Full Citation

Title: The Social Class Origins of U.S. Teachers, 1860-1920

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2012

ISBN:

ISSN:

DOI: 10.1093/jsh/shr121

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Abstract: U.S. teachers have long been neglected in the history of education in spite of their important roles in education. Clifford calls this neglect a “virtual invisibility of teachers.”1 Hence, it is not surprising to encounter immense difficulty in tracing the social class origins of teachers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This task is of great importance, however, because it allows one to understand the circumstances surrounding the individuals that entered the profession, to speculate on the quality of teaching, and to form an idea about class bias, intentional or not, inculcated by teachers in classrooms. Research on the social class origins has been done for a century, as discussed in the next section. However, most of the research missed the broad picture of the profession. Some attention was paid to students in one college or normal school in one state even if few teachers attained such a high level of education at the time. In fact, a serious attempt was made to collect nationally representative data of teachers, but the data are severely biased. Of course, anecdotal evidence for the origins is scattered . . .

Url: https://academic.oup.com/jsh/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/jsh/shr121

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Authors: Sohn, Kitae

Periodical (Full): Journal of Social History

Issue: 4

Volume: 45

Pages: 908-935

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Education

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