Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-sjtt6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-22T01:52:50.071Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - From one room to one system: the importance of rural–urban differences in nineteenth-century Massachusetts schooling

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2010

Get access

Summary

Introduction

The Essex County teenagers discussed in Chapter 4 were influenced in their school enrollment decisions not only by their family situations but by the communities in which they lived. We also noted, in Chapter 2, that enrollment rates varied by town size in early nineteenth-century Massachusetts. Indeed, one of the strong motivations for undertaking our study of Massachusetts education was our interest in the rural–urban dimension of educational history. In this chapter we broaden our scope again, from the eight Essex County towns to all of the towns in the state, and we move from the individual to the town as a unit of analysis. Using a file of town-level data from censuses and state school reports, we shall investigate the relationship between various educational trends and several types of community characteristics. We also hope to clarify some of the conceptual problems involved in using urbanization as an explanation of educational change.

American laymen have long perceived important differences between rural and urban schools. The little red schoolhouse of the countryside has a hallowed place in popular educational lore. Despite this rosy, nostalgic view, however, educators have generally taken a negative view of rural education, beginning as early as the mid-nineteenth century, when the process of schooling became professionalized. Their criticism stemmed partly from their impulse to centralize and standardize education, which rural districts resisted, and partly from their admiration for the apparent efficiency and elegance of large, differentiated institutions, which rural schools lacked.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×