GEORGE S. COUNTS

by Babatunde Alford (2023)

Having held teaching positions, led the American Labor Party, Liberal Party, the American Federation of Teachers and in running for political office, George S. Counts (1889-1974) was an educational social theorist, and political activist-theorist. Dubbed a social reconstructionist, he was focused on the school as capable of, and responsible for, facilitating social change (Curtis 2022). Growing up in a Methodist family, Counts began his journey earning his B.A. in classical studies from Baker University, a Methodist university, in 1911 (Westheimer n.d.). Following his undergraduate degree, Counts was employed as a high school teacher-administrator for two years before enrolling in an education PhD program at the University of Chicago. After graduation, he spent time teaching educational sociology at various universities, spending the bulk of his tenure at Teachers College (TC) in New York for 30 years before retiring from TC in 1956.

Counts’ academic focus cut against the grain of educational research of the time, psychology, and instead focused more on sociology and social science (Westheimer n.d.). He was less interested in the “science of education.” His attention was occupied by the social functions and conditions that systems of education sat within. Counts was supremely concerned with how hierarchies of power within the political domain shaped the function of the school as perpetuating dominant hierarchies, especially along economic lines (Westheimer n.d.). While most certainly an extension of the Progressive Education movement, in Counts’ Dare the School Build a New Social Order (1932), he offers a critique of Progressive Education scholars. In providing theories of child-centered education and educating for a democracy, progressive scholars miss centering the larger social milieu in which the school sits, toward a genuine theory of the school and social justice (Westheimer n.d.).

WHERE'S THE "PROGRESS" IN PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION?

The school has always captured the attention of Americans and politicians as a panacea of sorts, to correct all ills of society (Counts 1932: 1). In Dare the School Build a New Social Order (1932), Counts asserts that the school, and the broader education system, no matter one’s political orientation, puts forth an influence on the social order. However, traditionally this influence has been in maintenance of the status quo. Counts claims that the reason for this social stagnation at the hands of the school lies in the proliferation of schooling that does little to progress and challenge the social order, leaving the school to be driven by larger social systems rather than challenging them (Counts 1932: 3). At the center of this argument is the concern over the Progressive Education movement (Counts 1932: 5). Progressive Education (PE), as characterized by Counts, centers the child, their interests, learning by doing and focusing on “growth of character” (Counts 1932: 6). This approach is too narrow in scope for Counts as it does little to center any particular “progressive” aim for the larger society. 

In focusing mostly on the learning environment, PE has no sense of direction for its educational aims besides that of the individual (Counts 1932: 6). Counts extends this toward an issue with American education more broadly. For him, contemporary education of the time bothers itself with “inquiry and experimentation” toward new teaching methods or classroom practices but is all too comfortable ignoring social realities (Counts 1932: 7). “The weakness of Progressive Education thus lies in the fact that it has elaborated no theory of social welfare…” (Counts 1932: 7). Countering this requires a reorientation of the teaching profession and a recognition of the school as a political environment.

PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION

For Counts, the aforementioned issues with PE represent only one aspect of its shortcomings. Beyond its lack of commitment to social justice and directionless orientation, is a larger practice of political exclusion and stagnant social reproduction. In his theory of PE, Counts grapples with who, or what, is served by its current formulation. He sees it as a reflection of the “liberal-minded upper middle class” (Counts 1932: 7). Those of this group, generally financially well to do, value a sense of tolerance, are averse to suffering of others, have “vague aspirations” for the world and humanity, yet hold no particular political convictions toward a social concern (Counts 1932: 7-8). If they are engaged in social issues, it largely takes the form of political hobbyism as they are reluctant to take on causes that may compromise their own material comfort. Counts categorizes these folks as “romantic sentimentalists” and woefully untrustworthy to guide educational theory and programming (Counts 1932: 8). Due to the socio-economic positioning of those surrounding the PE movement, Counts finds them to be uninterested in exposing their children to more adverse social realities and unsheltered material discomforts. 

This more privileged class is mostly preoccupied with adhering to the expectations of their social class and having their children positioned as extensions of themselves (Counts 1932: 8). Filled with self-aggrandizement, they are also reluctant to have “...their children…mix too freely with the children of the poor or of the less fortunate races” (Counts 1932: 8). In a similar vein they are also uninterested in their children adopting new social theories of radical change. They are comfortable with their children holding social issues at an arm's length, often only dealing with them in the academic or abstract. Counts see’s the possibilities of the PE movement as being held back by this privileged class and only through explicit dissociation can PE attain true progressivity. The movement must craft a comprehensive theory of social welfare, and become comfortable with “the bogies of imposition and indoctrination” (Counts 1932: 9-10).

From his own upbringing in the Methodist tradition, to Soviet schools producing “good communists,” Counts sees indoctrination as a matter of fact in life and in the development of young people (Counts 1932: 10-11). Indoctrination is not inherently good or bad. However, on a spectrum of apolitical non-indoctrination in the form of child centered PE, to unenlightened pedagogical influence, PE seems favorable (Counts 1932: 11). This is all to say there is a balance to achieve along this spectrum for Counts. While he believes that a true progressive education should seek to provide a critical and honest account of the world, devoid of deliberate distortion, there is some imposition to take place in counteracting commonplace fallacies that obscure social realities (Counts 1932: 12). To provide absolute freedom to children, without imposition, would be to set children up for aimlessness and mediocrity (Counts 1932: 15). 

EDUCATION, DEMOCRACY, AND CAPITALISM

As previously mentioned, Counts sees school as having a responsibility to engage in education as a political act, and central to that is instilling democratic sentiments (Counts 1932: 20). Because he sees attempts at apolitical Progressive Education as bolstering social conservatism, he is very explicit in arguing for the Progressive school to operate as a countervailing force against conservatism, in support of social welfare. In opposition to this vision, Counts characterizes the 1932 American democracy and capitalism as the social order in need of challenge. Counts’ conceptualization of democracy goes beyond the political machinations of voting, constitutionality and popular elections, to encompass the cultivation of a “moral equality of men” (Counts 1932: 41). Such a democratic ethos would seek to dissolve socio-economic and racial inequalities. Counts places these democratic traditions in pre-industrial US history, most squarely in the revolutionary war period (Counts 1932: 40). To lose this orientation would be to lose the true sense of America. 

Capitalism, through what he calls an age of “industrial feudalism,” lies in opposition to this form of democracy (Counts 1932: 45). Capitalism cannot coexist with a pluralistic democracy. It erodes the economic power of the individual and prioritizes individualism over collectivism (Counts 1932: 45-46). “[I]f democracy is to survive in the United States, it must abandon its individualistic affiliations in the sphere of economics” (Counts 1932: 46). Capitalism for Counts is both inhuman and wasteful, the continuation of which will lead to a modern day feudalism. These systems must be replaced with socialized economies (Counts 1932:48). The role of education and the teacher is then to impose on children a responsibility to challenge these political and industrial social orders. For Counts, he worries the alternative is a complacent school, a social order gone unchallenged, a fractious democracy and a violent revolution looming (Counts 1932: 52).

COUNTS AND BOURDIEU

The School and Social Change

Counts provides us with a conceptualization of the school as an agent of social change. To now put him in conversation with Bourdieu prompts a question of whether or not the state, through the public school, is capable of facilitating social change that runs counter to the dominant operations of the state. For Counts, the school’s core function is to foster a sense of critique and challenge of the social order (Counts 1932: 54). The school must operate as a political entity in service of challenging social inequality, moral indifference and material obsession (Counts 1932: 55). This is already in conflict with Bourdieu’s theorization of the school and the state. To start, Bourdieu sees the state as the chief purveyor of social problems (Bourdieu 1998: 38). For him, the state exists largely to support itself and its own modes of operation (Bourdieu 1998: 35). Additionally, it holds a considerable amount of power in shaping social reality (Bourdieu 1998: 54). The chief mechanism to impose the will of the state is the school (Bourdieu 1998: 35). This then complicates Counts’ vision of the progressive school for social change and social justice. For Bourdieu, even disciplinary changes in school subject matter would see steep resistance (Bourdieu 1998: 38). Such resistance would be seen first from teachers, who are “attached to the established academic order,” but then also from the larger culture of hierarchies who benefit from the status quo, all mediated by the interests of the state (Bourdieu 1998: 38). So for the school to then undergo this radical political shift towards addressing social issues, led by teachers (Counts 1932: 54), seems highly improbable for Bourdieu. For Counts, subverting this towards social change would require teachers to risk a great deal of retaliation in order to make attempts at establishing themselves as a progressive social force (Counts 1932: 28). But for Bourdieu, this approach is reliant on dissent from state actors, an unlikely mode of social change (Bourdieu 1998: 38).

American (Progressive) Education and Social Reproduction

Bourdieu’s distrust of the state as capable of orchestrating progressive social change, through the school, is rooted in his theory of the state, school and social reproduction (Bourdieu 1998: 19). Counts too is wary of the school operating as an agent of social change but for different reasons. While Counts’ wariness lies in the state of American/Progressive education which is largely apolitical and without a theory of social welfare, but subject to change (Counts 1932: 5,7), Bourdieu is skeptical of the state school to change at all through its own efforts (Bourdieu 1998: 38). To make his point, Counts focuses on Progressive Education (PE) which aims at child centeredness at the expense of social justice. PE lacks any real social critique due to the constituency it largely serves and those leading the charge, upper middle class liberals (Counts 1932: 7). This dominant group, for Counts, is why PE is incapable of sparking social change. They are largely focused on supporting their same way of life, parents reproducing their own image in their children, leading to a “neutral” education that conserves the social order (Counts 1932:9). Bourdieu would wholly agree with this sentiment in that the school operates to preserve the interests of the dominant social order as mediated by the state (Bourdieu 1998: 36,46). For Bourdieu a great deal of culture is reproduced by way of the state and the school. The school imposes particular theories of history that inculcate students into a conception of state and country as natural and legitimate (Bourdieu 1998: 46). This represents reproduction of the state through the school is a matter of function for Bourdieu, while a matter of social circumstance for Counts.

Bourdieu then extends this a bit further to the family. Bourdieu’s family is an extension of the social order. Through marriage and other familial constructions, the family plays a key role in social reproduction (Bourdieu 1998: 64). This is possible due to the family being subjected to the “juridical and political construction” of the state; the “private” becomes “public” and vice versa (Bourdieu 1998:72). Also, for Counts, the state-family interplay in reproducing the social order is squarely evident for him in the tendency for the PE movement of his day to largely have support of a social class prioritizing child development into the world as it is, unconcerned with disrupting social systems (Counts 1932: 9).

Disrupting Social Orders

In response to Counts’ call for a new democratic ethos and a rebuke of capitalism, Bourdieu’s theories of power and capital pose how a disruption of political, cultural and economic capital orders are possible. For Bourdieu, in the example of the Soviet conflicts in east Germany, he suggests it is those with academic capital who are most poised to disrupt political capital and refute dominant forms of legitimate power relations (Bourdieu 1998: 17). Counts agrees that intellectuals hold a great deal of influence, particularly within the PE movement, but are without great conviction to push forward a new social order (Counts 1932: 22). It is unclear where Bourdieu would see the feasibility of the intellectuals to have strong enough convictions to challenge the social order. However, in order to produce a “real socialism” he does posit that it would require an alliance with “the dominated,” those susceptible to “common or garden capitalism” (Bourdieu 1998: 17). For Counts, that would be an attempt to get socially concerned progressive intellectuals and teachers to take firmer social stances, in direct opposition to capitalism (Counts 1932: 48). Where the two really depart, is with whom the change is to originate. Counts, who largely puts it on teachers, is out of step with Bourdieu on the reluctance of a state actor, particularly a teacher, to work against the academic order (Bourdieu 1998: 38). It is important to note that in his description of a “real socialism” movement, Bourdieu does not discount “minor state bureaucrats” as potentially participating in social movements (Bourdieu 1998: 17). For him it really is the school where he holds a great deal of reservation in putting forth social change. If there is to be a countervailing force to the established order, it seems to be an assemblage of folks at different echelons of capital to put forth a social movement (Bourdieu 1998: 17-18). 

CONCLUSION

George S. Counts indictment of the Progressive Education movement, American education more broadly, capitalism and the political order of his time offers a critical theory of the school and the social order, and the pivotal role the school plays in progressive movements. For him, the school can and should operate as a political entity in support of social change, but is largely kept back by larger logics of capitalism, vapid forms of democracy, and a reluctance to see the school/teacher as a political operator. His assertion that in feigning neutrality the school actually operates in political support of conservatism is an important acknowledgement. It positions the school as an avoidable tool of political operation that should be reoriented in explicit service of social welfare and inequality. The mechanism to do this lies squarely with the teacher and I think this is where some of the weaknesses in his argument come in. 

At least within the United States, the teacher of today occupies an incredibly precarious labor position. Teachers are generally underpaid and overworked, and face both public and state scrutiny. Their emotional and temporal capacity to then engage in activist pedagogies, while important, could in fact be quite dangerous. Counts’ theory does little to acknowledge this reality. This difficulty is then compounded by his focus on capitalism as a driver of individualism over collectivism in support of a new social and democratic ethos. I do not doubt the school and teacher play a significant role in the social order, but I am left skeptical in their strength to combat such large scale dominant logics. Counts does not seem to reconcile the school as an entity of state which operates under the very logics he is trying to have the (progressive) school refute. Counts does, however, maintain that the school is not an “all-powerful educational agency” (Counts 1932: 22). In doing so he begins to qualify the extent to which the school will operate as a social force. Counts makes the point that any “Progressive school” need only use whatever power it may have in “...opposing and checking social forces of conservatism…” (Counts 1932: 23). Even in light of this point, Counts’ theory of the school and social change could benefit from reconciling the school as a state entity, and underscoring the challenges faced by the teacher in any activism that may go against their own school and the families that their students come from.

What Count’s offers is a challenge to scholastic neutrality and a strong argument for why denying the political reality of education bolsters its political strength in support of conservatism, and preserving the social order. He also gives us a new framework of the teacher to engage with in light of the social issues at play within the United States. Reading Counts provides for a broader critique of liberalism within the US, especially in the current contemporary age of social justice co-optation in the school. The larger social forces of capitalism, industrial feudalism, and a lacking democratic ethos pushes us to consider what is at stake in avoiding this work. Reading Counts does well to put them all together and take schooling far more seriously as a complex bureaucracy governing a great deal of the development of youth. 

REFERENCES 

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1998. Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Counts, George S. 1932. Dare The School Build a New Social Order. John Day Company.

Curtis, Dalton B. 2022. “George S. Counts.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved May 16, 2023 (https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-S-Counts).

Westheimer, Joel. n.d. “George S. Counts (1889–1974) - Sociology and Education, Social Reform, Political Activism, Contribution.” Education Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 16, 2023 (https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1891/Counts-George-S-1889-1974.html).