RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 America in Search of a New Ideal: An Essay on the Rise of Pluralism
JF Harvard Educational Review
JO herp
FD Harvard Educational Press
SP 411
OP 440
DO 10.17763/haer.44.3.68l73q37w4442j4q
VO 44
IS 3
A1 Greenbaum, William
YR 1974
UL http://harvardeducationalreview.org/content/44/3/411.abstract
AB Demands by ethnic and cultural groups for equal power in society have increased steadily over the past two decades. The Protestant Anglo-American ideal of assimilation has failed in important ways and cannot continue to guide the policies of our social institutions. The result in education has been movements for alternative schools, community control, vouchers, ethnic studies, and bilingual programs. In this essay, the author explores the reasons behind the rise of pluralism. First he describes the elites' style of leadership by distance and their attempts to exclude or denigrate people of other than Protestant, Northern and Western European origin. The author suggests that the resulting decline of Protestant domination has left America without an ideal to direct the socialization process. In its place, he recommends support of pluralistic institutions and communities,setting policies that honor diversity as a way of maintaining unity, and, at the same time, developing a new, universal ideal.