Carl F. Kaestle – författare

The United States is at a crucial moment in the history of literacy, a time when how well Americans read is the subject of newspaper headlines. In this insightful book, Carl F. Kaestle and his colleagues shed new light on this issue, providing a social history of literacy in America that broadens the definition of literacy and considers who was reading what, under what circumstances, and for what purposes.  The book explores diverse sources—from tests of reading ability, government surveys, and polls to nineteenth-century autobiographies and family budget studies—in order to assess trends in Americans’ reading abilities and reading habits. It investigates such topics as the relation of literacy to gender, race, ethnicity, and income; the magnitude, causes, and policy implications of the decline in test scores in the early 1970s; the reasons women’s magazines have been more successful than magazines for men; and whether print technology has fostered cultural diversity or consolidation. It concludes that there has been an immense expansion of literacy in America over the past century, against which the modest skill declines of the 1970s pale by comparison. There has also been tremendous growth in the availability, purchase, and use of printed materials. In recent decades, however, literacy has leveled and even declined in some areas of reading, as shown in the downward trends in purchases of newspapers and magazines. Since Americans are now being lured away from the print media by electronic media, say the authors, current worries about Americans’ literacy levels may well be justified.

This important contribution to scholarship in social science history examines the development of public education in nineteenth-century Massachusetts. Until the 1950s educational historians emphasized the relationship of schooling to the political system and the development of a common American culture. In recent years a social history perspective has emerged that stresses the socioeconomic influences that tie education to other institutions and processes in society rather than to political ideals. Carl Kaestle's and Maris Vinovskis's study is firmly grounded in this newer perspective. However, their work questions the adequacy of any single-factor explanation of the broad educational changes that occurred during this period - whether it be the emergence of factory production or the broader concept of modernization. They argue that these educational changes were the result of the complex interaction of cultural, demographic and economic variables operating in varying ways in different communities over time. Ethnicity, religion, urban status, the occupational structure, income distribution and wealth of the community all emerge as significant factors in this interaction.

To Educate a Nation brings together the work of some of the most notable young scholars in the field of national education policy studies, focusing on the growing federal role in reform efforts; programs to provide equal educational opportunity; the changing relationships among federal, state, and local agencies; and the shifting boundaries between public and private sectors. Collectively, these essays provide a new and penetrating look at how education policymaking has changed over the past fifty years. Individually, they address such issues as desegregation, education choice, Title I, the National Defense Education Act, the politics of pre-K education, and Supreme Court decisions on equal opportunity - as well as how No Child Left Behind fits into the larger framework of debates over the standards-based reform movement. Developed over three years of seminars at Brown University, ""To Educate a Nation"" brings thematic and analytical coherence to the subject. Bridging historical and social science analyses, the contributors examine the interactions of federal initiatives with state and local practices as they highlight the complications inherent in American education today and provide a framework for grappling with its problems. Their insights expand our understanding of federal policy, national reform movements, and the changing nature of the polity in education - the institutions, traditions, and power relationships that define who has a voice in education policymaking and how they participate in it. For citizens and scholars alike, ""To Educate a Nation"" provides new ways to think about educational decision making in a federal system of governance, about unintended consequences of top-down policies, and about the continued resilience of state and local variation, clarifying how education policy is made in our unusual American system of shared governance and supplying an effective framework for understanding today's complex policymaking context.

In a period characterized by expanding markets, national consolidation, and social upheaval, print culture picked up momentum as the nineteenth century turned into the twentieth. Books, magazines, and newspapers were produced more quickly and more cheaply, reaching ever-increasing numbers of readers. Volume 4 of A History of the Book in America traces the complex, even contradictory consequences of these changes in the production, circulation, and use of print. Contributors to this volume explain that although mass production encouraged consolidation and standardization, readers increasingly adapted print to serve their own purposes, allowing for increased diversity in the midst of concentration and integration. Considering the book in larger social and cultural networks, essays address the rise of consumer culture, the extension of literacy and reading through schooling, the expansion of secondary and postsecondary education and the growth of the textbook industry, the growing influence of the professions and their dependence on print culture, and the history of relevant technology. As the essays here attest, the expansion of print culture between 1880 and 1940 enabled it to become part of Americans' everyday business, social, political, and religious lives. Contributors:Megan Benton, Pacific Lutheran UniversityPaul S. Boyer, University of Wisconsin-MadisonUna M. Cadegan, University of DaytonPhyllis Dain, Columbia UniversityJames P. Danky, University of Wisconsin-MadisonEllen Gruber Garvey, New Jersey City UniversityPeter Jaszi, American UniversityCarl F. Kaestle, Brown UniversityNicolas Kanellos, University of HoustonRichard L. Kaplan, ABC-Clio PublishingMarcel Chotkowski LaFollette, Washington, D.C.Elizabeth Long, Rice UniversityElizabeth McHenry, New York UniversitySally M. Miller, University of the PacificRichard Ohmann, Wesleyan UniversityJanice A. Radway, Duke UniversityJoan Shelley Rubin, University of RochesterJonathan D. Sarna, Brandeis UniversityCharles A. Seavey, University of Missouri, ColumbiaMichael Schudson, University of California, San DiegoWilliam Vance Trollinger Jr., University of DaytonRichard L. Venezky (1938-2004)James L. W. West III, Pennsylvania State UniversityWayne A. Wiegand, Florida State UniversityMichael Winship, University of Texas at AustinMartha Woodmansee, Case Western Reserve University