Paula S. Fass

The IQ: A Cultural and Historical Framework.

The IQ as a concept and intelligence testing as a procedure were developed within a specific sociocultural context in the United States during the period 1900-1930. This context included massive immigration, ethnic and racial diversity, and urban complexity; the expansion of school facilities and educational purposes; the growing influence of science and technical expertise in all areas of social life. The IQ seemed to provide a form of social order and meritocratic evaluation at the same time as it helped to organize an increasingly complex educational process, made both more ambitious and more idealistic because of John Deweys challenging educational philosophy. In the light of the proven feasibility of mass testing during World War I, IQ testing was rapidly accepted in the public schools despite the knowledge that some immigrant and racial groups did significantly less well on the tests than others. While IQ testing would ultimately form the basis of a tracking network which would be perceived as undemocratic and repressive, it originally seemed to offer a potentially scientific and seemingly unbiased means to regulate and organize a heterogeneous democracy where education was to provide a variety of solutions to pressing social problems.

Children in Global Migrations

Despite popular images of the adverse disruptions caused by migration in todays global world, the migration of children in the contemporary world often repeats patterns from the past. We are also witnessing genuinely new elements. In either case, to understand and evaluate these matters requires historical understanding of childhood and knowledge about earlier migrations, such as those of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Important areas affected by migration with significant consequences for children include education, social mobility, family authority, gender roles, and the potential contributions that older children can make to strategies for family success and survival. Changes in these areas have resulted in important social transformations and can be expected to do so again. Understanding contemporary globalization should involve the knowledge of American historians especially because of the long experience in the United States with many of the factors associated with globalization that are currently being played out around the world. The paper looks at how the American experience with migration in the context of free market economic activity and of the resulting interpenetration of many cultures can help us to frame questions about migration and globalization today.

Reinventing Childhood After World War II

In the Western world, the modern view of childhood as a space protected from broader adult society first became a dominant social vision during the nineteenth century. Many of the Wests sharpest portrayals of children in literature and the arts emerged at that time in both Europe and the United States and continue to organize our perceptions and sensibilities to this day. But that childhood is now being recreated. Many social and political developments since the end of the World War II have fundamentally altered the lives children lead and are now beginning to transform conceptions of childhood. Reinventing Childhood After World War II brings together seven prominent historians of modern childhood to identify precisely what has changed in childrens lives and why. Topics range from youth culture to childrens rights; from changing definitions of age to nontraditional families; from parenting styles to how American experiences compare with those of the rest of the Western world. Taken together, the essays argue that childrens experiences have changed in such dramatic and important ways since 1945 that parents, other adults, and girls and boys themselves have had to reinvent almost every aspect of childhood. Reinventing Childhood After World War II presents a striking interpretation of the nature and status of childhood that will be essential to students and scholars of childhood, as well as policy makers, educators, parents, and all those concerned with the lives of children in the world today.

A Historical Context for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was a by-product of international commitments to human rights, but its history lies in the complex and contradictory developments of the twentieth century, when elevated expectations regarding the welfare of children confronted the realities of war. In the late nineteenth century, material conditions and reform efforts redefined the lives of children in the Western world and created new sentiments about childhood and investments in children’s progress. World Wars I and II exposed children’s acute vulnerability and the myth of inevitable progress. After each of these wars, defining what was owed to children and how best to meet their needs was part of larger international negotiations regarding power and prestige. Throughout this period, the involvement of women, a new Swedish presence in international diplomacy, and the growing role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) affected what would become a rearticulation of child welfare and protection and a more active commitment to children’s rights.

Understanding American Education in the Twentieth Century

This forum on the nature of American Education in the twentieth century revolves around the major themes in Paula S. Passs Outside In: Minorities and the Transformation of American Education (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). Because of the diverse subjects explored and analyzed in Outside In, the editors of the HEQ invited three leading scholars to respond to the volume, and Professor Fass also kindly agreed to reply to their commentaries. We are extremely grateful to Professors V. P. Franklin of Drexel University; Lynn D. Gordon of the University of Rochester; Maxine Schwartz Seller of the University at Buffalo, State University of New York; and, of course, Paula S. Fass of the University of California at Berkeley, for their willingness to share their perspectives on a broad range of issues with our readers.

Without Design: Education Policy in the New Deal

The emergency conditions created by the Depression provided the context for unprecedented experimentation by the federal government in the development of direct educational programs and the evolution of new ideas of federal responsibility for education. These programs, part of the New Deals relief endeavor, were at once a radical departure from previous views about the legitimate role of the federal government in education and ultimately circumscribed by the manner in which they were conceived and administered. Although the specific educational programs of the New Deal ended when the relief agencies were disbanded, the Roosevelt educational experiments had important consequences in establishing new goals for an effective democratic education, equal opportunity for blacks and other disadvantaged groups, and federal responsibility for education, which anticipated more recent policies and perspectives.

Book Review: Ethnic Differences: Schooling and Social Structure among the Irish, Italians, Jews and Blacks in an American City, 1880–1935Ethnic Differences: Schooling and Social Structure among the Irish, Italians, Jews and Blacks in an American City, 1880–1935. By PerlmannJoel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. 327 Pp.

primarily as battlegrounds for the minds ofthe newcomers and their offspring. However, Seller also gives equal treatment to other facets ofAmerican ethnic life-the press, mutual aid societies, literary contributions. Woven into her story ofinstitutions is a story ofideas and attitudes. Thus, as she moves into the twentieth century Seller not only treats the melting pot versus cultural pluralism debate but also an immigration policy that shifted from the Quota Act of 1924 to the Immigration Act of 1965. Sellers carefully analyzes the implications, both positive and negative, of each of these Acts in terms of their meaning for the political, social and economic life of ethnics in late twentieth century America. This leads her, finally, into a discussion of Third World immigrants in post-industrial America. She touches on some ofthe problems of bilinguaIism, of urban crime, of undocumented workers, and concludes with a brave treatment of the revival ofnativism and racism in the 1970s and 80s. New immigration policies are interpreted in this light and the links between the past and the present are thereby clearly established. Though the players have changed, the underlying structural tensions remain, as does, she argues, the ambivalence with which Americans, whoever they are, treat newcomers to their shores. To SeekAmerica is primarily for the beginning student or nonspecialist. It is richer than other volumes of its ilk in its coverage of diverse ethnic experiences, and it is much more engagingly written. The historical depth,juxtaposed with a discussion of very contemporary problems of immigration, leave the reader with a very clear understanding of both continuity and change. The volume contains a very useful bibliographic essay that covers both scholarly and literary sources and the list ofethnic novels is intriguing and impressive.