Post on 25-Feb-2023
Running head: FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES 1
Forecasting Subjective Influences on the Learning Sciences
by Way of a Historical Analysis of Mental Testing and John Dewey
Scott Kabel
University at Buffalo
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES2
Introduction
R. Keith Sawyer edited and contributed to The Cambridge
Handbook of The Learning Sciences (The Handbook), recently in its third
edition, an introductory primer to a young and exciting
collective vision, the Learning Sciences. The “Learning
[S]ciences is an interdisciplinary field that studies teaching
and learning” (Sawyer, 2006, p. xi). Undoubtedly, the operative
word here is interdisciplinary. The Learning Sciences provides a
dialogic, iterative space in which scholars from “cognitive
science, educational psychology, computer science, anthropology,
sociology, information sciences, neurosciences, education, design
studies, instructional design, and other fields” can inform each
other’s work, investigating each layer of learning, concrete,
abstract, physical, social, emotional, micro, macro, etc. (p.
xi).
“Learning scientists study learning in a variety of
settings, including not only the more formal learning of school
classrooms but also the informal learning that takes place at
home, on the job, and among peers” (p. xi). These researchers and
practitioners often champion adaptive research models such as
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design-based research and action research, indicating an
understanding of the real-world complexities of human-subject
research. “The goal of the learning sciences is to better
understand the cognitive and social processes that result in the
most effective learning” (p. xi). However, beyond knowledge
synthesis, crucial to the purposes of the Learning Sciences is a
sense of value-addedness and the practical implementation of
Learning Science knowledge in learning environments “so that
people learn more deeply and more effectively” (p. xi).
If the form of the Learning Sciences is essentially fresh,
first taking shape in 1991, many of the goals and foundational
principles and values of the cooperative are not. Nearly as
common as references to cutting edge technological tools and the
latest neuroscience in The Handbook are references to Classical,
Enlightenment and Progressive Era thinkers. The Learning Sciences
is a truly inclusive and expansive blend of ideas and
experiences. However, it is this historical inclusivity that
leads to more questions. Why is it that collaboration feels
fresh? Why were some useful ideas not taken up during the
historical moments in which they were proposed, necessitating
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modern excavation? Why are some historical voices louder in
today’s science of learning than others?
In reality, the Learning Sciences cannot presume to concern
itself only with science. This paper will show that science does
not exist in a political vacuum. Power, ideology, and money can
be as operative in “science” as statistics, surveys, and
discourse analysis. To illustrate this point, I will consider the
treatment of John Dewey’s work in The Handbook with respect to the
ethos and climate into which it was initially introduced,
particularly in relation the work of eugenicists in the creation
and popularization of mental testing. By taking up Dewey and
analyzing the countervailing forces of the Progressive Era and
its legacy, not only is the vetting and unraveling of today’s
American educational system that lie before the Learning Sciences
better framed, but also becomes apparent the necessity to cast a
critical eye over the Learning Sciences in order to ascertain
what and to what extent subjectivities are influencing its
mission and practice today.
The Dewey of the Learning Sciences
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It is clear that the Learning Sciences has taken up and
triangulated important educational insights theorized by Dewey,
as Dewey is reference throughout The Handbook. Dewey understood,
according to Stahl, Koschmann, and Suthers, that education is
more than an “event in which knowledge is inscribed in an
individual mind” or more than the unloading of discreet packages
of information from one mind to another (p. 416). Learning is a
complex, recursive process of interaction with one’s environment
in meaningful ways. This is the main reason that, as Greeno
observed, unlike many of his contemporaries who were “focused on
individuals”, Dewey was concerned with “larger systems” (p. 79).
Individuals exist in living ecosystems of knowledge, communities
of practice, and multilayered environments. A natural outgrowth
of this initial focal point is situated learning, which has been
warmly embraced by the Learning Sciences.
Situated or situative learning, described by Collins as
“having students carry out tasks and solve problems in an
environment that reflects the nature of such tasks in the world,”
was an approach Dewey employed in his Laboratory School. He did
so, in once instance, “by having the students design and build a
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clubhouse, a task that emphasizes arithmetic and planning skills”
(p. 52). As already mentioned, Dewey understood that knowledge is
created by interacting meaningfully with one’s environment. It
follows that the construction of knowledge is largely dependent
on one’s environment, hence the value of situative learning.
Naturally, writes Greeno, “this kind of practice … is a major
focus of learning sciences research and practice” (p. 92).
By learning in context, which typically includes
collaboration (as in the building of the clubhouse), two outcomes
are likely to occur that have become important strands within the
Learning Sciences. First, the individual student is likely to
become engaged. Krajcik and Blumenfeld point out that “Dewey
argued that students will develop personal investment in the
material if they engage in real, meaningful tasks and problems
that emulate what experts do in real-world situations” (p. 318).
When the spotlight turns to engagement, the threads of
motivation, affect, and acculturation become self-evident and
operationalized—these are themes that are also considered
throughout The Handbook. Certainly, when students can maintain
autonomy, for instance, engagement and interest rise. Krajcik and
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Blumenfeld continue, crediting Dewey: “In the last two decades,
learning sciences researchers have refined and elaborated Dewey’s
original insight that active inquiry results in deeper
understanding” (p. 318).
The second outcome involves becoming an active, engaged
member of a learning community and, eventually, the broader
circle of society. Bruckman quotes Dewey, who posits that
“education is not preparation for life; education is life itself”
(p. 461). There is nothing superficial or artificial about a
student’s opportunity of belonging to and learning situatively
within a community. This is genuine citizenship, albeit on a
small scale. Illuminating Dewey’s statement, Bruckman writes that
“Dewey argued that learning communities should not be a world
apart, but instead integrated with the rest of society. Students
should be encouraged to be a part of civil society, pursuing
interests in collaboration with others” (p. 461). What Dewey and
the Learning Sciences offer the student is an opportunity for
autonomous, meaningful involvement in civil life by not only
activating deep learning that draws on a student’s own
experiences and interests, but by empowering the student to
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inject those same experiences into a community on the student’s
terms. The democratic empowerment of students that Dewey dreamed
of has been expressed by the Learning Sciences simply as
effective teaching.
Possibly the most substantial of Dewey’s philosophical
contributions to the Learning Sciences composes both the germ of
individual knowledge and the nature of collective knowledge: “A
theory corresponds to the facts when it leads us to the facts
which are its consequences, by the intermediary of experience …
but they are always subject to being corrected by unforeseen
future consequences or by observed facts that had been
disregarded” (as cited on p. 139). In other words, for Dewey
knowledge is neither complete nor static. Rather, it is to be
continually pursued and reshaped by novel information. According
to his argument, truth emerges over time and in the light of new
experience. When it comes to conclusivity, Dewey continues,
“logically, absolute truth is an ideal which cannot be realized,
at least not until all the facts have been registered, or … until
it is no longer possible to make other observations and other
experiences” (as cited on p. 139). The Learning Sciences has
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taken this statement as something of a charge, as implied in
Confrey’s commentary on Dewey:
[Dewey] recognized that in the beginning, there is only
the indeterminate, which undergoes transformation
through a problematic to a hypothesis, which, by means
of the activity of inquiry, is transformed to a
determinate situation producing a set of knowledge
claims. These claims will only reach the status of
truth if they are borne out in other spheres of
activity. (p. 139)
Consequently, the Learning Sciences regularly employs research
methods like design-based research, which situate research where
true, natural, native learning is taking place—in places of
activity. By studying learning from the center of the action, the
Learning Sciences can be sure to curate a body of knowledge that
is constantly being reformed in light of genuine experience.
Trenches
In sum, both philosophy and practice now considered
essential to deep learning were understood and enacted by Dewey
over 100 years ago. However, based on the form and ethos of
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current educational environments—Krajcik and Blumenfeld complain
“that schools teach superficial knowledge rather than deeper
knowledge—Dewey seems to have been largely ignored. A few of the
authors of chapters in The Handbook hint at the tenor of Dewey’s
philosophical and political rivals. Both these brief references
to contrary popular opinion and the Deweyan values taken up by
the Learning Sciences will be crucial to the following
discussion.
As mentioned previously, Greeno writes that while Dewey
focused on “large systems,” the “mainstream of psychology …
instead focused on individuals” (p. 79). As another example,
after laying out Dewey’s perspective on knowledge formation,
Confrey describes a major competing view held by some of Dewey’s
contemporaries:
By contrast, more behavioristic traditions gauge
learning primarily by measurable effects on performance
on tests or other direct measures of student outcomes,
emphasizing speed, efficiency, persistence, and,
occasionally, the transfer of thought to new settings.
(p. 137)
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The measurement movement, alluded to in Confrey’s statement,
was led by the influential psychologist and educationist E. L.
Thorndike, who “envisioned an educational science in which all
learning is measurable and, on this basis, by which all
educational innovations could be experimentally evaluated,”
according to Stahl, Koschmann, and Suthers (p. 416). They point
out that aspects of popular thought—in this case regarding
knowledge formation—have become “so culturally entrenched that it
is difficult to conceive of learning in any other way” (p. 416).
Undoubtedly, entrenchment is far afield of Dewey’s
indeterminate, provisional knowledge. In considering knowledge
formation, Stahl, Koschmann, and Suthers claim that the
‘entrenched’ viewpoint “rests on established traditions in
epistemology and philosophy of mind” (p. 416). Inadvertently,
these authors have provided a guiding statement for this paper.
For, as historical analysis demonstrates, many of Dewey’s
contemporaries who claimed to be working science were in
actuality digging into ideological trenches.
The New Psychology and Eugenics
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES12
At the turn of the 20th century, the doctrine of mental
discipline, which was popular in the 19th century and held that
mental training in one area generalized to others, was displaced
by new “scientific” approaches to psychology. One of these
approaches, introduced by G. Stanley Hall, was the child study
movement, which concentrated “on delineating the characteristics
of the normal stages of growth” (Applebee, 1974, p. 47). Another
was the work of E. L. Thorndike in the form of the measurement
movement. Recent advances in statistical analysis, Pearson’s work
in correlations, for instance, may have influenced Thorndike as
he initiated the measurement movement, claiming at one point that
“whatever exists at all exists in some amount. To know it
thoroughly involves knowing its quantity as well as its quality”
(as cited in Lagemann, 2000, p. 57). Relying on the study of,
ostensibly, more predictable and measurable phenomena, Hall,
Thorndike, and others ultimately substantiated psychology as a
science.
A major turning point for the field of psychology came with
the mental testing (specifically intelligence testing) of
soldiers during World War I. Psychologists, including Robert
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Yerkes, Henry Goddard, and Lewis Terman, had developed several
variations of intelligence tests by the time of the war. These
men, along with other prominent psychologists of the day, were
commissioned to develop tests specifically for sorting soldiers
into appropriate military roles. By the end of the war, nearly
2,000,000 soldiers had been tested. Gersh writes that “an
indirect outcome of the Army testing program was to bring
together psychologists from all over the United States. This
concentration and cooperation had a qualitative effect on the
field of psychology, especially the testing branch” (Gersh, 1981,
p. 107). Terman (1961) would later recall the significance of
that scene, appreciating “the opportunity they gave me to become
acquainted with nearly all of the leading psychologists of
America” (as cited in Gersh, 1981, p. 107). More to the point,
however, Terman says that “one result of the war experiences was
to confirm and strengthen my earlier belief regarding the
importance of mental tests as an integral part of scientific
psychology” (as cited on p. 107). The Army testing, Gersh claims,
effectively put “psychology on the map of respectability. No
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longer seen as a branch of philosophy, it was now a science.
(Gersh, 1981, p. 107)
Something else brought many of these prominent psychologists
together: eugenics. Eugenics is essentially the intent to control
the genetic quality of the human population by selective breeding
and sterilization. A number of important public figures were
eugenicists, including several leaders of the American
Psychological Association (APA) in its early years. James Cattell
and G. Stanley Hall, active eugenicists, were the founders.
Several other eugenicists cycled through its presidency,
including Robert Yerkes, Joseph Jastrow, Carl Seashore, John B.
Watson, E. L. Thorndike, and Lewis Terman. They would form the
collective impetus behind the adoption of mental testing and
other significant changes in education.
Eugenics was and is by no means innocuous. It carried
intense prejudice, fear, and, with the funding it enjoyed in the
first quarter of the 20th century, great political weight.
Eugenicist Henry Goddard, the first to introduce mental testing
in its modern form to the U.S., was
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an activist who proclaimed, ‘it is hereditary
feeble-mindedness that is the basis of all
problems,’ ... ‘and it is hereditary feeble-
mindedness that we must attack.’ His plan of
‘attack’ against the feeble-minded had two basic
parts. First, society should administer
intelligence tests widely to children; ‘By
suitable mental examination they must be
discovered, and discovered as early as possible.’
Then, through ‘colonization’ (mass custody), as
many of the mentally defective as possible could
be prohibited from procreating. (Ryan, 1997, p.
671)
What is more, “[mental defectives were] not immoral; they [were]
unmoral" (p. 672). Though Goddard would eventually be
disappointed in his efforts, he nearly achieved the legal
equation of poor intelligence test performance and criminality in
Ohio (Ryan, 1997)
G. Stanley Hall once claimed that “’there are certain
safeguards which democracy must more and more recognize and make
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effective. The first of these is eugenics.’ He believed that non-
whites were evolutionally inferior to whites, being ‘the children
and adolescents of the human race’” (Gersh, 1981, p. 16). He
further “argued that the ‘new immigrants,’ those from southern
and eastern Europe, were an ‘army of incapables’ who had inferior
mental abilities and ought to follow a practical curriculum, one
designed for work and not higher education” (Silverberg, 2008,
pp. 28-29). To what Hall is alluding is differentiated education.
While the Learning Sciences also advocates for individualized
education, often in connection to utilizing current technologies,
the spirit is quite different.
Terman and Mental Testing
Lewis Terman, a student of Hall’s who shared his ideological
position, became the strongest force in popularizing mental
testing in America. He adapted the Binet-Simon and standardized
what would become the premier IQ test, the Stanford-Binet.
According to Gersh (1981), “[the Standford-Binet] has served as
the basis for other such tests, the sign of a "good" test being a
high correlation of scores with the Stanford-Binet” (p. 33).
Terman will serve to illustrate eugenics bias. That said, it is
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worth reading two paragraphs of one of Terman’s (1916) early test
standardization studies, which, incidentally, included only
Whites in the sample. Here he describes people of color:
Their dullness seems to be racial, or at least
inherent in the family stocks from which they
come...The fact that one meets this type (IQ 70-80)
with such extraordinary frequency among Indians,
Mexicans and negroes suggests quite forcibly that the
whole question of racial differences in mental traits
will have to be taken up anew and by experimental
methods. The writer predicts that when this is done
there will be discovered enormously significant racial
differences which cannot be wiped out by any scheme of
mental culture.
Children of this group should be segregated in
special classes and be given instruction which is
concrete and practical. They cannot master
abstractions, but they can often be made efficient
workers, able to look out for themselves. There is no
possibility at present of convincing society that they
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should not be allowed to reproduce, although from a
eugenic point of view they constitute a grave problem
because of their unusually prolific breeding. (cited in
Gersh, 1981, p. 42)
The effects these biases had on test results are clear with
a brief look at Terman’s most famous and extensive project,
Genetic Studies of Genius: Mental and Physical Traits of a Thousand Gifted Children
(1925). Jolly (2008) provides the details. His goal was to
collect and study genius subjects. In 1910, he and his assistants
scoured major cities in California for bright youth, testing them
after recommendations for their teachers. Those who scored in the
top 10% on his intelligence test were accepted and analyzed, a
figure amounting to 1,444 by 1924. Terman collected about 16
data points for each child, including a number of IQ and
achievement tests written by him; parent, teacher, and field
worker observations; demographic, ancestral, and economic
information; and even reading logs.
“This initial demographic data yielded a population that was
White, middle class, and with parents holding advanced schooling
when compared to the average population, and an
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overrepresentation of children of Jewish heritage” (p. 30).
Rather than considering the fact that mainly White teachers would
have been recommending students (i.e. teachers may have had a
biased view of which students seemed intelligent) or questioning
whether cultural bias was built into his tests, Terman took the
opportunity to reinforce his prejudice. He “attributed this as
'indirect evidence that the heredity of our gifted subjects is
much superior to that of the average individual'" (p. 30).
Likewise, rather than considering patterns of oppression and
inherited privilege, Terman believed he had found “evidence to
support Galton’s theory of the heritability of genius” when
several families identified “relatives who were Presidents or
Vice-Presidents of the United States, writers, generals,
statesmen, and Supreme Court justices” (p. 30). As a final
example, subjects in his study reported varying household
incomes, with some living in what Terman considered poverty,
lending confidence to Terman’s position that “the causal factor
lies in original endowment rather than in environmental
influences.” Jolly (2008), however, provides important outside
data: “The yearly mean income was $4,705 and the median income
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was $3,333, with 35.3% of the families reporting an income below
$2,500. However, this was well above the reported average annual
salary of $1,236 in 1925,” allowing some room for class to be a
significant factor in the study (p. 29). In this dubious fashion,
“Terman provided scientific confirmation for the nativism and
prejudice of many Americans” (Chapman, 1981, p. 705).
Resistant to Reevaluation
It is crucial to acknowledge that, in contrast to Dewey’s
doctrine of indeterminate knowledge, posing to practice science
assumes no intention of allowing evidence contrary to anticipated
conclusions to alter convictions. This was the case both before
and after the scientific repackaging of psychology. Writing soon
after the height of mental testing foment, Mumford and Smith
(1934) reflect perspicaciously on the resilience of racial bias
during the last century. They mention that humanity has been
considering group differences for millennia; however, the notion
of evolution allowed for a stronger-than-ever rationale for long-
held prejudice. Racial disparity now seemed sufficiently
scientific and spawned various speculations.
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From the physical point of view, for example, those
races whose features more resembled those of early
simian ancestors were adjudged inferior to those with
features less resembling those ancestors: on account of
his protruding mouth and wide nostrils the African was,
therefore, adjudged inferior to the European. (Mumford
& Smith, 1934, p. 46)
Eventually,
it was pointed out that the hair-covered skin of the
European face resembled the hairiness of early simian
ancestors more closely than did the smooth hairless
skin of the African. On these grounds, it was the
European who represented a lower stage of development
than did the African! (Mumford & Smith, 1934, pp. 46-
47)
Unsurprisingly, when the same reasoning that endorsed European
superiority was applied in the opposite direction, such arguments
were conveniently discarded.
The faith in racial differences, however, persisted, “owing
to an incomplete understanding of the theories of evolution which
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Darwin first propounded” (Mumford & Smith, 1934, p. 46). Until
1910, pseudoscientific practices like phrenology and brain
weighing continued to support the theory. Soon, mental testing—
biased though it might be—became the strategy that would “prove”
genetic differences in quality between races.
Gersh (1981) makes it clear that even during mental test
development, there was evidence that mental tests could be
unreliable. Two studies in particular stand out. First, clinical
psychologist J. E. Wallace Wallin, using one of the early and
important mental tests, Henry Goddard’s “Goddard-Binet,” found
that a number of “businessmen, farmers, and a housewife had
scored at the levels of morons and imbeciles,” the complication
being that Wallin knew these individuals as “eminently successful
in their several callings and living moral and respectable lives"
(Gersh, 1981, pp. 35-36). Because those testing as morons,
according to Goddard, were supposed to be amoral paupers and
criminals, Wallin concluded that Goddard’s test was “grossly
inaccurate” (p. 36). Apparently at around the same time, Mary
Campbell found “that both the majority of the Chicago mayor's
cabinet and the candidates for mayor, in the most recent
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election, were morons or imbeciles” (p. 37). In the face of this
negative publicity, two telling moves were made, according to
Gersh: first, the APA “resolved that only properly trained
psychologists be allowed to use the tests” (p. 38) and second,
“the Goddard test had to be jettisoned, and ‘better’ tests
developed to replace it” (p. 38). No indication to abandon mental
tests was given.
Since the early days of mental testing, study after study
has demonstrated that innate intelligence does not differ
dramatically from general group to group, as Franklin (2007) and
many others point out; or, if difference is found, it may be
contrary to popular expectations, with examples cited by Gersh
(1981). Alice McAplin's (1932) study accounted for this major
variation. She argued that, instead of intelligence, “I.Q. tests
measured what children were exposed to, and once they were taught
the material found on the tests, their scores would improve
significantly, even over a short period of time" (Franklin, 2007,
p. 220). Others have cited similar phenomena (see Green, 1974).
At this time the reason as to why Dewey’s praxis ultimately
met with recalcitrance and rejection in his day is more
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES24
comprehensible: to support Dewey would mean to support the
remaking of one’s beliefs in light of new evidence. Because
select influential men of the Progressive Era could not be
persuaded to change their minds about race differences no matter
the data—not to mention that they had often managed to produce
the data they preferred themselves—they could not conceivably
listen to Dewey. The stakes were too high.
The Political Use of Science
During a forty year period straddling the turn of the 20th
century (1880-1920), “the population of the United States doubled
… due in large measure to the arrival of 14 million immigrants”
(p. 4). Reacting to immigrant populations hailing largely from
southern and eastern Europe, the “new immigrants,” “the nativist
was roused by the immigrant’s appearance, short and dark, his
religion, Catholic and Jewish, and his perceived ignorance and
poverty as demonstrated by the way he lived” (Silverberg, 2008,
p. 10). Conservative fears began to take shape. According to E.
P. Cubberly, a prominent eugenicist and educator writing in 1909,
These southern and eastern Europeans are of a very
different type from the north Europeans who preceded
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES25
them. Illiterate, docile, lacking in self-reliance and
initiative, and not possessing the Anglo-Teutonic
conception of law, order, and government, their coming
has served to dilute tremendously our national stock,
and to corrupt our civic life. (as cited in Silverberg,
2008, p. 21)
Around the same time, industrialization was reinventing the
American experience, drawing workers to city factories. “Cities
like Chicago grew enormously over that period, with that city
reaching a million in population by 1900, a growth of about
tenfold in forty years” (Kliebard, 1995, p. 4). Such a change in
the composition of the city populous posed significant challenges
on at least two fronts, schools and traditional social structure.
Mental testing would play a significant role in addressing both.
Schools
According to Herbst (1996), “between 1890 and 1920
enrollment of teenagers into secondary schools increased by over
700 percent, from about 200,000 to over 1.5 million” (as cited in
Silverberg, 2008, p. 17). Incidentally, compulsory education laws
for children, introduced to combat child labor and truancy and
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES26
which would later prove to mitigate educational inequity, also
contributed to the institutional population boom (Provasnik,
2006; Stainburn, 2014).
Leonard Ayres (1909) in his often cited text Laggards in Our
Schools was, essentially, attempting to make sense of the
educational chaos. Two of his observations, among many others,
are alarming: “For each 1000 pupils in the first grade we find
only 263 in the eighth and only 56 in the fourth year of the high
school. These figures represent average conditions in our city
schools” (Ayres, 1909, p. 14). Ayres believed that the major
predictor of student attrition was retardation. Retardation, in
this case referring exclusively to the condition of a “pupil who
is above the normal age for his grade” (p. 7), was endemic: “in
the lower grades, before the process of elimination [attrition]
enters to remove the badly retarded children, the average
progress of the pupils is at the rate of eight grades in ten
years” (p. 5).
It is little surprise that Franklin Bobbitt and the Social
Efficiency Educators stepped in. Along with Frederick Taylor and
the Scientific Management group, they worked to apply a factory-
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES27
like approach to education, championing efficiency and
standardization in schools that were drowning in diversity and
desks (Kliebard, 1995). In light of that era’s societal dynamics,
it appears a predictable shift for two reasons. First, schools
needed efficient and cost-effective methods of controlling and
graduating their students; second, by channeling factory-like
conditions, schools could neatly assimilate “new immigrants” into
the America of the “old immigrants.”
Social Structure
As industry and the promises of the American dream drew
workers to cities, at least two explanations for economic
disparity between the classes had to be contended with. “One,
which increasing numbers of workers and agricultural laborers
adhered to, was that the upper classes were exploiting the lower
classes” (Gersh, 1981, p. 13). Such sentiment led to unionization
and political action on the part of the working class, thus
challenging the social grip of the powerful and threatening to
destabilize long-existing hierarchies. The second explanation was
more palatable and, perhaps, more morally satisfactory to the
elites: “those who were not doing well were incapable of doing
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES28
so, for biological reasons” (p. 14). In other words, according to
Gersh, “the elite was forced by economic and political
circumstances, to support eugenics” (p. 14). This is exactly what
several of them did, most notable of which were “the Carnegie
Corporation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Commonwealth
Fund” (Gersh, 1981, p. 123).
By supporting eugenic activities, including the development
and marketing of mental tests, the elites effectively limited the
democratic and economic potential of the working classes,
particularly immigrants and African Americans. Eugenic forces
were “instrumental in the passage of anti-immigration
legislation, in 1924; in the extension of sterilization laws and
laws forbiding [sic] marriage between certain types of
individuals throughout more than half of the United States”
(Gersh, 1981, pp. 130-131), along with “reductions in money spent
on black schools, and support for legal segregation” (p. 102).
The argument here is not that the elites consciously
conspired to suppress the working class. Rather, so social
Darwinian theory would suggest, the elites—genetically superior
by all accounts—were managing to survive by supporting those
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES29
causes that, as Sutherland (1985) observed, “constituted no
challenge to the existing social structure; rather, [they] tended
to endorse it” (as cited in Burnett, 1985, p. 55). Eugenics and
its outgrowth of mental testing were, in other words, worth
supporting—by the tens of millions of dollars.
Dewey, the Learning Sciences and Mental Testing
In considering both schools and social structure, Dewey yet
again was understandably ignored. Situated learning is inherently
inefficient and would have been out of the question for bloated
schools; how many clubhouses could one school afford and have the
time to allow students to design and build? However, Dewey would
not have only been rejected on a practical level, but also on a
philosophical one. His emphasis on inclusive education, on
valuing and activating students’ prior knowledge, would have
inhibited assimilation. Subtractive assimilation, in reality,
devalues one’s past experience and denies one’s voice. The
conservative powers, struggling to maintain control over the
frenetic, kaleidoscopic mélange of that time period, were not
prepared to listen to the voices of immigrants. Furthermore, to
extend democratic powers to the masses (Dewey’s ideal) was not in
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES30
the interests of the wealthy capitalist. The fact that the
eugenics movement was largely privately funded illustrates this
point—see Gersh (1981) for details on funding.
Static Versus Variable Over Time
In essence, mental tests of Dewey’s day were (and to a great
degree today are) the antithesis of Deweyan thought—and the
Learning Sciences, in the aspects for which it relies on Dewey—
for they served to work against the principles heretofore
mentioned. First of all, the subset of mental tests that were
most widely used in the 1920s and 1930s, intelligence tests,
presumed to measure a genetically determined, stable human
capability. This notion led to Thorndike’s statement that “men
are born unequal in intellect, character and skill. It is
impossible and undesirable to make them equal by education" (as
cited in Gersh, 1981, p. 19). The entire enterprise of eugenics
and mental testing required a theory of stable intelligence in
order to act politically. For an interesting anecdote of
resistance against this belief, see Ryan (1997).
As many scholars have made apparent, intelligence tests
largely test experience, exposure, and cultural practice. That
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES31
is, it is now recognized that, in line with Dewey, one’s
knowledge, and therefore often one’s perceived intellect, is
dependent upon and shaped by experience. As such, the mind and
its capabilities are liable to change and develop based on
experience, just as McAlpine’s (1932) study demonstrated. In this
way, a free-standing mental test that presumes to measure an
innate, predetermined condition of mind is incongruous with Dewey
and the Learning Sciences.
In the same vein, an educational system predicated upon test
performance cannot be expected to perceive and fulfill the needs
of its students. Because tests are prone to contain the cultural
biases of their writers, it is likely that some of the important
aspects of students, according the Dewey and the Learning
Sciences, namely their cultural background and general prior
experiences, can be obscured by a test score. It is now clear,
however, that bias is not the only subjective factor in test
performance; motivation, stereotype threat, test anxiety, sleep,
and other environmental dynamics influence student performance—a
term search on the database EBSCO reveals hundreds of articles on
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES32
each item. Test performance, then, could indicate a number of
student characteristics unrelated to intelligence of any kind.
Individual Democratic Potential
Second of all, many scholars have argued that mental testing
can result in social and economic stratification (Chapman ,1981;
Franklin, 2007; Oakes, 1987; Green, 1974). This process can be
achieved through differentiated education, a practice which can
be used to positive ends. However, such altruistic motives are
not always seen. For instance, it is historian Michael Katz’s
position that “industrialists explicitly recognized that the
school served as a means of disciplining the work force" (as
cited in Gersh, 1981, p. 148). One potential way of disciplining
the workforce is by managing student potential, a possible
function of tracking in schools. Chapman (1981) analyzed the
historical California school district records to understand the
role that mental testing played in differentiation.
The City of Oakland, for instance, in 1911 utilized
intelligence tests to sift out the “’subnormal’ children—‘the
absent, the tardy, the sickly, the unruly, the liars, thieves and
cowards"—freeing up teachers to work with the “normal” children
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES33
(Chapman, 1981, p. 706). Oakland city schools diversified greatly
by 1915, offering a variety of school programs to the variedly
performing student population, including “kindergartens,
intermediate schools, and several high schools including a
vocational school a technical school, two comprehensive schools,
and a "university" school exclusively for college preparatory
work (p. 706). Some students were funneled into college, some
into the blue collar workforce.
The whole city of Oakland was functioning on a three-track
system by 1922, tracking “bright, average, and slow students” (p.
708). Chapman makes it clear that those who collectively tested
most regularly on the bottom were immigrants, Italians in
particular. Such results would have validated common prejudices
of the day, per Cubberly’s previously cited comment.
Because of the potential ceiling-setting application of
mental tests, Green (1974), writing presumably to African
American mothers in the popular women’s magazine Ebony, warned
these mothers against allowing their children to be tested by
schools. His statement is unequivocal: "when educators and the
testing industry pretend that tests can accurately measure
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES34
intelligence, they are allowing many children to be sentenced to
a life without opportunity" (Green, 1974, p. 72). Providing
students with the opportunity and freedom to engage in and make
meaningful contributions to a democratic society was a strong
value of Dewey’s. As previously stated, the Learning Sciences
have adopted this tenet of Dewey’s not necessarily for political
reasons, but for pedagogical reasons. It is clear that engaged
students are more motivated, better-performing and more deeply-
learning students. As such, mental tests, especially those
employed consciously or subconsciously to limit the potential of
students, are again incongruous with both Dewey and the Learning
Sciences.
Conclusion
Despite the general misalignment of mental testing with
either ethical or presently-considered reasonable educational
practice, mental testing and tracking became common fair.
During the first ten years of distribution … the Terman
Group Test sold 775,000 copies, which, according to
Paul Chapman’s study of the Terman Tests, meant that
nearly one-fifth of all U.S. high school students took
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES35
the test. … Terman also developed achievement tests,
which also sold well. For example, the Stanford
Achievement Test, which was first published in 1922,
had annual sales of 1,500,000 by 1925. (Lagemann, 2000,
pp. 92-93)
By 1987, Jeannie Oakes could claim in a paper abstract that
tracking, largely facilitated by testing, was “nearly ubiquitous”
(Oakes, 1987). When considering the historical contexts of these
developments, it is not difficult to ascertain why. In light of
the glaring needs of schools, the insecurity of the nativist
elites, and recently scientifically legitimized eugenicists and
psychologists trumpeting individual and group differences and
developing tests to prove them, the political coopting of
“science” would seem inevitable. Consequently, it is arguable
that these moves were not typically made in spite of the scientific
paradigm of the day, but because of it.
There is a cautionary tale in the reading of mental testing
history. The Learning Sciences cannot pretend immunity to social
and political forces. To identify specific strains of philosophy
or world view that guide or contend for control over the Learning
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES36
Sciences will require future investigation. Two brief directions
for future study come to mind. First, student-centered or
constructivist education seems to have become the preferred
approach to education in the Learning Sciences and for many
reasons mentioned here previously (i.e., engagement, motivation,
etc.). In recent years certain branches of theory and philosophy
that also support student-centered education have also gained
traction, Critical Theory as one example among many. Critical
Theory is overtly political, as represented by Freire’s Pedagogy
of the Oppressed, and has found exposure in schools in the form of
Critical Pedagogy. Because popular ideology and philosophy can
assert power and influence over accepted research pathways and
social and academic legitimacy, as evidenced by mental testing,
the growing credence of student-centered education could be a
fine example of the recursive relationship of social change and
science.
At the same time student-centered education is being buoyed
in academic circles, it seems to be under attack—again—in
American schools. Michael Apple (2006) in Educating the “Right” Way
argues that neoliberalism and neoconservatism, among other
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES37
forces, are destroying American education from multiple angles.
Elites, resembling in spirit those of the Progressive Era, are
privatizing schools, commodifying students, and marketizing
education in general. The goal is to produce students who can
strengthen American interests in the world market via the
invention, innovation, and entrepreneurism. Apple argues that
these moves strip students of self-efficacy and opportunity. And
how might these political agendas be affecting the Learning
Sciences? The Handbook produces some evidence. First, while several
portions of the text focus on, for instance, student engagement
(particularly with technology), improving student outcomes, and
altering student misconceptions, all in the areas of technology,
math and science, the Arts are rarely mentioned and only one
chapter is dedicated to the impact of culture on learning. This
cannot be argued as the devaluing of free thinking and culture,
as in the assimilationist agenda at the turn of the 20th century;
however, because of this apparent focus on technology, math, and
science, the text may implicate the Learning Sciences as having
worked to serve political agendas that arise out of globalization
and competition, such as neoliberalism.
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES38
What is not proposed here is the posture of a conspiracy
theorist. However, it is evident that objectivity within the
social sciences is largely a myth. For instance, human nature
does not legitimately fall within the purview of physical
science. It is a social, metaphysical, spiritual construction.
Yet, it is clear from the discussion of mental testing that
assumptions about what it means to be human and what can affect
human capabilities drove the widespread institutionalization of
what can be considered a tool of oppression. No worldview is
essentially politically neutral or universally accepted. The
moment that a scientist consciously or otherwise claims that it
should be universally accepted is the moment that, to quote Stahl,
Koschmann, and Suthers again, the so-called objectivity of
science is replaced by “established traditions in epistemology
and philosophy of mind” (Sawyer, 2007, p. 416). However, this is
not to say that the mission of the Learning Sciences should be
abandoned. Rather, the façade of objectivity should be abandoned
and a dialog of perspective, worldview, and interpretation
embraced. If this were to become the case, our knowledge would
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES39
have the opportunity of being continually remade based on a
diverse and authentic array of experience.
FORECASTING SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCES40
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