Barbara Finkelstein – författare

This one-of-a-kind, comprehensive history of moral education in American schools provides an invaluable historical context for contemporary debates. McClellan traces American traditions of moral education from the colonial era to the present, illuminating both debates about the subject and actual practices in public and private schools, colleges, and universities. He pays particular attention to changing fashions in pedagogy, to church-state conflicts, to the long decline of character training in the schools, and to recent efforts to restore moral education to its once-honored place. The book concludes with a thorough examination of recent theorists, including Lawrence Kohlberg, William J. Bennett, Carol Gilligan, and Nel Noddings, and an appraisal of current practice in American schools.

The preparation of America's teachers is among the foremost issues facing education in the United States today. In this compelling account, James W. Fraser, an eminent historian of education, takes readers through two centuries of teacher preparation to uncover its development from colonial times to current standards-based models. Fraser examines a broad array of institutional arrangements, such as more familiar ""normal schools"" and less well-known arrangements, including teacher institutes and high school programs in rapidly expanding cities, segregated communities, rural areas, and Indian reservations. For any reader wishing to understand how to prepare teachers and reform schools, Fraser's incisive survey provides much-needed historical grounding.