Theory and Research in Social Education 08/03 National Council for the Social Studies

University of South Florida Scholar Commons College of Education Publications College of Education 10-1-1980 Theory and research in social education 08/03 National Council for the Social Studies. College and University Faculty Assembly Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/coedu_pub Part of the Education Commons Scholar Commons Citation National Council for the Social Studies. College and University Faculty Assembly, "Theory and research in social education 08/03 " (1980). College of Education Publications. Paper 27. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/coedu_pub/27 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Education at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in College of Education Publications by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. in Social Educa Volume 8 Number 3 Fall 1980 Theory and Research in Social Education Volume 8 Number 3 Fall 1980 TRSE is the official journal of the College and University Faculty Assembly of the National Council for the Social Studies . Published quarterly, it is a general review open to all social studies educators, social scientists, historians and philosophers . A general statement of purpose, and submis- sion, subscription and advertising information may be found at the end of the journal . ° 1980 by the College and University Faculty Assembly of the National Council for the Social Studies . All rights reserved. Editor: The College and University Faculty Thomas S . Popkewitz, University of Assembly Executive Committee 1979-80: Wisconsin-Madison Chairperson: Paul Robinson Associate Editor : University of Arizona B . Robert Tabachnick, University of Secretary: Beverly Armento Wisconsin-Madison Georgia State University Editorial Assistant : Treasurer: Gerald Marker Paula M . Bozoian, University of Indiana University Wisconsin-Madison 1980 Program Co-Chairs : Accounts Executive : Robert W. Johns Donna Schleicher Emily A . Melvin Auburn University Book Review Editor: Jack Nelson, Rutgers State University- James Eckenrod New Brunswick University of San Francisco Janet Eyler Editorial Board : Peabody College James Akenson Lynda Falkenstein Tennessee Tech. University Portland State University Beverly Armento Allen Glenn Georgia State University University of Minnesota Millard Clements Mary Hepburn New York University University of Georgia Catherine Cornbleth John Napier University of Pittsburgh University of Georgia Lee H . Ehman Ann Stoddard Indiana University Univ. of North Florida Carole L . Hahn Emory University Officers of the National Council for the Robin McKeown Social Studies 1979-80 : University of California President: Todd Clark Murry Nelson Constitutional Rights Foundation Penn. State University Los Angeles, California Richard F . Newton President-Elect: Temple University Theodore Kaltsounis University of Washington Paul Robinson University of Arizona Publications Board Chairperson : JoAnn Sweeney Carole L . Hahn University of Texas Emory University Gary Wehlage University of Wisconsin-Madison Jane White University of Maryland-Baltimore County Foreign Consultant to Journal : Geoff Whitty University of Bath, England Contents Articles 1 The Political Context of the Social Studies : Creating a Constituency for Municipal Reform Michael Lybarger The 1916 reports of the Committee on the Social Studies were published near the end of a twenty-year period marked by some of the most sweeping political reforms the country ever witnessed . On the federal level, the years between 1913 and 1920 saw the adoption of four constitutional amendments. A number of states adopted practices such as the direct primary, initiative and referendum, and workingmen's compensation - all aimed at enhancing democracy as well as bringing greater economic and social security to the people. American cities developed new charters, started municipal research bureaus, initiated civil service reform, and hired city managers instead of electing mayors . This research is an endeavor to place the recommendations of the Committee on the Social Studies in the context of progressive reform with particular attention paid to the reformation of city governments. The study is especially concerned with the work of the Municipal League. First, because ten members of the Committee on the Social Studies were members of the National Municipal League ; second, because very early in the League's history its members viewed education as an important means for gaining acceptance for reform recommendations . Z9 Nineteenth Century Origins of the Social Studies Movement : Understanding the Continuity Between Older and Contemporary Civic and U.S. History Textbooks James L. Barth and S. Samuel Shermis The current debate on social studies textbooks - as reflected in the writings of FitzGerald, Weisberger and Roselle - center around the alleged dullness, vacuity and intellectual sterility of social studies texts . The debate is hardly new . However, when one compares .U.S. history and civics texts of the last century with those written in the last twenty years, and attempts to relate both to the writings of social studies educators, the debate vanishes into irrelevance . It would appear that the social studies founding fathers modeled many of their major ideas after the assumptions of 19th century positivist social science . One can trace this relationship in the famous 1916 Social Studies Committee report . Writers of this report (1) related social studies to a conception of citizenship, (2) perceived the data of social science as shedding light on natural laws, (3) assumed that social scientist would select the "social problems" that students ought to study, (4) believed that use of social science data would lead inevitably toward gradual social improvement and amelioration . An examination of these assumptions as well as their historical contexts suggests that they are still employed and that social studies texts can be understood only by understanding their continuity with the past . iii 1 Social Studies : Something Old, Something New, and All Borrowed Murry R. Nelson This paper dicusses how four trends of New Social Studies 1) social sciences v. social studies, 2) inquiry, 3) ethnic and global perspectives, and 4) attention to the future have historical roots, even if those roots are largely unknown to social studies educators . By examining some of these founda- tions of social studies and sources or data, we can improve our field. The history of the social studies can serve as a guidepost for decision making in the future of the field . 5 The Conventional Historians of the Social Studies Paul Robinson This paper inquires into the historiography of the social studies curriculum in the United States . It appears that three educators - Henry Johnson, Rolla Tryon, and Edgar Wesley - whose primary works were published within five-year period during the Depression, were responsible for forming a pervasive insiders' view of the development of the social studies . This view remains influential orthodoxy today . The paper examines the historical bases for this conventional interpretation, discusses the men who fostered it, describes its leading characteristics, and suggests its incapacity for resolv- ing key questions related to curriculum history. .9 Problems of Democracy : The Revisionist Plan for Social Studies Education H. Wells Singleton Revisionists have played an important role in the development of the social studies curriculum . The problems of democracy course provided the means to establish a comprehensive citizenship education model . The historical study provides a degree of insight into the movement from 1916-1970 in which revisionists consistently attempted to promote citizenship education through the problems of democracy course. P5 The Collegiate Influence on the Early Social Studies Curriculum : A Reassessment of the Role of Historians Oliver M. Keels, Jr. The traditional view of the early social studies curriculum has been to see it as the product of an all powerful collegiate pressure, one embodied solely in those most directly concerned with the social studies - historians . As a result, there has been a tendency to ignore other aspects of the collegiate influence, and to create far too simplistic a picture of the founding of the social studies curriculum . This examination attempts to reassess the role of historians in shaping the form and organization of the secondary social studies in the period 1890-1911 . Special attention is given to the importance of the broader institutional relationships of high schools and colleges and the changing nature of both higher education and social science . Book Reviews ;9 Promoting Moral Growth, From Piaget to Kohlberg, by Richard R . Hersch, Diana Pritchard Paplitto, and Joseph Reimer . Reviewed by Lynne S . Schwab. iv Theory and Research in Social Education Fall 1980, Volume 8, Number 3, pp . 1-28 ° by The College and University Faculty Assembly of The National Council for the Social Studies The Political Context of the Social Studies : Creating a' Constituency for Municipal Reform Michael Lybarger Edgewood , College The 1916 reports of the Committee on the Social Studies, with which most readers are by now familiar, were published near the end of a twenty- year period marked by some of the most sweeping political reforms the country ever witnessed. On the federal level, the years between 1913 and 1920 saw the adoption of four constitutional amendments

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