A Study of Contemporary Evaluations of Progressive Education in the U.S.A.

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The purpose of this research is to examine contemporary evaluations of progressive education in the U. S. A. Our conclusions are as follows.First, progressives were interested in social reconstruction through education. That is, they insisted that the school should assist in the reconstruction of society through developing collective or social intelligence in pupils. Therefore, they criticized dominant values of middle class in the U. S. A. such as utility, competition and independence and supported values such as cooperation, participatory democracy and common good.Second, progressives suggested important factors that contemporary schooling should take account of, for example, pupils' interest, motivation for learning, pupils' development, pupils' activity, learning through thinking of subject matters, pupils' living environment and leadership of teacher. Some critics claimed that progressives brought about decline of academic achievement, but there is an absence of evidence that progressives were actually anti-intellectual.