William G. Wraga

Biography

Bill Wraga worked for over fourteen years in New Jersey public schools as a teacher of social studies and English, high school department supervisor, and K-12 district program supervisor. He joined the University of Georgia faculty in 1995. He has taught courses in curriculum theory, development, policy, and history, in social studies education, and in the social foundations and history of education. He served as interim (founding) head of the Department of Educational Administration and Policy, where he led the development and approval of a new Ph.D. program. In 2007 he received the Russell H. Yeany, Jr., Research Award from the College of Education. He has consulted for various national, state, and local educational agencies. He has served in numerous roles for professional associations and learned societies, including as president of the AERA Research in Social Studies Education SIG, president of the Society for the Study of Curriculum History, factotum of Professors of Curriculum, and president of the Society of Professors of Education.

Areas of Expertise

  • Curriculum Theory and Development
  • History of Education
  • Social Studies Education

Interests

  • History of curriculum reform

Education

  •  Ed.D. in Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education, 1991
    Rutgers University
  •  M.A.T. in History and the Social Sciences, 1980
    University of Chicago
  •  A.B. in American Cultural History (Individualized), 1979
    Rutgers College
Download CV

Contact

Research Summary

Bill Wraga researches and writes in the areas of curriculum theory, development, policy, and history. He has examined the history of the comprehensive high school, interdisciplinary curricula, the activities of national education commissions, issue-centered education, the case method of instruction, team teaching, the general education movement, the lifework of Alexander James Inglis, classics education, life adjustment education, progressive education in the US and the UK, curriculum reform in the US South during the 1930s and 1940s, and the work of the pragmatic progressives. He has published two sole-authored books, three co-edited books, 13 chapters in books, over 60 journal articles, 23 book and essay reviews, and 24 contributions to scholarly reference works. He has published op-ed pieces and letters-to-editors on curriculum policy issues, including charter schools and the Common Core State Standards.

Publications

Articles

Clinical technique, tacit resistance: Progressive education experimentation in the Jim Crow South.
  • Wraga, W. G.
  • History of Education Quarterly, 59, no. 2 (May 2019), 227-256.
The pragmatic progressives.
  • Wraga, W. G.
  • American Educational History Journal, 46, no. 2 (2019), 111-129.
Condescension and critical sympathy: Historians of education on progressive education in the United States and England.
  • Wraga, W. G.
  • Paedagogica Historica, 50, nos. 1-2, (February-April 2014), 59-75.
Curtail accountability, cultivate attainability.
  • Wraga, W. G
  • Kappa Delta Pi Record, 47, no. 4 (2011), 149-151.
What’s the problem with a ‘rigorous academic curriculum’?: Setting new terms for students’ school experiences.
  • Wraga, W. G.
  • The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 84, no. 2 (2011), 59-64.
Toward a connected core curriculum.
  • Wraga, W. G.
  • Educational Horizons, 78, no. 2 (Winter 2009), 88-96.

Awards and Accolades

Russell H. Yeany, Jr. Research Award

College of Education, University of Georgia, 2007