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Constraint and Variety in American Education
In these three lectures and the accompanying special introduction for the Anchor edition, one of the most searching and brilliant analysts of American culture throws light on the enormous and confused field of education.
- GenresEducation
174 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1977
25 people want to read
About the author
David Riesman
90 books40 followersDavid Riesman was an American sociologist, attorney, and educator.
After graduating from Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review, Riesman clerked for Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis from 1935-1936. He also taught at the University of Buffalo Law School.
Riesman's 1950 book, The Lonely Crowd, a sociological study of modern conformity, which postulates the existence of the "inner-directed" and "other-directed" personalities. Riesman argues that the character of post WWII American society impels individuals to "other-directedness", the preeminent example being modern suburbia, where individuals seek their neighbors approval and fear being outcast from their community. This lifestyle has a coercive effect, which compels people to abandon "inner-direction" of their lives, and induces them to take on the goals, ideology, likes, and dislikes of their community. Ironically, this creates a tightly grouped crowd of people that is yet incapable of truly fulfilling each other's desire for companionship. The book is considered a landmark study of American character. Riesman was a major public intellectual as well as a sociologist, representing an early example of what sociologists now call "public sociology."
After graduating from Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review, Riesman clerked for Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis from 1935-1936. He also taught at the University of Buffalo Law School.
Riesman's 1950 book, The Lonely Crowd, a sociological study of modern conformity, which postulates the existence of the "inner-directed" and "other-directed" personalities. Riesman argues that the character of post WWII American society impels individuals to "other-directedness", the preeminent example being modern suburbia, where individuals seek their neighbors approval and fear being outcast from their community. This lifestyle has a coercive effect, which compels people to abandon "inner-direction" of their lives, and induces them to take on the goals, ideology, likes, and dislikes of their community. Ironically, this creates a tightly grouped crowd of people that is yet incapable of truly fulfilling each other's desire for companionship. The book is considered a landmark study of American character. Riesman was a major public intellectual as well as a sociologist, representing an early example of what sociologists now call "public sociology."
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 11, 2025
Most of the immediately valuable elements are in the first essay and portions of the second. This is because the first discusses post-secondary institutional isomorphism, a phenomenon which is strikingly consistent years later. The second essay on faculty socialization in the social sciences has its moments, but many elements will be more appropriately read as time capsules. The third essay is the hardest to connect to as secondary education is actually so much less recognizable than the picture he paints.
There's plenty of nuggets, but you need to know why you're reading the book. If you want applicable material, it comes and goes. But if you want a sense of what some pressing issues were and how they were discussed in the late 1950's, this can be a good volume for that endeavor.
There's plenty of nuggets, but you need to know why you're reading the book. If you want applicable material, it comes and goes. But if you want a sense of what some pressing issues were and how they were discussed in the late 1950's, this can be a good volume for that endeavor.
Displaying 1 of 1 review