Carl Kaestle
University Professor Emeritus;
Professor Emeritus of Education, History and Public Policy.
131 Waterman 2nd fl
(401) 454-1377 (phone)
(401) 863-1276 (fax)
Carl_Kaestle@brown.edu
Areas of Specialization: History of American Education, History of Literacy and Print Culture, Educational Policy Studies
Description of Research and Teaching Interests: My research falls in two large areas at present: the history of the federal role in elementary and secondary education since 1950, and the history of books and readers in the United States from 1880 to 1950. My teaching interests are in the history of American education, in American cultural and social history (especially from 1860 to 1940) and in current educational policy issues.
Office Hours
By appointment. E-mail Carl_Kaestle@Brown.edu
Degrees
Harvard University Ph.D., 1971
education The Evolution of an Urban School System (N.Y.C.)
Harvard University M.A.T., 1964
the teaching of English
Yale University B.A., 1962
English literature
Publications
-"Federal Aid to Education Since World War II: Purposes and Politics," in Jack Jennings, ed., The Future of the Federal Role in Elementary and Secondary Education (Washington, D.C.: Center for Education Policy, 2001).
-"Literate America: High-level Adult Literacy as a National Goal" In Historical Perspectives on the Current Education Reforms, eds., Diane Ravitch and Maris Vinovskis. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995)
-"Toward a Political Economy of Citizenship: Historical Perspectives on the Purpose of Common Schools," in Lorraine McDonnell and Michael Timpane, eds., The Democratic Purposes of Education (Lawrence: Kansas University Press, 2000)
-Adult Literacy and Education in America (Washington: National Center for Education Statistics, 2000), with Lawrence Milkulecky, Jeremy Finn, Sylvia Johnson, and Anne Campbell.
-Literacy in the United States: Readers and Reading Since 1880 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991). with Helen Damon-Moore, Lawrence C. Stedman, Katherine Tinsley, and William V. Trollinger.
-To Educate a Nation: Federal and National Strategies of School Reform, Carl F. Kaestle and Alyssa E. Lodewick eds.(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007)
-Concluding essay in Clio at the Table:Using History to Inform and Improve Education Policy. ed. Kenneth Wong and Robert Rothman. (New York:Peter Lang, 2009
-Print in Motion: the Expansion of Publishing and Reading in the United States, 1880--1940 Ed.Carl Kaestle and Janice Radway (Chapel Hill: University of North Caroline Press, 2009)
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History of literacy; literacy policy; testing and assessment.
History of the book and other print culture, 1880-present
History of the federal role in education; current federal education policy
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Print in Motion: Reading and Publishing in the United States, 1880--1940
This is Volume 4 of a major project entitled A History of the Book in America. Ten years in the making, our volume of 26 chapters covers such topics as book production, reading clubs, censorship, copyright, journalists' values, the religious press, the ethnic press, and others, pursuing two themes: the increasing “speed” of print production -- more print getting to more people in a dramatic proliferation of print; and second, the simultaneous increase of standardization (more people exposed to the same print) and proliferation (the development of diverse, contending print cultures). Professor Kaestle authored one chapter, co-authored numerous others, and worked with co-editor Janice Radway on all the connecting material in this substantial volume. It was published in 2009 by the University of North Carolina Press.
A History of the Federal Role in Education in the United States from 1940 to 1980
This project focuses on the acceptance or resistance to federal education initiatives over four formative decades,how programs and rationales have changed and why, an attempt to get at the causes and consequences of these contending concepts of a proper federal role. Along the way, it addresses new concepts of the "nation" after World War II; the intervention in Little Rock's Central High School, the Congressional response to Sputnik, the change of focus to education as a tool to reduce poverty in the 1960s, and other well-known episodes that have yet to be narrated and analyzed for this time period. Tentative title: Uncertain Mandate: The Federal Role in Elementary and Secondary Education, 1940--1980.
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Areas of Expertise
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History of Education Literacy |
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Courses
EDUC1210 - Public Education and People of Color in U.S. History (History 198, Section 12, Ethnic Studies 196, Public Policy and American Institutions 170, Section 11)
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