EXPLORING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SOCIAL, CIVIC, AND EDUCATIONORGANIZATION: AN HISTORICAL CASE STUDY OF THREE KEY FIGURES INTHE NEW YORK CITY COMMUNITY CONTROL MOVEMENT, 1966-1968

[摘要] Schools serve both to connect and separate people within society. Therefore, the landscape of school reform presents an opportunity to explicate the opposing forces of connectedness and competition that are entrenched in twenty-first century society. It can serve as a laboratory in which to study foundational social issues. This study is an historical analysis of school reform conflict through a lens of social theory. The theoretical framework of this study explicates the connectedness of social, civic, and educational organization; aspects of social organization transfer into the civic sphere through politics of recognition, leading to competing ideas about social responsibility and liberalism. This dynamic forms a foundation for school reform conflict, particularly in an education paradigm steeped in competition and advantage.The New York City community control conflict of the late 1960s is an example of deeply rooted contestation between social groups and its impact on school reform. The conflict was a complicated conflict among parents, teachers, community members, policy makers, and academics that approached the issues from different social perspectives. This study places the community control conflict within broader social context, explicating foundational differences in social perspective that inhibit school reform. The study focuses on the works of three major figures involved in the conflict: Albert Shanker, teachers’ union leader; Preston Wilcox, academic theorist, community organizer, and adviser to the community control group; and John Lindsay, New York City Mayor from 1966-1973. This study explores the key figures’ social perspectives in relation to the socio-political goals of the community control movement, the teachers’ union, and policy makers. This study illustrates how people engaged in reform efforts often contend with a complex matrix of social group connections, yielding dilemmas and contradictions between beliefs and actions. Historical research can provide insight into complex social struggles at the heart of school reform conflict. When that which is deemed best for oneself and those closest to them often conflicts with what is best for social groups with which they identify and support. Such studies can shed light on underlying and recurring social problems that continuously thwart school reform.

[发布机构] the University of Pittsburgh