Secondary School Study

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The Secondary School Study was an exploratory analysis of progressive education techniques and curricula in various schools throughout the southern region of the United States. [1] Sponsored by the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools for Negroes (ACSSN) and funded by the General Education Board (GEB), the study began in the year 1940 under the direction of William A. Robinson and officially ended in 1946. As the supervisor of North Carolina's black secondary schools, Robinson presented information on progressive education in regard to the black community at the 1937 ACSSN conference. This specific presentation titled, “Progressive Education and the Negro” [2] was a catalyst for progressive techniques that laid the foundation for this study.

Contents

The purpose of the Secondary School Study was to further explore new and innovative high school curricula in a way that fit the black youth of this time, especially those not considering post-secondary education. [3] Similar to the Eight-Year Study which was a precursor to the Secondary School Study, it questions what was necessary to increase the curriculum for black schools. [4] Historically, progressive African American education had remained relatively stagnant. [5] Without a clear direction of how progressive education would manifest itself within the school system, progressive African American educators began cultivating practices they found most crucial to the success of students in this time period. [6] Some of these important aspects include cooperation and experimentation to adapt previous curricula to best fit their ideas of progressive education. [7] For the experiment, seventeen schools titled “member schools” (which are the sites where the experiments were conducted) were chosen from America's Southeast to conduct this experiment in which they attempted to reconstruct their curriculum and teaching programs. [1]

Schoolchildren reading with a teacher in 1940 Schoolchildren reading with teacher 1940.jpg
Schoolchildren reading with a teacher in 1940

Design

The parameter under which the Secondary School Study was conducted involved seventeen chosen high schools within the span of a decade. Within this period, each of these member schools began implementing their ideas of what progressive education would look like. [8] The study did not provide a set of standards by which progressive education would be controlled or taught, just that it was a shift from traditional curricula to a more integrated mode of teaching. Thus, progressive education was more of a fluid term and specific teachers took their own liberties and ideologies to interpret what that looked like in their particular classroom. [9] This progressive educational pursuit was implemented through programs both curricular and extracurricular based, as well as various other activities. Through these lessons and activities, African American educators were able to also create an environment for students to learn about social justice as well as social activism. [10]

Effect

Students of Lincoln High School in Tallahassee, Florida Lincoln High School Students.jpg
Students of Lincoln High School in Tallahassee, Florida

Contradictory to the predecessor of the Eight-Year Study, the Secondary School Study did not conduct follow-up research. [11] The study concluded in 1946, and experimental work in interpretations of progressive education continued in various locations in the Southeast as well as throughout the country. This study concludes that the importance comes from the work of the teachers, the black progressive educators involved in the development of a new form of education received by the students during this period in the Jim Crow era. [12] There was no set definition of what progressive education would appear to look like, so the different interpretations from black educators allowed evolving ideas to fit their student's needs. [6]

References

  1. 1 2 Kridel, Craig Alan (2015). Progressive Education in Black High Schools: The Secondary School Study, 1940-1946. Columbia, SC: Museum of Education, University of South Carolina. ISBN   9780692555798.
  2. ↑ Robinson, William A. (1937b). “Progressive Education and the Negro,” Proceedings from the ACSSN, pp. 57-65
  3. ↑ Powell, Dave. “Moving Forward, Looking Back: Renewing the Struggle for an American Curriculum.” Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy8, no. 2 (2011): 136–54. doi : 10.1080/15505170.2011.624936.
  4. ↑ Watras, Joseph (2006-08-24). "The Eight-Year Study: From Evaluative Research to a Demonstration Project, 1930—1940". Education Policy Analysis Archives. 14: 21. doi: 10.14507/epaa.v14n21.2006 . ISSN   1068-2341.
  5. ↑ Franklin, V. P. “The Tests Are Written for the Dogs: ‘The Journal of Negro Education’, African American Children, and the Intelligence Testing Movement in Historical Perspective.” The Journal of Negro Education76, no. 3 (2007): 216–29. JSTOR   40034566.
  6. 1 2 Kridel, Craig (2020-07-02). "Black Progressive Educators of the 1940s: An Overlooked Chapter of Progressivism in American Education". Kappa Delta Pi Record. 56 (3): 105–111. doi:10.1080/00228958.2020.1770002. ISSN   0022-8958. S2CID   221059220.
  7. ↑ Wraga, William G. (2019-04-26). "Clinical Technique, Tacit Resistance: Progressive Education Experimentation in the Jim Crow South" . History of Education Quarterly. 59 (2): 227–256. doi:10.1017/heq.2019.5. ISSN   0018-2680. S2CID   150490059.
  8. ↑ "Historical and International Dimensions of History Education: The Work of the Committee of Seven: Chara Haeussler Bohan", International Review of History Education, Routledge, pp. 74–90, 2013-05-13, doi:10.4324/9780203770542-9, ISBN   9780203770542
  9. ↑ Van Til, William. The Laboratory School: Its Rise and Fall?, 1969, 1–16. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED034703.pdf
  10. ↑ Baker, Scott. “Pedagogies of Protest: African American Teachers and the History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1940–1963.” Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education 113, no. 12 (2011): 2777–2803. doi : 10.1177/016146811111301206
  11. ↑ Kridel, Craig, and Robert V. Bullough. “Conceptions and Misperceptions of the Eight-Year Study.” Journal of Curriculum & Supervision 18, no. 1 (Fall 2002): 63–82. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip&db=eft&AN=507792327&site=ehost-live&scope=site .
  12. ↑ Fallace, Thomas D. (3 April 2015). Race and the origins of progressive education, 1880-1929. Teachers College Press. ISBN   978-0-8077-5651-5. OCLC   898419628.
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