Title: History of Education for the 1990s and beyond: The Case for Academic Imperialism
Abstract: In his introduction to volume one, number one, of the History of Education Journal, published in autumn 1949, R. Freeman Butts asked, What would historians be if they did not look at their own history? Professor Butts did not answer his question, so we may assume it was rhetorical. Yet it would be inexcusable to discuss the future of the history of education as professional field without some reference to its origins and development. As Lawrence Cremin has noted, the history of education was an important part of the professional training of teachers well before the Civil War and by the early twentieth century had become virtually universal component of teacher education programs.1 Even so, historians of education did not become thoroughly selfconscious, formally organized professional group until after World War II, when as Butts explained to the readers of the History of Education Journal, a restlessness among interested in teacher education was appearing throughout the country. A desire to reexamine old assumptions and old ways of teaching went along with feeling that somehow the profession should organize and reorganize itself more effectively if it were to make real gains in improving the quality of teachers. In 1947 several historians of education who, according to Butts, shared this restlessness decided that those interested in the history of education should be better organized in order to carry forward continuing study and discussion
Publication Year: 1990
Publication Date: 1990-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 17
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