SOCIAL-CLASS ANALYSIS IN THE EARLY PROGRESSIVE TRADITION

Many of the progressive-liberal thinkers central to the development of the field of curriculum studies have been criticized for failing to p rovide a substantive social class analysis of public schooling. Much o f this criticism originated from leftist commentators, aimed directly at prominent figures like John Dewey, Harold Rugg, John Childs, Jesse Newlon, and Ralph Tyler. In this paper, however, the contrary position is taken. We argue that prominent progressive thinkers in the field o f curriculum viewed the explanation of social inequities in relation t o schooling was vitally important to curriculum considerations. Progre ssive-experimentalists in particular are described using their critici sms of class division and economic injustice in the society to assert the need for more directed efforts at developing social consciousness and social insight in the school. At the same time, the social class a nalysis provided by many progressives was not charged with ideological rhetoric about waging political and class war, but was committed to t he ''unradical'' position of educating the rising generation with the tools of thinking and problem solving. As a result, much of the early progressive tradition in education was marked by an interesting mixtur e of activist rhetoric and pragmatist action.