"As original and enlightening a piece of historical work as I have read in the field of education in many years.”—John Modell, Brown University
“An absorbing and persuasive account that imaginatively reconstructs the different ways in which families, schools, and jobs shaped the lives of working class children and taught them what to forget.”—David Tyack, Stanford University
(David Tyack )
“A local study with far-reaching implications, it is a major contribution to understanding of the interaction of parents, children, and school in the period which witnessed the emergence of modern childhood and adolescence.”—Hugh Cunningham, author of Children and Childhood in Western Society since 1500
(Hugh Cunningham )
"As original and enlightening a piece of historical work as I have read in the field of education in many years."—John Modell, Brown University
(John Modell )
“Learning to Forget reminds us that schooling is not just about education. Lassonde’s terrific analysis of Italian Americans in New Haven illuminates how it also altered relationships between parents and children, changed ethnic and class identities, and produced a new national youth culture by the 1930s.”—Lizabeth Cohen, author of A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America
(Lizabeth Cohen )
"Stephen Lassonde’s book is a special window into the complex role of the schools in the immigrant experience and the evolution of the American family. As Lassonde has shown with such poignancy for New Haven, schools create opportunity for new generations, but not easily as families struggle to survive, nurture and prosper. This book works because it is sensitive to the pain and joy of so many generations of families who have grown up in New Haven." —Rosa DeLauro, Congresswoman representing the Third District of Connecticut
(Rosa DeLauro )
“This meticulously researched study traces in rich detail the transformation of urban ethnic and immigrant children from wage earners into full-time students. Vivid first-hand accounts reveal how profoundly prolonged schooling altered working-class children’s self-image, aspirations, everyday experiences, and place in their families.”—Steven Mintz, author of Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood
(Steven Mintz )
“Lassonde weaves a rich and innovative narrative of the dynamic of school, family, class and ethnicity. Learning to Forget is a major contribution to the history of childhood and youth.”—William A. Corsaro, Indiana University
(William A. Corsaro )
"The historical impact of public schooling on white working-class families is addressed skillfully by Stephen Lassonde in Learning to Forget. . . . [An] ambitious book."—Ivan Greenberg, Tranformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy
(Ivan Greenberg
Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy )
This insightful book offers an original view of the complex relations between home and school in the working class immigrant Italian community of New Haven, from 1870 to 1940. Through the lenses of history, sociology, and education, the book provides an account of one generation’s suspicions toward public education and another’s need to assimilate.
