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Abstract
Postsecondary institutions throughout the nation's history have provided developmental education and learning assistance programs to meet the academic standards expected of admitted college students. "It can be asserted accurately that bridging the academic preparation gap has been a constant in the history of American higher education and that the controversy surrounding it is an American educational tradition" (Brier, 1984, p. 2).
The author of this article identified six phases of developmental education in American history. Each phase is naturally interconnected with the social history that surrounds and interact with them. The succeeding phase included more student subpopulations that needed support in higher education through developmental education. This article will explore the first three phases of developmental education history to provide a context for today's programs and services.
Degler observed that social change is more likely to occur as a practical response to specific events rather than as the implementation of a well-developed ideology (Degler in Chafe, 1991, p. 172). Major events such as world wars, major migrations of people, economic trends, and federal legislation will play important roles with helping to foster changes in post secondary education. These currents of history will also naturally sweep developmental education in an evolutionary development as it adapts to meet immediate needs and survives the political forces that will war against its existence. Developmental education expanded its service to more students not due to an intelligent plan, but as a natural response to growing needs by an increasingly diverse heterogeneous college student body.
Phase One: Education for the Privileged White Male, Mid 1600s to the 1820s
The first colleges such as Harvard (established 1636), William and Mary (1693), and Yale (1701) had as their main purpose the replication of postsecondary education from Europe. Among the goals of such an education was to preserve newly imported European cultural norms, training of the clergy, and creation of the new ruling elite. With the late creation of the U.S. federal government during this period, there was little involvement with postsecondary education other than to not interfere with it. Few members of American society aspired to postsecondary education since few occupations required such additional training Most young adults followed the family with apprenticeships in trades or continuing their participation with...