UNDERSTANDING EDUCATIONAL HISTORY
UNDERSTANDING EDUCATIONAL HISTORY
Traditionalist, Revisionist, and Feminist Perspectives
When the past speaks it always speaks as an oracle: only if you are an architect of the future and know the present will you understand it. Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Use and Abuse of History for Life"
education History may tell us more about the social and political context of the historian than the period under study. You can solve this dilemma by writing a history of the present (Nietzsche and Foucault)
TRADITIONA LIST Celebratory History
Public schooling emerged as an inevitable outcome of democracy Segregation and discrimination was an unfortunate but transitional phase of moving agricultural despotism to the modern democratic social order.
REVISIONISTS Radical Revisionists Explored the undemocratic functions of the public schools (social control, class power, and white privilege).
“Culturalists” Explore educational history beyond public schooling to include other cultural institutions (e.g. family, church, ethnic lodge)
Feminist history
Traditionalists viewed women’s education as part of the story of progress. Radical Revisionist largely neglected gender as a central concept focusing on class and racial inequality.
WOMEN’S EDUCATIONAL HISTORY Contributory Revisionist Ideology of Separate Spheres Imposed on women Culture created by women Used by women
LIMITATIONS WITH FEMINIST SCHOLARSHIP Often failed to conceptualize how social class, race, and culture intersected with gender to shape educational experiences and outcomes
TENSION
structure
agency
INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS? Institutional analysis sees public schooling as shaped by larger social and economic change; yet having a degree of autonomy as a result of human agency.
Traditionalist, Revisionist, and Feminist Perspectives
When the past speaks it always speaks as an oracle: only if you are an architect of the future and know the present will you understand it. Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Use and Abuse of History for Life"
education History may tell us more about the social and political context of the historian than the period under study. You can solve this dilemma by writing a history of the present (Nietzsche and Foucault)
TRADITIONA LIST Celebratory History
Public schooling emerged as an inevitable outcome of democracy Segregation and discrimination was an unfortunate but transitional phase of moving agricultural despotism to the modern democratic social order.
REVISIONISTS Radical Revisionists Explored the undemocratic functions of the public schools (social control, class power, and white privilege).
“Culturalists” Explore educational history beyond public schooling to include other cultural institutions (e.g. family, church, ethnic lodge)
Feminist history
Traditionalists viewed women’s education as part of the story of progress. Radical Revisionist largely neglected gender as a central concept focusing on class and racial inequality.
WOMEN’S EDUCATIONAL HISTORY Contributory Revisionist Ideology of Separate Spheres Imposed on women Culture created by women Used by women
LIMITATIONS WITH FEMINIST SCHOLARSHIP Often failed to conceptualize how social class, race, and culture intersected with gender to shape educational experiences and outcomes
TENSION
structure
agency
INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS? Institutional analysis sees public schooling as shaped by larger social and economic change; yet having a degree of autonomy as a result of human agency.
