A Progressive Retreat: US Educational Experts,Social Reconstruction,and the Second World War

Abstract

This article examines how progressive educational experts in the United States shifted their perspectives on the postwar period in reaction to evolving wartime conditions and the country’s rise to global power during the Second World War. Specifically, by situating their calls for postwar social and educational reconstruction of both American society and the wider world within the broader context of progressive educational thought in the United States dating back to the turn of the twentieth century, it shows how their perceptions of the United States’ place in the global order shifted from seeing the country as equal to the rest of the world, particularly Europe, to viewing the country as the world’s leading ‘educator’. This transition marked the end of a long period in which American progressive educators believed that their educational and social challenges were on par with those of Europe.