Seeking a Social and Urban History of Education

• In Event: Leaders in the History of American Education: Autobiographical Essays

Abstract

In this essay, John Rury discusses his own background in New York State and City, his early education as well as his doctoral studies at the Univeristy of Wisconsin. He stresses his longstanding interest in urban education, his early social activism, and the evolution of that activist impulse into the role of a scholar committed to addressing the dilemmas of urban schools. He charts his own career through a teaching emphasis to a research concentration, and details experiences at Antioch College,Ohio State University, DePaul Univeristy, and the Univeresity of Kansas. He also discusses is own studies of urban education, in places like Chicago and Milwaukee, and elsewhere. He stresses professional contact with several peer scholars as instrumental in his own development.

Author

• John L. Rury, The University of Kansas