Educating for social change: The history of the Mississippi Freedom Schools, 1932-1964
Hale, Jon N.
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/110094
Description
Title
Educating for social change: The history of the Mississippi Freedom Schools, 1932-1964
Author(s)
Hale, Jon N.
Issue Date
2006-12-04
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Span, Christopher
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Span, Christopher
Committee Member(s)
Pak, Yoon
Anderson, James
Department of Study
College of Education
Discipline
Master of Arts
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
M.A. (master's)
Degree Level
Thesis
Keyword(s)
Freedom Schools
Radical education
Civil Rights Movement
Social change
Myles Horton
Jim Crow
Highlander Folk School
Mississippi
Language
en
Abstract
This thesis documents how the Freedom Schools, an historical example of radical education, developed in Mississippi in 1964 and postulates why Freedom Schools developed in their particular social, economic, and political context. My analysis begins with Myles Horton, a radical educator in Tennessee who first articulated his notion of education for social change in the late 1920s, and it concludes in 1964 during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. This historical analysis examines the following key tenets: Progressive-era educational thought and the establishment of Highlander Folk School; Jim Crow policy in Mississippi and its role in creating a fertile ground for Freedom School development; the immediate context in which the Freedom Schools developed during the Civil Rights Movement, specifically between 1962 and 1964; and an analysis and interpretation of the significance of this development. Ultimately, the development and conception of radical education between 1932 and 1964 suggests that the application of education for social change is largely dependent upon an anti-democratic context and it has been most effectively applied in an immediate, localized context.
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