Social Efficiency Tradition

Social efficiency defies a single definition, but the idea that a good curriculum should result in a harmonious, well-functioning, and balanced society is a theme found in the work of all writers who used the term social efficiency.

The phrase was popular during the first few decades of the 20th century. It was used by many educators and educational reformers who were trying to identify an overall purpose for U.S. education. Because it was so popular, social efficiency meant different things to different people during the heyday of its use during the 1910s and 1920s. Similar to such terms as accountability, effectiveness, and excellence today, educational reformers and political figures could use the phrase social efficiency to appeal to audiences that had markedly different ideas in mind for the purpose of U.S. education. Critics found it quite difficult to argue [Page 790]against efficiencyand indeed social efficiencyas the ultimate end of U.S. education.

There were three main uses of social efficiency during the first few decades of the 20th century, all of which should be acknowledged as part of the social efficiency tradition. One conception of social efficiency can be identified with the work of William C. Bagley, a second can be tied to the figure of John Dewey, and the third grows out of the efforts of David Snedden and John Franklin Bobbitt.

When educational philosopher Bagley used the phrase social efficiency in his book The Educative Process in 1905, he argued that the purpose of U.S. education was liberal education for all. The key to achieving this goal, argued Bagley, was high-quality teacher education. Drawing on the moral philosophy of Aristotle, Bagley used social efficiency as part of his overall argument for moral education. He wanted schools to teach students to suppress their individual wants, needs, and desires to serve their communities as strong, civic-minded citizens. Bagley used social efficiency during the early 1900s, but stopped using it by 1915 because he disagreed with the way that other writers, specifically Dewey and Snedden, had begun to use it.

Beginning about 1915 and most prominently in his 1916 book Democracy and Education, Dewey used social efficiency to argue for a state of society in which individual and communal goals were not in conflict with one another, but rather were in harmony. Dewey was concerned about the extreme position that individuals should subordinate their personal wants to the goals of the community, but he was equally concerned about the opposite extreme in which individual desires become so powerful that they overtake community goals. Especially in Democracy and Education, Dewey contends that a socially efficient society is one in which individual and communal goods are balanced so that society exists in a state of harmony, or equilibrium. Provided that the term was used to mean this balancing of individual and social goals, Dewey was an advocate of social efficiency, a point that is often forgotten in works on curriculum history.

A third use of social efficiency is found in the writings of Snedden and Bobbitt. Snedden, a sociologist, began to incorporate social efficiency into his sociology books and articles during the early to mid-1920s. In keeping with his larger advocacy for vocational training, Snedden's social efficiency emphasized occupational training, close connections between schools and the economic ends of the state, and the creation of curriculum that trains students efficiently for jobs. The purpose of U.S. education, to Snedden, was vocational training, a position diametrically opposed to Bagley's. Snedden asserts that the proper place to begin when developing curriculum is by looking at the needs and desires of corporations. Once the needs of corporations have been identified, school leaders should develop curriculum that trains students to meet these needs as efficiently as possible, for students as well as for their future employers. Snedden served as a major advocate of the Smith-Hughes Act, which was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1917. The act expanded vocational training throughout the United States and promulgated precisely the kind of curriculum that Snedden wanted.

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