Blaming Teachers
Professionalization Policies and the Failure of Reform in American History
Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz author
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Rutgers University Press
Published:14th Aug '20
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Winner of the 2021 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award
Historically, Americans of all stripes have concurred that teachers were essential to the success of the public schools and nation. However, they have also concurred that public school teachers were to blame for the failures of the schools and identified professionalization as a panacea.
In Blaming Teachers, Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz reveals that historical professionalization reforms subverted public school teachers’ professional legitimacy. Superficially, professionalism connotes authority, expertise, and status. Professionalization for teachers never unfolded this way; rather, it was a policy process fueled by blame where others identified teachers’ shortcomings. Policymakers, school leaders, and others understood professionalization measures for teachers as efficient ways to bolster the growing bureaucratic order of the public schools through regulation and standardization. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century with the rise of municipal public school systems and reaching into the 1980s, Blaming Teachers traces the history of professionalization policies and the discourses of blame that sustained them.
“This accessible and appealing history has an important message for various stakeholders in the professional status and image of teachers.” -- Christine A. Ogren * coeditor of Rethinking Campus Life: New Perspectives on the History of College Students in the US *
"How teachers advocating for their students could backfire" by Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/12/11/how-teachers-advocating-their-students-could-backfire/#comments-wrapper * Washington Post *
"There is a lot of life to this book, which is full of many terrific narratives that are engaging, often astounding, and some almost comical. It’s easy to 'blame teachers' and this excellently researched book offers a way to work through that problem." -- Kate Rousmaniere * author of The Principal's Office: A Social History of the American School Principal *
"Why has teaching remained such stubbornly difficult, fraught work despite a long record of policy and reform? D’Amico Pawlewicz’s brilliant new historical analysis lays bare the powerful reasons." -- Jackie Blount * author of Fit to Teach: Same-Sex Desire, Gender, and School Work in the Twentieth Century *
Episode #84 "The Blame Game: 100 Years of Teacher Bashing" Have You Heard * Have You Heard podcast *
"The school reopening debate reveals that we don’t listen to teachers about schools," by Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/10/school-reopening-debate-reveals-that-we-dont-listen-teachers-about-schools/ * Washington Post *
"Blaming Teachers is a major contribution to the labor history of teachers as well as an important challenge to how we think about the legacy of teacher unions. It is sure to be a part of the conversation on either of these questions in the history of education. Further, since understanding the history of one’s occupation is one distinction of a 'profession,' this book should be read in any teacher-preparation pro- gram that dares to treat its students as future professionals." * History of Education Quarterly *
ISBN: 9781978808423
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 18mm
Weight: 367g
264 pages