SCHWAB, JOSEPH J.

SCHWAB, JOSEPH J. (1909–1988), U.S. educator, who emphasized the study of the philosophies of education and science in connection with the preparation of school curricula. Born in Columbus, Mississippi, Schwab began to teach at the University of Chicago in 1936 and was appointed professor of natural sciences in 1953. Although his interest was in general education, he was also concerned with Jewish education, as indicated by his paper The Religiously Oriented School in the United States: Memorandum on Policy (1964). He served as editor of the first experimental editions of the textbooks of the American Institute of Biological Sciences and as supervisor of its Teachers' Handbook. He was on the academic board of the Melton Research Center for Jewish education at the jewish Theological Seminary of America and the consulting editor of   its Bible project textbooks. In 1938 and in 1965 he was awarded the University of Chicago's Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. His publications appeared in many professional journals. His books include Eros and Education (1958), The Teaching of Science as Enquiry (1962), Education and the Structure of the Disciplines (1961), College Curriculum and Student Protest (1969), and Science, Curriculum, and Liberal Education: Selected Essays (1978). -ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. Shulman, "Joseph Jackson Schwab," in: E. Shils (ed.), Remembering the University of Chicago (1991) 452–68; A. Block, Talmud, Curriculum, and the Practical: Joseph Schwab and the Rabbis (2004). (Abraham J. Tannenbaum / Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)