The issue of student classification was historically tied to the popular eugenics movement in the early 20th century. Supporters of this movement envisioned the ideal society as a biological meritocracy. They assumed that human betterment could take place only through controlled breeding. Biology would determine the human future. In the 1920's and 1930's this belief in biological determinism was joined with the assumption of differential biological worth. This combination of ideas supported programs of racial discrimination, immigration restriction, and student classification. The paper focuses upon the ways in which notions of differential biological worth were repeated, refined, and reintroduced as a basis for educational policy and for student classification. The work and influence of the eugenists and student classifiers Alfred E. Wiggam, H. H. Goddard, and Leta Hollingworth are analyzed. The paper proposes that the contemporary educator's emphasis upon student classification generally ignores the historical relationship between biological determinism, student classification, and the broader political issues of social justice and social equality. They are issues that are ignored at society's peril.
While the mainline eugenics movement in early 20th century was closely associated with racism and the European Holocaust and was present in biology textbooks in the early 20 th century, the following article finds that a transformed eugenics could be found the U.S. science curriculum by mid-century. The following article analyzes the content of 73 high school biology textbooks published between 1914-1964, and traces the patterns in their eugenic content. Those patterns are then compared to the eugenic content in science textbooks written by Truman Jesse Moon and published by Henry Holt between 1921-1963 . Between 1947-1963, and drawing upon eugenics, the series consistently suggested a broad narrative to their adolescent readers. Identified as a "narrative of adjustment," it contained direct, albeit nonracial, political implications. Rooted as it was in a reform view of eugenics, it built on a dialectical nature-nurture paradigm for human development; on insights from twin studies; on IQ testing; and on the presumption that each individual's immutable heredity sets limits on achievement. The Moon series served as a conduit for this reform version of eugenics, and provided its high school readers with a lens through which to understand themselves and their social world. Placed in the context of a national policy to make schooling socially efficient, the texts provided their readers with a specific life narrative, a narrative of adjustment. Its parameters were clear. Readers should accept their fixed heredity, work hard, and adjust to the world as they find it.Man, more than any other organism, adjusts his life to his surroundings. High mentality makes these adjustments possible. The complex nature of human society requires that each individual develop his inherited abilities in the form of trades, skills, and professions. One may become a lawyer, a doctor, a musician, a carpenter, or a mechanic as a result of a long period of training and practice.
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