Making a Mass Institution

Indianapolis and the American High School

Kyle P. Steele

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781978814394
  9781978814400
• eBook ISBN:
  9781978814417
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Making a Mass Institution describes how Indianapolis, Indiana created a divided and unjust system of high schools over the course of the twentieth century, one that effectively sorted students geographically, economically, and racially. Like most U.S. cities, Indianapolis began its secondary system with a singular, decidedly academic high school, but ended the 1960s with multiple high schools with numerous paths to graduation. Some of the schools were academic, others vocational, and others still for what was eventually called "life adjustment." This system mirrored the multiple forces of mass society that surrounded it, as it became more bureaucratic, more focused on identifying and organizing students based on perceived abilities, and more anxious about teaching conformity to middle-class values. By highlighting the experiences of the students themselves and the formation of a distinct, school-centered youth culture, Kyle P. Steele argues that high school, as it evolved into a mass institution, was never fully the domain of policy elites, school boards and administrators, or students, but a complicated and ever-changing contested meeting place of all three.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. Shortridge, Then Manual, Then Arsenal: Indianapolis Defines and Develops a High School System, 1890–1919
• 2. Forced Segregation and the Creation of Crispus Attucks High School, 1919–1929
• 3. The High School Moves to the Center of the American Adolescent Experience, 1929–1941
• 4. An End to De Jure School Segregation, Crispus Attucks Basketball Success, and the Limits of Racial Equality, 1941–1955
• 5. “Life Adjustment” Education, Suburbanization, Unigov, and an Unjust System by a New Name, 1955–1971
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author