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The Impossible Dream: Education and the Search for Panaceasreviewed by Sonia E. Murrow - 2004 Title: The Impossible Dream: Education and the Search for Panaceas Author(s): Thomas C. Hunt Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing, New York ISBN: 0820437476, Pages: 301, Year: 2003 Search for book at Amazon.com Since its inception, American schooling has been charged with
the immense responsibility of improving the nation’s social,
political, and economic life. Referred to by Horace Mann as
“the great equalizer” and by Lyndon B. Johnson as
“the thing that can answer to all our national
problems,” schooling in America is and has been perceived as
the great cure-all.
Historians and other scholars have attempted to determine why
Americans place such enormous faith in schooling. Labeling
schooling in America as a “great crusade,” Diane
Ravitch proclaimed, “no other idea has seemed more typically
American than the belief that education could cure society’s
ills” (Ravitch, 1983: xii). Hannah Arendt argued that
education occupies such an important position in American life
because of its role in the continual assimilation of immigrants
(Arendt, 1958). Henry Perkinson maintained that American
schooling, from its early beginnings, has been equated with the
task of socialization, and thus, serves as a crucial arbitrator of
the status quo (Perkinson, 1991). All of these perspectives posit
education as essential... (preview truncated at 150 words.)To view the full-text for this article you must be signed-in with the appropriate membership. Please review your options below:
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- Sonia Murrow
Long Island University - Brooklyn E-mail Author SONIA E. MORROW is an assistant professor of Urban Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Long Island University – Brooklyn. Her areas of interest include social foundations, curriculum and pedagogy, social studies education, and urban school reform. Her paper, “Learning from Recurring Debates in Education: Teacher Education Students Explore Historical Case Studies” is forthcoming in Educational Studies. She is currently doing research, with Mary Rose McCarthy, on the presentation of educational history in foundations of education texts over time as a way to understand history’s potential to foster a critical perspective among future teachers.
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