Setting the parameters of education for the prototypical Janek (Johnny) required a series of important decisions. Definition of the teaching corps, curriculum, and authority structure were negotiated among priests, teachers, ethnic leaders, and parents. The Polish-American press took a lively and continual interest, with editors publicizing the discussion while vigorously offering their opinions. Outsiders, such as diocesan superintendents of education and the public education establishment, also influenced school development. Finally, the formation of Polish-American Roman Catholic elementary education occurred in the context of an evolving ethnic identity which conditioned continuity and innovation.

A large number of social, demographic, and other factors converged in the mid-to-late 1940s to place women's colleges in the United States in an awkward, if not precarious, position. The dominant cultural conditions and values of this early “post-feminist” era were at odds with many of the core values and traditions of such long-established and respected institutions as Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Wellesley Colleges. Since their respective foundings in 1837, 1875, and 1875, these colleges have been variously characterized as pioneers in women's education, unique communities of women nurturing women and women's scholarship, dangerous centers of feminist and other radical ideas, anachronistic holdovers from a bygone era, endangered institutions marking time until they become co-educational, and leaders in feminist scholarship. Choosing not to follow the example of Vassar, which opened its doors to men in 1968, these colleges and a few others like them survived the difficult years when the “Ivy League” colleges first admitted women. Today there is not much question about their reputation or permanence, yet in the post-World War II era their future was not as secure.

In the 1840s the perception of mental retardation began to change in the Western World. Until then the feebleminded were a natural part of the community. Since the 1840s they began to be seen step-by-step as a social problem. “Experts” started to develop ideas and interventions towards the feebleminded, in particular towards the “idiot” child. Mental retardation became a special field of educational interest and in several countries special care for “idiots” and “imbecile” children emerged. Distinct national traditions emerged in France, England, America, and Germany between the 1850s and the beginning of the twentieth century; in the Netherlands, however, there was little specialist care and few special initiatives were taken before the end of the century. The dominant expert opinion was that these people needed the standard care offered by the asylum. Two mid-nineteenth-century initiatives, however, are worth analyzing, since they signal the cautious start of special institutional education in the Netherlands: the Idiotenschool (School for Idiots) in The Hague and the class for idiots at the new asylum, Meerenberg. However, the only influential Dutch alternative to care in the asylum was offered by the end of the century by institutions with explicit religious motives, evolving from Catholic charity and Protestant philanthropy for all kinds of socially weak and dependent people. In most other Western countries by then the initial educational and therapeutic optimism was in decline; older educational ideas and optimism about the possibility of treating learning disabilities revived in these religious circles by the end of the century.