A sociological approach to education: A revision of community backgrounds of education.Toward life-centered schooling.
Abstract
Any school program designed for the best interests of our society must meet at least five tests of fitness. It must have a socially realistic content, a series of learning experiences growing out of community life and directed toward its improvement. It must be democratic in its human relations, doing all that is possible to see that people treat people in terms of personal worth and growth potentials. It must make use of the most productive teaching-learning methods; therefore, it must continuously appraise the effectiveness of its work and planning. It must, finally, change as the times change, keeping itself adjustive to new needs and conditions. One cannot, in a chapter, touch upon all these elements; in truth their study is a function of the volume as a whole. Here interest will center on two fundamentals: the content of education and human relations in the school. The two, of course, overlap considerably; yet in theory a school might show realistic course content and poor human relations. Our concern is still with viewpoint rather than method, for clear, compelling points of view have a way of finding or making methods and procedures appropriate to their expression. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)