COMPARATIVE EDUCATION

The Introduction of the book states a point of view: a discussion of social change, value conflict, and the need to involve schools and communities in grappling with the problem of direction. Part I seeks to lay a foundation–sociological, anthropological, and psychological– for relating education to society. Following a section on area study for students who are in, or who plan to enter, schoolwork, Part I consists of five community case studies. Cases are taken from a range of places, small to large, a selection intended to suggest the character of local life. Each case accents a basic theme of life, namely, change, values, social class, power, and area planning. Part II is a study of child acculturation (or socialization) and the role of the school. Chapters discuss this process and then consider, in order, the influence of the family, school, paid work, youth gangs, and mass media on the development of the child. Again, space limits have forced rigorous selection topics, since it is our preference to treat some matters at length rather than to list a number of items with a few words given to each. Emphasized in Part II is our growing belief that the average public high school in big-city slum areas has outlived its usefulness, and that experimentation in how it can serve adolescents is needed. In Part III, the focus is on the healthy public school, group dynamics in school settings, and school and community efforts (the case is Detroit) to improve the schools. The volume concludes with a chapter on the education of educators, with the aim being to professionalize further the preparation of teachers and school administrators. The book has been written for students, written to be read with interest and, we hope, acted upon as it may be feasible. All the chapters have been tried out in classes and revised in light of reactions. From students we have learned that the best education, the learning that goes deepest and lasts longest, is that gained from a concrete case, properly analyzed and generalized.

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