But wait! Doesn’t spring break warrant investigation, too?! (Thanks for the suggestion, Katie Shaw!) If you’re wondering about the cultural and political-economic history of this traditional mid-semester recess and bacchanalian rite of passage – and I’m not suggesting you should be – you might try:
- Derek Thompson, “2,000 Years of Partying: The Brief History and Economics of Spring Break,” The Atlantic (March 26, 2013).
- James, Schlitz, “Time to Grow Up: The Rise and Fall of Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale,” The Florida Historical Quarterly 93:2 (Fall 2014): 195-225.
- Ashley Doiron, Michael Dawson, and Catherine Gidney, “‘The Students Swarm to These Peaceful Shores in Droves’: An Historical Overview of the Postwar Spring Break Phenomenon,” Historical Studies in Education (Spring 2012).
- Harmony Korine, Spring Breakers (2012)
And what about the academic calendar as a whole? Different regions of the world have conventionalized very different schedules. How have we naturalized our late-August-through-mid-May routine in the US?
- Saskia de Melker and Sam Weber, “Agrarian Roots? Think Again. Debunking the Myth of Summer Vacation’s Origins,” PBS Newshour (September 7, 2014).
- James Petersen, “The History of School and Summer Vacation,” Journal of Inquiry & Action in Education 5:1 (2012).
- Kenneth M. Gold, School’s In: The History of Summer Education in American Public Schools (Peter Lang, 2002).