Student Self-Evaluation in a Core Program

In this historical study, the author reexamines the relationship and role of social efficiency and scientific curriculum making in the early years of the social studies (1916–1929). The author argues that historians have applied the term social efficiency too bluntly to label and ultimately dismiss a variety of educational reformers in the social studies, many of whom offered promising reform agendas. A closer look at scientific curriculum making in the social studies reveals that the movement was not inherently anti-academic, or anti-intellectual—critiques historians commonly associate with the social efficiency and scientific curriculum making—but rather an attempt to update the curriculum to be consistent with its own stated goals.