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Social Reconstructionism: Views from the Left and the Right, 1932-1942

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

C. A. Bowers
C. A. Bowers*
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
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Extract

The social reconstructionist educators within the progressive education movement were only one of the many groups to emerge in response to the depression of the thirties with the promise that their plan would regenerate society. Compared to Upton Sinclair's “End Poverty in California” program, the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party and the large followings of Huey Long, Father Coughlin and Francis Townsend, their movement seemed insignificant indeed. Yet they were taken seriously by political groups on both the Left and the Right. This was in marked contrast to the large body of classroom teachers, who remained indifferent to the Promethean role they were being called upon to perform. The extreme Left was forced to consider the social reconstructionists because the revolutionary role they assigned to the school represented a direct challenge to the orthodox Marxist position. Conservative groups responded to the program of the social reconstructionists out of fear that the minds of the young were being filled with un-American ideas and values. While the latter created a louder clamor, it was the Communists who were most deeply affected by social reconstructionism.

Type
Research Article
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , Spring 1970 , pp. 22 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 by New York University 

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References

Notes

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