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The Social Studies Wars, Now and Then

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The Social Studies Wars, Now and Then Social Education 70(5), pp. 317–321 ©2006 National Council for the Social Studies Research and Practice “Research & Practice,” established early in 2001, features educational research that is The Social Studies directly relevant to the work of classroom teachers. Here, I invited Ron Evans to provide an historical perspective on the Wars, Now and Then controversy that once again swirls around the social studies curriculum. Ronald W. Evans —Walter C. Parker, “Research and Practice” Editor, University of Washington, Seattle. In his foreword to Where Did Social fashions and trends, a set of competing curriculum and often emphasize Studies Go Wrong?, published in 2003, interest groups is a relatively constant curricular attention to social problems. Chester Finn blames the “deterioration feature of the social studies arena. A fifth and related group is composed of social studies in U.S. schools” on There are five major competing camps, of social reconstructionists or critical the “lunatics” who have “taken over as I described in a recent book, The pedagogues, who cast social studies the asylum,” and who are imparting Social Studies Wars, struggling at in schools in a leading role in the “ridiculously little knowledge” to different times either to retain control transformation of American society. students. He lauds the volume’s intent of social studies or to influence its Other camps may be identified as well, to explain “where and how and why direction.2 The first, traditional and other curriculum historians may social studies went awry.”1 The book has historians, supports history as the provide a different breakdown. Herbert sparked a controversy over the current core of social studies and emphasizes Kliebard, in a classic work, Struggle for state of the social studies curriculum. content acquisition, chronology, and the American Curriculum, described But is controversy over social studies the textbook as the backbone of the four main interest groups: humanists, new, and does it matter to those engaged course. This camp defined its approach developmentalists, social efficiency in the day-to-day work of teaching in in the 1890s and has experienced a educators, and social meliorists.3 Hazel this subject area? My aims in this article revival in recent years. A second camp Hertzberg, in Social Studies Reform, are, first, to capture the main camps advocates social studies as social science discussed two main camps in social and patterns of the “social studies wars” and includes those who want a larger studies: federationists, who favor since the beginning of the twentieth place for teaching of the social science distinct disciplines, and unitarians, century and, second, to describe disciplines in schools and those who who favor curriculum integration.4 critical episodes from that long history support a structure-of-the-disciplines Regardless of how the interest groups that will help put the contemporary approach, which was at the heart of the are described, their rank and influence controversies in historical perspective. 1960s new social studies movement. A on schooling changes slowly over time. I’ll conclude by drawing three “lessons” third group, social efficiency educators, One is dominant, then recedes, as that social studies teachers today might hopes to create a smoothly controlled another comes to prominence. None consider from this history of curriculum and more efficient society by applying disappears, but rather remains present disagreement in social studies. standardized techniques from business with a lower profile. It is as if they are Pendulum swings are a regular feature and industry to schooling. Most often, parallel streams; while one is flooded, of the curriculum landscape, and the they have envisioned a scientifically another may be parched, nearly dry. primary pattern has been this: toward constructed, more directly functional Each of the streams has a history of traditional and discipline-based curriculum aimed at preparing students advocates and defenders, of innovators curricula during conservative times; for various life roles. A fourth group is and pretenders. Teachers can learn a toward experimentation, child-centered composed of social meliorists. These great deal about their own affinities, and inquiry or issues-oriented curricula are Deweyan experimentalists who and deepen their curricular identity, by during liberal times. If you don’t like the want to develop students’ reflective examining the various strands in some current direction of curricular reform, thinking ability and, thereby, contribute depth. take heart, it may not last. to social improvement. These theorists Frequently, the social studies Despite ever-changing curricular advocate a reflective or issues-centered curriculum and textbooks have served S EPTEMBER 2 0 0 6 317 as a lightning rod, attracting comment and economics. Only the National The Rugg textbooks melded materials and criticism regarding the nature of Association of Secondary School from history and the social sciences the field and the purposes of schooling, Principals gave a strong endorsement to into an issues-oriented, unified-field and reflecting competing visions of the the report.6 approach to social studies. Virtually worthy society, as if the curriculum was a Criticism abounded during the 1920s, every topic was introduced through screen on which critics of various stripes coming from advocates of traditional a social issue or problem connected project their vision of a preferred future. history and the social sciences. Anna to students’ lives, and the series drew Moreover, the social studies wars reflect Stewart accused the 1916 report of on recent scholarship from the “new” the nation’s cultural divide, manifest in “many inconsistencies,” and wrote progressive historians and other the 2004 presidential election: red disparagingly of the trends it had set “frontier thinkers.” The writing was states versus blue states; democrats in motion, like the move “to damn lively and engaging, and the series was versus republicans; conservatives and history in order to boost civics.”7 Ross thoroughly illustrated and filled with cultural fundamentalists versus liberals L. Finney, a sociologist, criticized the interesting charts and graphs. It became and moderates. These are deep fractures, new POD course, arguing for a general the best-selling social studies series of a reflection of long-term trends, and are social science rooted in the disciplines its time. For the ten-year period from not easily healed. and weighing in against “the mere 1929 to 1939, the series sold 1,317,960 forensic exchange of ignorant opinion” copies at approximately $2 each, and CRITICAL EPISODES that would occur in a course focused more than 2,687,000 workbooks.11 Since the inception of social studies in on “problems.”8 Much of the criticism Despite his professed aim of balance, the early twentieth century, a number of centered on POD’s failure to advance Rugg’s materials contained significant critics have assailed the field for alleged “scientific study.” But there was also amounts of social criticism and raised sins against history, one or more of the criticism of the idea of “social studies,” serious questions about the traditional social sciences, or mainstream values mostly from advocates of traditional role of government in matters such as and the American way of life. Here I’ll history. Henry Johnson, for example, regulation of business, providing for feature six critical episodes beginning lamented the idea of “history controlled social welfare, and treatment of the with reactions to the 1916 Report on by present interests and problems.”9 unemployed. The texts also critiqued Social Studies and concluding with the Because of these differences among advertising as wasteful and portrayed 1980s’ revival of history. the competing approaches, by the late the framers of the Constitution as men 1920s the field’s status was described by of wealth interested in protecting their Reactions to the Report on Social one observer as “Chaos in the Senior own interests. Studies High Social Studies.”10 Despite these Consequently, critics viewed the Rugg The first episode to be considered is controversies, the broad and modern materials as “against private enterprise,” the early period of reactions to and approach to social studies, championed as a “subtle, sugar-coated effort to criticisms of the 1916 Report of the by the Report on Social Studies, became convert youth to Communism,” as part Committee on Social Studies of the modal practice for much of the twentieth of a “reconstructed” educational system National Education Association’s century, and POD became a common geared to teaching that “our economic Commission on the Reorganization offering until its virtual disappearance and political institutions are decadent.” of Secondary Education. This report from schools in the 1970s, superceded Later critics accused the Rugg books called for a broad, interdisciplinary, by a new wave of reform. and others of being “un-American.”12 and modern approach to social studies.5 Attacks on the Rugg textbook series And it called for a 12th-grade capstone The Rugg Textbook Controversy were at first centered in the New course, Problems of Democracy During the 1930s and early 1940s, York City metropolitan area, and (POD), which focused on social issues controversy and criticism centered on were orchestrated by an interlocking and fused government, economics, and social reconstructionism as embodied directorate of critics, including Amos sociology. Reactions from professional in Harold Rugg’s avant-garde series Fries, E. H. West, and Augustin G. associations in the 1920s were mixed. of social studies textbooks. Social Rudd of the American Legion; Bertie C. The report received partial support reconstructionists believed that social Forbes, publisher of Forbes magazine; from several disciplinary associations; change could be directed by schools Alfred T. Falk of the Advertising however, the majority disagreed with and wanted teachers and the curriculum Federation of America; and Merwin K. curricular fusion and the creation of to play a strong role in the social Hart of the New York State Economic the POD course.
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