Racial Inequality and the Social Reconstructionists at Teachers College

Abstract

Historians of education have probed into the involvement of Reconstructionists' with issues of racial justice and have argued explicitly that while interested in racial problems during the Depression, actually did little to carefully study the role of race or race relations in America. The authors found that many of them were engaged in efforts to address problems of race through education-the education of their own students, of those in other teacher preparation programs, of in-service teachers, and of students in K-12 schools. In addition, Teachers College graduates took on leadership roles at various levels in Black education, extending social reconstructionism to colleges and school districts from Harlem to the South.Keywords: history of education, Teachers College, teacher educationBelieving that the Great Depression had revealed the inadequacy of laissez-faire capitalism, a group of progressive educators known as Social Reconstructionists, argued that schools and teachers should take on activist roles in making necessary progressive social change (Weltman, 2002). Sharing a commitment to equality, they saw schools as sites where citizens would be prepared for a more collective society through the development of a commitment to the common good, public service, and cooperation (Curti, 1959). They believed that the principal task of education was to create an informed and thoughtful public opinion to support the development of a planning economy geared toward meeting the needs of all people (Zeichner & Liston, 1991, p. 26). They argued that schools could help develop a cooperative culture in which people would think first of 'we' rather than 'me' and a multicultural society in which people would think of others as 'us' rather than 'them' (Weltman, 2002, p. 64). They believed these goals could not be realized without deliberate attention to the social, political, and economic setting of the school (James, 1995). That social context included the racial inequality present in the United States.In the 1930s, everywhere in the United States, being born Black made a vast difference in a child's life chances in school and out (Tyack, Lowe, & Hansot, 1984, p. 176). During the Great Depression, in most urban areas, unemployment rates were twice as high among African Americans as for Caucasians (Sundstrom, 2008). Segregated housing, education, and public facilities were supported by law in the South and by tradition in the North. Between 1880 and 1930, 1,200 African Americans were lynched in the Deep South (Stovel, 2001). Realization of the Reconstructionists' agenda-a cooperative, multicultural society, with a democratic socialist economy-seemingly would have dramatically improved the lives of African Americans. Their call for democratic socialist reform and improved race relations represented a departure from the eugenicist and White racist views of many curricularists and educational theorists (Watkins, 1993, p. 332). Historians have concluded; however, that the Reconstructionists were only marginally concerned about racial inequality. One strand of the historiography argues that occasionally in the 1920s and early 1930s, they linked critiques of racial exploitation and discrimination with those of structural and economic features of American life. By the late 1930s and 1940s, their socio-political critique was muted and discussions of the psychological components of racial prejudice dominated the little work they did in that area (Goodenow, 1975; Stack, 2009). Another strand of the historiography identifies the sole focus of their interests as the economic inequality produced by capitalism and omits any reference to their involvement with issues of racial inequality (Bowers, 1969; Cremin, Shannon & Townsend, 1954). In summation, the archival data paints a picture of reformers who, at best, had extremely limited interest in or commitment to studying and remedying racial injustice and, at worst, had none at all. …