Schooled to Work: Vocationalism and the American Curriculum, 1876-1946

Abstract

REVIEWER HERBERT W. BRODA, PH. D., is Assistant Professor of Education at Ashland University, Ashland, OR The age-old question: "What knowledge is of most worth?" could be considered the foundation of Herbert Kliebard's recent scholarly contribution, Schooled to Work: Vocationalism and the American Curriculum, 1876-1946. Kliebard, an emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is considered to be one of America's leading curriculum historians. His reputation for historical scholarship and educational insight is certainly reflected in this comprehensive volume. Schooled to Work traces the evolution of job training as an educational ideal in the American public schools. In a highly chronological manner, Kliebard details the people, events and institutions that shaped the development of vocational education over a seventy-year period. To quote from Kliebard's preface: [The book] begins with the drive to install manual training in American schools, proceeds next to vocational education and then to vocationalism. This includes vocational education but incorporates the idea that the curriculum as a whole, not just part of it, exists for the purpose of getting and holding a job. The book is primarily organized according to historical periods that Kliebard associates with major shifts in the conceptualization of vocationalism. The volume illustrates very effectively the ongoing tension that exists between two frequently opposing views of education: schooling as knowledge transmission, and schooling as preparation for the workforce. As Kliebard explores each decade, the definition of "appropriate schooling" is subject to the forces of society and the impact of changing needs in the workforce. Such factors as the Industrial Revolution, the evolution of labor unions, women in the labor force and the Great Depression had tremendous impact upon the answer to "What knowledge is of most worth?" Chapters One and Two explore the national trends and issues that surrounded the evolution of manual training to vocational training during the period 1876-- 1912. The identification of manual training with the American work ethic, and the eventual shift to "fitting youth for their life-work" is detailed in these chapters. Chapters Three and Four move from a national look at manual training vs. vocational training, to an in depth look at the evolution of these concepts in the Milwaukee Public Schools. These two chapters which focus upon the Milwaukee experience are outstanding examples of how detailed historical research can help us to understand curricular change. Utilizing extensive original sources, Kliebard powerfully describes how curricular change is molded and manipulated by interest groups both inside and outside of the official school structure. Chapter Five returns to a national perspective and explores the period 1908-- 1919, an era that included the social efficiency movement, the Smith-Hughes Act and the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education. …