Ideal And Reality: Rural America The Popularity Of History Of Education Research

The educational development in the United States is in the leading place in the world. Its universal education system develops fast among the North American and European countries. The reason, to some extent, is that the rural education in the United States developed faster, which laid a favorable foundation for its universal education. The faster development of universal education has its social and historical reasons. On one hand, the faster economic and social development interrelated to the development of rural education, which was the dynamic force and solid foundation to the development of rural education. On the other hand, with the American traditional values, the educational goals and dreams in different historical stages were also the driving forces for educational development in rural areas. Accordingly, the progress of rural education in the United States is characterized by several historical steps-forward.This thesis is composed of three parts. The first part is introduction, which clarifies why the author would select this theme as a field of study. One reason is that rural education in the United States has not been comprehensively studied in China, which leaves us large potential for study on academic purpose. The other reason is that rural education is the greatest challenge in universal education of China, which needs to be tackled desperately. So the topic has realistic and responsive implication to China.The second part of the thesis is focused on the history of universal education in rural areas in U.S.A. The first chapter tries to clarify how the immigrants from European countries started their educational endeavors from their early settlement in the colonized continent of America. In the colonized agricultural society, some features of universal education came into being, that is to say, in certain areas or scope the people tried to offer educational opportunities to all children, and the education of disadvantaged children drew the attention of the communities. The second chapter analyzes the formation of public education system with the involvement of government at different levels. The public education system started with the Northwest Ordinance and grant of land for public schools. Then the system was strengthened continuously by the Common School Movement, the transition of religious and charity schools, and the enforcement of compulsory education laws. The third chapter makes an in-depth study of the urbanization of rural schools. In the late 19^th century, the gap between the rural and urban schools was increasing in the United States. Especially the gap in quality of education drew much attention of all circles of society. The movement of urbanization of rural schools improved the conditions of most rural schools by the emphasis of both learning opportunity and quality. The fourth chapter explains the re-orientation of rural education stressing the equality of educational opportunity. In the second half of the 20^th century the great gap between rural and urban schools still existed, so reorganization of rural schools and districts was going on. In the 1960s some educators and specialists started to review and reassess the development of rural schools. They realized the the equality of educational opportunity should be the mainly approach to equality in education. Accordingly all the schools regardless of urban or rural, large or small-scale should develop equally. The roles and values of rural small schools were recognized.The third part is the conclusion, which explains the features and driving forces for development of rural education in the United States as well as its implications to the rural education in China. The experiences of rural education in the United States, for example, the high efficiency of rural public schools, provision of educational opportunity to rural disadvantaged children, mobilization of community resources were all the good practices that could be shared in China's rural educational endeavor.