Harold Rugby Social Studies Textbook Research

As a well-known American educator in the first half of the 20th century, Harold.Rugg developed a serial of social studies textbooks, which once became the most popular social studies textbooks in American. However, the textbooks were attacked by a number of organizations and individuals 20 years later. There are very few people who have studied him in our country. This paper mainly introduces and analyzes Rugg's textbooks and the controversy of his textbooks.The first chapter is an introduction. It introduces the purpose and the main research methods, the main research methods used in the study is the literature analysis method and historical approach. And the relevant literature is reviewed, mainly related to the study of Rugg's educational ideology, his social studies curriculum thoughts and his social studies textbooks at home and abroad.The second chapter is a brief description and analysis of the development of Rugg's social studies curriculum thoughts. The development of his social studies curriculum thoughts can be divided into five stages: 1, the germination period of interest in education, 2, the period of change to the social studies, 3, during the formation of social studies achievement, 4, frequent participation in social activities, 5, reflection period in old age. Especially in the second period transition to the third period, he was influenced by the frontier thinkers, the avant-garde artists and the social reconstruction thinkers, which gradually led him to transform from engineering and statistics research to social studies research.The third chapter researches three aspects around Rugg's social studies textbooks: Firstly, the writer describes the three stages of the preparation and distribution of Rugg's textbooks, and a brief description of the changes in the content of the textbooks. Secondly, the writer analyzes of the characteristics of Rugg's textbooks, including: integrating multi-disciplinary knowledge, organizing the knowledge around the social problems, using questions to guide the students to think and using rich illustrations to make the textbook more interesting. Thirdly, the writer puts forward Rugg's social studies curriculum thoughts, which can be summarized as: training of qualified citizens of a democratic society is the main goal of social studies; social problems is the main content of social studies; the teaching of social studies focuses on students'participation.The forth chapter is mainly about the controversy of Rugg's textbooks. Firstly, the writer introduces the two party's views on the controversy. The opponents critical of Rugg's textbooks with the following five points: destructing American's public institutions, shaking the adolescent's belief in American ancestors, provoking criticism of the hatred between all levels of society, indoctrinizing of the socialist ideology, fouling the advertisement is false and money making. However, the defenders, including Rugg himself, think these criticisms are unfounded and out of context. Finally, the writer analyzes the reasons of the controversy and presents three suggestions on the social studies curriculum reform in China: 1, the implementation of social studies textbooks needs to obtain public's understanding and supporting.2, the content of textbook must meet the mainstream ideology.3, the implementation of the textbooks should consider the interests of all sectors.