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Representing new approaches to the study of the family and
historical demography, this collection of essays analyzes the
relationships of demographic processes in different population
groups to household structure and family organization, and their
implications for family behavior. Emphasizing dynamic rather than
structural factors, the essays thus move beyond earlier studies of
family history. Essays by the editors, Richard Easterlin, George
Alter, Gretchen Condran, and Stanley Engerman focus on patterns of
fertility in relation to urban and industrial development, economic
opportunity and the availability of land, and race and ethnic
origin. The remaining essays, by Laurence Glasco, Howard Chudacoff,
and John Modell, deal with family organization over time as
affected by such factors as the practice of boarding, the role of
kin, family budgeting strategy, and migration. The authors not only
challenge the prevailing assumption that rapid urbanization is
responsible for the decline in the fertility rate; they also
contend that, contrary to the prevailing theories of social change,
the emergence of nuclear households was not a consequence of
industrialization. Originally published in 1978. The Princeton
Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again
make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished
backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the
original texts of these important books while presenting them in
durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton
Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly
heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton
University Press since its founding in 1905.
Representing new approaches to the study of the family and
historical demography, this collection of essays analyzes the
relationships of demographic processes in different population
groups to household structure and family organization, and their
implications for family behavior. Emphasizing dynamic rather than
structural factors, the essays thus move beyond earlier studies of
family history. Essays by the editors, Richard Easterlin, George
Alter, Gretchen Condran, and Stanley Engerman focus on patterns of
fertility in relation to urban and industrial development, economic
opportunity and the availability of land, and race and ethnic
origin. The remaining essays, by Laurence Glasco, Howard Chudacoff,
and John Modell, deal with family organization over time as
affected by such factors as the practice of boarding, the role of
kin, family budgeting strategy, and migration. The authors not only
challenge the prevailing assumption that rapid urbanization is
responsible for the decline in the fertility rate; they also
contend that, contrary to the prevailing theories of social change,
the emergence of nuclear households was not a consequence of
industrialization. Originally published in 1978. The Princeton
Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again
make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished
backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the
original texts of these important books while presenting them in
durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton
Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly
heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton
University Press since its founding in 1905.
One of the most popular and enduring legacies of President Lyndon
B. Johnson's Great Society programs, Project Head Start continues
to support close to one million young children of low-income
families annually by providing a range of developmental and
educational services. Yet as Head Start reaches its fortieth
anniversary, debates over the function and scope of this federal
program persist. Although the program's importance is unquestioned
across party lines, the direction of its future-whether to focus
more on school readiness and literacy or to continue its holistic
approach-remains a point of contention.
Policymakers proposing to reform Head Start often invoke its
origins to justify their position, but until now no comprehensive
political history of the program has existed. Maris A. Vinovskis
here provides an in-depth look at the nation's largest and best
known-yet politically contested-early education program. "The Birth
of Head Start" sets the record straight on the program's intended
aims, documenting key decisions made during its formative years. It
brings to light the previously neglected contributions of key
participants, such as federal education officials and members of
Congress, and offers the first sustained consideration of how
politics and policymaking have shaped the program. This thorough
and incisive book will be essential for policymakers and
legislators interested in prekindergarten education, and it will
inform future discussions on early intervention services for
disadvantaged children.
In this book an eminent scholar and policymaker analyzes the
lessons history can teach those who wish to reform the American
educational system. Maris Vinovskis begins by tracing the evolving
role of the federal government in educational research, providing a
historical perspective at a time when there is some movement to
abolish the U.S. Department of Education. He then focuses on early
childhood education, exploring trends in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. He examines the troubling history of the
Follow Through Program, which existed from 1967 to 1994 to help
Head Start children make the transition into the regular schools,
and he reviews the development of the Even Start Program, which
works to improve the literacy of disadvantaged parents while
providing early childhood education for their children. He
discusses changing views toward the economic benefits of education
and critically assesses the validity and usefulness of the idea of
systemic or standards-based reform. Finally he develops a
conceptual framework for mapping and analyzing education research
and reform activities.
This important contribution to scholarship in social science
history examines the development of public education in
nineteenth-century Massachusetts. Until the 1950s educational
historians emphasized the relationship of schooling to the
political system and the development of a common American culture.
In recent years a social history perspective has emerged that
stresses the socioeconomic influences that tie education to other
institutions and processes in society rather than to political
ideals. Carl Kaestle's and Maris Vinovskis's study is firmly
grounded in this newer perspective. However, their work questions
the adequacy of any single-factor explanation of the broad
educational changes that occurred during this period - whether it
be the emergence of factory production or the broader concept of
modernization. They argue that these educational changes were the
result of the complex interaction of cultural, demographic and
economic variables operating in varying ways in different
communities over time. Ethnicity, religion, urban status, the
occupational structure, income distribution and wealth of the
community all emerge as significant factors in this interaction.
In this book, an eminent educational historian examines some
important aspects of American schooling over the past centuries,
illuminating the relation between education and other broad changes
in American society and providing a historical perspective for
contemporary efforts at school reform. Maris Vinovskis critically
reviews and integrates recent work in educational history and
provides new research on neglected topics. He discusses such issues
as: the gradual shift from the family to the public schools in the
responsibility for educating the young; the rise and fall of infant
schools between 1840 and 1860; the crisis in the teaching of
morality in the public schools of the mid-nineteenth century; early
efforts to provide schooling for impoverished children; and the
evolution of the belief that education improves individual economic
and social mobility. He also studies school attendance and
discovers that a much higher percentage of children may have
attended public high schools in the nineteenth century than has
been assumed, investigates when the practice of placing children in
grades according to their age became widespread, and assesses
whether different age groups in previous eras varied in their
support for schooling-as they seem to be doing now.
Many Americans view today's problems in education as an
unprecedented crisis brought on by the rise of contemporary social
problems. In Learning from the Past a group of distinguished
educational historians and scholars of public policy reminds us
that many current difficulties-as well as recent reform
efforts-have important historical antecedents. What can we learn,
they ask, from nineteenth-century efforts to promote early
childhood education, or debates in the 1920s about universal
secondary education, or the curriculum reforms of the 1950s?
Reflecting a variety of intellectual and disciplinary orientations,
the contributors to this volume examine major changes in
educational development and reform, consider how such changes have
been implemented in the past, and warn against , exaggerating their
benefits. They address questions of governance, equity and
multiculturalism, curriculum standards, school choice, and a
variety of other issues. Policy makers and other school reformers,
they conclude, would do well to investigate the past in order to
appreciate the implications of the present reform initiatives.
The American Civil War has been the subject of thousands of books
and articles, but only a small fraction of this literature examines
the impact of the war on society and on the lives of the
participants. This volume of essays, which focuses on the North, is
intended as an initial reconnaissance by social historians into the
study of the Civil War. The first essay, 'Have Social Historians
Lost the Civil War?' places the war in the broader context of other
American wars by comparing casualty rates. The essay also examines
rates of enlistment for the North and the South, and the
significance of pensions for Union soldiers and their windows.
Subsequent essays look at the support for the war in small towns;
the influence of nineteenth-century values and culture on Union
soldiers; the nature and role of large-scale relief efforts for
soldiers in Philadelphia; and the impact of the war on the politics
of Chicago. The final two essays discuss the continuing importance
of the war for its survivors: one by looking at those who joined
the major national organization of Union veterans; and the other by
studying the impact of the Civil War on Union widows in three
Northern towns. Taken together, the essays demonstrate the need for
historians to rediscover the impact of the Civil War on
nineteenth-century society.
In classrooms and in living rooms, in research institutions and on
Capitol Hill, teenage pregnancy is one of the most controversial
public issues of our day. Yet after all the investigation and
government effort, what is really known about the problem of
adolescent pregnancy and how to deal with it? And what is the role
of the social scientist and historian in a public issue of this
kind? In this study, Maris Vinovskis--a prominent demographic
historian and a participant in both Carter's and Reagan's
Presidential initiatives on teenage pregnancy--sets these questions
within a historical framework and discusses a host of current
issues and policy considerations. Vinovskis begins by examining
adolescent sexuality and childbearing in early America and
evaluating whether there has in fact been an "epidemic" of
adolescent pregnancy in American history. In the following
chapters, he addresses the rise of adolescent pregnancy as a
national issue and assesses the government's response to it, both
in Congress and the Presidency. Bringing his unique qualifications
as a historian and a policy planner to his study, Vinovskis offers
readers a provocative new context for understanding a pressing
public issue of the 1980s.
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