Efficiency And Democracy:a Study Of American School Curriculum Reform In The First Half Of The 20th Century

In the late 19 th and early 20 th century,facing the situation of industrialization,urbanization,immigration waves and the decline of the traditional family structure,the gravity of American education system shifted from teachers to the school curriculum.What kinds of people trained in schooling,how to deal with the relationship with the industrialized society,and how to respond to the reasonable needs of individuals and society in the industrialized society had become important topics that the curriculum reforms in public schools had to face.In the early 20 th century,the belief of social efficiency from American business and industry was penetrated into public schools by Taylor's scientific management movement and became an important ideology leading to the transformation of the curriculum.In terms of curriculum-making,Bobbitt and Charters applied the principles of “efficiency,” “standardization,” and “professionalism” in industrial production to the curriculum development,which promoted the establishment of scientific curriculum-making and the specialization of curriculum fields.In terms of curriculum content,Snedden's advocacy of professionalism,the goal of producing productive citizens in “Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education”,and the legal confirmation of vocational curriculum in the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917,promoted the curriculum in public schools to professionalism.The social efficiency declined in 1929 when the Great Depression broke out after dominating the transformation of the curriculum in terms of curriculum-making and content.The pursuit of maximizing the social efficiency in the curriculum reforms triggered the alertness and criticism of Dewey,Boyd,and Counts.They point out that simple and excessive pursuit of social efficiency might damage the public schools' function of maintaining and promoting social democracy.Facing the social contradictions caused by the Great Depression,Dewey,Counts,and Rugg,etc.,had given public school curriculums the mission to rebuild a new order of the democratic society.Rugg took the initiative to rebuild the social studies.Through the integration of history,geography,citizenship,economics,and other social sciences and the introduction of democratic issues,he helped students form a critical view of wisdom and independence and promoted the establishment of a democratic social order.In 1930 s,under the influence of the Great Depression and the curriculum exploration in the 1920 s,American curriculums were changing in a new direction.Caswell,who advocated the improvement of teaching as the focus of the curriculum reform,led the American state-based curriculum revision movement represented by Virginia.The Eight-Year Study devoted to exploring the comprehensive method of curriculum organization on the basic of integrating students,society and other needs.The orientation of democracy and the social efficiency showed a compromise trend in the curriculum revision(reform)movement in 1930 s.With the methods of literature reviews and case studies,this study examines the historical process of curriculum changes in the United States under the influence of the social efficiency and democratic orientation in the first half of 20 th century.The study shows that the social efficiency orientation has important historical significance for the reform and professional development of American curriculum in the first half of 20 th century.The democracy orientation acts as a "modulator" for curriculum development.They have affected the reorientation of curriculum objectives in American public schools.