Education's Histories

methodological grist for the history of education

Archive for November, 2016

November 17th, 2016 by Benjamin Kelsey Kearl

Of Laggards and Morons: Definitional Fluidity, Borderlinity, and the Theory of Progressive Era Special Education (Part 2)

This entry is part [part not set] of 2 in the series Of Laggard and Morons by Benjamin Kelsey Kearl | November-December 2016

Part 1 of this essay discussed the laggard, an educational subjectivity used to denote students who did not progress through schooling at the pace determined by the modern progressive educational system. Important to the story of the laggard was how definitional fluidity allowed the science of classification to indefinitely collect and detain lagging students until […]

November 15th, 2016 by Benjamin Kelsey Kearl

Of Laggards and Morons: Definitional Fluidity, Borderlinity, and the Theory of Progressive Era Special Education (Part 1)

This entry is part [part not set] of 2 in the series Of Laggard and Morons by Benjamin Kelsey Kearl | November-December 2016

Of Methods This essay treats education biographically and uses special education as a way of discussing how education generally defines itself. While education can be variously defined, this essay is less concerned with definitions of education and more interested in how education, through its various classificatory schemes, defines itself. In an essay that treats the […]