Contributions to the Study of Education – serie

This book was written for sociologists concerned with education, but should be read by anyone interested in learning disability as a concept, either from a practical or theoretical standpoint. It is especially recommended for special educators and other professionals concerned with children who experience difficulties in school learning, as well as for the parents of such children. . . . Carrier has written an intelligent, well-documented, and important book that should provoke a great deal of controversy for some time to come. Contemporary SociologyJames G. Carrier presents a detailed historical description of the social and educational assumptions integral to the idea of learning disability. Drawing upon the works of leading authorities in the field, Carrier addresses a number of questions from an essentially Marxist perspective. His discussion revolves around the way in which social order structures reality, how that structured reality affects daily social practices, and how this, in turn, perpetuates the social structure which conditioned the practices in the first place. Dividing his discussion into three parts, Carrier first examines the contrast between structure and process in the theory of learning disability espoused by Burke and Boudrieu, moves on to consider the structural approach to the content and meaning of the theory, and finally provides a processualist consideration of why different groups came to support it. Finally, the author presents some of his conclusions about the conflict he has described.

Effective Education analyzes the ways in which majority and minority interests interact in the educational system. It outlines the concepts, goals, and policies of effective educational environments, and examines teaching and learning strategies for diversified groups of students. Despite the additional challenges presented by diversified student populations, author Charles Vert Willie demonstrates the advantages which may also derive from these groups, and shows how minority students can make general contributions to educational reform.

Through an investigation and description of the campaign conducted by the Rockefeller-funded English Language Exploratory Committee (ELEC) to revolutionize English-language-teaching practices in Japan, Henrichsen addresses the issue of how internationally oriented reformers of educational systems and practices can go about creating change and dealing with resistance to it. Henrichsen contends that innovation alone is rarely sufficient to bring about change and that simply communicating the innovation to the target audience is usually inadequate. He argues that creating change across cultural boundaries requires both a careful analysis of the target setting, one which takes into account the potential barriers to change, and an appropriate implementation strategy to overcome those barriers.In analyzing the ELEC reform campaign, Henrichsen develops and employs a hybrid diffusion-of-innovations model which represents both the diffusion/implementation process and the multitude of factors which affect it. This model, coupled with the example of the ELEC effort, provides planners of other reform campaigns with an understanding of what these factors are, how they are interrelated, and how to deal with them. Henrichsen's study is divided into six chapters, beginning with a justification for studying the diffusion and implementation of innovations. Chapters Two and Three provide background information and a chronological overview of the ELEC effort and introduce the model that is used as the framework for subsequent chapters. In Chapter Four the historical development of the Japanese English-language-teaching system and the influence of socio-cultural forces on language teaching in Japan are considered. Chapter Five analyzes the ELEC effort including characteristics of the innovation (Charles Fries' Oral Approach), the ELEC resource system,the Japanese English-language-teaching user system, and a number of other critical inter-elemental factors. Finally, Henrichsen discusses the consequences of the ELEC effort and draws some general principles from the particulars of this historical case study. This unique work will be of interest to anyone involved in the teaching of English to speakers of other languages or interested in the promotion of innovations in education or other fields.

Community development depends on effective social action, and effective social action requires the acquisition of related knowledge and skills. While other studies of community development stress the role of economic and political factors, Hamilton develops an educational model for promoting change within the community. The focus of the study is not so much on formal education, but on the role of nonformal education in fostering community development. Hamilton argues that through effective adult education, citizens can be empowered to improve their communities. His argument is grounded on a theoretical model that recognizes the intrinsic motivation of many adult citizens to improve their surroundings and which acknowledges that motivation must be matched with information.The book begins with an overview and analysis of the conceptual, operational, and theoretical dimensions of adult education and the development of communities. The chapters that follow discuss issues ranging from theories of social change to the identification of community needs. At the heart of the work is a description and analysis of an educational community development model that can be modified to suit the needs and philosophies of particular groups. Anyone interested in urban studies or education will find Hamilton's book unique, insightful, and inspiring.

Kaminsky provides a new intellectual history of educational philosophy in the context of a comparative examination of educational philosophy in the United States, Britain, and Australasia. Throughout his work he challenges those involved with educational philosophy to take a different view of the discipline and its intellectual mission. Kaminsky argues that the intellectual mission of education is different from that of philosophy. He believes that the legitimate audience of educational philosophy is made up of professional educators.The new history of educational philosophy suggests a profound alignment with social science; the discipline being part of an attempt to define and realize a social politic for the Common School. The conduct and invention of philosophy of education in Britain is drawn from an attempt to restore the classical reassurances of the English concept of a liberal education to the conduct of teacher education in particular and the conduct of English versions of education in general. In Australasia, Kaminsky argues, the discipline was initially dependent upon the work of R.S. Peters and the establishment of the university study of education in Britain. Later developments are attributed to a defensive two-class politics that came out of convictry and began to find expression in Old and New Left politics in the late 1960s and beyond. In offering a new interpretation of educational philosophy which traces its origins to both social science and philosophy, Kaminsky has provided a work of value to all involved with educational philosophy.

The ideas, people, and events that developed art education are described and analyzed so that art educators and educators in general will have a better understanding of what has happened (and is happening) to visual art in the schools. Peter Smith raises the issue of art education's inordinate emphasis on Eurocentric art. He challenges the often expressed notion that the field of education is the cause of art education's problems and proposes that confused conceptions within the art world are just as much a root of the difficulty. No other book in art education history gives such close and analytical attention to the careers of women in the field. The materials on Germanic cultural and historical influences are unequaled as is the scholarly treatment of Viktor Lowenfeld, probably the most influential single figure in 20th-century American art education.

This book is the framework for a new theory of moral development that combines components from a variety of existing theories of human development with the author's original research. The detailed description of the theory is divided into five sections: (1) foundations of development, (2) long-term memory, (3) the influence of environments, (4) working memory, and (5) progressions and stages of development. Each chapter concludes with an exercise demonstrating the application of the new theory, and the final section of the book employs the theory as a lens through which the moral development of four historic figures can be viewed afresh.

Named for the man who brought free higher education to city youths unable to afford the two local private colleges, Townsend Harris High School reminded generations of New Yorkers of the city's debt to him. Its mission was to prepare young men for success at City College, where education was free to graduates of the city's public high schools. The school's three year course was tough and rigorous. Students learned to survive and perform, or they left.By the 1930s, Townsend Harris was synonymous for bright boys, students who scored high on the yearly Regents examinations, but whose athletic ability, hard as they tried, was something of a joke. The author traces the development of the preparatory school from the first years of its beginning in 1849 to its 1942 closing by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia amid much controversy.