Educating a Working Society

Vocationalism in 20th Century American Schooling

Glenn P. Lauzon

• Publisher: Information Age Publishing
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781641134415
  9781641134422
• eBook ISBN:
  9781641134439
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Vocational Education

The future looks promising for the field of career and technical education (CTE). The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 eases the way to create multiple pathways for high school students to get to college and careers. Philanthropic foundations are funding innovations in career preparation. State departments of education are revamping program guidelines and graduation requirements. In many states, governors have made career preparation a priority.

While people plan CTE's future, Educating a Working Society looks to its past. This book explores twentieth-century efforts to bring schooling and work closer together. Chapters feature timely topics, such as public controversy over vocational programs, the influences of racism in philanthropic giving, students' choices in course taking, teachers' efforts to combine the academic and vocational missions of schooling, and contemporary trends in college and career readiness initiatives.

Using schools to prepare youth for work has a long and troubled history. The contributors to this book dive into that history, bringing up compelling issues that challenge conventional wisdom about the history of education.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Educating a Working Society
• Educating a Working Society: Vocationalism in 20th Century American Schooling
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• 1: Introduction
• 2: Partitioning Schools: Federal Vocational Policy, Tracking, and the Rise of Twentieth-Century Dogmas
• 3: “Fitted to Serve Their Community”: Race and Power at Penn School and the Transition to Vocational Education
• 4: A School of their Own: Movements to Provide Industrial Education in Columbus, Georgia for Marginalized Students on Both Sides of the Color Line
• 5: Disentangling the Triumph of Vocationalism from the Institutionalization of Vocational Education: A Reexamination of the Douglas Commission Report, Social Efficiency, and the Cooley Controversy
• 6: More Than Mere “Book-Learning”: Democracy and Vocational Education in the Territory of Hawai‘i, 1900–1959
• 7: The Give and Take of Vocationalism at the Local Level: Administrative and Student Perspectives on Milwaukee’s Interwar High Schools
• 8: Striving for a Unity of Opposites: The General Education Movement, Vocationalism, and Secondary Education
• 9: Trending Toward “New Vocationalism” in College and Career Readiness Definitions
• 10: Cutting-Edge (and Dull) Paths Forward: Accountability and Career and Technical Education Under the Every Student Succeeds Act
• 11: Afterword
• About the Editor
• About the Contributors