ABSTRACT
Taba, Hilda B. (1902-67). American educationist and pioneer of curriculum development. Born south-eastern Estonia. Graduated BA at University of Tartu, Estonia; came to Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, completing a Master’s degree in education and psychology, 1927. PhD, Columbia University, 1933, studying with John Dewey. Her dissertation, Dynamics of Education: a Methodology of Progressive Educational Thought, owed much to Dewey’s influence. Taba participated in the Progressive Education Association’s project in the 1930s, an Eight-Year Study which extended principles of progressive education to secondary schools within existing frameworks. Director of curriculum, Dalton, Ohio, 1934-5, assistant professor of education, Ohio State University, 1936-8, and University of Chicago, 1939-40, where she was director of the curriculum laboratory, 1939-45. On leave during 1945 to 1948, she became director of an experimental intergroup project in New York City, sponsored by the American Council on Education and financed by National Council of Christians and Jews, to advance intergroup relations through teaching materials and methods. Director, Center for Intergroup Education, University of Chicago, 1948-51, professor of Education, San Francisco State College (later University), 1951-67. Appointed professor of Educational Administration, 1967. In her classic book Curriculum Development: Theory and Practice (1962), Taba set out a sound approach to curriculum planning and design, based on social science concepts, which was of practical help in the classroom. Five years later, her Teachers’ Handbook for Elementary Social Studies demonstrated how facts could be used to develop concepts and generalizations in a spiral curriculum. After her death, the Taba Program in Social Science, consisting of textbooks for grades 1 to 8, was published. See her several writings, including Adolescent Personality and Character (1949) with Havighurst R.J.; School Culture: Studies of Participation and Leadership (1955); Teaching Strategies for the Culturally Disadvantaged (1966) with Elkins, D. and Brown, R.L. See also ‘Taba Rediscovered’, School Teacher, 40, November 1973; Moseley, P.A., ‘Hilda Taba, Curriculum Worker’ in Davis, O.L. (ed.), Perspectives on Curriculum Development, 1776-1976 (1976).
