JTE v3n2 - Social Reconstruction Curriculum and Technology Education
Volume 3, Number 2
Spring 1992
Social Reconstruction Curriculum and Technology Education
Karen F. Zuga
. . . to shape the experiences of the young so
that instead of reproducing current habits, better
habits shall be formed, and thus the future adult
society be an improvement on their own. (Dewey,
1916, p. 79)
In the first half of the century, during the depths of
the Great Depression, Progressive educators set out to
reform education by calling for a social reconstruction
curriculum orientation. In this paper I will explore social
reconstruction with regard to schools, curriculum, and
technology education. In the first half of the paper I will
explore what was meant by social reconstruction, the way in
which it was implemented in experimental schools, and the
legacy of social reconstruction. In the second half of the
paper I will discuss the role of processes in technology
education curriculum, provide ideas for organizing a social
reconstruction curriculum orientation in technology
education, and list examples of what a social reconstruction
curriculum orientation in technology education is not.
Social Reconstruction
In response to social conditions of the day,
Progressive educators during the early half of the century
were advocating a restructuring of education in this
country. Many of the Progressives believed that, due to
school practices, schools and society were caught in a
dualistic relationship which separated the school from
mainstream society and created an isolation of the schools.
They believed that what happened under the auspices of the
schools was not real or reflective of the problems in
society (Bode, 1933; Counts, 1932; Cremin, 1977; Dewey,
1916; Dewey and Childs, 1933). Furthermore, the Progressives
argued that the artificial environment of the schools was
miseducative in that the youth of the country were not
prepared to see and understand the values and issues which
would confront them as they became adults (Dewey and Childs,
1933). As a result of these beliefs, some Progressives
proposed that the schools create a new social order (Counts,
1932).
Definition
Creating a new environment in the schools,
"reconstructing" the existing environment, was the
Progressive agenda, but how that was to be accomplished was
not universally agreed upon (Cremin, 1976). As with any
other idea, a range of opinions were held with Counts
proffering, perhaps, the most radical opinion. Counts (1932)
envisioned a restructuring of American society and economy
as he said, "The times are literally crying for a new vision
of American destiny. The teaching profession, or at least
its progressive elements, should eagerly grasp the
opportunity which the fates have placed in their hands." (p.
50) Others were less radical in their suggestions for
reform, but did believe that social reconstruction was the
central aim of a good education and was necessary in
schools, if not, society at large.
Citing that many members of society were far too
concerned with individual needs, that the fervent
nationalism of the times inhibited international
cooperation, and that the economic depression was signalling
problems with the existing society and economic structure
(Dewey and Childs, 1933) mainstream Progressives believed
that the schools could be structured in a new way, and, in
turn, encourage students as future citizens to reconstruct
society. The focus of mainstream Progressives was on the
restructuring of schools; an effort which many hoped would
lead to eventual changes in society. For schools and
students, mainstream Progressive educators had several goals
which included: orienting students and helping them commit
to the life in which they would participate; helping
students to develop intellectual, aesthetic, or practical
interests; setting up an environment which would lead to a
deeper understanding of a democratic way of life; and
reconstructing the procedures of the school through
experimentalism (Hullfish, 1933). Mainstream Progressive
educators differed with Counts in that they saw a future for
the existing democracy. About the social reconstruction of
the mainstream Progressives, Dewey and Childs (1933) said:
Our continued democracy of life will depend upon
our own power of character and intelligence in
using the resources at hand for a society which is
not so much planned as planning --a society in
which the constructive use of experimental method
is completely naturalized. In such a national
life, society itself would be a function of
education, and the actual educative effect of all
institutions would be in harmony with the
professed aims of the special educational
institution. (Dewey and Childs, 1933, p. 65)
Interestingly, the Progressives based their
interpretation of social reconstruction in experimentalism,
science, and technology. Experimentalism and faith in
science and technology are fundamental to the philosophy of
pragmatism. As a leading pragmatic philosopher, Dewey
conceived of pragmatism as a uniquely American philosophy
which dealt with the concepts of the instrumentalism of
technology and the experimentalism of science as inquiry
(Hickman, 1990; Smith, 1980). It is no wonder, then, that
Dewey advocated experimentation in schools for both the
students via the curriculum and for administrators as they
determined the structure of schools. Moreover, Dewey and
Childs (1933) spoke of the use of instrumentalism as a
technology of education which would influence society: "An
identity, an equation, exists between the urgent social need
of the present and that of education. Society, in order to
solve its own problems and remedy its own ills, needs to
employ science and technology for social instead of merely
private ends." (p.64) Make no mistake about it, though, the
purpose of the use of science and technology was to be a
social purpose, not an individual purpose and not a business
purpose. Individual and business values and actions were
clearly criticized by the Progressives who linked these
values and actions to the evident ills within society during
the first half of the century (Bode, 1933; Counts, 1932;
Dewey and Childs, 1933).
Implementation
A number of experimental or laboratory schools were set
up during the Progressive Era in education. It is from these
schools that examples of what social reconstruction would
look like in education can be drawn. Bode (1933) explains
social reconstruction as a "continuous reconstruction of
experience" (p. 19) in daily school practice with the
following examples:
This reconstruction of experience, if it is to
have any significance, must take the form of
actual living and doing. Consequently the school
must be transformed into a place where pupils go,
not primarily to acquire knowledge, but to carry
on a way of life. That is, the school is to be
regarded as, first of all, an ideal community in
which pupils get practice in cooperation, in
self-government, and in the application of
intelligence to difficulties or problems as they
may arise. In such a community there is no
antecedent compartmentalization of values.
There are a number of important points here about social
reconstruction. Social reconstruction involves active
participation through "doing." However, this is not mindless
drill, skill development, or even the completion of
personally chosen projects, because the Progressives clearly
intended a social purpose to all activity. They viewed the
school as a community in which values and habits useful in
the greater community would be instilled through practice.
This was not to be an activity such as job training or skill
development which fit students into preconceived notions of
what adults believed they should become. That is why there
was an emphasis on self-government by students and that is
why Bode (1933, pp. 19-20) continued: "Shopwork, for
example, is not dominated by the idea of personal profit,
but becomes a medium for the expression of aesthetic values
and social aims. The quest for knowledge is not ruled by the
standards of research, but is brought into immediate
relation with human ends. Judgements of conduct are not
based upon abstract rules, but on considerations of group
welfare." The message is clearly one of social purpose as
the guiding force for the reconstruction of experience
within the school. Social purpose also guided the selection
of content and activities which formed the curriculum. The
social purpose is documented in an overview of the science
and technology curriculum at The Ohio State University
Elementary School and Kindergarten in 1935: "In evaluating
our results, we asked ourselves thoughtfully: 'Does the
educational experience we are setting up provide for real
participation by each student in each of these functions of
living?'" (Publications Committee, 1935, p. 121) The
curriculum of the laboratory school included a core of study
about the preparation of materials which was specified to
take place in the science, all of the arts, and the home
economics laboratories. Industry, distribution, and control
were some of the topics to be studied in this core.
The Ohio State University laboratory school was
organized about the concept of social reconstruction and was
often cited as an exemplar of social reconstruction
curriculum in action. The secondary school operated on the
same guiding principles. The effectiveness of the secondary
program was documented, uniquely, by the first graduating
class who took it upon themselves to write and publish a
book about their perceptions of the social reconstruction
program they had followed (Class of 1938, 1938). In their
extensive work the students explained how they created their
school environment with teachers who served as friends and
advisors. In the early years, much of the work that was done
under the auspices of industrial arts involved modifying
their own school environment by refurbishing the school
building.
In the experimental schools of the Progressive Era
social reconstruction curriculum involved student self
government, the evolution of a community consciousness on
the part of students, and group project work which focussed
on the school, local, national, and international
communities.
The Legacy
Very little evidence of the social reconstruction
curriculum remains today. Vestiges of practices initiated in
the experimental schools can be seen in efforts to operate
student councils, attempts to provide students some free
choice in projects, and endeavors to maintain school
laboratories in technology and consumer science education.
What happened?
Dewey and Childs 1933 critique of the failure to adopt
social reconstruction educational practices during that era
has an all too familiar ring today:
Why, even when the social concepts were retained
in theory, were they treated in a way which left
them mainly only a nominal force, their
transforming effect on practice being evaded? Why
were they so often used merely to justify and to
supply a terminology for traditional practices?
The reason which lies on the surface is that an
abstract and formal conception of society was
substituted for the earlier formal concept of the
individual. General ideas like the transmission
and critical remaking of social values,
reconstruction of experience, receive acceptance
in words, but are often merely plastered on to
existing practices, being used to provide a new
vocabulary for old practices and a new means for
justifying them. (p. 33)
Essentially, Dewey and Childs are critiquing the failure to
move from the academic rationalist curriculum of the Greek
tradition and the personal needs curriculum of the
Herbartian tradition. Educators are still struggling with
these, and other curriculum orientations today. Technology
education has not escaped this struggle.
Cremin (1976 & 1977), with the benefit of hindsight
offers an additional explanation of the lack of
implementation in schools of the Progressives' idea of
social reconstruction. He believes that Dewey failed to
resolve the dualism between the school and society that he
fought to overcome because he failed to account for the many
institutions in society which provide education. Media,
family, church, and industry are just some of the
institutions which provide education that Cremin cites.
Cremin argues that a contemporary conception of schooling
must account for the influence of these institutions and
their modes of education.
Phenomenologists and critical scientists provide other
reasons for the lack of enduring social reconstruction
curriculum reform. Vandenberg (1971), in a phenomenological
analysis, views the reform efforts of the twentieth century
as a Hegelian dialectic in which social reconstruction was
an alternative view promulgated as a result of child-
centered beliefs and was recombined with life-adjustment
ideas in the post World War II period. More recently,
Gonzalez (1982), critiquing from a Marxist perspective,
charges that the Progressives "never challenged the tenets
of capitalist production" (p. 103).
These and many more interpretations can be offered in
order to explain the absence of social reconstruction
curriculum today. Dewey and Childs (1933), however, remain
eerily accurate in their sense of educational ills both in
their time and today as they wrote:
Actually pupils have been protected from family,
industry, business, as they exist to-day. Just as
schools have been led by actual conditions to be
non-sectarian in religion, and thus have been
forced to evade important questions about the
bearings of contemporary science and historical
knowledge upon traditional religious beliefs, so
they have tended to become colorless, because
[sic] neutral, in most of the vital social issues
of the day. The practical result is an
indiscriminate complacency about actual
conditions. The evil goes much deeper than the
production of a split between theory and practice
and the creating of a corresponding unreality in
theory. Our educational undertakings are left
without unified direction and without the ardor
and enthusiasm that are generated when educational
activities are organically connected with dominant
social purpose and conviction. Lacking direction
by definite social ideals, these undertakings
become the victim of special pressure groups, the
subject of contending special interests, the sport
of passing intellectual fashions, the toys of
dominant personalities who impress for a time
their special opinions, the passive tools of
antiquated traditions. They supply students with
technical instrumentalities for realizing such
purposes as outside conditions breed in them. They
accomplish little in forming the basic desires and
purposes which determine social activities. (pp.
34-35)
In other words, at best, schools are insulated from society
and serve to preserve the status quo and, at worst, schools
are subject to the whims of fads and special interest
groups. If administrators and teachers do not take a stand
on the issues, students will not be able to take a stand.
We, as educators have not taken a stand. As technology
educators most of us promote a sterile conception of a
discipline based subject matter, rather than grappling with
the many social issues and problems which result from our
use (as a society) of technology.
Creating a Social Reconstruction Curriculum for Technology
Education
Technology educators have relied upon technical
processes as a means of generating curriculum content. This
is true for traditional programs as well as contemporary
programs. Teaching about technical processes is essential in
a "hands on" program. A social reconstruction curriculum
orientation would be "hands on." It is the way in which the
technical processes are organized that distinguishes the
curriculum orientation. In this section I will discuss the
prominent role of technical processes in technology
education curriculum, examples of a social reconstruction
orientation in technology education, and what is not a
social reconstruction curriculum orientation in technology
education.
Processes as Traditional Curriculum Content
There are many ways in which to identify and define
appropriate content for technology education. To this time,
technology educators have concentrated primarily on
categorizing processes either via the traditional content of
industrial arts or through contemporary proposals for
industrial technology education and technology education.
For example, industrial arts educators started with a
material such as wood or a process such as drawing and using
a form of task analysis categorized the processes students
needed to know in order to transform the material or create
an acceptable drawing (Silvius & Bohn, 1976; Silvius &
Curry, 1967; Wilber, 1948). The approach used in the
Maryland Plan appears to eschew a focus on processes while
students select content. However, processes eventually are
taught as they are required by the individual student's
project (Maley, 1973). In the same manner, industrial
technology educators started with an inputs-processes-
outputs model of manufacturing or constructing and
categorized a wider array of processes needed to manufacture
and construct (Towers, Lux, & Ray, 1966). The industrial
technology education curriculum was more inclusive in that
it incorporated the processes involved in managing the
businesses of manufacturing and construction. Contemporary
technology education curriculum follows the same route as
industrial technology curriculum by using an
inputs-processes-outputs model for generating curriculum
(Snyder & Hales, 1981). Some variation exists with the
British models of design and technology curriculum in that
problem solving becomes the focus of the curriculum and
problem solving processes in addition to technical processes
are used to organize curriculum (Barlex & Kimbell, 1986;
Kimbell, 1982; Williamson & Sharpe, 1988).
It is clear that technology educators teach about
processes. The differences in the curriculum orientations
(when and how the processes are taught) are rooted in
teachers' beliefs about education and students. These
beliefs cause the teacher to select and organize the
processes in a variety of ways. The differences lie in the
way in which the teacher chooses to slice the pie of the
current content universe of technical processes.
Organizing Technology Education with a Social Reconstruction
Orientation
In order to implement a social reconstruction
curriculum orientation in technology education social
problems which have particular relevance to technology are
chosen and become the means for organizing technical
processes. Technical processes are taught only as the need
to know them in order to solve the social problem arises.
For example, pressing social problems such as designing and
constructing low cost housing for the homeless, refurbishing
low cost housing, or retrofitting housing with energy saving
devices becomes the thrust of a social reconstruction
curriculum in a construction class. Students may never get a
chance to try all of the processes, such as installing
shingles on a roof or wiring, needed in order to build a
contemporary home. The teacher is more concerned about the
social problem and creating a community with students and
society and is less concerned about "covering the content."
Only the technical processes needed to construct the
alternative form of housing are taught to those students who
need to know the technical processes. The teacher also
trusts that the greater social goal is of more value than
specific content. The teacher believes that the experience
of solving a problem such as creating low cost shelter for
the homeless will instill in students habits and enthusiasm
for seeking out the knowledge and skills needed to take on
additional problems which will involve other knowledge and
skills. The teacher also believes that by example and
practice with selected processes that attitudes of safety
and pride in quality will transfer to new processes. In this
way the teacher hopes to help a student to be not dependent
upon instruction in order to function as an adult in
society, but to be willing to experiment and to try new
ideas and skills.
We are not lacking in pressing social problems which
relate to technology. Each content area of technology
education can be used as a vehicle for attacking social
concerns. Some examples include:
Transportation.
1. Designing and creating less polluting power systems for
vehicles
2. Designing and creating prototype alternative
transportation systems for the community and presenting
those designs to city council
Manufacturing.
1. Investigating the effects of local manufacturing firms
policies on the local environment and either honoring the
firms or approaching the firms with suggestions for
improvement
2. Investigating and attempting to develop biodegradable
polymers
3. Creating a manufacturing business which makes a product
identified as valuable to a select market such as senior
citizens or low socio-economic status (SES) citizens in the
local community and marketing that product to them on a cost
recovery basis
Communication.
1. Creating and testing personal emergency communication
devices for handicapped people
2. Examining advertising claims by doing product testing and
reporting the results to the local community
Construction.
1. Conducting an energy audit on the school building and
making recommendations to the school board for retrofitting
energy saving devices
2. Conducting energy audits and correcting the deficiencies
on students' homes, homes of the elderly, and homes of low
SES citizens
The list of examples is bounded only by the imagination
of the students and teachers who, in partnership, implement
a social reconstruction curriculum orientation in technology
education.
What A Social Reconstruction Curriculum Orientation Is Not
Another way of illustrating something is to discuss
what it is not. I choose to discuss what a social
reconstruction orientation to curriculum is not by using
illustrations drawn from contemporary technology education
practices.
It is not having the teacher choose course content or
the social problems. It is not isolating students in glitzy
cubicles in front of computer screens which feed a
standardized curriculum to all students during their
rotation through a modular curriculum. It is not having all
students complete the same project. It is not having
students solve unrelated problems created by teachers in
order to address course content or to keep the students
active. It is not failing to challenge students to be
critical of their school and culture (of which industry is a
part). It is not teaching technological processes in an
uncritical manner. It is not permitting individual students
to make projects solely to satisfy individual needs. It is
not teaching students how to follow directions all of the
time. It is not determining what content a child needs to
know in the future in order to be a successful adult,
thereby limiting the potential of the child. It is not
lacking the commitment to take a stand, one which will not
be universally agreed upon, on issues, all issues. It is not
discouraging students from taking a stand on issues.
Whatever technology education activities are conducted
in a social reconstruction curriculum orientation, there is
a social purpose to the activity. That social purpose should
be left to the choice of the students, because the students
are to be encouraged to take on the responsibility of
recreating society.
Summary
Several purposes of education have been prominent in
this country since the beginning of public education. Social
reconstruction is one of the unique categories of purpose
which has helped to shape educators' thinking about
curriculum. Social reconstruction curriculum tries to
involve students in school and community life in order to
help them to become adults who can reconstruct and improve
society.
Many technology educators have tried activities with
students which were motivated by a social reconstruction
perspective, but few have implemented a complete program. In
fact, there are few examples of any program which is
singular in curriculum orientation.
There is a greater problem with the social
reconstruction curriculum orientation. This is the focus on
social problems and the inescapable problem of having the
choice of the social problem reveal a value orientation. The
Progressives were well aware of this underlying tension
which involves taking a stand on the issues confronting
today's society. It is much easier to remain in the isolated
school environment than to declare one's political
orientation in an effort to attempt to remedy social
problems, for it is in the way in which one chooses to solve
the problem that one's political ideology is revealed.
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___________________________________________________________
Karen Zuga is Associate Professor, Department of Educational
Studies, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.
Journal of Technology Education Volume 3, Number 2 Spring 1992