Why Some Reforms Last: The Case of the Kindergarten

This article explores the puzzle of how some school reforms survive and get institutionalized and others do not. The history of the kindergarten is used as a case study of how an intended reform aimed at fundamentally altering the conduct of public schooling at the turn of the twentieth century gets integrated into the formal structure by the 1930s and, in the process, becomes transformed into an incremental change. In this process of integration, however, distinctive features of the reform remain intact. The analysis suggests the power of one institution to adapt and reshape reforms.