抄録
The present essay re-examines the concept of indoctrination in Social Reconstructionism. The 1930s witnessed two discourses about the relationship of indoctrination and education. Some people such as Boyd Bode and John Dewey advocated discriminating education from indoctrination, while others including J. S. Counts and J. Childs pointed to the necessity of indoctrination for the reconstruction of the capitalist society. Their difference derived from their different concepts of indoctrination.
Childs, who didn't use the tern “indoctrination”, was opposed to indoctrinating children with absolute values and beliefs. In a series of debate in the 1930s, Bode argued that the aim of schooling was not to indoctrinate pupils with democratic values, but to emancipate individuals' intelligence. Childs put into question the validity of such a distinction between the education for intelligence and the value for democracy. He criticized Bode's theory which could not separate methods and aims in actual educational practice. Childs also alerted to the inevitable guidance and judgments on the part of teachers in the process of education. From his perspective, education could not be neutral and, as a consequence, it was important to clarify teachers' points of view of education. Childs' philosophy of experimentalism shows us the significance of a critical analysis of teachers' frames of reference.
