H Dudley Plunkett

First published in 1973, Teacher Education and Cultural Change analyses significant issues in the reform of teacher education on the evidence of up-to-date official and academic source materials and direct investigation. It contributes to the comparative sociology of education by highlighting the question as to whether teacher education policies are geared primarily to educational and social conservation or change. Features of teacher education are classified according to a scheme comprising four linked themes—cultural perceptions of teaching; the process of becoming a teacher; curricula; the organization of teacher education. Attention is given to cultural and social factors acting to democratize educational philosophies and structures. Reform-oriented policies are evaluated for their coherence and sociological realism. Differences in the three systems are found to reflect their histories and their socio-economic and political contexts, but a common movement is discerned towards democratic systems, responding to person rather than to institution-centred values. The book should help to fill a serious gap in comparative studies of teacher education, and should be of interest to students, academics, and administrators concerned with the study and development of educational systems.

Many Americans who trace their roots to communities similar to those of Appalachian Kentucky are becoming aware of the extent to which the problems of such communities represent the price paid for keeping alive traditions that are beginning to be missed in the wider society. Using fresh data and ingenious ways of letting local people speak for themselves, Mary Jean Bowman and H. Dudley Plunkett have thrown light on how isolated, small-town people respond to the encroachment of modern America, with its organized economy, mass communications media, reliance on more and more schooling, and persistent drive for social change. The study reveals a pervasive tension between old ways and new aspirations. Sometimes the new is in alliance with the national culture, but often tensions between regional and national ways are acute. The authors put little faith in naïve attempts to engineer social change in Appalachia -- attempts they suggest are based on dubious cultural assumptions and misconceived strategies. This study of one region in one nation can be a model for the study of similar patterns of change elsewhere.