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Review
| The Social Studies Wars: What Should We Teach the Children?, by Ronald W. Evans. New York: Teachers College Press, 2004. ix+213 pages. $56.00, cloth. $24.95, paper.
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| Most Americans may not realize it, but social educators have been at war over the elementary and secondary schools' curricula since the early twentieth century. As Ronald W. Evans makes clear in this engaging, timely, and important historical account, the battle lines have most often been drawn between historians and social studies educators. According to Evans, historians have pushed for narrow discipline-based approaches while progressive social studies educators have advocated integration, inquiry, and debate over current issues. He also believes that history's curricular dominance has hurt social education. Anyone who wants to understand the fight against social studies in the No Child Left Behind Act needs to understand the century-long context of this struggle that Evans's book provides. Evans begins by explaining how historians' efforts at the turn of the twentieth century set the tone for much of the rest of the century. The American Historical Association's so-called Committees of Ten and of Seven reports, issued in 1894 and 1899 respectively, established what Evans describes as the conservative nature of history's focus in schools. He states, "It served to glorify the nation's past by favoring fact, myth, and legend over historical analysis, and by asking few questions about the structure of society or the direction in which it was headed." (p. 19) |
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The report of the 1916 Social Studies Committee of the National Education Association's Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education attempted to recast the country's social education agenda. It advocated a curricular shift that would address students' immediate concerns and needs. The report proposed courses such as Community Civics and Problems of Democracy, both of which integrated various social science disciplines and stressed contemporary issues. Although proposed social studies, as it was now described, received mixed reviews, the National Council for the Social Studies was founded in 1921 and quickly embodied the reformist, progressive spirit of the social studies movement. Harold Rugg emerged as the new movement's leader. His social reconstruction approaches took off during the 1930s, especially through his textbook series, Man and His Changing Society. The texts took "[m]aterial from history and the social sciences [and] framed [them] with issues and problems of present concern." (p. 61) Nevertheless, social reconstruction quickly came under fire. From the late 1930s through World War II, the Hearst newspapers, various patriotic and business groups, and academic historians railed against social reconstructionist approaches. While most critics focused on what they thought was anti-American or anticapitalist about social reconstruction, noted historian Allan Nevins wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine in 1942 that claimed that social studies had undercut the teaching of American history. His article touched off nationwide debates about the status of history teaching that ultimately contributed to the disappearance of the Rugg materials and social reconstruction itself from schools. The Cold War completed the death of progressive social studies. The "new" social studies of the 1960s emphasized a return to basics and disciplinary knowledge that produced useful curricular materials but nonetheless neglected the issue-based citizenship infused throughout Rugg's materials. |
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Since the early 1980s neoconservatives have led the way in most recent battles in the long war against progressive social studies. Evans bluntly dismisses the legitimacy of the educational crisis signaled in the Nation at Risk report. "If the nation did have an educational crisis, it was one manufactured by business and political leaders." (p. 152) In addition, Evans says historians, particularly Diane Ravitch, used the furor about American educational decline to argue for history's revival in the schools. He criticizes the Bradley Commission on History in the Schools for ignoring "the problem of making the study of history relevant and meaningful to students." (p. 156) Evans claims the current standards movement is misguided since it was "launched amid a mythical crisis in education." (p. 163) He contends that the current standards movement advanced the trend toward disciplinary studies in social education with the National Council for the Social Studies complicit in its promotion. As a leading advocate for integrated and issues-centered social studies education, Evans's focus on the demise of progressive social studies as the central story in the social studies wars is understandable. But in making his case, Evans slights historians' concerns. While Evans is probably correct in noting that the way history has been taught in the schools relies on recitation and "knowing for the sake of knowing" (p. 19), many historians have in fact explained how history should be taught. Early on, Charles McMurry's Special Method in History: A Complete Outline of a Course of Study in History for the Grades Below the High School (1909) emphasized the teaching of authentic historical practices. More recently, the Bradley Commission's work, contrary to Evans's charges, focused on history education's relevance in preparing citizens for both reflective private and productive public lives. Like many other social studies educators, Evans thinks that historical reflection cannot motivate students to become actively engaged in contemporary social issues. Historians would no doubt question this belief. His call for more dialogue between the various camps of social educators should be heeded. Despite its biases against history education, Evans's book is perceptive and compelling, and should be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of social education. |
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| Western Michigan University |
Wilson J. Warren |
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