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Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. ProQuest Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 UMI* "SENTIMENTALISTS AND RADICALS”: THE ROLE OF GENDER IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION IN THE 1930s DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Diana K. Moyer, MA. ****** The Ohio State University 2001 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Patti Lather, Adviser Professor Mary Leach Adviser Professor Leigh Gilmore College of Education UMI Number 3011122 Copyright 2001 by Moyer, Diana K. All rights reserved. UMI UMI Microform 3011122 Copyright 2001 by Beil & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and team ing Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Copyright by Diana K. Moyer 2001 ABSTRACT This dissertation uses the work o f Elsie Ripley Clapp, a female progressive educator, as a case study to address gaps in the existing literature on progressive education. The study explores two interrelated areas; I ) the limitations of traditional categorizations of the strands of progressive education and 2) the position of gender in the historical construction of the progressive education movement. Of particular interest is what historians describe as the philosophical split between “child-centered” and “social-reconstructionist” progressives that occurred in the 1930s. A significant feature of this split is that it is often drawn along lines o f gender with female educators categorized as “child-centered.” In addition to questioning the assumed polarization of these approaches, the study highlights how untroubled binaries of progressive education obscure how these concepts were used in school practice. The work of Elsie Ripley Clapp served as a site for exploring the implications of the narrative construction of progressive education in the secondary literature. Operating from a child-centered/social reconstructionist binary, many historians have classified Clapp as child-centered and presented her as an oppositional force to social reconstruction. She serves as a useful illustration of the exclusions produced by a 11 reliance on these categories- Clapp’s practice, like that of many progressive educators, exceeded the boundaries of the philosophical divisions that existed within progressive education. Based on the analysis of the secondary literature and the work of Clapp, the study identified four key points of significance: 1) Thinking of the categories of child-centered and social reconstructionist as useful, but unbounded categories, rather than two mutually exclusive poles, opens up new possibilities for understanding the diversity of progressive practices. 2) The research on Clapp contributes to recent attempts to treat progressive education with greater specificity. Clapp points to the frequent disconnect between how progressive education played out at the institutional level and the more pragmatic approaches used in its application. 3) Problematizing traditional categories of progressive education intervenes in versions of the history of progressive education that feature men as social reformers and women as apolitical nurturers of individual children. In doing so, the study provides an example of the role of historiography in the ongoing production of sexual difference as a form of power. 4) The dissertation explores the possibilities for using feminist theory and cultural studies to inform the use of biography in education. By highlighting the multiple discourses and expectations that inform teaching, the study provides an example of biography that retains agency while attending to issues of contradiction in teacher narratives. in ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my adviser, Patti Lather for her support. Her guidance and insightful comments added immeasurably to the project. I thank Mary Leach for her encouragement of my work in this area and her contributions on the significance of Elsie Ripley Clapp. I also would like to thank Leigh Gilmore for her assistance. I am grateful for the assistance of my writing group, Jill Lynch and Lu Bailey, for reading many sections of the dissertation and providing thoughtful feedback. I also am indebted to Lisa Weems for her support and the contributions she provided throughout the course of the dissertation. I am deeply grateful to my parents, Paul and Kay Moyer, for always being there for me with their love and support. Thank you also to Kevin Carroll for his support of my goals and his unflagging encouragement and enthusiasm that has sustained me throughout my graduate work. 1 would like to acknowledge the assistance of Bette Weneck and David Ment at Specials Collections, Milbank Memorial Library at Teachers College and of Katie Salzmann, the manuscripts curator at Morris Library, Southern Illinois University. This research was supported by a Graduate Student Alumni Research Award from The Ohio State University Graduate School. IV VITA December 30, 1969 ................................Bom- Daytona Beach, Florida 1991.........................................................B.Ph. Interdisciplinary Studies, Miami University 1995 .........................................................M.A. Women’s Studies, University of Cincinnati 1996- present .......................................... Graduate Teaching and Administrative Associate, The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Education Cultural Studies in Education TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract........................................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgments.................................................................................................................... iv Vita............................................................................................................................................... V Chapters: 1. The contemporary search for origins in progressive education....................................... I 1.1 Critical theory’s historical excavation: Progressive education and social reconstructionism.................................................................................4 1.2 Elsie Ripley Clapp: A case study in constructing the history of progressive education...........................................................................9 1.3 Overview of methodology...................................................................................10 2. Constructions of progressive education: Situating child-centered and social reconstructionist educators............................................................................. 15 2.1 Progressive education:A ji overview ................................................................ 16 2.2 Progressive education in the 1930s................................................................... 17 2.3 Progressive education and American progressivism: Amelioration and social control..........................................................................20 2.4 Gender and the historical understanding of progressive education............... 3 5 3. History and the linguistic turn: Possibilities for the history of progressive education....................................................................................................42 3.1 History and poststructuralism: The impact of the linguistic turn.................. 44 3.2 Women’s history after the linguistic turn.........................................................51 3.3 Possibilities for feminist history: Bridging the women’s history/gender history divide....................................... 61 3.4 Progressive education: A discourse analysis................................................... 67 3.5 Challenges to biography: The subject after the linguistic turn......................75 VI 4. Disrupting categories of progressive education: Rethinking the child-centered/ social reconstructionist opposition...............................79 4.1 The effects of the child-centered/social reconstructionist opposition...............80 4.2 Outside the child-centered/ social-reconstructionist