Thanks for the offer. Actually, even though i’ll have access to a car, i may well still decide to take the bus to and from the archives. I’ve always been a fan of public transport, and it seems like quite a few people commute this way from Davis to Sacramento. That will save any parking hassles. At least, i’ll try doing it that way on the first day i’m there and see how it works out.
No worries there–i’ve always been a big cat-lover.
Well, at the risk of boring you to tears…
I’m writing a dissertation (still in the early stages right now) on the history of the teaching of economics in American public schools since WWII. This will not be so much a blow-by-blow account of what was taught, but rather an account of the battles over the curriculum and textbooks fought out among educators, parents, citizens, business groups, etc. Two key shifts that occurred in the period are:
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Economics was initially taught as a part of social studies-type courses (civics, history, etc.), but it gradually became a discrete subject, especially at the senior high school level.
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In the early post-war period, students were generally presented with a rather Keynesian-influenced account of economics, but since the 1970s a more free-market model has tended to dominate.
Tracing these shifts is relatively easy. Determining how and why they came about, who had the greatest influence, and what the countervailing tendencies were, is more difficult.
My purpose in coming to Sacramento is to look in the archives at the records of the Department of Education and State Board of Education. I have to do the same thing for the other “big” states like Texas, New York and Florida. I also have to select a few small states in order to get a more representative national picture.
From the research i’ve done so far, it seems that a few key issues in the debates over curriculum include: Cold War anticommunism; the decline of Keynesian economic models and the rise of Chicago School-style free market economics; issues of local control versus state or federal oversight in setting education policy; the role of “outside” groups like business organizations and patriotic societies.
Etc., etc., etc. I’ve still got a long way to go.