Eugenics and Education: Implications of Ideology, Memory, and History for Education in the United States By Ann Gibson Winfield

Eugenics and Education:

Institutionalized IdeologyAnn Gibson WinfieldIntellectual history:Plato and Aristotle

Great Chain of Being - Every existing thing has its place divinely inspired in a hierarchical order.

Social Darwinism application of survival of the fittest to human society.

Eugenics coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1889.

Eugenics is The science of improvement of the human germ plasm through better breeding (Galton 1889).

The application of human intelligence to human evolution (Wiggam 1924).

Historical Contextearly twentieth centuryImmigrationPovertyJim Crow SouthIndustrial RevolutionLabor UnrestFEAR

Eugenic GoalsPositive EugenicsNegative EugenicsSterilizationImmigration RestrictionMarriage Restriction

Eugenically undesirable persons included blind, insane, feebleminded, epileptics, paupers, alcoholics, tramps, prostitutes, beggars, unmarried mothers, morons, imbecile, idiots, sexual deviants, children who masturbate, and criminals Popenoe 1918 p. 42)

Use of:Scientific cach

Progressive idealism making the world a better place (through racial cleansing)

Utopian narrative

Dissemination and Popular CultureLecture CircuitsPlaysPamphletsDisplaysBooksCurriculumState FairsContests

ChurchesSocial ServicesHealth GroupsPhilanthropyBoy/Girl ScoutsMedicineYMCA/YWCACarnegie/Rockefeller

Eugenic BeliefsHeredity and AbilityRace and Degeneracy Immigration, Crime and Poverty Sterilization and Marriage Restriction

Defining and ClassifyingIdiots unable to develop full speech and have a mental age below age threeImbeciles unable to master written language and range from three to seven in mental ageMorons the most dangerous to unsuspecting normal people a.k.a. high grade defectiveFeebleminded anyone who didnt fit into the long list of other classifications.

EducationFocus shiftsCompulsory educationEducation as a moral solution

Early CurriculumEfficiency and WasteChild Study and EmotionDirect Dominant IdealsControl Indigents and DefectivesEugenic WorthUsefulness

School PracticesTrackingAbility GroupingVocational EducationGifted and Talented EducationHealth and HygieneSex EdSAT/GREIQ Test Recruits