Defending Democracy: Social Studies and Citizenship Education During World War II
| Author | : Daniel Saul Berman |
| Publisher | : |
| Total Pages | : 0 |
| Release | : 2023 |
| Genre | : |
| ISBN | : |
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This dissertation explores the history of social studies reform as a result of American entry into World War II. Interwar era social studies reformers debated terminologies, pedagogy, citizenship, and content that best prepared students to participate in a changing society. However, most social studies instructions was quite similar; students studied mostly political, military, and dynastic content, learned through reading a textbook and memorizing facts, and completed rote memorization examinations. However, America's entry into World War II altered both social studies reforms and classroom content, while teaching pedagogies and assessment remained similar. Social studies reformers and education officials realized that social studies needed to adapt to the global conflict. This led to a series of recommendations that sought to emphasize how social studies nurtured democratic citizenship, how democracy was superior to totalitarianism, how Allied nations contributed to the war effort, and how racial tension hampered the war effort. None of these ideas were necessarily new to social studies, however, the war significantly augmented their importance. Moreover, many education reformers agreed that these were cardinal reforms to aid the war effort, and while this agreement was not universal, it was a departure from interwar debates about content, pedagogy, and citizenship. Many of the recommended reforms also materialized in classrooms, which differed from interwar social studies reforms too. Qualitative and quantitative data suggested that many schools sought to revise their social studies curricula to meet the war aims. Popular reforms included the explicit linkage of the purpose of teaching social studies to nurturing democratic citizenship, emphasis on the flaws of totalitarianism and the strengths of democracy, and studies of different Allied countries. However, democracy and citizenship were typically framed in the liberal traditions that stressed the importance of individual rights and values, and the teaching of other nations was typically reduced to studies of physical geography. Classroom pedagogies were also unimpacted by the war, as teachers commonly taught new information with textbook lessons and relied on rote assessment to measure student learning.
