Review Of Cremin's Ecology Of Education

During the 1970's, Lawrence Arthur Cremin put forward the ecology of education for the first time in history. He was a senior educational historian and critic of Columbia University. He redefined education and broke a new path of the study of educational history. This thesis analyses and describes his work.This thesis consists of five parts. The first part describes the origins of the formation of Cremin's ecology of education. The 1960's and 1970's were times of turbulence and confusion in America and the progressive education was lashed out. Cremin recognized that the social changes of this time would greatly influence the understanding and the role of education in society. He concluded, that people shouldn't attribute the failure of education to school. He recognized that educational element outside of school must be considered. Under the influence of the contemporary revolution of historiography, Cremin tried to include the way of ecology into his studies of education and finally put forward the ecology of education.The second part is about the main content of ecology of education. Cremin created his own definition of education: He defined education as the deliberate, systematic, and sustained effort to transmit, evoke, or acquire knowledge, attitudes, values, skills, or sensibilities, as well as any outcomes of these efforts. Cremin pointed out that the theoretical basis of ecology of education is interactionalism, that is, all the educational institutions interact with each other and with society. People are encouraged to consider educational problems with ecological ways, which are referred to as thinking comprehensively, relationally, and publicly about education.The third part is about how Cremin included his definition of education into the study of American education. He did not only consider the formal education in school, but also took the education in the family and institutions such as churches or libraries into account. Based on his new definitions, he completed his famous work American Education with 3 volumes. They became the authoritative works on the American education.The fourth part of this thesis describes the approaches that Cremin suggested to prepare responsible, public educators considering his new configuration and definition of education. He suggested that the school of education should be aware of the existence of different educational phenomena. These phenomena should be taken into...