ABSTRACT

This chapter analyzes three aspects of public and, particularly, education policy making. It argues that policy goals and mechanisms are transformed by divergent social explanation paradigms. Progressivism in education developed in two significant strands that Tyack describes as administrative and pedagogical progressivism. Administrative progressives in Tyack's rendition embraced the central ideas of civic progressivism described earlier. Pedagogical progressivism was more focused on child development and learning experiences. Populism with its ideological opposition to centralized control was a precursor to Progressivism and continues to this day as a counterweight to centralizing tendencies of Progressivism and Corporatism. But Corporatism, the idea that government should attend to needs and interests of organized social groups rather than individual interests and needs, is the dominant counter ideology challenging Progressivism. From the perspective, Progressive reforms need to attend anew to worker organizations and find a way to emphasize professional responsibility for control of task definition and performance as well as the classical support for worker protection.