ABSTRACT
Like historians, social scientists often study large-scale social change, and offer ideas and propositions about society to test and refine with historical evidence. One of the goals of social science is to establish basic categories of collective experience, to help explain behavior in a variety of settings. Such conceptions are the elements of social theory, and they are critical to making sense of social change in history. Schools have become an integral element of American culture. Nearly everyone has attended one for a considerable length of time, typically during life’s most impressionable stages. And for the most part, people’s school experiences have been quite similar, especially in the last 70 years or so. Early in American history women received little schooling, but after the Revolutionary War new attention was given to their education. As public schools were established during the 19th century, most were coeducational, providing boys and girls with similar educational opportunities.
