Compare and Contrast the Historical Foundations of Education in America and Analyze the Philosophies of Various Educators

Compare and Contrast the Historical Foundations of Education in America and Analyze the Philosophies of Various Educators

Introduction

The term of education is at the interface of different disciplines: history, pedagogy, sociology, economics, and many others. This issue is so multifaceted and diverse that a representative of each of the areas of scientific knowledge can find in it great potential for research. It is undoubtedly of interest to historians, history education as being one of the most important institutions of the civil society organizations involved in the education of young people, and, therefore, largely determines the nature of the development of a society. The second half of the twentieth century was an extremely intense period of history, the events and processes that took place in those years in the United States and beyond, a direct impact on the future development of American society. One of the key changes was the fact that the post-war generation of Americans for the first time in U.S. history, has received access to higher education (Ashley & Burnette, 2008) . A significant increase in the number of students in higher education, changing social, gender, ethnic composition of the student led to a qualitative transformation of higher education in the U.S. and was a turning point in the development of American society. In order to compare and contrast the historical foundations of education in America, three different principals of high school were interviewed for getting an insight and detailed information about the differences of three time periods i.e. 1960, 1980 and 2000.

Discussion

Philosophy of Education

The formation of educational philosophy as an independent discipline occurred in the second half of the twentieth century. The origins of the philosophy of education aimed at continuously interaction with different philosophies to the educational system and the educational experience of generations. Philosophy of Education considers the development of human and system in an indissoluble unity. There is a difference between the approaches in understanding the philosophy of education. In the U.S., the content of the philosophy of education is the result of a kind of "projection" of the general philosophical concepts and doctrines on the "plane" of education. This deductive approach has the right to exist. But it is not less important is the other, the inductive approach, where knowledge is the basis of educational practice. The organic unity of the designated approaches can serve as the basis of philosophy of education. Appeal to the philosophical sense, it is particularly important in recent turbulent times, not only for teaching science, but also to society as a whole (J. T. Gatto, n.d.). The philosophy of education consists primarily on the essence and nature of all phenomena in education: education itself (ontology of education), as it is carried out (the logic of education), the nature and sources of educational value (axiology of education), the behavior of participants in the educational process (ethics education) , methods and basic education (methodology ...