School: 1900-1950

    Only 6 percent of American children graduated from high school in 1900 but that number increased to 51 percent by 1945 and then 40 percent would go on to college. The transformation of public education was mainly caused by massive immigration, child labor laws, and the rapid growth of cities which filled school attendance. Many events happened during 1900-1950 including the impacting progressive ideas of John Dewey, the effects of the controversial IQ tests on students, the adjustments to school life, and Cold War politics. The Great Depression and World War 2 also took place in the first half of the 20^th century which actually encouraged students to redefine American identity with broad ethnic diversities. All of these challenges would pave the way for the eventual success of the Civil Rights Movement which greatly dealt with the inequality in the US and its schools.

    Over 18.6 million people immigrated to the US between 1900 and 1930 with the largest percentage coming from eastern and southern Europe. The immigrants had mixed feelings arriving to America but many business leaders welcomed them since fresh new skills were desperately needed for the expansion of industrialism while many political leaders who had a north and western Europe background were afraid that the new immigrants might degrade the American language and culture. Public schools were chosen to be the best place to achieve cultural assimilation but there were violent hate groups that wanted to destroy all traces of immigrants such as the KKK. The depression and war would make Americans expand their vision of civic nationalism to recognize and respect cultural diversity. American society started implementing intercultural education programs in response to the struggles of the depression and war. In conclusion, the expansion of civic nationalism and resulting changes of civic education would eventually contribute to the end of ethnic nationalism.