Educational Expansion in the United States: Institutional Drivers of Change, 1870-1920

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 2:30 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Learning in the Lunch Line: Student Voice, Career Development, and Institutional Change (Table 9)

Abstract

Scholars have long discussed the rapid growth of American school attendance around the turn of the 20th century, but this literature remains fragmented. This study offers a comprehensive, quantitative framework based on census data to investigate the relative effects, shifts, and relationships of several factors on school attendance from 1870 to 1920. A fixed effects multivariate regression on county-level attendance rates shows institutional forces, rather than occupational shifts and population growth, drive increases in school attendance: changing ideas about children and education was more important than changing laws, economy, or population dynamics. This suggests that contemporary institutional change – towards justice, remedy, and repair – may require we first change our conception of what education is and what it is for.

Authors

• Alexander Bittel, University of Kansas

• Meredith Bittel, University of Kansas

• Argun Saatcioglu, University of Kansas