The Social Sciences: Conceptual Framework for Education

Abstract

In one sense, this discussion of some meanings that the articles in this symposium may have for educators is gratuitous. Meaning is a personal thing, and no person can tell another what the meaning of any fact, opinion, or experience ultimately is. Certainly, it is not our intention to attempt to tell our readers what they should understand, or get out of, the preceding statements. On the other hand, it is perfectly legitimate for persons, speaking for themselves, to try to communicate to others what is important and significant to them in their experience. We wish to try to do this here, for the study of the papers in this symposium has been for us an important and significant experience. We think that the materials presented here by eight first-rate social scientists may have far-reaching implications for the way we view, and therefore participate in, the educational enterprise. Quite apart from the intellectual excitement generated by the individual papers, the sense of tremendous potential implication and influence is increased by the fact that our authors from eight different disciplines are here speaking a common language. Despite variations in points of view, they complement one another, and, to a high degree, they work from the same core of germinal ideas about the nature of man and society. And these seem to us to be the ideas that we educators will find most useful for our own understanding of education as an institution and as a process. Moreover, it seems to