The author examines and critiques Ohio's new education policy in the context of historical education policy.

John Dewey adopted a child-centered point of view to illuminate aspects of education he believed teacher-centered educators were neglecting, but he did so self-consciously and self-critically, because he also believed that "a new order of conceptions leading to new modes of practice" was needed. Dewey introduced his new conceptions in…

School politics in Sweden has recently moved in a conservative direction, emphasising the importance of conventional school subjects, stronger teacher authority and more discipline in the classroom. At the same time, consensus on the utility of such measures is lacking in the school debate. The conservative approach is often criticised as…

Alexander Sutherland Neill (1883-1973) is well-known as the leading figure in the 20th century movement for progressive, child-centred education, a movement which attracted both supporters and critics. The independent school which he founded, Summerhill, was located first in Lyme Regis, Dorset and later in Leiston, Suffolk, both in England, but…

In the historiography on curriculum reform during the progressive era, one interpretive lens has dominated the study of 20th-century reform for more than 40 years: the idea of the "social efficiency" doctrine. In this historiographical essay, the authors briefly trace the rise of social efficiency as an idea in curriculum history, identify the…

This chapter contrasts the aims of progressive and traditional state-mandated schooling, and argues that the former represents a new form in the history of Western education, oriented to individual, social and moral reconstruction rather than reproduction, and guided by the evolutionary possibilities inherent in human neoteny. The school is…

This article explores the legacy of John Dewey, reconsidered and reconstructed within the challenging context of neo-liberal globalization. A free-market approach to the delivery of public education and other social services has come to dominate public policy, with increasingly well-documented and potentially devastating consequences. As prospects…

John Dewey was inspired by what he termed "the miracle of shared experience and shared communication." His faith in the power of individuals working in democratic association also included warnings of a darker side, the "monstrosities" that individuals can become when they live and work in isolation from others. In this…

"Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife," wrote John Dewey in his classic work "The School and Society." In "School, Society, and State", Tracy Steffes places that idea at the center of her exploration of the connections between public school reform in the early twentieth century and American political…

Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, high-stakes testing has become a ubiquitous feature of public school children's daily rituals. Reform advocates argue that testing leads to greater alignment of the curriculum with teaching and learning, teacher and student accountability, and in some cases, a preservation of our cultural…

In the globalization scenarios we currently face, educational systems are challenged by different and sometimes competing pressures and requests. These call for a deep transformation of the organization, role, and social function of educational systems. Within this context, the very concept of education has come to be understood in different ways,…

The purpose of this paper is to explore the principles of Assessment for Learning (AFL) in light of John Dewey's writing about the purpose and possibility of education. In this paper, we compare Dewey's ideas to the goals of assessment for learning (AFL)--a practice emerging globally and, more locally, moved forward by the Alberta Initiative for…

This article examines the notion of spiritual development as it was conceptualised for state schools in Britain through the Conservative Government's education reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, reforms which also introduced the National Curriculum. The article puts forward the argument that spiritual development was conceptualised in such a way as…

Schooling in North America and northern Europe embodies salvation themes. The themes are (re)visions of Enlightenments' projects about the cosmopolitan citizen and scientific progress. The emancipatory principles, however, were never merely about freedom and inclusion. A comparative system of reason was inscribed as gestures of hope and fear. The…

Examines the historical development of the term "child centered" in the discourse of early schooling in the United States. Beginning with Friedrich Froebel, who was the founder of the kindergarten and focuses on the development of the kindergarten until the 1930s. Explores how the underlying meanings of child-centerdness changed. (CMK)