The Historical Setting

Abstract

Early in the present century the public schools were asked to serve as the principal agency for inducting the youth of European immigrants into the social and economic ways of a new land. More recently, institutionalized education has been given an opportunity to contribute toward improving the quality of life for the non-European grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those Americans who were not principal beneficiaries of the earlier thrust. A key difference is that the present challenge also requires a basic restructuring of attitudes and policies across the entire social order, a process likely to produce mental anguish among both majority and minority elements of the population. Schools historically have been expected to serve as agencies for social preservation and for inducting youth into the ways of society. In the present they are also being called upon to help produce a basic reform in the way Americans behave toward one another—a rare and fateful challenge indeed.