Schiro: Curriculum Theory. Part 4.

Social
Reconstruction Ideology
Here you go, the fourth post on my study notes on Michael Stephen Schiros book Curriculum
Theory conflicting visions and enduring concerns (Sage, 2013). I intend to add a 5th post
where Ill post my notes on the final chapter of the book where Schiro compares these four
ideologies. My previous posts on the book: Scholar Academic Ideology, Social Efficiency
Ideology and Learner Centered Ideology.
Social Reconstruction Ideology
Curriculum is viewed from social perspective. It is assumed that our society is unhealthy and its
survival is threatened, because the traditional mechanisms developed by said society to contend
with social problems are incapable of doing their job. Social Reconstrucion Ideology assumes
that something can be done to keep society from destroying itself. Education is a means to solve
societys problems.

educate the masses of society, make them analyze themselves in relation to society, see and
understand the problems of society, develope a vision of a better world based on social justice
and actualize that vision.

Problems that threaten the survival of society (for example):

racism

war

sexism

poverty

pollution

worker exploitation

climate change

corporate exploitation

crime

political corruption

population explosion

energy shortage

illiteracy

inadequate health care

unemployment

The reason to many of these problems lie under deep social structures many based in
Eurocentric conceptions of knowledge, culture and values and through schools hidden
curriculum they continue to shape behaviour and beliefs in a destructive way that contributes to
the continuation and worsening of these problems.

To save our society we must develop a vision of a better society and try to reconstruct our
society.

Education has the power to educate people to understand and analyze social problems,
envision a world where problems dont exist and ast so as to bring that vision into life.

Highlander Folk School (an example)

founded in 1932 in Tennessee

was founded to stop an impending social crisis: rich industrialists and landowners were
economically exploiting and oppressing poor factory, farm and mine workers to such an extent
that democracy was threatened.

the schools purpose: educate for a revolution that would basically alter economic political
power relationships to the advantage of the poor and powerless.

the founder, Myles Horton, invited potential labor organizers to Highlander, helped them
understand the nature of oppression, inspired them with a vision of a better society and sent them
back to their factories, farms and mines to organize the masses of oppressed workers to strike for
better living and working conditions -> new social order.

The curriculum consisted of labor workshops that lasted for 6 weeks.

Three loosely stuctured but carefully guided group discussions. Participants stated and
analyzed the problems and imagined a place where problems didnt exist.

sharing personal experiences with strangers, understanding the social crisis.

shared hope -> visions of an ideal society

discussions of alternate strategies to eradicate societys problems and bring into existence
an improved society.

encourages united social actions (instead of individual social action)

communicating with the participants rather than lecture at them about them.

men must solve their problems in the contect in which they arise.

heavy use of social media, such as group discussions, singing, storytelling and drama

Sixth-Grade mathematics (an example)

Students worked on numerous projects. The goal was to teach mathematics in a way that allowed
students (many of them poor or from minority groups) to use mathematics to help them notice
social injustices in the world. Projects included:

School Overcrowding (measure school size and population and compare the results with
the size and pop. of other schools and state recommendations)

World Wealth Distribution

Random Traffic Stops (racial profiling, police reports)

All the projects involved mathematics presented in the school curriculum: calculation with
integers, deciamls and percents, graphs, algebra etc

examples:

A 14-year-old girl buys 12 candy bars. Each cost 43 cents. How much does she spend.

versus

A 14year-old factory worker in Central America makes childrens clothing for WalMart. She earns 43 cents an hour and works 12 hours each day. How much money dos
she make in one day?
no teaching is ever neutral.

Social Perspective

the world is viewed from a social perpective.

human experience, education, truth and knowledge are socially defined.

The is no good (human, education) apart from some conception of the nature of the good
society.

Reconstruction and Vision

Social Reconstructionist do not accept current societal conditions as unalterable givens.

vision of the possibilities that lie ahead.

the vision does not prescribe a specific program of action that dictates how it is to be
achieved.

future good is created in response to existing social conditions.

its power lies in its ability both to offer people salvation from an intolerable reality, and to
offer them a vision of life as it should be.

social rather than individual vision

it is not a vision that allowes certain individuals to achieve the good life and escape their
problems at the expense of others.

The Social Reconstruction vision of the future good society helps people reconstruct
soviety in several ways:

the vision allows people to rise above their particular circumstances to see social crises as
a whole. Allows them to share a common vision of a better life, and act together to meet
common needs and better themselves and improve society.

offers people an alternative and a possibility of escape through a positive languagie of

human empowerment. Without a language that allows them to speak about overcoming
their oppression, people wouldnt be able to wage the struggle to reconstruct society.

enables people to see their problems solvable rather than simply accept them as innate
characterists of the world.

offers hope of something better. Freire: Without a vision for tomorrow, hope is
impossible.

clear long-range goals that offer direction to their thinking so they dont become
distracted by their daily life.

defines the nature of the good individual, good education and worthwile thruth and
knowledge.

Reconstruction through Education

Education takes place in many places (school, home, community)

Social Reconstructionists want to influence all these locations, whether school is loceated
in a school building, factory or park.

Education has the role of preparing people to transform society.

Schools will be the catalysts that stimulate the reconstruction of society.

First concern: education of the group. Second concern: education of the individual.

Do Educators have the right to attempt to change the social patterns of a culture without
the permission of its members?

do educators have the right to teach children to live in a world that might be different from
that of their parents and of which their parents might not approve?

What responsibility do educators have to the society they serve?

Are schools to uncritically serve and reproduce the existing society or challenge the social
order to develop and advance its democatic imperatives?

Giroux 1992: I believe that schools should function to provide students with the
knowledge, character, and moral vision that build civic courage in a manner that leads to the
reconstruction of society in accordance with the principles and practices of human dignity,
liberty and social justice.

Educators have the responsibility to go beyond simply reflecting societys wishes and do
what is best for society.

Education must be a form of social action.

No curriculum is ideologically or politically innocents: education is politics!


Social Reconstructionists dont want to simply fill a learners mind with a collection of
facts and concetps. Such an approach would prepare learners to deal with only the crises of the
past, not of the future. Children should construct a specific social orientation and social
perspective along with a set of social values and problem solving skills so they can confront,
analyze, understand, react to and rectify whatever social problems might arise in the future.

The Child

children are not viewed primary as children. Children are products of society, social actors,
potential contributing members of society who can aid its reconstruction.

Children are born helpless. At birth they are neither good or bad. Just a bundle of potential.

children are primaly members of a social group.

Learning

perspective of social constructivism.

active assimilation of new experiences into learners meaning structures -> accommodation
of the new experiences.

Learning is based on what one already knows about the world, and it is meaningful only
when it can be accommodated in ones overall conception of reality.

Curricula should draw upon the cultural resources that students bring with them to school.

Learning is a social act rather than an individual one.

Learning takes place in both classrooms and communities.

Learning takes place through language and communication (includes group discussion,
talking, singing, acting, sociodrama, sculpture, group processing, value clarification).

is not limited on firsthand experiences.

requires interaction of learners with the environment outside themselves.

Teaching

intent of teaching is to reconstruct society.

intent of teaching is to stimulate students to reconstruct themselves so they can contribute

to the reconstruction of society.

that means helping them construct a set of meanings, meaning structures, perceptive
functions and interpretive functions so that when they encounter social problems they can
analyze and understand them, formulate a vision of a better society where those problems do not
exist and act in such a way as to eliminate those problems.

Discussion Method

Group discussion is a social means of educating a group of persons.

engaging a group of students in a conversation while the teacher elicits from students the
meanings that they have already stored up so that they may subjectthose meanings to a testing,
verifying, reordering, reclassifying, modifying and extending process.

Participants share their social understanding so that the group can help them reconstruct
their social knowledge in light of the knowledge of the group as whole.

Group discussion have three crucial components: thought, commitment and action.

Knowledge

knowledge is socially constructed, culturally mediated and historically situated. Dominant

social discourses determine what counts as true, important, and relevant.

Knowledge and values are interconnected.

Knowldege is not an impartial quantity and knowing is not a neutral affair.

Knowledge is of worth because it contributes to the attainment of a future good society.

Worthwhile knowledge resides within the subjective reality of both individuals and society.
It doesnt reside outside of people in such things as books or magazines (words separate from
people). It resides in the meaning people create for themselves.

Members of the society create the knowledge they possess.

Knowledge doesnt come into existence by itself.


The process by which knowledge is created is when a person actively loads meaning and
value onto sensory data.
Evaluation

Social Reconstructionists dont usually use formal objective evaluation during curriculum
development. They primarily use subjective evaluation.

testing is not just an attempt to monitor students, teachers and school, but rather control
them. Social Reconstructionists want to give more control to teachers and students over their
lives and society, rather than providing others with more control over them.

Concluding Perspective
The social Reconstruction ideology has done much to introduce knowledge of the social
dimensions of education to our schools, helping us comprehend that education is a social
process, that the hidden curriculum has enormous influence on learners, and that all knowledge
carries with it social values.

Educators must take value stances and they must attend to the social, political and moral values
of the children they teach. This ideology has laid the seeds for the ways of thinking, feeling and
acting that help children deal with issues like civil rights, racial and gender bias, and
environmental pollution.
The ideologys influence on education formally began in 1932 when George Counts attacked the
Learner Centered Ideology for not attending to our societys problems and the injustices done to
its members.