Urbanization and Education in the United States

Author(s): Robert J. Havighurst

Source: International Review of Education / Internationale Zeitschrift für
Erziehungswissenschaft / Revue Internationale de l'Education, Vol. 13, No. 4, The Effects of
Urbanization on Education / Die Auswirkungen der Verstädterung auf das Erziehungswesen /
Les effets de l'urbanisation sur l'education (1967), pp. 393-409
Published by: Springer
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URBANIZATION AND EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES

by ROBERT
J. HAVIGHURST,
Chicago

An urbanized country is one with a relatively large urban population

which is engaged in manufacturingand trade. The United States did not
become urban in this sense until after the first World War. The urban
population (those living in places of 2,500 population or over) constituted
15 percent of the total population in 1850, 40 percent in 1900, and 70
per cent in 1960.
The process of urbanization consisted of a growth of towns and cities
with a wide variety of sizes, in contrast with some countries where the
urban growth consisted mainly of the development of a few large cities,
with a resultant polarization of the country between large cities and rural
population. In the United States even the rural population became
"urbanized"in the sense that farmers became more efficient, producing
a surplus of materials for sale and buying manufactured goods and a
variety of essentially urban services. The numberof "subsistencefarmers"
decreased steadily after 1900. Such farmers try to produce the food and
other material they need for a bare subsistence without selling much of
their product or buying much from other parts of the economy. These
"economiczeroes" in the United States have mainly given up their farms
and moved into the towns and cities to work in industry since 1900.

Effects of UrbanizationUpon the SchoolSystem

Since urbanization is a process of bringing people together in towns
and cities, this process has increased the average size of schools and
decreased the number of school districts with small enrolments. These
facts are shown in Table I. The one-room school attended by children
from families living in the open country is disappearing. Rural schools
have been consolidated into large schools, and the decline of rural popu-
lation has decreased the numbers of pupils attending small consolidated
schools. Table I shows that the average enrolment in a public school
system rose from 202 in 1931-32 to 1,600 in 1965-66. In 1930 there were
12,007 public high schools with less than 100 pupils, and in 1960 this
number had dropped to 3,177. During this same period the number of
high schools with more than 1000 pupils increased from 1,095 to 3,285.

MetropolitanDevelopment
American cities have grown in two ways. Many of them have grown
in sheer physical size by annexing land aroundtheir edges. Sometimes the
394 ROBERTJ. HAVIGHURST
TABLE I

Effects of Urbanization on Size of Schools

Statistics of School Districts

No. of No. of No. of No. of Public Average

Public Public Public 1-teacher School En- Enrolment
School School Schools Schools rolment be- in
Dis- Sys- low College Systems
tricts 1) tems 1) Level

1931-32 127,244 270,0002) 143,000 26,300,000 202

1937-38 118,892 121,000
1941-42 108,579 208,000 108,000 25,500,000 230
1949-50 83,614 86,0002) 153,000 60,000 25,111,000 292
1956-57 50,454 52,943 130,0002) 31,0002) 31,400,000 595
1961-62 35,555 37,019 107,000 13,333 38,253,000 1,030
1963-64 31,015 31,705 101,816 9,895 41,537,000 1,310
1964-65 28,814 29,500 42,784,000 1,450
1965-66 26,802 27,500 43,852,000 1,600

Sources: Biennial Surveys of Education - U.S. Office of Education.

U.S. Office of Education: Digest of Educational Statistics, 1965.

1) The term "public school system" includes two types of governmental entity
with responsibility for providing public schools:
(a) those which are fiscally independent of any other government unit and are
listed as "school districts" in this table;
(b) those with less autonomy, which are treated in the census as a dependent
agency of some other government unit. For example, the New York City school
system is one of these "dependent" systems. The number of public school districts
includes a rather large number of "non-operating" districts, which are rural districts
that do not operate schools but collect local taxes and pay the tuition cost of
children in their districts who attend school in a neighboring district. There were
6,031 non-operating districts in 1962 and 2,421 in 1965.
2) Estimated on the basis of data from neighboring years.

land was open farmland which was laid out in city blocks with new streets
and sidewalks. Other times the newly-annexed area was a town or village
which had grown up separately and then was engulfed by the city as an
amoeba spreads itself around a foreign object. Cities thus became larger
in area as well as in population.
In another form of growth, cities extended their economic and social
nets to take in people who did not live within the geographical city limits.
Many people living outside of the city bought their furniture and clothing
and did their banking in the central city. People from a wide surrounding
area came into the city for theater, concerts, and lectures. Thus the city
 URBANIZATION AND EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 395
was the intellectual and economic capital of an area that extended out
some distance from its physical boundaries.
By the middle of the current century it had become clear that a new
type of community was in existence. The Bureau of the Censusrecognized
this fact by defining a "standard metropolitan statistical area," as a city
of 50,000 or more with its county and any contiguous county that is
economically and socially integrated with the central county.
There were 216 metropolitan areas by 1966, with over 65 percent of the
total population of the United States. The most populous SMSA(standard
metropolitan statistical area) was New York, with 10,695,000inhabitants
and the smallest was Meriden,Connecticut, with 52,000. The median size
was 250,000. The distribution by sizes in 1960 was:

More than 3,000,000 5

1,000,000 to 3,000,000 19
500,000 to 1,000,000 29
250,000 to 500,000 48
100,000 to 250,000 89
50,000 to 100,000 22

The term "metropolitanization" has been used to describe the ur-

banization process in the United States. Two-thirds of the school children
and school teachers are located in metropolitan area schools.
Most of the urban population growth since 1940 has taken place in the
suburbsrather than the central cities, as is shown in Table II. By 1963the
metropolitan population was evenly balanced between the central city
and the surroundingarea. There was actually a loss of population between
1950 and 1960in 72 of the 225 central cities, while suburban areas gained
47 percent in population during this ten-year period.
Metropolitandevelopment is a name for a vast redistribution of people
and of jobs which has been going on during the present century and
especially since 1920. From the open country and the small towns and
cities people have moved toward the larger cities, where the jobs were,
in a rapidly industrializing society. Then, from the cities, they streamed
out into the suburbs, to live there, and often to work there in response
to the decentralization of industry and business after World War II.
During the process of metropolitan growth, the central cities gained in
their proportion of working-class residents and of Negroes, while the
suburbsgained in their proportions of middle-class white residents. Thus
the metropolitan area became stratified along economic and racial lines.
The inner shells of the city are populated largely by people with low
396 ROBERTJ. HAVIGHURST
TABLE II

Division of Metropolitan Area Population

Between Central Cities and Outside Central Cities: 900o-I960

Total SMSA Percent of SMSA Percent of SMSA

Population Population within Population outside
Year (000) Central Cities Central Cities

1900 31,895 62.2 37.8

1910 42,094 64.6 35.4
1920 52,631 66.0 34.0
1930 66,915 64.6 35.4
1940 72,834 62.7 37.3
1950 89,317 58.7 41.3
1960 112,895 51.4 48.6
1963 118,761 50.0 50.0

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census. U.S. Census of Population: I960.

Selected Area Reports. Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas.
Final Report (PC(3)-2D).

incomes; the outer shells of the city contain people with middle incomes;
and the outer edges of the city and the suburbs have high incomes.
Since the total population of the metropolitan areas has increased, an
area that had 500,000 people in 1940 might have 1,000,000 people in 1960.
This means that the number of working-class people was doubled,
approximately, and the number of middle-class people also doubled.
They tended to live in separate and segregated residential areas, which
thus grew in size. As a result of this process, children grew up with less
contact with children from other types of families than their parents had
experienced as children.
In effect, schools became more homogeneous with respect to socio-
economic status. From 1920 to 1965, the segregation of children by social
class (and by race in northern cities) was increasing. This means that the
percent of middle-class children attending schools in which 80 percent or
more of the students are middle-class has increased since 1920; and the
percent of working-class children attending schools in which 80 percent or
more of the students are working-class, has increased since 1920. In the
northern cities, the percent of Negro children attending schools, in which
80 percent or more of the pupils are Negroes has also increased.

Stratification and Segregation in Metropolitan Areas

Thus metropolitan development in the United States since 1920 has
produced a socio-economic polarization between the central city and the
 URBANIZATIONAND EDUCATIONIN THE UNITED STATES 397
TABLE III
Polarization in Metropolitan Areas
Comparison of Central City and Outside Central City
on Percent of Adult Population who are at least High School Graduates
Percent at ages 25 and over who are
at least high school graduates

SMSA 1960 1940

Outside Central Outside Central

CC City CC City
High Cleveland 55 30 45 21
Polari- Chicago 52 35 31 25
zation New York 52 37 33 22
Washington 65 48 43 41
Philadelphia 46 31 27 19
St. Louis 41 26 23 18
Newark 50 27 33 17
Milwaukee 53 40 29 22
Buffalo 44 30 23 20
Medium Baltimore 41 28 21 19
Polari- Detroit 47 34 27 26
zation Boston 57 45 39 32
Minneapolis-St. Paul 60 47 27 34
San Francisco-Oakland 58 49 41 37
Cincinnati 41 34 21 25
Atlanta 48 41 26 31
Kansas City 52 47 27 40
Low Pittsburgh 43 35 22 24
Polari- Los Angeles 54 54 42 42
zation Houston 46 45 27 36
Seattle 56 56 31 43
Dallas 48 49 31 40
San Diego 54 55 38 41

Source: 1940 Census of Population, v.2; 1960 Census of Population, Tables 73, 74, 76
of State Reports in Series PC(1)C and PC(3)1D, Table 8.

suburban area outside the central city. This may be seen in Table III,
which reports data on the percent of adults aged 25 and over who were
graduates of secondary schools, comparing 1940with 1960and comparing
the central city with the area outside the central city. This table shows
that the area outside the central city gained in proportion of adults with
at least a secondaryschool education when comparedwith the central city
in almost every one of the 23 SMSAs represented. This table also shows
that there were metropolitan areas of high polarization,such as Cleveland,
398 ROBERTJ. HAVIGHURST

Chicago and New York, and others of little or no polarization, such as

Los Angeles, Houston, and Seattle. The newer metropolitan areas of the
West and Southwest show little or no difference between central city and
suburbs, but they have a considerable amount of economic segregation
within the central city and within the surburban area.

TABLEIV
Percentage of Elementary School Pupils in Non-Public Schools in SMSAs in I960
SMSA Population % of elementary
(000) school pupils in
non-public schools

New York-Newark-Jersey City 14,759 27.6

Chicago-Gary 6,794 32.4
Los Angeles-Long Beach 6,093 13.2
Philadelphia 4,343 33.7
Detroit 3,762 21.1
San Francisco-Oakland 2,649 12.7
Boston 2,595 22.8
Pittsburgh 2,405 29.2
St. Louis 2,105 29.2
Cleveland 1,909 29.1
Total 47,366 25.6

Buffalo 1,307 29.9

Baltimore 1,727 20.1
New Orleans 907 32.5
Seattle 1,017 10.6
Portland 822 12.0
Houston 1,243 9.3
Minneapolis-St. Paul 1,482 27.0
Denver 929 13.4
San Diego 1,033 8.9
Washington, D.C. 2,002 18.4
Milwaukee 1,233 36.7
Kansas City 1,093 15.7
Atlanta 1,017 4.6
Columbus, Ohio 755 14.4
Miami, Fla. 935 11.2
Cincinnati 1,268 33.4
Syracuse 564 17.7
Rochester 733 32.0
Indianapolis 917 15.9
Dallas 1,083 7.4

Total 22,067 19.0

TOTAL, USA 180,000 15.0
 URBANIZATIONAND EDUCATIONIN THE UNITED STATES 399
Attendance at Non-Public Schools
Another form of segregation in schools is produced by a variety of
non-public schools, which are operated by church authorities as a rule,
though a small proportion of private schools are not affiliated with a
church. Most non-public schools are maintained by the Roman Catholic
Church, though a substantial number are operated by Lutheran Churches,
and smaller numbers by the Dutch Reformed Church, by Jewish con-
gregations, and by certain fundamentalist Protestant denominations.
There is a tendency for the larger metropolitan areas to have higher
proportions of children in non-public elementary schools, as is shown in
Table IV. In 1960, when the data of Table IV were obtained, the national
percentage of elementary school children in non-public schools was 15,
but the percentage was 25.6 for the ten largest metropolitan areas, which
had a population of 47.4 million or 26 percent of the country's population.
Table IV also shows that a group of 20 metropolitan areas next in size
had about 19 percent of their elementary school children in non-public
schools.

Metropolitanization and Size of School System

The unit of government for public schools in the United States is the
school district, which has its own Board of Education (Board of Directors,
elected by the people or appointed by the mayor of the city). Among the

TABLEV
Public School Systems Inside and Outside of SMSAs: 1961
Enrolment Size of School Systems

No. of Pupils Total No. of Number of School Systems

per System Pupils in SMSAs
In SMSAs Outside of SMSAs

1200 or more 21,296,000 2,556 3,282

300-1,199 968,000 1,410 5,233
150-299 105,000 481 2,600
50-149 54,000 585 3,629
15-49 15,000 540 6,041
1-14 1,246 120 4,511
Non-operating 912 5,119
Total 22,439,246 6,604 30,415

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Governments: I962, Vol. V, Local
Governmentin Metropolitan Areas. Tables 1, 2, pp. 22, 24.
400 ROBERT J. HAVIGHURST

29,391 public school districts that existed in 1964, 1,231of them accounted
for 22 million pupils, or 56 percent of the total number. These districts all
had more than 6,000 pupils, and nearly all were in metropolitan areas.
In addition, there were another four thousand smaller districts located in
metropolitan areas. Table V shows how school districts are distributed
according to enrolment size in metropolitan areas. In 1960, 95 percent
of public school enrolment in metropolitan areas was in school systems
with more than 1,200 pupils. Thus one of the consequences of metro-
politanization is a consolidation of small school systems to the point
where a negligible number of pupils are attending school systems with
less than 1,200 pupils.

MetropolitanPlanning and UrbanRenewal

Taking cues from planners in other parts of the world, American
planning legislation and American planning agencies are increasingly
working with the metropolitan area as the unit for planning and develop-
ment. This is obviously necessary for such enterprises as: the develop-
ment of a network of highways and other transit facilities; a water supply
system; a programfor the control of air pollution; a sewage disposal system.
The new federal government Department of Housing and Urban Develop-
ment will be responsible for the administration of government funds
aimed at an orderly development of entire metropolitan areas, with the
placement of low-cost public housing, the clearance and redevelopment
of slum areas, the planning and distribution of parks and recreationareas
and the location of industrial districts and shopping areas.
The aim of metropolitan planning will be to make the central city and
the suburbs equally attractive to people, so that all kinds of people can
freely choose where to live and to raise their children. The aim will also
be to eliminate slums and to distribute areas of middle-class and working-
class residences so that there are no large concentrated areas of one-class
residence.
Educational authorities are now beginning to think in terms of metro-
politan-wide planning and cooperation. This is not an easy matter in the
United States, due to the Americantradition of local city and community
autonomy and responsibility in educational matters. For example, there
are about 6,000 independent school districts in the 216 SMSAs. The
Chicago SMSA has 340 independent school districts. The Detroit SMSA
has 96 such units.
However, school administratorsand school boards are beginning to get
together for exchange of information, for planning, and for a limited
amount of cooperation on a metropolitan area level. Voluntary coopera-
 URBANIZATION AND EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 401
tion among school districts has generally taken the form of a Study
Council or Superintendents' Study Group, in which a local university
works with the school superintendents of the area. This may lead to a
more formal arrangementfor voluntary cooperation, such as the Educa-
tional Research and Development Councilof the Twin Cities Metropolitan
Area, Inc. The superintendents of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, to-
gether with members of the School of Education at the University of
Minnesota, formed the Council in 1963. It consists of 35 public school
districts in the seven-county metropolitan area, and these schools serve
44 percent of the pupils of the state of Minnesota.
During the first three years of the Council, a variety of research and
demonstration projects were undertaken, including the following:
Basic researchstudies: organizationalclimate and structure, school out-
put measures, program evaluation, staffing of schools.
Surveys:finance and taxation, expenditures, staffing.
Development activities: workshops for teachers and administrators;
programs for the mentally retarded; computer utilization project;
production of a film to supplement the teaching of American poetry.
There is one good example of the union of previously separate local
governments into a single metropolitan form of government, and the
parallel union of school districts into a single metropolitan school autho-
rity. This has taken place in Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee.
Also, in Toronto, Canada, the 11 local school districts have joined to-
gether in a single metropolitan school authority which has the responsi-
bility of taxing the entire area and distributes tax money equitably, as
well as other area-wideresponsibilities,such as the choice of sites for new
school buildings. The separate school districts retain their autonomy for
the administration of their local school systems.
The areas in which school systems cooperate in a voluntary fashion are
generally the following:
1. Operation of a program of "special education" for mentally and
physically handicapped children, the cost for maintenance of which is
shared among a number of school systems which could not afford such
programs separately.
2. Operation of a regional vocational school, serving all or a group of
schools in a metropolitan area.
3. Operatinga "community college," or a 2-year post-secondaryschool
institution, for students in all or a part of the metropolitan area.
4. Operating an educational television program for the entire area.
5. Maintaining a system of recruiting teachers, of in-service training
402 ROBERT J. HAVIGHURST

of teachers, and of promotion of teachers to the administrative system

that serves the entire area or a part of it.

The Urban-CommunitySchool
The quality of the public schools is the greatest single factor in the
decision of middle-income people to live in the central city or to live in
the suburbs, and to live in one section or another of the central city or the
suburbs. Knowing this as a fact, educators tend to divide into two groups
with respect to their views on the properways to operate a school system
in the contemporary metropolitan area.
One school of thought may be called the "four-walls"school. The basic
principle is to do the best possible job of educating every boy or girl who
comes into the school, whoever he is, whatever his color, nationality, IQ or
handicap. This means building good school buildings, equipping them
well, and staffing them with well-trained teachers. At its best, it means
being courteous and friendly to parents and to citizens who are interested
in the schools, but making it quite clear to them that the schools are run
by professionals who know their business and do not need advice from
other people. It means making use of the cultural resources of the city -
museums, theaters, orchestras, TV programs - under a system which
guarantees the safety of the children and meets the convenience of the
teachers.
It means keeping the schools "out of local politics." Staff appointments
are to be made on the basis of merit alone, and promotion of staff on the
basis of performance. It means a limited cooperation with other social
institutions, public and private. The welfare and public aid and public
health agencies are asked for help when the schools need it, but they
cannot initiate school programs. Youth welfare and delinquency control
agencies have their jobs to do, which meet and overlap the work of the
schools. On this common ground the schools' administration must have
full control of the use of school personnel and school facilities. In the area
of training youth for employment, the school system will use the facilities
of local business and industry for on-the-job training according to
agreements worked out. Over-all policy for vocational education is the
responsibility of the school administrationunder the Board of Education,
and local business and industry are not closely related to policy deter-
mination in this area.
The four-wallstype of school system works for efficiency and economy,
and attempts to free the creative teacher to do the best possible job of
teaching under good conditions. The community outside of the school is
regardedas a source of complexity and of tension-arousalif the boundary
 URBANIZATION AND EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 403
between community and school is not clearly defined and respected.
The other school of thought may be called the "urban-community"
school. The educators who advocate this believe that the big city is in a
crisis which has been in force for some years and will last for at least 10
years and requires the active participation of schools in the making and
practisingof policy for social urbanrenewal.This big-city crisis is reflected
in feelings of uncertainty and anxiety on the part of parents and citizens.
There is danger of a collective failure of nerve which saps the vitality and
flexibility of the city's efforts at urban renewal. Parents and citizens of
middle income are tempted in this situation to escape to the suburbs,
where life seems simpler and safer, especially for children.
The urban-community school attempts to act constructively in this
crisis by involving the parents and citizens in the decisions about school
policy and practice. The educator accepts the frustrationof workingwith
people who themselves are confused and uncertain about the schools,
believing that the only way to solve the problems of the city is to work
on a give-and-take basis with citizens and community organizations.
The urban-communityschool includes the intra-school program of the
four-walls school, but differs at important points on the relation of the
school to the community.
Those who take the urban-communityschool point of view believe
there is no viable alternative. They believe that the four-walls school
actually causes some of the problems of the community through its rigid
rules about attendance districts and about keeping the public away from
the classroom.They believe that the schools by their policies and practices
either attract or repel people in the local community. Under present
conditions, the typical school system repels people whom the central
city cannot afford to lose as citizens. Proponents of the urban-community
school believe that the present trend toward economic and racial segrega-
tion in the metropolitan area will continue, and the central city will lose
quality, unless the schools take a more active part in social urban renewal.
An AmericanDilemma - The ComprehensiveSecondarySchool
The metropolitan areas after they reach a size of about one hundred
thousandtend to becomestratified or polarizedalong socio-economiclines,
with consequent segregation of school pupils along socio-economic and
racial lines. This is seen by American educators as a serious problem,
because they believe that democratic characteristics of a society depend
in part upon a free association of children from all socio-economicgroups
in school.
A principal spokesman for this point of view is James B. Conant,
404 ROBERTJ. HAVIGHURST

formerly President of Harvard University and United States Ambassador

to the Federal Republic of Germany. Mr. Conant's influential book The
American High School Today 1) has urged the further development of the
comprehensive high school, which draws youth from all socio-economic
groups roughly in the same proportions as they appear in the adult
population. He defined the purposes of the comprehensive high school as:
"... first, to provide a general education for all the future citizens; second, to
provide good elective programs for those who wish to use their acquired skills
immediately on graduation; third, to provide satisfactory programs for those whose
vocations will depend on their subsequent education in a college or university. If
one could find a single comprehensive high school in the United States in which all
three objectives were reached in a highly satisfactory manner, such a school might
be taken as a model or pattern....
"Since state and regional differences do play some role in this vast country, I
decided that I should attempt to locate satisfactory comprehensive high schools in
different sections of the nation. To this end, I inquired through various sources as
to the comprehensive high schools outside the metropolitan areas which had the
reputation of doing a good job in providing education for students with a wide
range of vocational interests and abilities. I specified that these schools should be of
such a nature that less than half the boys and girls were going on to college and the
distribution of academic ability roughly corresponded to the national norm (median
I.Q. 100-105)."

There are approximately 2,000 high schools in communities of more

than 50,000 population, and they enrol approximately 30 percent of the
high school students of the country. Very few of these schools are truly
comprehensive in the sense indicated above. The high schools serve the
residential areas in which they are located, and reflect the socio-economic
differences among these areas. For example, the differences among high
schools are shown in Table VI, which presents data on the 39 general
public high schools in Chicago. Schools at the top of the Table are heavily
middle-class in composition and university-preparatory in function. The
SER, or socio-economic ratio, is a crude ratio of middle-class to working-
class or of white-collar to manual workers among the adults in the school's
attendance area. An SER of 200 means that the ratio of white-collar
workers to manual workers in the area was 2 to 1. An SER of 20 means
that this ratio was 1 to 5. The Table shows that about 50 percent of the
pupils in the high-status schools were in the top 23 percent of the entire
group in reading ability; at the same time, less than 10 percent of the
pupils in the low-status schools were in the top 23 percent in reading
ability.
There is considerable evidence that the educational standards of a low-
status school are reduced by the presence of large numbers of low-
 URBANIZATIONAND EDUCATIONIN THE UNITED STATES 405

TABLE VI
Socio-economic Area and Pupil Achievement in Chicago High Schools

School SER1) Achieve- Low Reading Percent

Number ment 2) Level 3) Negro
1 290 52 0 0
2 229 49 0 0
3 199 54 0 0
4 180 54 0 2
5 123 40 12 26
6 109 47 0 0
7 97 36 0 0
8 83 32 0 0
9 82 29 22 21

17 66 28 4 0
18 61 32 8 3
19 54 11 16 28
20 54 43 0 3
21 53 21 15 88
22 53 26 0 11
23 53 25 12 19
24 52 17 15 98
25 50 23 0 0

31 23 11 16 9
32 22 10 41 100
33 22 4 56 94
34 20 10 46 80
35 20 14 29 44
36 19 8 36 99
37 17 4 37 91
38 14 4 42 100
39 11 6 41 100

1) Socio-economic ratio of adults in attendance area in 1960. Certain schools are

not representative of adults in area because there is a selective factor in school
attendance. This is true of School 20, for example, where the school represents a
higher socio-economic group than the average for the attendance area.
2) Percent of ninth and eleventh graders in top three stanines on standard tests
of reading. For city as a whole, 23 percent are in the top three stanines.
3) Percent of ninth-grade English classes in Basic English. Pupils are below
sixth-grade level in such classes. In some high schools there are too few such pupils
to form a class, though almost every high school has at least a handful of such
pupils.
Source: Robert J. HAVIGHURST: The Public Schools of Chicago. Table 1. p. 208.
Chicago: Board of Education, 1964.
406 ROBERT J. HAVIGHURST

achieving students. Thus, Alan Wilson 2) studied the educational achieve-

ment and the educational aspirations of boys in the eight high schools of
Oakland, California. He found that a boy from a working-class family
attending a school with a predominanceof middle-class pupils was more
likely to get high marks than a working-classboy of the same IQ, who
attended a school with a predominance of working-class pupils. Also, a
lower-status boy attending a school in which the majority of his class-
mates were from middle-class families was more likely to plan to enter
a university than if he attended a school in which the majority of his
classmates were from working-classfamilies.

Possible Solutions. Thus the educator faces the dilemma created by his
desire for democratic mixing in a comprehensive secondary school and
by the socio-economicstratification of the metropolitan area which tends
to produce secondary schools that reflect this form of economic and racial
segregation.
The solutions proposed for this problem fall into two widely different
categories. One would abandon the comprehensive school, and the other
would restore it.
One solution lies in the establishment of a number of selective and spe-
cialized secondaryschools, which serve the entirecity orlargesections of it.
There might be university-preparatory high schools which admit only
pupils who give promise of success in university work. These schools
would draw their students from large and heterogeneousareas of the city.
At the same time, there might be other schools for training in commercial
occupations, industrial occupations, and semi-skilled service and factory
jobs. Since this would mean abandoning the comprehensive school
concept, this solution is unpopular with many American educators.
Restoration of the comprehensive high school would be at least par-
tially achieved by the development of very large and complex secondary
schools serving large sections of the city. This scheme has been widely
discussed in recent years, and is being tried in several of the largercities.
It is called the "educational park "or "educational plaza" plan.
In this plan, a large complex of school buildings would be placed in a
location that is accessible to students from a large and heterogeneous
area of the city. The enrolment might be from 5,000 to 10,000. There
might be several different units for students with different educational
goals - one for university preparation, one for commercial training, one
for industrialtraining, etc. Thus there would be some differentiationwithin
the school, but students would associate for athletic and social activities,
and there would be a relatively free flow of students from one type of
 URBANIZATIONAND EDUCATIONIN THE UNITED STATES 407
course to another within the complex, as students changed their occu-
pational goals and as they and their faculty advisors became aware
of their abilities.
Another way by which the comprehensivehigh school may be restored
is through the working of social urban renewal. As has been noted, the
movement for metropolitan planning has for one of its goals the resto-
ration of the central core as a place where people of all income levels and
occupations will want to live and raise their children. At the same time,
the suburbs will become more nearly cross-sections of occupation and
income, as industry moves out from the central city.
The various designs made by city plannersand architects for the metro-
politan area of the future generally envisage the creation of units of
200,000 to 500,000 population with their own local business, cultural,
and religious facilities. Each unit would be nearly a cross-section of the
metropolitan population. Each unit would have its own schools, from
kindergartento community college or university. The high school or high
schools in this unit would be comprehensive in nature, reflecting the
heterogeneous character of the community.
The problem of the secondary school in the big city illustrates the close
interaction between schools and the structure of the community in the
contemporary metropolitan area. The schools do not simply reflect the
structure of the community of today. They also influence the structure
of the community of tomorrow.

REFERENCES *)
1. James B. CONANT: The American High School Today. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1959.
2. Alan B. WILSON:"Residential Segregation of Social Classes and Aspirations of
High School Boys." American Sociological Review. 24, 1959, pp. 836-845.

VERSTADTERUNG UND ERZIEHUNG

IN DEN VEREINIGTEN STAATEN

von ROBERT J. HAVIGHURST,Chikago

Von 1900-1960 wuchs die Verstadterung der Bevolkerung in den Vereinigten

Staaten von 40% auf 70% an. (Als verstadtert bezeichnet man die Bevolkerungs-
schicht, die in Orten mit mehr als 2.500 Einwohnern lebt). Wichtiger noch ist, daB
die amerikanische Bev6lkerung ,,vergrol3stadtert" ist. 65% der Bevolkerung leben
in grol3stadtischen Siedlungsgebieten (metropolitan areas) mit 50.000 Einwohnern

*) For further literature on Urbanization and Education in the United States see
the Bibliography, this number pp. 491-94.
408 ROBERTJ. HAVIGHURST
und mehr, deren Vororte wirtschaftlich eng mit der City verbunden sind. Verstad-
terung und VergroBstadterung haben folgende Auswirkungen auf die Schule gehabt:
1. Anstieg der durchschnittlichen Schiilerzahlen pro Schule von 202 im Jahre
1931 auf 1.600 im Jahre 1965.
2. Riuck gang der Zahl der Schuldistrikte von 127.000 im Jahre 1931 auf 27.000
im Jahre 1965. (Ein Schuldistrikt ist der Verwaltungsbezirk der jeweiligen lokalen
Schulbehbrde in den USA).
3. Riickgang der Zahl der landlichen einklassigen Schulen von 143.000 im Jahre
1931 auf 9.895 im Jahre 1965.
4. Zunehmende Segregation der Schiiler entsprechend ihrem sozio-6konomischen
Herkommen. Dies ist die Folge der sich standig vergroBernden Wohngebiete des
Mittelstandes und des Handwerks in den wachsenden Stidten, und der schwin-
denden M6glichkeit der Schiiler, unter diesen Umstinden mit Kindern anderer
Milieus zusammenzukommen.
Es besteht die Tendenz, kleine Schuldistrikte in groBstidtischen Siedlungsgebieten
zu gr6oBerenDistrikten zusammenzufassen. Die Schuldistrikte der GroBstadte arbei-
ten dariiber hinaus in zunehmendem MaBe zusammen, um folgende Einrichtungen zu
ermoglichen: Sonderschulen fur geschadigte Kinder, Schulfernsehen, regionale Be-
rufsschulen, ein zweijahriges community college, dessen Ausbildung an die Sekundar-
schule anschlief3t. Hauptprobleme, denen sich die Schulen gegentibersehen, sind die
schon erwahnte sozio-6konomische Segregation als Folgeerscheinung der Verstadte-
rung und die Rassentrennung, bedingt durch Abwanderung der Familien mit h6herem
Einkommen in die Vororte und Randbezirke der GroBstadte sowie durch Ballung
der armen Bevolkerungsschichten im Innern der Stadte. Da die Integration von
Kindern verschiedener sozialer Milieus in 6ffentlichen Schulen den amerikanischen
sozialen Prinzipien entspricht, bemiiht man sich, die Segregation - vor allem in den
Sekundarschulen - zu iiberwinden. Eine Losung ware die Einrichtung einer Anzahl
selektiver Sekundarschulen mit bestimmter fachlicher Ausrichtung, die Schiiler
einer ganzen Stadt oder doch weiter Bereiche einer Stadt aufnehmen k6nnen. Dies
wiirde jedoch ein Abweichen vom Konzept der comprehensive school bedeuten.
Eine andere L6sung k6nnte umfassende Schulkomplexe fur 5.000 bis 10.000 Schiiler
in sogenannten ,,Schulparks" schaffen, die Schiiler aus weiten heterogenen Gebieten
einer Stadt aufnehmen konnen. M6glicherweise wird die Bewegung, die man als
,,soziale stadtische Erneuerung" bezeichnet, das Gesicht der GroBstadte revolu-
tionieren, sodal3 diese nur noch aus relativ kleinen (200.000 bis 500.000 Einwohner)
Wohnbezirken bestehen, die in sozio-6konomischer Hinsicht heterogen sein werden.
Eine solche Entwicklung wiirde die comprehensive high school begiinstigen, die
sozial-heterogenen Wohngebieten dient.

L'URBANISATION ET L'EDUCATION AUX ETATS-UNIS

par ROBERT J. HAVIGHURST,Chicago

La population des Etats-Unis est pass6e de 40 a 70% d'urbains entre 1900 et 1960.
(La population urbaine comporte les agglomerations de plus de 2.500 personnes).
Ce qui est encore plus important, c'est que la population am6ricaine s'est "m6tro-
polis6e." Soixante cinq pour cent de la population vivent dans des agglom6rations
m6tropolitaines d6finies par le recensement comme villes de 50.000 habitants ou
 URBANIZATIONAND EDUCATIONIN THE UNITED STATES 409

plus et la banlieue ou les banlieues p6riph6riques qui sont 6conomiquement li6es a

la ville centrale.
L'urbanisation et la m6tropolisation ont eu les effets suivants sur les 6coles:
1. Augmentation de la moyenne d'inscriptions aux systemes scolaires de 202 en
1931 a 1600 en 1965.
2. Diminution du nombre de districts scolaires de 127.000 en 1931 a 27.000 en 1965.
(Le district scolaire est l'unit6 du gouvernement scolaire local aux Etats-Unis).
3. Diminution du nombre d'6coles a instituteur-unique (rurales) de 143.000 en 1931
a 9.895 en 1963.
4. Augmentation de la s6gr6gation des enfants en age scolaire par le statut socio-
6conomique. Ceci est dufi l'extension des secteurs de classe moyenne et des cites
ouvrieres due a l'agrandissement des villes, diminuant ainsi les occasions de
fusion entre les enfants de niveaux socio-economiques diff6rents.
Il y a une tendance a grouper les petits districts scolaires en unit6s plus impor-
tantes dans les regions m6tropolitaines. Aussi existe-t-il une tendance i la collabo-
ration parmi les 6coles de district d'une r6gion m6tropolitaine pour dispenser les
services suivants: Ecoles sp6ciales pour les enfants handicap6s, tel6vision 6ducative,
6coles professionnelles r6gionales, un "college communautaire" comportant deux
ann6es post-secondaires.
Un conflit majeur auquel doivent faire face les 6coles est celui de la s6gr6gation
socio-6conomique et raciale mentionn6e plus haut, due a la migration des families
a revenus moyens vers les faubourgs et la banlieue des villes, et la concentration des
familles a revenus inf6rieurs dans la ville elle-meme. Etant donn6 que les principes
am6ricains sont en faveur de l'int6gration des enfants de diff6rentes classes sociales
dans les 6coles publiques, des efforts sont faits pour supprimer la s6gr6gation,
particulierement au niveau de l'enseignement secondaire. Une solution serait d'insti-
tuer un certain nombre d'6coles secondaires sl6ectives etsp6cialis6esdesservant la ville
entiere ou une grande partie de la ville. Mais ceci signifierait l'abandon du concept de la
comprehensiveschool. Une autre solution serait d'am6nager de tres vastes complexes
scolaires de 5.000 a 10.000 6tudiants en "parcs 6ducatifs" pouvant desservir une
importante population h6t6rogene des m6tropoles. Il se pourrait que ce qu'on
appelle la "r6novation sociale urbaine" r6volutionnera l'6cologie des centres m6tro-
politains afin qu'ils ne comportent plus qu'une unite de population h6t6rogene du
point de vue socio-6conomique relativement mince (200.000 a 500.000), et ceci
r6tablirait la comprehensive high school qui dessert une agglom6ration r6sidentielle
h6t6rogene.