CLASS CULTURES, SOCIALIZATION, AND THE SCHOOL: THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO’S COMMITTEE ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND THE FIGHT FOR EDUCATIONAL EQUITY, 1940–51
CLASS CULTURES, SOCIALIZATION, AND THE SCHOOL: THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO’S COMMITTEE ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND THE FIGHT FOR EDUCATIONAL EQUITY, 1940–51

Summary/Abstract: In 1940, a “critical mass” of variously trained scholars collaborated as part of the University of Chicago’s Committee on Human Development (CHD) and conducted pioneering interdisciplinary research that put education at the center (Havighurst, n.d.b, p. 9.14). The four most important figures here were Lloyd Warner, Allison Davis, Robert Havighurst, and Ralph Tyler. This essay focuses on the CHD’s theoretical and practical achievements as they related to education, emphasizing in particular the Committee’s combination of anthropological, sociological, and psychological theory. Positing class as a type of culture, CHD researchers took concrete steps, especially in the realm of intelligence testing, to make education less biased in favor of the middle class and more inclusive of the skills and abilities of the lower class. This essay explores these historical synergies between anthropology, psychology, and education, and it explains the ends to which these Chicago intellectuals put them.

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