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Purpose -The first state high schools in New South Wales (NSW) were restricted to children with high academic ability. The purpose of this paper is to explore the lived experience of over 70 former students from three such schools, one coeducational, the other two single-sex, with special attention to academic and social curricula. Design/methodology/approach -The study investigates memories of a particular moment in the history of secondary schooling in NSW before the establishment of mass secondary education. The authors utilise theoretical concepts from recent oral history studies regarding memory communities and intersectionality. Findings -In bringing ex-students' memories of both single-sex and coeducational academicallyselective high schooling together, the study reports on the homogeneity of the memories of this type of schooling despite the different sexual structures of the schools. The respondents, it is argued, constitute a "memory community" in that they recalled their selection for high school as marking them out as intellectually superior, "special". Their main differentiating feature arose from their sex and gender socialisation. Females were made more consistently conscious of their responsibilities within their schools' gender regime. Originality/value -The approach in this paper adjusts the focus of traditional oral history research in the history of education to "history from within" (rather than "from below"); to experiences of both academic and socialcurriculum (not "formal/informal"); to a gendered approach incorporating both sexes; and to a comparative approach across academically-selective coeducational and single-sex high schools.
Purpose -The first state high schools in New South Wales (NSW) were restricted to children with high academic ability. The purpose of this paper is to explore the lived experience of over 70 former students from three such schools, one coeducational, the other two single-sex, with special attention to academic and social curricula. Design/methodology/approach -The study investigates memories of a particular moment in the history of secondary schooling in NSW before the establishment of mass secondary education. The authors utilise theoretical concepts from recent oral history studies regarding memory communities and intersectionality. Findings -In bringing ex-students' memories of both single-sex and coeducational academicallyselective high schooling together, the study reports on the homogeneity of the memories of this type of schooling despite the different sexual structures of the schools. The respondents, it is argued, constitute a "memory community" in that they recalled their selection for high school as marking them out as intellectually superior, "special". Their main differentiating feature arose from their sex and gender socialisation. Females were made more consistently conscious of their responsibilities within their schools' gender regime. Originality/value -The approach in this paper adjusts the focus of traditional oral history research in the history of education to "history from within" (rather than "from below"); to experiences of both academic and socialcurriculum (not "formal/informal"); to a gendered approach incorporating both sexes; and to a comparative approach across academically-selective coeducational and single-sex high schools.
Background/Context Over the last century, perhaps no school in American history has been studied more than John Dewey's Laboratory School at the University of Chicago (1896–1904). Scholars have published dozens of articles, books, essays, and assessments of a school that existed for only seven and a half years. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This article reviews the extensive firsthand accounts and historiography of the famed school. In the first section, the authors trace the published accounts of those who experienced the Dewey School firsthand between 1895 and 1904. In the second section, the authors review accounts of the school by contemporaries, reformers, and historians between 1904 and 2014, focusing on three historiographical areas: the events surrounding the closing of the school, the rationale underlying its curriculum, and the impact of the experiment on U.S. schools. In the third section, the authors argue that most accounts of the Dewey School convey one of three historiographical myths: the Dewey School as misunderstood; the Dewey School as triumph, and/or the Dewey School as tragedy. Research Design A historiographical essay is a narrative and analytical account of what has been written on a particular historical topic. Following this methodology, the authors are less concerned with establishing what happened at the Dewey School, than they were with how the school was analyzed and interpreted by contemporaries and historians over the past 120 years. Conclusions/Recommendations The authors analyze each myth to conclude that Dewey only subscribed to the myth of the Dewey School as misunderstood, while the other two were historiographical constructions created by Dewey's contemporaries and historians.
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