SOCIAL SCIENCE

Social science was established as a distinct field of study during the 1930s. When the Great Depression began, the debate over the proper purpose of social studies took on added importance, and experts in the various disciplines concerned with social studies—history, political science, economics, sociology, geography, and anthropology—agreed that the new challenges facing society mandated new approaches to research and teaching. History, as the branch concerned with synthesizing the various aspects of social studies, would take the lead in developing the discipline of social science.

Higher education had become more diverse in the 1920s, a process that continued during the next several decades. In an effort to be more scientific, scholars engaging in social science research began collecting original data that could be measured and rigorously tested; the days of armchair theorizing had ended. New subfields of study also began to take shape in the 1920s and 1930s. Historians continued to discover new directions. Political scientists moved beyond political theory in favor of a more behavioral approach and the new study of public administration. Influenced by John Maynard Keynes and his The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), economists abandoned many of their standard models for qualitative examinations. An assault on classical economics, Keynes's theory struck a particular chord in the Depression by challenging the popular notion that unemployment was voluntary and could be blamed on the refusal of a worker to work. Sociologists embraced a micro-level approach to social data and a more functional theoretical stance. Anthropology struggled to break free from its position as the field-work branch of sociology, aided by the foundational works of Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, and Margaret Mead. Boas continued to challenge the system of race classification, while his student Benedict showed that the plasticity of human nature is such that culture can mold humans into a variety of forms, and Mead argued that masculine and feminine are cultural constructions rather than absolute categories. Geography stands out from the other social sciences for its shift from physical geography to a new kind of professional and research field of the sciences. Like anthropology, geography received little recognition as an academic discipline until the years following World War II.

The new scientific approach of social scientists required funds to support the collection and examination of data. The almost total absence of federal or state funding for such research meant that academics had to seek funding from foundations. This era also witnessed the emergence of the university system of social science research. The Institute for Social and Religious Research in New York provided money for studies of small towns and the countryside, including Robert Lynd's works on Middletown. The Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Foundation, headed by Beardsley Ruml, was another major source of funding for social science research.

One of the projects funded by the Spelman Rockefeller Foundation proved enormously significant by setting a pattern for social science education that would last for the remainder of the century. With this undertaking (1929–1934), the American Historical Association Commission on the Social Studies established guidelines for the teaching of social science in the public schools. The membership of the board, dominated by historian and political scientist Charles A. Beard, consisted of various social scientists, including historian George Counts, geographer Isaiah Bowman, economist Leon Marshall, political scientist Charles E. Merriam, and sociologist Jesse Steiner. Historian A. C. Krey chaired the commission.

The problems facing the world in the 1930s dictated the need for such a commission. In 1932, George Counts had enumerated these worries in his influential Dare the School Build a New Social Order? The book pointed to the failures of capitalism, the social costs of a government's laissez-faire approach to business, and the growing popularity of such right-wing extremists as Adolf Hitler. Like other social constructionists, Counts argued that the schools needed to mesh the needs of the individual with the needs of society. He believed that individualism had died and that schools should play a role in some sort of collectivist planning and control.

The American Historical Association commission reached conclusions that generally supported Counts's contentions. In reports and individual volumes issued throughout the mid-1930s, the commission tried to explain what social science should be. According to the commission, if educators continued to emphasize the traditional ideals and values of economic individualism, then American society would lose the ability to compete in the emerging world order. The commission argued that the main purpose of education must become that of building a well-rounded individual who could think critically and work with others to develop creative solutions. Accordingly, it suggested that the curriculum should include the history of the major peoples and cultures of the modern world; more attention to Latin America, Africa, and Asia to help promote international efforts to achieve peace; and the study of contemporary American life, including contradictions and tensions.

Several of the commission's many publications stand out. A Charter for the Social Sciences (1932) edited by Beard, articulated the philosophy of the liberal arts. Beard's The Nature of the Social Sciences (1934) analyzed the relationship of the social sciences to the natural sciences and promoted the scientific method of research. Conclusions and Recommendations (1934), written by the entire commission, argued that education should abandon methods of coercion and ignorance in order to shape the rising generation according to America's democratic ideals. Although educators relied on Beard's works to write textbooks and curriculum, the vagueness of the commission's conclusions meant that no specific guidelines grew out of its last volume.

SOCIAL SCIENCE

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