Shortly after the Russians launched Sputnik in 1957, Hannah Arendt quipped that "only in America could a crisis in education actually become a factor in politics." The Cold War battle for the American school - dramatized but not initiated by Sputnik - proved Arendt correct. The schools served as a battleground in the ideological conflicts of the 1950s. Beginning with the genealogy of progressive education, and ending with the formation of New Left and New Right thought, Education and the Cold War offers a fresh perspective on the postwar transformation in U.S. political culture by way of an examination of the educational history of that era.
Shortly after the Russians launched Sputnik in 1957, Hannah Arendt quipped that “only in America could a crisis in education actually become a factor in politics.” The Cold War battle for the American school – dramatized but not initiated by Sputnik – proved Arendt correct. The schools served as a battleground in the ideological conflicts of the 1950s. Beginning with the genealogy of progressive education, and ending with the formation of New Left and New Right thought, Education and the Cold War offers a fresh perspective on the postwar transformation in U.S. political culture by way of an examination of the educational history of that era.
During the 1950s, leading American scientists embarked on an unprecedented project to remake high school science education. Dissatisfaction with the 'soft' school curriculum of the time advocated by the professional education establishment, and concern over the growing technological sophistication of the Soviet Union, led government officials to encourage a handful of elite research scientists, fresh from their World War II successes, to revitalize the nations' science curricula. In Scientists in the Classroom , John L. Rudolph argues that the Cold War environment, long neglected in the history of education literature, is crucial to understanding both the reasons for the public acceptance of scientific authority in the field of education and the nature of the curriculum materials that were eventually produced. Drawing on a wealth of previously untapped resources from government and university archives, Rudolph focuses on the National Science Foundation-supported curriculum projects initiated in 1956. What the historical record reveals, according to Rudolph, is that these materials were designed not just to improve American science education, but to advance the professional interest of the American scientific community in the postwar period as well.
As the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union escalated in the 1950s and 1960s, the federal government directed billions of dollars to American universities to promote higher enrollments, studies of foreign languages and cultures, and, especially, scientific research. In Cold War University, Matthew Levin traces the paradox that developed: higher education became increasingly enmeshed in the Cold War struggle even as university campuses became centers of opposition to Cold War policies. The partnerships between the federal government and major research universities sparked a campus backlash that provided the foundation, Levin argues, for much of the student dissent that followed. At the University of Wisconsin in Madison, one of the hubs of student political activism in the 1950s and 1960s, the protests reached their flashpoint with the 1967 demonstrations against campus recruiters from Dow Chemical, the manufacturers of napalm. Levin documents the development of student political organizations in Madison in the 1950s and the emergence of a mass movement in the decade that followed, adding texture to the history of national youth protests of the time. He shows how the University of Wisconsin tolerated political dissent even at the height of McCarthyism, an era named for Wisconsin's own virulently anti-Communist senator, and charts the emergence of an intellectual community of students and professors that encouraged new directions in radical politics. Some of the events in Madison—especially the 1966 draft protests, the 1967 sit-in against Dow Chemical, and the 1970 Sterling Hall bombing—have become part of the fabric of "The Sixties," touchstones in an era that continues to resonate in contemporary culture and politics.
Compares the privileged educational experience offered to the children of relocated Nazi scientists in Texas with the educational disadvantages faced by Mexican American students living in the same city. Educating the Enemy begins with the 144 children of Nazi scientists who moved to El Paso, Texas, in 1946 as part of the military program called Operation Paperclip. These German children were bused daily from a military outpost to four El Paso public schools. Though born into a fascist enemy nation, the German children were quickly integrated into the schools and, by proxy, American society. Their rapid assimilation offered evidence that American public schools played a vital role in ensuring the victory of democracy over fascism. Jonna Perrillo not only tells this fascinating story of Cold War educational policy, but she draws an important contrast with another, much more numerous population of children in the El Paso public schools: Mexican Americans. Like everywhere else in the Southwest, Mexican American children in El Paso were segregated into “Mexican” schools, where the children received a vastly different educational experience. Not only were they penalized for speaking Spanish—the only language all but a few spoke due to segregation—they were tracked for low-wage and low-prestige careers, with limited opportunities for economic success. Educating the Enemy charts what two groups of children—one that might have been considered the enemy, the other that was treated as such—reveal about the ways political assimilation has been treated by schools as an easier, more viable project than racial or ethnic assimilation. Listen to an interview with the author here.
This Handbook provides a systematic and analytical approach to the various dimensions of international, ethnic and domestic conflict over the uses of national history in education since the end of the Cold War. With an upsurge in political, social and cultural upheaval, particularly since the fall of state socialism in Europe, the importance of history textbooks and curricula as tools for influencing the outlooks of entire generations is thrown into sharp relief. Using case studies from 58 countries, this book explores how history education has had the potential to shape political allegiances and collective identities. The contributors highlight the key issues over which conflict has emerged – including the legacies of socialism and communism, war, dictatorships and genocide – issues which frequently point to tensions between adhering to and challenging the idea of a cohesive national identity and historical narrative. Global in scope, the Handbook will appeal to a diverse academic audience, including historians, political scientists, educationists, psychologists, sociologists and scholars working in the field of cultural and media studies.
The Hope of American School Reform tells the story of the origins of the reform in science and math education. The book is drawn, in part, on new research from previously untapped archival sources. The aim of this work is to contribute to our understanding of a major effort to reform school curricula.
This book reviews the strains between the United States and Great Britain that led to the Cold War as the result of personal characteristics of the leaders of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain as well as of historical and ideological forces.
In the twentieth century, illiteracy and its elimination were political issues important enough to figure in the fall of governments (as in Brazil in 1964), the building of nations (in newly independent African countries in the 1970s), and the construction of a revolutionary order (Nicaragua in 1980). This political biography of Paulo Freire (1921-97), who played a crucial role in shaping international literacy education, also presents a thoughtful examination of the volatile politics of literacy during the Cold War. A native of Brazil's impoverished northeast, Freire developed adult literacy training techniques that involved consciousness-raising, encouraging peasants and newly urban peoples to see themselves as active citizens who could transform their own lives. Freire's work for state and national government agencies in Brazil in the early 1960s eventually aroused the suspicion of the Brazilian military, as well as of U.S. government aid programs. Political pressures led to Freire's brief imprisonment, following the military coup of 1964, and then to more than a decade and a half in exile. During this period, Freire continued his work in Chile, Nicaragua, and postindependence African countries, as well as in Geneva with the World Council of Churches and in the United States at Harvard University. Andrew J. Kirkendall's evenhanded appraisal of Freire's pioneering life and work, which remains influential today, gives new perspectives on the history of the Cold War, the meanings of radicalism, and the evolution of the Left in Latin America.
