The phenomenology of the backward child: A history of school failure in Progressive Era America, 1890--1930.

摘要

"Backwardness" was an expansive yet ambiguous description of a category of students whose failure in school was attributed most frequently to "borderline mentality" or "nervousness." In contemporary parlance, such conditions would be referred to as "mild" learning disabilities or perhaps disorders of attention or social skills. Recent historical research on such "mild" intellectual/emotional disabilities has investigated bureaucratic and policy efforts to address the issues raised by the so-called "backward" child in American educational systems. This research, however, has not offered an in-depth portrayal of the experiential dimension of backwardness and how this phenomenon was perceived by a wide variety of public constituencies. The problem of school failure, while studied in general terms, has not been specifically linked with social exclusion, or alienation, of students termed "backward.";This dissertation examines the perspectives of backwardness held by a variety of Progressive Era American social entities, including psychometricians, teachers, school administrators, child-study organizations, the press (newspapers), politicians, business and industry, novelists, and religious reformers. Period-specific primary sources were explored to develop thematic concepts representative of the phenomenon of the backward child. Investigation of primary sources also encompassed possible connections between backwardness, failure in school, and implications of that failure in terms of economic and sociocultural standing.;In broad terms, the stance on children deemed backward held by assorted Progressive era social entities was primarily pessimistic, most frequently resonating an aura of nuisance, fear, contempt, and inefficiency tinted by cultural apprehension, Social Darwinism, and zealous Protestant evangelism. Other groups---mostly growing professions (e.g. psychometricians, teachers, school administrators, and child-study organizations)---voiced an ambivalent perspective that simultaneously espoused professionally-guided social reform and care for the individual. This attitude of "conscience and convenience" (Rothman, 1980) reflects that these professionals may have had ultimately good intentions, but were also driven by motivations not entirely beneficent in nature. As one possible consequence of backwardness, a continuum of socioeducational outcomes is discussed that highlights the manner in which the alienation of school failure frequently resulted in economic and/or social failure.