressive.Children are by nature curious and inquiring.Dewey’s concern was that problems brought about by

urbanization, immigration and industrialization were being solved nondemocratically, by authoritarian methods that put some members of society in control of others.

Four assumptions of progressive education:

1. Replacement of the traditional curriculum with a varied, child-centered curriculum.

2. Learning through activity

3. Schooling as a response to social problems.

4. Schools should reflect on social realities and would be a function of the students’ interests and the projects they would seek to pursue.

A Unique Meaning for Progressive Education“Progressive” education marked an arrangement of student activities that grew progressively out of student’s interests and past experiences, leading to new experiences and new interests in a continuous and progressive style.

Students come to class not as blank slates, but already with a vast and varied set of experiences that make them interested in very different things.

Charles W. Eliot and Social Efficiency

1. Social stability

2. Employable skills

3. Equal educational opportunity

4. Meritocracy

Social StabilityAttacked labor unions as a threat to individual freedom.Prepare students with specific skills and attitudes for the

workplace.

Four Classes:

1. Small managing or leading class

2. Commercial class devoted to buying and selling

3. Skilled artisans

4. The rough workers

Equal Educational OpportunityOnly through education can equality of opportunity be

anything more than a phrase.It meant that students would receive different kinds of

education (equal opportunity) appropriate to them (class).

Meritocracy Schools could contribute to a more democratic society if,

they taught students to respect and confide in the expert in every field of human activity.

Schools helped locate and educate the most talented members of society for democratic leadership.

Each student would be educated for his or her particular place in society.

There was no such thing as equality of gifts, or powers, or faculties, among either children or adults, such schooling would educate leaders and followers.

Terms to Know

Charles Eliot populism

Developmental democracy progressive educational reformers

Eugenics John Dewey

Monopoly capitalism skilled artisanship

New immigration Taylorization

New psychology vocational education

On the Origin of Species