"The Curriculum in View of the Demands on the Schools," Charles H. Judd [1934

Abstract

The committee was generally charged with reviewing recent social trends with an eye toward providing a basis for the formulation of large national policies looking to the next phase of the nation's development. It emphasized the power of ideas in a time of crisis. Among fascists, communists, churches, patriots and social reformers, the committee declared in its final report (1933), it is already a matter of grave concern who shall control the ideas of children. Judd, who heretofore had avoided curricular debates except as they related to administrative prerogative and who considered subject matter questions not germane to a science of education, now emphasized the curriculum, especially in its social context. In this article, Judd develops his notion of a scientifically constructed curriculum based on the study of social trends. Critics insisted that values, not science, determined the dominance of certain social trends, but Judd argues for the general validity of his propositions, while admitting that evidence on certain social trends remained uncollected. Above all, Judd considered an understanding of political and social institutions essential in a time of distress and of threats to such American