American Ethnicity

Educational outcomes and social fairness depend on the 'Shanker Principle,' which mandates specific statewide curriculum frameworks and topic-based assessments. The author argues that the prevailin...

In this section, Hirsch identifies developmentalism and individualism as the unexamined ideas governing American education, arguing that child-centered pedagogy is rooted in a quasi-religious faith...

Chapter 3 argues that the decline in American literacy results from an educational philosophy that disparages factual knowledge in favor of nonexistent 'general skills' like reading comprehension a...

In this chapter, two experienced educators contrast the disorganization and curricular vagueness of child-centered elementary classrooms with the coherence of knowledge-based schools. They argue th...

Chapter 5 summarizes how child-centered developmentalism replaced communal knowledge-based instruction in American schools, leading to increased social inequality and a shift from a 'WE' to an 'I' ...

Chapter 6 argues that the French educational shift in the 1980s from a common-knowledge curriculum to American-style developmentalism constitutes the most decisive experiment in educational history...

Chapter 7 argues that the concept of 'general reading-comprehension skills' is a scientific delusion used to justify unorganized curricula, whereas actual literacy depends on domain-specific backgr...

Hirsch argues that modern ethnicity is a product of schooling and standardized national languages rather than biological descent. He contends that the linguistic uniformity required for industrial ...

Chapter 9 addresses critics of curriculum specificity by arguing that a shared 'communicative store' of background knowledge is a functional necessity for modern nations, regardless of the 'culture...

Chapter 10 presents the Core Knowledge Sequence for grades K-8 as a practical, tested model for a state-legislated curriculum framework that defines American ethnicity through shared knowledge. The...

The appendix traces the historical and philosophical origins of developmentalism from Romantic religious thought through Hegel and Froebel to Elizabeth Peabody's introduction of the kindergarten in...

In this preface, Hirsch argues that national literacy and social cohesion depend upon a shared 'communicative store' of background knowledge, which he defines as a functional 'national ethnicity.' ...