Social Reconstructionism

Social reconstructionism, a movement in curriculum thought that first emerged in the late 1920s, aspired to redirect school curricula to consideration of significant social, political, and economic problems and offer solutions that promoted democratic social planning, and management. Largely associated with faculty members of Teachers College at Columbia University between the late 1920s and World War II, social reconstruction merged John Dewey's social philosophy and concept of scientific thinking with the notion of “cultural lag” and with various proposals for social democracy. Although social reconstruction is most often identified with the speeches and writings of George Counts in the 1930s, important alternative contributions were made by Harold Rugg and Jesse Newlon.

Social reconstruction combined Dewey's proposal that education is deliberative social inquiry into problems of collective importance with a socialist conviction that there are political solutions that can be projected and reasonably demonstrated in present trends, most particularly by technological progress and the expansion of democracy. Schools promote political and economic reform by engaging in democratic consideration of contemporary social problems. The conviction that there is a “cultural lag,” a lapse between where science had brought society and what society promoted as its belief system, was articulated by W. F. Ogburn in Social Change, contending industrial growth and technology had taken humanity into a new social order. The dominant cultural orientation, in contrast, continued to reflect pretechnological and agrarian values. The excitement to close this cultural lag through social reconstruction resulted in a periodical, The Social Frontier, where options for the reform of society were considered.

Counts is recognized as a principal of social reconstruction through schooling. Although the social and economic crisis of the Great Depression [Page 794]highlighted the urgency for new directions in social management, Counts's notions of schools as agencies for social reform first emerged in the late 1920s. Counts rejected child-centered progressive education for a curriculum that confronted contemporary political, economic, and social issues and probed structural solutions. His criticism of schooling based on learner interests served as the basis for a 1932 Progressive Education Association conference presentation by Counts entitled, “Dare Progressive Education Be Progressive?” In his subsequent book, Dare the School Build a New Social Order? Counts contended two features of U.S. culture were the basis for the economic catastrophe of the Depression: Devotion to individualism over social cooperation and private control of technological innovation. He exhorted teachers to expand their political influence as a collective body by unionizing and to set a clear political agenda for change. Schools were to redirect the curriculum to the consideration of relevant contemporary social problems, indicating how private ownership of resources and competition stood in opposition to human progress, presenting solutions based on collective political action.

Counts contended it was the educator's role to determine what policies offered the surest path to economic and social betterment and promote these solutions in discussion of social problems. Although Counts was actively involved in the American Federation of Teachers and wrote throughout the 1930s on the need for reorientation of the economy to collective ownership of resources, Counts did not produce any specific curriculum plan for social reconstruction. His decision to not support a local union action in the late 1930s brought him to question his personal commitment to economic democracy; his later writings shifted from the social concerns dominant in his writing in the 1930s.

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