Herbert M. Kliebard – författare

Published in 1987, the first edition of The Struggle forthe American Curriculum was a classic in curriculum studies and in the history of education. This new third edition is thoroughly revised and updated, and includes two new chapters on the renewed attacks on the subject curriculum in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as the way individual school subjects evolved over time and were affected by these attacks.

Published in 1987, the first edition of The Struggle forthe American Curriculum was a classic in curriculum studies and in the history of education. This new third edition is thoroughly revised and updated, and includes two new chapters on the renewed attacks on the subject curriculum in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as the way individual school subjects evolved over time and were affected by these attacks.

In this trenchant interpretation of the rise of vocational education, Herbert M. Kliebard explains how Americans turned to public schools for answers to the problems of an increasingly urban, industrial society. Tracing the evolution of job training as an educational ideal, Kliebard analyzes the construction of vocationalism through three overlapping but distinctive stages. In the first stage, manual training is promoted as a pedagogical reform and moral corrective. In the second stage, vocational training for the new industrial workplace emerges as a major component of the American curriculum and contributes to its bifurcation. In the final stage, preparation to enter the workforce begins to eclipse other educational purposes. Concluding with a Deweyan critique of vocationalism, this book offers a much-needed perspective with which to view current debates about the meaning of public education and the transition from "school to work."

In Changing Course, Herbert Kliebard explores an array of efforts to reform the American curriculum. From revolutionary changes effected in a tiny one-room frontier schoolhouse in the late nineteenth century to a modern comprehensive high school, this accessible volume presents a chronological account of specific reform efforts—exposing factors likely to achieve success as well as the roots of many failures. Using a historical perspective to illuminate contemporary problems, this volume examines both the conceptual defects of various reform theories and the ways in which theory clashes with classroom reality. Kliebard argues that educators must examine the entire range of reform efforts in order to find the telltale patterns and "fads" that must be replaced with more meaningful structural changes.

Originally published in 1992. Herbert M. Kliebard is considered one of the foremost historians in the field of education. This is a collection of 12 seminal essays that represents the best of his writing and reflection on the history and theory of curriculum studies. Asserting that the 20th century in particular has been a critical period in the development of the American curriculum, Kliebard delves into the historical events and theoretical principles that have formed the curriculum. Among other things he talks about the decline of the humanities curriculum, important education reformers such as John Dewey, and the "enemies" of the liberal arts curriculum in Victorian England.