Rury, John. “The Curious Status of the History of Education: A Parallel Perspective,” History of Education Quarterly, Winter 2006

== Summary ==
John Rury's article examines other fields within historical scholarship (History of
Science, Economic History and Legal History) and their development in order to
shed light on historians of education and their distinct scholarship (and
specialization). Other fields, including History of Science and History of the
Economy had to negotiate between professional interests. Scholarly questions
and have gone through similar developments as History of Education, especially
after the 1960s. Bailyn’s provocation in the early 1960s and his critique of
the “whiggish” history of the field was not unique to education historians, but
was an idea common to virtually all of the disciplinary history groups. The
revisionism of history of education was also part of a larger wave of
revisionist history that questioned institutions and brought in the voices of people
of color as well as class as an analytical lens. Rury argues that education
historians can serve a similar role as scientist historians who see themselves
as the “conscience” of non-historical colleagues in the sciences.  History of education scholarship needs to
engage more closely with current concerns and transcend the issues of strictly
the discipline.