| Title: |
Examining 'The Mormon Puzzle': Progressive Education and Mormon Educational Ideas in Late Nineteenth-Century Utah |
| Language: |
English |
| Authors: |
Isaac Calvert (ORCID 0000-0002-3477-6646); A. LeGrand Richards; Jessica Ashcraft |
| Source: |
History of Education Quarterly. 2025 65(1):53-90. |
| Availability: |
Cambridge University Press. 100 Brook Hill Drive, West Nyack, NY 10994. Tel: 800-872-7423; Tel: 845-353-7500; Fax: 845-353-4141; e-mail: subscriptions_newyork@cambridge.org; Web site: https://www.cambridge.org/core/what-we-publish/journals |
| Peer Reviewed: |
Y |
| Page Count: |
38 |
| Publication Date: |
2025 |
| Document Type: |
Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive |
| Descriptors: |
Progressive Education; Religious Cultural Groups; Summer Programs; Institutes (Training Programs); Educational History; Christianity; Educational Improvement; Educational Philosophy; Migration; Geographic Isolation |
| Geographic Terms: |
Utah |
| DOI: |
10.1017/heq.2024.63 |
| ISSN: |
0018-2680; 1748-5959 |
| Abstract: |
This article describes the multifaceted origins and dynamics of pedagogic progressive educational ideas among Mormon educators in the Utah Territory during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We propose four principal avenues through which progressive educational ideas reached these Mormon educators. These include the exigencies of desert frontier living that predisposed early Utah Mormons to progressivism's focus on practical education; the arrival of denominational schools sponsored by the New West Education Commission (NWEC), which sparked educative improvement within Mormon communities; the Pestalozzian teachings of Karl Maeser via the Brigham Young Academy's Normal School; and the visits of eastern progressive educationalists through Benjamin Cluff's leadership at the BYA Summer Institutes. We additionally situate nineteenth-century national perceptions of Mormon educational ideas within this more nuanced backdrop of the migration of progressive ideas to Utah. We describe unique dimensions of Mormon educational progressivism that might set it apart from educational progressivisms elsewhere, including tensions within Utah's Mormon educative community. |
| Abstractor: |
As Provided |
| Entry Date: |
2025 |
| Accession Number: |
EJ1471606 |
| Database: |
ERIC |