Article 6: Social Reconstructionism or Child-Centered Progressivism?: Difficulties Defining Progressive Education from the PEA’s 1939 Documentary Film, School

In The Transformation of the School, Lawrence Cremin warned against formulating any capsule definition of progressive education: “None exists, and none ever will; for throughout its history progressive education meant different things to different people, and these differences were only compounded by the remarkable diversity of American Education” (Cremin 1961, x). In fact, at the 1938 annual Progressive Education Asso-ciation (PEA) meeting, a committee reported on its efforts to define the term and, while a statement was produced, nearly the entire group objected, explaining that progressive education was not a definition but “a spirit” (Alberty 1938). Even in the final report of the PEA’s Eight Year Study (viewed as a defining progressive education document), Wilford Aikin never used the term “progressive education” except once in reference to a quotation (Aikin 1942). From that period to modern times, progressive educators have been classified as “scientists, sentimentalists, and radicals” by Cremin,” “project and scientific methodists” by Harold Rugg, “social meliorists” by Herbert Kliebard and, presently, a vague, “capsulated” conception of progressive education exists, often defined either by the contrasting emblems, “child-centered education” and “social reconstructionism,” or by David Tyack’s prevalent terms, “administrative progressives” and “pedagogical progressives” (Cremin 1961; Rugg 1936; Kliebard 2004; Tyack 1974).