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A Crucible of Contradictions: Historical Roots of Violence against Children in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Barbara Finkelstein
Barbara Finkelstein*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland at College Park
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Extract

The wonderful thing about the history of education as a field of study is the permeability of its boundaries, its intellectual squishiness, the expansiveness of its definitions of education and history-doing, and its capacity to tie scholarly pursuit and social imperatives so closely together. As historians, we have, I believe, been uncommonly sensitive to issues of compelling political and ethical importance in education, a sensitivity which shows in the ways in which we have engaged our work. Consider the content of presidential addresses to the History of Education Society (HES) over the last decade, a wonderful thing to do by the way, since presidential addresses are an evocative and creative genre in our craft. Dazzlingly diverse in focus and content, those addresses have almost unvaryingly constructed ways to enlarge the reach of our field in ways that join it to the cause of social justice, civic reconstruction, school reform, a free press, and new modes of both conceiving and informing public policy. They constitute essays in social criticism as well as historical exploration.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , Spring 2000 , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the History of Education Society 

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References

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