Researching Mexico: University of Chicago Field Explorations in Mexico, 1896-2014 - New exhibit at Special Collections unearths UChicago’s research in Mexico

Those of you who are interested in the history of international educational research, study and exchange and/or U.S. & Mexico academic engagement may find interest in a current exhibit “Researching Mexico: University of Chicago Field Explorations in Mexico, 1896-2014 “ at Special Collections at the University of Chicago.

The exhibition is on view in the Special Collections Research Center Gallery from June 30, 2014 - October 4, 2014.  Gallery hours: Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 4:45 p.m.  Saturday, 9:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. when classes are in session.   

You can read, see a few items from the collection and learn more at:

1.       http://news.lib.uchicago.edu/blog/2014/06/19/researching-mexico-university-of-chicago-field-explorations-in-mexico-1896-2014/

2.       http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/webexhibits/researchingmexico/index.html

3.       http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2014/08/18/new-exhibit-special-collections-unearths-uchicago-s-research-mexico

To be sure, viewing this exhibit is easiest done by those in the Chicagoland area or those who will find themselves in the city while the exhibit is open.  I have yet to visit the exhibit so I am unable to comment but I have penciled in a date to visit next week.

[note that Summer Quarter classes end Saturday, August 30^th so based on my understanding the exhibit would be open this coming Saturday and Autumn Quarter classes begin at the UofC on Monday, September 29^th which would make October 4^th the last day of the exhibit and an open day you can view on a Saturday]

Literature on Education Abroad from the 1800's

Many IHEC Blog readers are aware of my interest in the history of international education in the United States.  My historical interests date back to colonial times but the late 1800's, early 1900's, the inter-war period (1918-1939), post-World War II through the 1960's and then the 1970's-1980's.  While fluid, these are the various time periods I tend to focus my research on.


Some time ago I posted a link to a short piece of literature in Google Books from 1896 that was making an argument for American students to study in France versus Germany (link below) to Twitter and IHEC Blog's Facebook page and several people enjoyed the posts so I am sharing links below to two historical piece of literature focusing on education abroad:


Should American Youth Be Educated Abroad? In “Education Abroad, And Other Papers” by Birdsey Grant Northrop, LL.D., Secretary of Connecticut Board of Education. New York and Chicago: A.S. Barnes & Co. (1873) at http://bit.ly/fb0kE6 [scroll down a little] or http://bit.ly/ugAqvy


An argument for American students to study in France vs. Germany via the “Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science”, Volume 7 (1896) at http://bit.ly/eI10q7.

The First Chinese Student to Graduate from a University in the United States

As I continue to settle into my new home and begin to bring Bury Book International Education Library & Archive out of hibernation I am rediscovering all kinds of great and rare publications that focus on international education.

One such publication that I found tonight is: A Survey of Chinese Students in American Universities and Colleges in the Past One Hundred Years (1954). Written in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the graduation of the first Chinese student from an American University, Yung Wing, B.A. from Yale in 1854.  This publication was published under the joint sponsorship of the National Tsing Hua University Research Fellowship Fund & the China Institute in America).  Based on a quick skim of this publication I learned that were a decent number of Chinese students studying in the United States during the last half of the Nineteenth Century and into the early Twentieth Century.  Upon completion of my dissertation this will be one of the first publications I read.

After doing some searching on Google I discovered that Miami University (as do a few other institutions) has this publication in their library holdings.

A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations

Continuing with my history theme...This IHEC Blog post, however, really has nothing to do with international education other I will be following this style guide for my dissertation which will be on an international education topic.  This IHEC Blog post has more to do with The University of Chicago where I work and the historical influence this institution has had in academia.  It is truly an amazing place to work and it makes you be at the top of your game everyday.  

For this post, I'm writing some information about a style guide that I have to follow for formatting my dissertation.  I had always heard about Turabian Style but never knew anything about it or its history so I thought I would copy and paste some interesting (at least to me) information and history from Wikipedia (with links to The University of Chicago Press) about Kate L. Tirabian and her style guide. "A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations" by Kate L. Turabian is a style guide for writing and formatting research papers. Except for a few minor differences, Turabian style is the same as The Chicago Manual of Style. However, while The Chicago Manual of Style focuses on providing guidelines for publishing in general, Turabian's Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations focuses on providing guidelines for student papers, theses and dissertations. The most recent version of Turabian (7th ed.) enables use of footnotes and/or endnotes in combination with parenthetical referencing. Turabian was the graduate school dissertation secretary at The University of Chicago from 1930 to 1958. The school required her approval for every master's thesis and doctoral dissertation.

Citation: all text copied and pasted from Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_L._Turabian and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Manual_for_Writers_of_Research_Papers,_Theses,_and_Dissertations

"We are All Islanders to Begin With": The University of Chicago and the World in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Since 1996, John W. Boyer, Dean of the College and the Martin A. Ryerson distinguished service professor of History at The University of Chicago, has written an Occasional Papers on Higher Education series focusing on The University of Chicago.  Of particular interest to me and hopefully many IHEC Blog readers is Volume XVII "We are All Islanders to Begin With": The University of Chicago and the World in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. 

To be sure, "We are All Islanders to Begin With": The University of Chicago and the World in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries is a history of the University of Chicago but this publication provides an excellent overview of campus international efforts, collaboration and thinking during the early twentieth century through present day.

You can access all of the volumes in Boyer’s Occasional Papers on Higher Education here.  I just received a hard copy of this publication for my Bury Book International Education Library & Archive.

Those of You Interested in the History of Standards of Good Practice in Education Abroad

Very busy week for me this week with the Fulbright U.S. Student Program 2011-2012 competition in full swing and revision work on my dissertation survey instrument so I thought I would embed this bibliography I compiled and host over on Scribd.  The following bibliography is just over two years old and was compiled for publication in the Standards of Good Practice of The Forum on Education Abroad, 3rd edition (2008) which you can download here.  There are some great resources here and some historical documents for those of you, like me, that enjoy the history of international education.History of Standards of Good Practice in Education Abroad Bibliography by Comp, 2008

News from NAFSA 1958, 1975 and 1988

One of my many academic interests is the history of international education with particular interest to the mobility of students and scholars to and from the United States.  Earlier this year I was so excited to learn that NAFSA Region XI started a digital archive of historical records that I posted here on IHEC Blog about it.  The other day I was digging around the archives and came across NEWS FROM NAFSA 1958, 1975 and 1988 documents and I thought I would highlight and/or cite a few of the main issues/news of these three time periods:

 

1958

 

- NAFSA marks its tenth anniversary ~ membership rose from 88 to 685, annual budget increased from $2,500 to $40,000 and NAFSA had 20 active working relationships with more than 2o governmental and non-governmental agencies

- NAFSA discovers that many of their old files and photos (to be used in 10 birthday celebration) were destroyed by termites.

-  “New debate rages: Should it be TEFL or TESL?  Should it be English as a foreign language or English as a second language?

- “NAFSA would like to measure impact on American students of interaction with foreign students…will be looking for tools to accomplish this.”

- NAFSA expressed gratitude to IIE for all of it gave to the organization:

o   in starting NAFSA

o   in Hungarian student crisis

o   in fostering important research

o   in conducting foreign student census

 

1975

 

- GRAC Team met in the Rockies to write first comprehensive Advisers Manual on Immigration

- SECUSSA held its first national workshop and the Sourcebook written in five days [I have two original copies of the Sourcebook in my Bury Book International Education Library & Archive]

- ADSEC expresses concern about a new wave of forgery in student credentials and “urges extreme caution, verification of questionable documents”

 

1988

 

- NAFSA celebrates 40 years

- Archer Brown won the first Higbee Award

- Senator Fulbright was one of the plenary speakers at the annual conference

- “U.S. hosts more students from abroad than any country in the world….over 350,000 here now”

- New NAFSA publication – Helping them Home-A Guide for Leaders of Professional Integration and Reentry Workshops by Peggy Pusch and Nessa Loewenthal

- Governor Clinton of Arkansas picked the Region III raffle winner

- NAFSA Field Service Program enters its fifteenth year ~ accomplishments include:

o   Publication of 74 books, manuals and guidelines

o   533 in-service training grants

o   899 regional workshops

 

You can access these three NEWS FROM NAFSA issues here.

IIE Annual Report Archive (1920-2009) Available Online

I just learned that the Institute of International Education (IIE) established an archive of all of their Annual Reports (1920-2009) and made them available on their website in .PDF format.  There are many things I like about this and for those of you who are interested in the history of international education you will find these publications to be very interesting and helpful in your research.  IIE's Annual Reports not only provide valuable information on the organization and its work but they also provide an excellent historical timeline of the field of international education.  The Annual Reports from the early decades are perhaps the most interesting to me as these publications are such valuable pieces of historical literature on the field of international education.  You can access the IIE Annual Report Archive here.

The Early Influence of Teachers College on International and Comparative Education

Teachers College, Columbia University was one of the most active universities in encouraging both international and comparative education.  In fact, the first course on comparative education was offered at Teachers College during the 1898-1899 school year, even though course work in the field did not fully flourish until the 1920s and 1930s.  The International Institute of Teachers College, established in 1923, set out to implement “(1) training of foreign students, (2) surveys and research of educational systems, and (3) training of educational missionaries.”[1]  Paul Monroe and William Russell were instrumental in its establishment and brought together some of the premiere educators in the field, most notably Isaac Kandel.  The Institute also began issuing The Educational Yearbook in 1924, with Kandel as the editor, which continued to be published until 1944.  In addition, Paul Monroe, the director, also co-edited the International Yearbook of Education in 1933 with Nicholas Hans.  While relatively short lived (the Institute lost funding in 1938), the Institute served as a hub for comparative and international education during a very exciting time in both of their histories.

---

[1] LiPing Bu, “International Activism and Comparative Education: Pioneering Efforts of the International Institute of Teachers College, Columbia University,” Comparative Education Review 41, no. 4 (November 1997): 417.

A Long College Baseball History between Waseda University (Japan) & The University of Chicago (U.S.)

In the spring of 2008, the University of Chicago men’s baseball team went to Japan to play three exhibition games against its longtime international rival Waseda University.  What was unique about this visit was that the last time these two teams played against each other was 1930.  Last week I was at the athletic center on campus with my son where some great historic University of Chicago sports memorabilia is on display (including the first Heisman Trophy awarded to Jay Berwanger in 1935).  In the display cases were some great memorabilia pieces from the Chicago vs. Waseda baseball series that ran between 1910 and 1930.  The following is a description of the baseball trips to Japan (photo of description included in this post):

The University of Chicago baseball team traveled to Japan every five years between 1910 and 1930 as a guest of Waseda University.  The year following each of the Maroons’ first four trips to Japan (1911, 1916, 1921, 1926), Chicago played host to Waseda.  On its five overseas tours, Chicago faced Japanese college opponents, including Waseda and Keio, as well as all-star teams from Hawaii, China, the Philippines and Japan.  The Maroons’ visits to Japan played a significant role in the development of Japanese baseball, as more than 20,000 fans attended the Chicago-Waseda games in Tokyo in 1930.

I have included several pictures with this post that I took via my phone through the glass display cases so I apologize for the glare.  You can read more about the 2008 Chicago baseball trip to Japan and more on the history of these “exchanges” via two Chicago Maroon articles here and here.  Additionally, you can view 38 photos throughout the years of these games in the University of Chicago Archival Photographic files here.

The NAFSA Region XI Archives

Those who know me either from my work on the NAFSA: Association of International Educators Teaching, Learning and Scholarship (TLS) team and other NAFSA Task Forces and Subcommittees or via IHEC Blog will know that I have a strong interest in the history of the field of international education. Yesterday, my colleague Bryan McAllister-Grande from Brandeis University and the Research/Scholarship Network Leader for NAFSA posted some really exciting news to the Research/Scholarship discussion forum (if you’re not subscribed now is a good time). Specifically, NAFSA’s Region XI has set up an online archive and there are some really great documents in PDF format with some dating back to the 1950’s and 1960’s. It is important to note that most of these documents have a national focus on international education and are not specific to Region XI. A brief listing of what you can find in the archives:


News from NAFSA (1958)

Foreign Students: Exchange or Immigration? (1964)

A History of Study Abroad (1966)

A Letter to NAFSA from Lyndon Johnson (1968)

The Professionalization of the Foreign Student Advisor (1976)

The Impact of the “Buckely Amendment” (1976)

While they are mentioned on the Archive website I think it is important to highlight and thank the Region XI Archive Committee members for their invaluable work on this project! The committee members are:

Bob Chudy – University of Connecticut
Steve Harvey – Southern New Hampshire University
Michelle Kort – University of Connecticut, Babson College.
Richard Lazzerini – University of Hartford
Don Ross – Salem State College
Jennifer Stephens - Consultant
Alice Thayer – St. Michael’s College

You can access the Region XI Archive here.

The conference where NAFSA was born

The following are some of my very brief research notes that I thought I would share on IHEC Blog:


In 1948, the Conference on International Student Exchange was organized and held at the University of Michigan. The purpose of this conference was “to assist the educational institutions and agencies of the United States to develop an expanding international cultural relations program, particularly through student exchange.” Representatives attended the conference from colleges and universities from all over the United States, Peru, India, and Canada, as well as representatives from independent and government agencies interested in international education. As a result, NAFSA: Association of International Educators, was organized and has served as a key leader in international education to this day.
There is, of couse, so much more interesting history on the early days of the organizaiton.  For a brief 60 year history of NAFSA (two pages) chick here. 

Referencing back to my January 20th IHEC Blog Resources of Interest Found in the “Bury Book International Education Library & Archive” post I wanted to highlight an additional piece of literature related to this post that I am fortunate to have in my personal collection:

Hugh M. Jenkins  (1979, September).  Leafing Through the History and Future of the National Association for Foreign Student Affairs: A Glance Back, A Glimpse Forward.  Washington, DC:  National Associtation for Foreign Student Affairs.

U.S. Students Studying Abroad and U.S. Public Diplomacy Efforts: A Historical Review

In three weeks I’ll be presenting on the topic “U.S. Students Study Abroad and U.S. Public diplomacy Efforts: A Historical Review” during the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) annual conference being held in Chicago. My presentation is part of a larger panel discussion entitled “Comparative Perspectives on Measuring the Impact of Study Abroad: Life, Society, and Public Diplomacy Re-imagined”. I will be joined on this panel by session chair and panelists Jae-Eun Jon who will be presenting on the topic “Study Abroad Experience and Its Influence on Subsequent Life: Three Large-Scale Studies” and Louis Berends who will be presenting on the topic “The Impact of Study Abroad on STEM Field Students: Assessing Work Related Experiences and other ‘Non-Credit’ Programs Abroad”. We will also be joined by Gerald Fry who will serve as our discussant. You can learn more about our session here.  If will be attending the CIES conference and our session fits into your schedule please come or swing by after the session to say hello.

This will be my first CIES conference and my participation will be limited to presenting at this session as I have to get back to Hyde Park to my full-time job and get the kids from school.

The NAFSA Committee on Research and Evaluation (1958)

Many colleagues and IHEC Blog readers know that I have a strong interest in the history of the field of international education and predominately its history in the United States. I'm no historian. I just find it quite interesting and worthwhile to study.

During my three year tenure on NAFSA's Subcommittee on Information Management (focused primarily on publications) from 2006-2008 I had meetings in Washington, D.C. after NAFSA's Winter Leadership Meetings (WLM) and then a two and a half day meeting in the NAFSA library of their main office each August. I would always try to arrive to the NAFSA office as soon as possible in the morning and would spend breaks searching though their bookshelves for interesting and historical pieces of literature. I came across some really great stuff and would scribble quick notes before the meetings would resume. Just the other day I came across some of my messy notes and thought I would share as I think those interested in research and evaluation (and history) in the history of the field will enjoy. Of special note, similar efforts are currently underway by the Teaching, Learning & Scholarship (TLS) team at NAFSA and these efforts have a very nice connection to one of the members of this 1958 committee listed below. Stay tuned to IHEC Blog for more on this (as we approach the upcoming NAFSA conference in Kansas City) and in particular the TLS sessions during the conference!

Here is a little bit of historical information that I found to be of interest:

In 1958, the Committee on Research and Evaluation of the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers embarked on a project to publish reviews of significant research studies in inter-cultural exchanges, together with a discusion of their implicaitons for campus foreign student programs. ~ M. Robert B. Klinger, Chairman of Committee, 1959-1960

Committee members:

- Arthur Feraru, Chief, Office of Operations, Research Evaluations, IIE

- Russell G. HAnson, Assoc. Counselor, Internatioanl Center, University of Michigan

- Erin Hubbeit, Internatioanl Educaitonal Exchange Service, Department of State

- M. Robert B. Klinger, Counselor, International Center, University of Michigan

- Virgil R. Lougheed, Foreign Student Adviser, Wayne State University

- Joseph A. Mestenhauser, Asst. to Foreign Student Adviser, University of Minnesota

- Lois D. Novas, Foreign Sudent Adviser, Columbia University

- Robert D. Porter, Foreign Student Adviser, University of Washington

- Werner Warmbrum, Foreign Student Adviser, Stanford University

Source: NAFSA Studies and Papers Research Series, Number 1

Research Studies in Inter-cultural Education: Reviews and Implicaitons for Exchange of Persons

Edited by Werner Warmbrum

Published by NAFSA, New York, 1960

Photo credit: Brittany G

Video of the Week - American Education Abroad at WACDC

For this video of the week I selected this April 1, 2008 panel discussion hosted by the World Affairs Council in Washington, D.C. I think it is a great discussion on international educational exchanges and public diplomacy and I recommend scheduling time to watch it. Please note that it runs one hour and twenty-five minutes so plan accordingly. I have copied and pasted the video description below:

“In the face of growing negative global opinion, international views of American education may hold a key in improving US diplomatic relationships by fostering better understanding between the US and peoples around the world. Join our panelists as they examine the role played by American education abroad and the long term impact of this highly regarded American export. Moderated by Dr. Mark G. Pomar: President of the International Research and Exchange Board. Panelists: The Honorable Julia Chang Bloch: President of the US-China Education Trust Dr. Allan Goodman: President and CEO of the Institute of International Education Dr. Joseph G. Jabbra: President of the Lebanese American University”

You might also find the many other videos on the World Affairs Council YouTube channel to be of interest which you can access here.

Brief Notes on the Intertwined History of Comparative and International Education in the Early Years

Those of you who enjoy reading about the history of international education may appreciate this IHEC Blog post that I pulled from my research notes. To be sure, a much longer manuscript could be written (and some have been written) on the development of the comparative education and international education fields during this time period.

Even though an all-telling history of international education has not been established[1], many comparativists will agree that international education and travels to distant countries was the foundation on which comparative education was based.[2] William Brickman even notes in his writing the importance of early travels abroad to the foundation of the Comparative Education Society later called the Comparative and International Education Society.[3]

The 1920s and 1930s and the years after World War II brought about increased interest in going abroad and documentation on international exchange. These two decades also proved to be a significant time in itself for educators to explore educational systems in other countries. According to Jurgen Schriewer and Carlos Martinez, these decades were some of the most active times in terms of education for such countries as Spain, Russia/USSR, and China. They show through citations in major academic and scientific journals that this was the time period over the last 100 years that represented the most international exchange of ideas. They write, “The 1920s and early 1930s stand out as the period in history when all three countries clearly opened up their own reform reflections and displayed an enormous interest in international models, modern reference societies, and theory discussions from abroad.”[4]

Not only did the idea and interest in travels abroad, the development of professional organizations, the creation of publications, and simply ripe timing surround the development of the comparative education and international education fields, but special reports and research by either government or private agencies also helped to create interest and awareness about systems abroad. In addition, the fields were solidified with the first organized academic program, as well as the development and emergence of other related areas of study.

[1] William Hoffa has done an excellent job of documenting the history of study abroad in the United States.
[2] Erwin H. Epstein, “Comparative and International Education: Overview and Historical Development,” in International Encyclopedia of Education, 2nd Ed., ed. Torsten Husen and T. Neville Postlethwaite, 918-923 (Oxford, England; New York: Pergamon; New York: Elsevier Science, 1994): 918-919.
David N. Wilson, "Comparative and International Education: Fraternal or Siamese twins? A preliminary genealogy of our twin fields," Comparative Education Review 38, no. 4 (November 1994): 451.
[3] William Brickman, “Genesis and Early Development of the Comparative and International Education Society” Comparative Education Review 10, no. 1 (February 1966): 9-19.
[4] Jurgen Schriewer and Carlos Martinez, “Constructions of Internationality in Education” in The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending, ed. Gita Steiner-Khamsi, 29-53 (New York: Teachers College Press, 2004): 45.

Photo credit: Lin Pernille Photography

Germany as a Study Abroad Destination for American Students in the STEM Fields

A short time ago I found out that a manuscript I submitted to a journal had been accepted for publication in 2010. My article, “Germany as a Study Abroad Destination of American Students in the Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) Fields: A Historical Examination,” was submitted some time ago and the only recommendations for revision that I received from the Editorial Board was that I should add a few more examples of current developments/programs for American STEM students to study and/or research in Germany. In addition to focusing on family during y brief winter break (over the Christmas holiday through the New Year’s Eve festivities) I plan to start work on a brief update to this manuscript.

This IHEC Blog post is more of a request for assistance to locate two or three new specific programs, developments, collaborations, etc. in Germany for American STEM students. I’ve been saving various pieces of information from listservs, e-newsletters and other resources over the past couple of months to sort through but I thought I would put out this call to see if any IHEC Blog readers have any recommendations. If you know of anything I would love to hear from you and you can e-mail me at international.ed.consulting@gmail.com. Please understand that I cannot incorporate every program/opportunity I learn about into my revision.

Many thanks in advance! David

Research Notes: A Brief History of Comparative Education through the 1960s

When examining the literature in comparative education over the past 100 years it is clear that there has been an “identity crisis” regarding its boundaries and much of the confusion stems from the blurred boundaries of the field. Until the late twentieth century, few authors worked to clarify the distinctions between the two fields of comparative education and international education, and in fact, many authors carelessly used “comparative education” and “international education” either inter-changeably or simultaneously without distinction.

There is certainly an overlap in the histories of comparative education and international education, though comparativists seem to have a stronger sense of who their founding fathers are, what the key pieces of literature in its history are, and when important shifts have taken place.

Unlike international education, the founding fathers of comparative education are much more easily identifiable by those in the respective field. It is rare to find an article examining the early stages of comparative education or even current comparative theory without finding mention of Marc Antoine Jullien, Michael Sadler, and Issac Kandel. These authors provided the foundation of comparative education and serve as a reference point for emerging comparativists. Jullien was an early figure encouraging cross-national data collection, Sadler stressed the importance of looking at society as a whole when considering educational systems, and finally Kandel helped to clarify some of the goals of comparative education. In the mid to late twentieth century, as the field of comparative education strived for rigorous methodology, several authors such as Harold J. Noah and Max A. Eckstein, William W. Brickman, George Z. F. Bereday, C. Arnold Anderson, Erwin H. Epstein, and Irving Epstein helped to challenge and clarify comparative theory.

In 1954, The School of Education at New York University began a conference that would, at their third meeting two years later in 1956, establish the Comparative Education Society. Early activities of this organization included working to define the field of comparative education as an academic venture, creating study tours abroad, and publishing the Comparative Education Review, which now appears quarterly. Even then, the overlaps in the domains of comparative education and international education were illustrated by the Comparative Education Society changing its name to The Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) in 1968, the name by which the organization is known today. The 1960s saw the formation of the Comparative Education Society in Europe, which prompted the publishing of Comparative Education beginning in 1964. Several other countries, such as Canada, Japan, and Korea followed suit and created comparative education societies.[1]

The World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES), a non-governmental organization under UNESCO, formed in the late 1960s and holding its first world council in 1970 with representatives from five comparative education societies including the United States, Europe, Japan, Korea, and Canada. The WCCES aims to promote the study of comparative and international education throughout the world and enhance the academic status of this field and to bring comparative education to bear on the major educational problems of the day by fostering cooperative action by specialists from different parts of the world.[2] The organization typically meets every three years in a new country for each Congress.

I hope to be able to pull together a brief history of Comparative Education from the 1960’s to date in the near future.

Previous IHEC Blog on "System Transfer in Comparative Education" is available here.

[1] William Brickman, “Genesis and Early Development of the Comparative and International Education Society” Comparative Education Review 10, no. 1 (February 1966): 9-19.
[2] World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES) description of its two specific goals (2006), http://www.hku.hk/cerc/wcces/.

The Influence of German Higher Education on U.S. Higher Education During the 1800’s

While I was reading chapter 10 “Science and Education: Towards a New Pedagogy” in A History of Western Education: Volume III: The Modern West (1981) by J. Bowen I came across an interesting part about Henry Tappan (1st President of the University of Michigan) and his visit to Prussia. Tappan’s argued that German universities served as the model for universities in the United States because they “were ‘purely universities’, complete with libraries…” (p. 355). I knew that Germany was top destination for students and scholars from the United States during 1800’s (and remains a top destination today) but I was unaware of some of the reasons why this occurred. This chapter has helped me to better understand the interest of U.S. scholars towards studying in Germany and in Europe in general during this time period. Bowen mentions a book that now is a must read for me and that is German Universities: A Narrative of Personal Experiences by James Hart from 1874. The idea by the trustees of making Johns Hopkins a wholly graduate institution based on the German model and, in the end, would make studies abroad unnecessary is fascinating to me. I would be interested in knowing how many others or which other institutions had a similar philosophy about modeling after the German system thus eliminating the need to study abroad. How about The University of Chicago where I work?

A Brief History of Research on Education

Educational research has changed dramatically in both its stated objectives and techniques since the late nineteenth century. From its early beginnings in the ivory towers of many research universities to the present day, educational research has not only undergone a variety of transformations but it has been a topic of significant scholarly, societal and political debate over the years. This brief essay will provide a historical overview of the key transformations educational research has gone through since the late nineteenth century until present day by focusing on important individuals who lead these efforts. It is not an attempt to validate or discredit certain educational scholars or the research approaches they embraced. It will primarily focus on the development of educational research in the United States with particular attention to the University of Chicago.

THE BIRTH OF EDUCATION AS A FIELD OF STUDY AND RESEARCH

The study of and research on education traces its roots back to the late 1830’s and early 1840’s with the revival of the common school and it is the first time that both school supervision and planning were influenced by systematic data collection.[1] These data collection efforts, according to Robert Travers, involved “an examination of the ideas on which education was based, an intellectual crystallization of the function of education in a democracy, and the development of a literature on education that attempted to make available to teachers and educators important new ideas related to education that had emerged in various countries.”[2] Horace Mann and Henry Barnard were early pioneers in educational data collection and in the production and dissemination of educational literature during the mid- to late-nineteenth century. Additionally, they held prominent educational leadership positions by being the first secretaries of educational boards of Massachusetts (Horace Mann) and of Connecticut (Henry Barnard).[3] In many ways, the trends in the early history of educational research were components of the trends in American culture of the time.[4]

The founding of Johns Hopkins University as the first research university in 1876 set the stage for new elite research universities to be founded such as Stanford University and the University of Chicago.[5] Additionally, the Morrill Act of 1862[6] allowed for the establishment of ‘land-grant’ colleges and universities, many of which would rival the more established elite institutions on the east coast in research and knowledge production, across the United States. As Ellen Condliffe Lagemann points out, research universities quickly became the leaders in creating and disseminating new knowledge, the professionalization of many professions and they became the “spawning grounds” for research on education at the end of the nineteenth century.[7] During this time period, there was a belief that the social world could be “acted on and changed through scientific practices …and that teaching and the social welfare professions embodied scientific analysis and planning.”[8] The restructuring of higher education in the United States from a focus on teaching to a new focus that included both teaching and research activities lead to new schools of thought and approaches to science. Professors at universities were now expected to teach and to plan and conduct original research.[9] Numerous pioneers of American education began their work and research in the major research institutions of the day. Perhaps one of the most well known of these scholars was John Dewey, Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago from 1896 to 1904, who introduced a new approach to the study of education and became a leader in pedagogy. Dewey’s experimental Laboratory School was based more on psychology than on behaviorism which had long influenced educational research activities.[10] John Dewey’s progressive education philosophy opposed testing and curriculum tracking and relied more on argument than on scientific research and its evidence.[11] He worked to combine philosophy, psychology and education. Surprisingly, John Dewey never proposed future areas of inquiry or suggested future research directions in his writings and he never published any evidence on the effects his Laboratory School experiment had on children.[12] Dewey’s influence on educational practice outside of his Laboratory School was quite limited and overestimated.[13] Ellen Condliffe Lagemann summed up John Dewey’s legacy on educational research as follows: “to suggest that Dewey had served as something of a cultural icon, alternatively praised and damned by thinkers on both the right and left, might capture his place in the history of education more accurately than to say he was important as a reformer. Certainly, his ideas about a science of education did not create a template for educational study.”[14] In 1904, John Dewey left the University of Chicago for Teachers College at Columbia University where he remained as a professor of Philosophy until his death in 1952.

Within five years of John Dewey’s departure, Charles Judd arrived in 1909 to serve as Chair of the School of Education at the University of Chicago. Charles Judd differed substantially from John Dewey in his approach to educational research. Charles Judd, a psychologist, sought to bring a rigorous and scientific approach to the study of education. Judd was a proponent of the scientific method and worked to integrate it into educational research. This was evidenced by the University of Chicago’s School of Education reorganization into the Department of Education within the Division of the Social Sciences shortly after Judd’s arrival on campus. Judd’s preference for quantitative data collection and analysis and his emphasis on the scientific method, with a particular focus on psychology, was one of the leading schools of thought on educational research during the early decades of the twentieth century.

In 1904, the same year that John Dewey left the University of Chicago for Teachers College at Columbia University, the psychologist Edward Thorndike, also of Teachers College, published An Introduction to the Theory of Mental and Social Measurements which argued for a strong positivistic theoretical approach to educational research. Thorndike held a similar epistemological approach to the study of education to that of Charles Judd at Chicago. Thorndike favored the separation of philosophy and psychology. He did not care for the collection of data for census purposes but rather the production of statistics and precise measurements that could be analyzed. Thorndike became a very influential educational scholar and his approach to educational research was widely accepted and adopted across academia both in the United States and abroad.[15] What Ellen Condliffe Lagemann describes as “Edward Thorndike’s triumph and John Dewey’s defeat” was critical to the field and to attempts to define an educational science.[16]

EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND THE INTER-WAR YEARS

The inter-war years were a time of transformation in educational research. By 1915, the study of education had been established at the university level with 300 of the 600 institutions of higher education in the United States offering courses on education. This time period also experienced an increase at the doctoral level of study which saw enrollments higher than any other discipline other than chemistry.[17] While faculty at institutions such as Harvard, Teachers College and the University of Chicago, which had dominated the educational research landscape decades earlier, continued to make significant contributions to the study of education, there were scholars at many other institutions making additional valuable contributions to educational research scholarship. At the conclusion of World War I the focus on educational reform in the United States began to change to a more social control and efficiency and there was an opportunity for many educationists to provide guidance to public schools in the United States.[18] Disagreement among educational research scholars persisted during this time period and there was little consensus on the aims of education. With the population of the United States growing rapidly and the demographic make-up of its people changing due to the arrival of immigrants from across the globe coupled with the migration of African Americans from rural areas and the Southern states to the urban cities in the Northeast and Midwest the student bodies at public schools were diversifying at a rapid pace. The arrival of new immigrants to the United States coincided with the “testing movement” that emerged during World War I when the United States Army was testing its recruits. The most prominent psychologists of the time, including Edward Thorndike, were either involved with or supported the Army’s testing. The testing movement attracted both psychologists and sociologists alike and it was the sociologists, primarily in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago, who challenged and actively researched the racial differences in intelligence quotients. Otto Klineberg from Columbia University also played a leading role in studying racial and cultural differences in intelligence quotients and their measures.

EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH – POST WORLD WAR II AND THE FUTURE

Educational research continued to flourish in the years and decades after World War II ended. During this time period, the growth in schools of education and in the number of courses on education at institutions of higher education continued to rise. Additionally, more academic journals with a focus on educational issues emerge as a means to disseminate new knowledge. These exciting changes in educational scholarship were not confined to the ivory towers in the United States. Even as Europe was rebuilding, the study of education across the continent was on the rise and in the United Kingdom, for example, the rise of professional graduate degrees in education was significant.[19] Scholarly debates on the aims of education as well as epistemological discourse persisted.

In the decades after World War II, and in particular at the start of the 1960’s, a post-positivist movement in educational research starts taking shape.[20] While positivistic approaches to educational research continued to be put forth during the post-war years and continued to be favored by many social scientists, we start to see the introduction of, and in some case the reemergence of, other epistemological approaches.[21] Constructivism, functionalism and postmodernism theoretical frameworks, among others, have offered strong criticisms of positivism.[22] Vigorous debates on the virtues of the various theoretical perspectives about knowledge, science and methodologies have played a very important role in educational research. Frequently, these critical discussions and analyses have found both a platform and a captive audience in the field of comparative education. These philosophical debates continue today both in and outside of academia.

The United States federal government also began to take a much more active role in educational research in the post-war years. Specifically, in 1954, the United States Congress passed the Cooperative Research Act. The Cooperative Research Act was passed as a means for the federal government to take a more active role in advancing and funding research on education in academia.[23] Additional legislation and federal initiatives during the 1950’s and 1960’s that supported and/or funded educational research and provided a means for the dissemination of new educational knowledge included the National Defense Education Act of 1958 and the establishment of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) in 1966. These are but a few of the many examples of the new role the federal government was playing in educational research during this time period. To be sure, the federal government has continued to play a significant role in educational research since this time period. Since the 1970’s, according to Robert Travers, “virtually every bill authorizing particular educational programs has included a requirement that the particular program be evaluated to determine whether the program was worth the money spent upon it.”[24] For a long period of time, public focus on education and schools focused on resource allocation, student access, and the content of the curriculum and paid relatively little attention to results.[25] This new “evidenced-based movement”[26] is one that remains with us today. Patti Lather describes the evidenced-based movement as “governmental incursion into legislating scientific method in the real of educational research” and that the federal government’s focus on evidence-based knowledge is much more about policy for science than it is about science for policy.[27] The federal government has a vested interest in and support for “applied research” over “basic or pure research”. This, of course, is challenging for social scientists and educational researchers who are positivist in their approach to science and knowledge.[28]

A distinctive form of research emerged from the new assessment or evaluation movement in recent decades. Educational assessment, in many ways, is a form of “action research”.[29] Action research does not aim to produce new knowledge. Instead, action research aims to improve practice and in the context of education it aims to improve the educational practice of teachers.[30] Action research, as Richard Pring points out, “might be supported and funded with a view to knowing the most effective ways of attaining particular goals – goals or targets set by government or others external to the transaction which takes place between teacher and learner.”[31] Action research proponents, Yvonna Lincoln and Egon Guba, highlight that “the call for action…differentiates between positivist and postmodern criticalist theorists.”[32]
A new and interesting approach to educational research can be found today at the University of Chicago. The Department of Education at the University of Chicago was closed in 1997 to much surprise around the world. Despite the closing of the Department of Education, a sprinkling of educational research activities by faculty and available education course offerings can be found in a variety of academic departments and professional schools. In addition, the University of Chicago has also operated the North Kenwood/Oakland Charter School under the Center for Urban School Improvement since 1998. Campus interest in urban schools and educational research led to the creation of a new Committee on Education in 2005, with a home in the Division of the Social Sciences, chaired by Stephen Radenbusch who joined the faculty in the Department of Sociology and whom the University lured from the School of Education at the University of Michigan. The University of Chicago Chronicle highlighted the arrival of Stephen Radenbusch and noted that the Committee on Education “will bring together distinguished faculty from several departments and schools considered to be among the best in the world into common research projects, seminars and training programs. The committee will engage faculty and graduate students from such areas as public policy, sociology, social service administration, economics, business, mathematics and the sciences to collaborate on the most critical issues affecting urban schools.”[33] The interdisciplinary focus of Chicago’s Committee on Education and its Urban Education Initiative plans to create a “Chicago Model” for urban schools that will “draw on and test the best ideas about teaching, learning, school organization, school governance, teacher preparation, and social service provision.”[34] While interdisciplinary research and collaboration is no stranger to the University of Chicago, it is a new and innovative approach to the study of education. The Committee on Education at the University of Chicago is highly quantitatively driven and data focused.[35] If this interdisciplinary approach to educational research is successful and is modeled by other institutions of higher education, both in the United States and abroad, it will be interesting to see if a positivistic approach similar to that found at Chicago is followed or if a more relativistic approach is pursued. Either way, interdisciplinary collaboration may very well be the next chapter in the history of educational research.

CONCLUSION

From its inception, educational research has been a subject of debate. Educational research has grown significantly over time and the variety of theoretical approaches that have been implemented in the research has diversified greatly over time. This essay identified many, but certainly not all, of the key transformations in educational research from the late nineteenth century to present day. Also, this essay is not an attempt to recommend one theoretical approach over another in the study and research of education. Rather, it is an attempt to provide a brief history of the types of educational research efforts and to highlight the epistemological debates that have occurred during this time period.

REFERENCES

Bowen, J. 1981. A History of Western Education; Volume III: The Modern West. London: Methuen.

Cohen, D.K, and C.A. Barnes. 1999. “Research and the Purposes of Education,” in Issues in Educational Research: Problems and Possibilities, ed. E.C. Lagemann and L.S. Shulman, 17-41. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Committee on Education. 2008. The Role of the Committee on Education. Chicago:
The Committee on Education, University of Chicago. http://coe.uchicago.edu/about/index.shtml.

Fuchs, E. 2004. Educational Sciences, Morality and Politics: International Educational Congresses in the early twentieth Century. Pedagogica Historica 40, no. 5: 757 784.

Greenwood, D.J., and M. Levin. 2003. “Reconstructing the Relationships between Universities and Society through Action Research” in The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues, 2nd ed., ed. Norman K. Denzin and
Yvonna S. Lincoln, 131-166. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Hamilton, D. 2002. ‘Noisy Fallible and Biased Though it be” (On the Vagaries of Educational Research). British Journal of Educational Studies 50, no. 1: 144 164.

Harms, W. 2005. “Radenbusch to Chair New Committee on Education,” The University of Chicago Chronicle. May 26. http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/050526/raudenbush.shtml.

Hofstetter, R. and B. Schneuwly. 2004. Introduction Educational Sciences in Dynamic and Hybrid Institutionalization. Pedagogica Historia 40, no. 5: 569-589.

Kliebard, H.M. 1986. The Struggle for the American Curriculum, 1893-1958. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Lagemann, E.C. 2000. An Elusive Science: The Troubling History of Education Research. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Lather, P. 2004. Scientific Research in Education: A Critical Perspective. British Educational Research Journal 30, no. 6: 759-772.

Lincoln, Y.S., and E.G. Guba. 2003. “Paradigmatic Controversies, Contradictions, and Emerging Confluences” in The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues, 2nd ed., ed. Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, 253-291. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Popkewitz, T.S. 1998. The Culture of Redemption and the Administration of Freedom as Research. Review of Educational Research 68, no. 1: 1-34.

Pring, R. 2000. Philosophy of Educational Research, 2nd ed. New York: Continuum.

Suskie, L. 2004. Assessing Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc.

Travers, R.M.W. 1983. How Research Has Changed American Schools: A History from 1840 to the Present. Kalamazoo, MI: Mythos Press.

NOTES

[1] Travers, R.M.W. How Research Has Changed American Schools: A History from 1840 to the Present. Kalamazoo, MI: Mythos Press, 1983), 7.
[2] Ibid, 7-8.
[3] Bowen, J. A History of Western Education; Volume III: The Modern West. (London: Methuen, 1981), 360.
[4] Ibib, 21.
[5] Both Stanford and The University of Chicago were founded in 1891.
[6] The Morrill Act of 1862 is sometimes referred to as the Morrill Land Grant College Act .
[7] Lagemann, E.C. An Elusive Science: The Troubling History of Education Research. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), 9; Hofstetter, R. and B. Schneuwly. Introduction Educational Sciences in Dynamic and Hybrid Institutionalization. (Pedagogica Historia 40, no. 5, 2004), 571.
[8] Popkewitz, T.S. The Culture of Redemption and the Administration of Freedom as Research. (Review of Educational Research 68, no. 1, 1998), 4-5.
[9] Lagemann, 19.
[10] Ibid, 21.
[11] Cohen, D.K, and C.A. Barnes. “Research and the Purposes of Education,” in Issues in Educational Research: Problems and Possibilities, ed. E.C. Lageman and L.S. Shulman. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999), 19.
[12] Ibid, 20.
[13] Kliebard, H.M. The Struggle for the American Curriculum, 1893-1958. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 31.
[14] Lagemann, 42.
[15] Fuchs, E. Educational Sciences, Morality and Politics: International Educational Congresses in the early twentieth Century. Pedagogica Historica 40, no. 5, 2004, 773; Lagemann, 42.
[16] Lagemann, 22.
[17] Ibid, 20 and 103.
[18] Ibid, 20; Travers, 351.
[19] Hamilton, D. ‘Noisy Fallible and Biased Though it be” (On the Vagaries of Educational Research). British Journal of Educational Studies 50, no. 1, 2002, 145.
[20] Ibid, 160.
[21] Ibid, 159-160.
[22] Pring, R. Philosophy of Educational Research, 2nd ed. (New York: Continuum, 2000), 90; Greenwood, D.J., and M. Levin. “Reconstructing the Relationships Between Universities and Society Through Action Research” in The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues, 2nd ed., ed. Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2003) 143-144.
[23] Lagemann, 184-186; Travers, 532-534.
[24] Travers, 539.
[25] Cohen, D.K, and C.A. Barnes. “Research and the Purposes of Education,” in Issues in Educational Research: Problems and Possibilities, ed. E.C. Lagemann and L.S. Shulman, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999), 29
[26] The “evidence-based movement” is also sometimes referred to as the “accountability movement” or the “evaluation movement”.
[27] Lather, P. "Scientific Research in Education: A Critical Perspective". British Educational Research Journal 30, no. 6, 2004), 759.
[28] Greenwood and Levin, 145.
[29] Suskie, L. Assessing Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide. (Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc., 2004), 8.
[30] Pring, 133-136.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Lincoln, Y.S., and E.G. Guba. “Paradigmatic Controversies, Contradictions, and Emerging Confluences” in The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues, 2nd ed., ed. Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2003), 268.
[33] Harms, W. 2005. “Radenbusch to Chair New Committee on Education,” The University of Chicago Chronicle. May 26. http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/050526/raudenbush.shtml.
[34] Committee on Education. 2008. The Role of the Committee on Education. Chicago: The Committee on Education, University of Chicago. http://coe.uchicago.edu/about/index.shtml.
[35] Stephen Radenbusch is known as quantitative methodologist and he is an expert on hierarchical linear models.