Social Foundations of Education Reader

Necessity Demands Foundations

Society exists through a process of transmission quite as much as biological life. This transmission occurs by means of communication of habits of doing, thinking, and feeling from the older to the younger. Without this communication of ideals, hopes, expectations, standards, opinions, from those members of society who are passing out of the group life to those who are coming into it, social life could not survive. If the members who compose a society lived on continuously, they might educate the new-born members, but it would be a task directed by personal interest rather than social need. Now it is a work of necessity.

John Dewey, 1916

Dewey’s tome, Democracy and Education (1916, 1944) enhances his notion of society and its existence … ironically, insisting that democracy exists … unfortunately, I query that notion. As Americans we blindly call ourselves a democracy, eschewing evidence. Avoiding the desire to spend too much time on the obvious, I do share Dewey’s notion that communication is essential in order to create some sort of order. However, the assumption that there is a democracy should be replaced with the assumption that we must fight to have a democracy. … therein lies the need for the foundations of education. Dewey associated the classroom with democracy, articulating that students should do, and by doing, often of their own accord, democratic schooling existed. Like society, however, democracy is much more difficult to achieve. Structure cannot be sustained without a foundation, and for the past three decades, the foundations, the bedrock of education, have been eradicated. The majority of those who pick up this book will pause to ruminate on those good old days of the philosophy, sociology, and history of education. I figure if a reader of this foreword graduated from high school before 1983, that person’s education was influenced by the foundations of education. Ironically, Dewey didn’t set out to create the foundations in education; that’s the downside of being the birth father of a concept. Dewey didn’t anticipate that he would become the father of educational philosophy.

He set the stage for the theorists who followed him to create those foundations, many assumed they would continue to do so.

For those who graduated after 1983, teacher education was reinvented into a different way of being. Irony runs through my retelling of the question: what happened to the foundations of education? In 1983, Ronald Reagan (former movie cowboy, president of the USA) decided, without evidence, that American children were not learning, they did not have enough math and science, and the USA would become subject to an “unfriendly foreign power” and be victims due to the “squandering of gains” (A Nation at Risk 1982–83) in student achievement caused by American “bad” schooling. The president, armed with a bachelor’s degree from Eureka College, declared that America’s children were not succeeding. In 1982, he created a National Commission on Excellence to study the quality of American education. Out of the 18 members of the committee there was one teacher (National Teacher of the Year: Foreign Languages), two principals, and 15 college and government administrators. The point, according to the Commission was to ascertain the quality of education in the United States and within 18 months to create a report. Delivered on time, the report was titled: A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, April 1983). The entire report was structured around fear, educational historians now refer to the document as a gaslighting exercise enabling the presidency to take over the education of American children. The implication: bad education was caused by American teachers. Point of interest:

Imagine how difficult it is to write a foreword to a book that is a second edition of a concept that doesn’t exist. And that, dear readers, is our challenge: to create relevance for a book of 34 chapters espousing a field of education that does not exist in Wikipedia, and in most faculties of education.

Following the release of A Nation at Risk, Reagan began to ensure that his legacy would continue as the president who identified the lack of rigor and importance in the American curriculum. He succeeded beyond all expectation, and the results of the following 50+ years attest to what Donaldo Macedo refers to as the stupidification of American schools, American teachers, and American educational policymakers (Macedo, 1994). By the 1990s, most faculties had ceased their departments of social foundations; gone were courses in the Philosophy, Sociology, History of Education, and the arts. According to the United States Bureau of the Census, illiteracy rates in 1950 were below 3 %–10 %, in the 1960s–1970s the national rate was 2.4 %. Several decades were not measured, but in 1998, a U.S. government report, The State of Literacy in America noted there was a “significant growth in illiteracy in America.” Over 90 million U.S. adults, nearly one out of two are functionally illiterate or near illiterate, without the minimum skills required in a modern society (WSWS.ORG, 1998). As of 2021, the U.S. rate of literacy was 79 % compared to the same time in 2021 with Cuba, a country that maintains a literacy rate of 99.67 %.

It’s not hard to pinpoint colleagues who teach undergraduate courses bemoaning horrendous writing turned in by students. Indeed, it is difficult to truthfully award an “A” to many students in public institutions. An offshoot discovered by the low scores and literacy of students is the incredible arrogance that accompanies lower grades, accompanied by angry parents who “paid for this education,” and expect their children to receive A’s. Without the influence of sociology, many American parents do not understand the issues involved in the failure of American schools.

I rarely find young colleagues who are aware of A Nation at Risk and the literacy rates throughout the USA. Without courses in the history and sociology of education, it would appear to be non-curricular if taught in classes. Referring back to Dewey, well, there is no need to refer back to Dewey, because he is seldom taught in most college courses. I play a quick game with myself when I begin teaching a course: I ask graduate students who Dewey is and what he contributed to education; few, if any, respond. There are the brave professors who deviate from departmental curricula and discuss illiteracy rates and sociological reasons for the greatest country in the world to have some of the worst students in the world. However, without the sociology of education, students and teachers are unable to access support from schools that have buried these courses. Philosophy of education is a relic, and history of schooling … seriously? Who cares? By the 1990s, we saw education courses being immersed in curriculum, and educational foundations professors either retiring or learning the new lingo: which included a definite phaseout of foundations. I was caught in that unpleasant web, graduating in the late 90s in Foundations of Education. I began professoring by expecting to teach courses in what I studied: I was streamed into Curriculum and Instruction.

Whatever texts are still being written for the Social Foundations of Education often omit the historical, social, and philosophical underpinnings of education itself. A quick survey of most “foundations” texts seems to miss the inherent importance of foundations: how humans and institutions move throughout the world, understanding political and social nuance, and discussing the histories and philosophies that explain who and why we are. Chapters like: Why Teach? Stir and Serve Recipes for Teaching, Maintaining Discipline in Class … same ole, same ole. Occasionally, we receive a diamond in the rough of our not-so-foundational foundations texts. Not this text … it is smooth and smart and exactly what is missing in education. Hitting what we need to read is this out-of-the-park foundations text edited by Ellie Blair and Yolanda Medina, who have managed to give us a pertinent, timely, criticalized, historicized, and societally relevant second edition of The Social Foundations Reader. This text brings us important articles by new, not-so-new, and seminal scholars of the Social Foundations of Education.

The Social Foundations Reader second edition is a gift to those who understand that without foundations of education, we have no grounding. Contextually essential, the volume begins with pedagogy and reflections on Post-COVID Pedagogies. Many of us, maybe most of us, are still traumatized and decentered by the virus that came upon our globe: an unannounced plague to an unprepared world. Section Two reminds us that teachers can be, and should be activists, and we are prompted to encourage our students to speak truth to power and to carry socially just ways of being. The third section discusses the importance of contextualizing educational change. Indeed, the importance of contextualization itself should be infused within the entire notion of pedagogy. Completing the volume is Section Four, which reminds us that pedagogy should always be transformative and equitable for all and embody inclusion. What a book. Among the new voices reaching out to us from the pages is a scattering of a few of our GOATs of foundations: Lisa Delpit, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Joe L. Kincheloe, and Henry Giroux. Thanks to the editors for reminding us that scholars and students of education must contextualize our work through the channels of history, society, and philosophical ways of knowing and living.

An Urgent Call for Social Foundations of Education

The relevance of Social Foundations of Education courses in the preparation of teachers is more important than ever in these post-pandemic times. Right-wing politicians have taken advantage of the public’s fear of mask mandates, the hasty switch to online learning in PK-12 schools, and the high number of COVID-related deaths in poor communities of color to inject even more terror into the American people—this time about what our children are learning in schools today. Now, more than ever, we need our future teachers to be involved in critical discussions of what it truly means to be an educator, the purpose of schooling, and the power of politics in educational reform. There is no such thing as an apolitical education. Education has always been driven by political and social agendas.

The learning that happens in Social Foundations of Education courses encourages teachers to question assumptions that are taken for granted and accepted as legitimate practices. These conversations also promote educational reforms and pedagogies that support democratic ideals so that teachers can, in turn, deepen their understandings of the issues they will face inside and outside of their classrooms and be ready to make choices that will benefit all of their students’ growth.

Another important goal of a Social Foundations of Education course is to support the preparation of teachers as they develop critical pedagogical practices that organically infuse cultural competence, equity, and inclusion in their curricula and provide a more culturally sustaining and welcoming environment for all students. Social Foundations of Education courses are also dedicated to preparing teachers to understand the benefits of working with students’ caregivers and their communities; to see the diversity in their classrooms through an asset-based lens, and to recognize that the multiple perspectives and experiences that children from diverse backgrounds bring to their classrooms are a valuable example of democracy in action.

However, while Social Foundations of Education scholars and educators strive to accomplish these goals, our right-wing counterparts are wreaking havoc attempting to delegitimize courses that discuss principles and ideals such as Critical Race Theory, LGBTQ+ themes, as well as banning any books that can provoke the questioning of their righteous ideals.

So far, 44 states have imposed bans and restrictions either through legislation or other venues, to restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss race and sexism. (Schwartz, 2024)

Times such as these are when teacher education programs need to place their Social Foundations of Education courses at the forefront of the preparation of their teachers. These courses shed light on the belief that

the system of schooling should be based on principles of equitable access and that every individual has a right to educational opportunities which are just, fair, and democratic. Social Foundations faculty believe that we must work against narrow conceptions of education and schooling which marginalize or otherwise minimalize the knowledge, culture, and experiences of some populations within our society while privileging others. (Tutwiler et al., 2013, p. 108)

The chapters in this book offer the above-mentioned perspectives and combat unquestioning assumptions of society and its role in the education of all children and what it means to be an educator dedicated to critical and democratic ideals.