Religion and American Education PDF Download

Author: Warren A. Nord
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469617455
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 502

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Book Description
Warren Nord's thoughtful book tackles an issue of great importance in contemporary America: the role of religion in our public schools and universities. According to Nord, public opinion has been excessively polarized by those religious conservatives who would restore religious purposes and practices to public education and by those secular liberals for whom religion is irrelevant to everything in the curriculum. While he maintains that public schools and universities must not promote religion, he also argues that there are powerful philosophical, political, moral, and constitutional reasons for requiring students to study religion. Indeed, only if religion is included in the curriculum will students receive a truly liberal education, one that takes seriously a variety of ways of understanding the human experience. Intended for a broad audience, Nord's comprehensive study encompasses American history, constitutional law, educational theory and practice, theology, philosophy, and ethics. It also discusses a number of current, controversial issues, including multiculturalism, moral education, creationism, academic freedom, and the voucher and school choice movements.

Author: Derek Bok
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 140086612X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 494

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Book Description
A sweeping assessment of the state of higher education today from former Harvard president Derek Bok Higher Education in America is a landmark work--a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the current condition of our colleges and universities from former Harvard president Derek Bok, one of the nation's most respected education experts. Sweepingly ambitious in scope, this is a deeply informed and balanced assessment of the many strengths as well as the weaknesses of American higher education today. At a time when colleges and universities have never been more important to the lives and opportunities of students or to the progress and prosperity of the nation, Bok provides a thorough examination of the entire system, public and private, from community colleges and small liberal arts colleges to great universities with their research programs and their medical, law, and business schools. Drawing on the most reliable studies and data, he determines which criticisms of higher education are unfounded or exaggerated, which are issues of genuine concern, and what can be done to improve matters. Some of the subjects considered are long-standing, such as debates over the undergraduate curriculum and concerns over rising college costs. Others are more recent, such as the rise of for-profit institutions and massive open online courses (MOOCs). Additional topics include the quality of undergraduate education, the stagnating levels of college graduation, the problems of university governance, the strengths and weaknesses of graduate and professional education, the environment for research, and the benefits and drawbacks of the pervasive competition among American colleges and universities. Offering a rare survey and evaluation of American higher education as a whole, this book provides a solid basis for a fresh public discussion about what the system is doing right, what it needs to do better, and how the next quarter century could be made a period of progress rather than decline.

Author: Jon Reyhner
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806180404
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
In this comprehensive history of American Indian education in the United States from colonial times to the present, historians and educators Jon Reyhner and Jeanne Eder explore the broad spectrum of Native experiences in missionary, government, and tribal boarding and day schools. This up-to-date survey is the first one-volume source for those interested in educational reform policies and missionary and government efforts to Christianize and “civilize” American Indian children. Drawing on firsthand accounts from teachers and students, American Indian Education considers and analyzes shifting educational policies and philosophies, paying special attention to the passage of the Native American Languages Act and current efforts to revitalize Native American cultures.

Author: Adam R. Nelson
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 0299236137
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Vividly revealing the multiple layers on which print has been produced, consumed, regulated, and contested for the purpose of education since the mid-nineteenth century, the historical case studies in Education and the Culture of Print in Modern America deploy a view of education that extends far beyond the confines of traditional classrooms. The nine essays examine “how print educates” in settings as diverse as depression-era work camps, religious training, and broadcast television—all the while revealing the enduring tensions that exist among the controlling interests of print producers and consumers. This volume exposes what counts as education in American society and the many contexts in which education and print intersect. Offering perspectives from print culture history, library and information studies, literary studies, labor history, gender history, the history of race and ethnicity, the history of science and technology, religious studies, and the history of childhood and adolescence, Education and the Culture of Print in Modern America pioneers an investigation into the intersection of education and print culture.

Author: Thomas Sowell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439107629
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 567

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Book Description
An indictment of the American educational system criticizes the fact that the system has discarded the traditional goals of transmitting knowledge and fostering cognitive skills in favor of building self-esteem and promoting social harmony.

Author: Mark Boonshoft
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469659549
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Following the American Revolution, it was a cliche that the new republic's future depended on widespread, informed citizenship. However, instead of immediately creating the common schools--accessible, elementary education--that seemed necessary to create such a citizenry, the Federalists in power founded one of the most ubiquitous but forgotten institutions of early American life: academies, privately run but state-chartered secondary schools that offered European-style education primarily for elites. By 1800, academies had become the most widely incorporated institutions besides churches and transportation projects in nearly every state. In this book, Mark Boonshoft shows how many Americans saw the academy as a caricature of aristocratic European education and how their political reaction against the academy led to a first era of school reform in the United States, helping transform education from a tool of elite privilege into a key component of self-government. And yet the very anti-aristocratic critique that propelled democratic education was conspicuously silent on the persistence of racial and gender inequality in public schooling. By tracing the history of academies in the revolutionary era, Boonshoft offers a new understanding of political power and the origins of public education and segregation in the United States.

Author: Kimberly A. Goyette
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520285107
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
"Education in America introduces readers to social inequality in education in the U.S. The book highlights findings from current, rigorous sociological research, covering patterns and trends in inequality in education by socioeconomic background, race, and gender, and framing them in the context of current issues and controversies such as expanded accountability and school choice policies. This book sheds light on the complexity of inequality in schools--that inequality is difficult to attribute to a single factor or explanation, and that it works differently by socioeconomic status, race, and gender. This complexity, in turn, complicates possible overarching policy solutions"--Provided by publisher.

Author: Hilary J. Moss
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226542513
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
While white residents of antebellum Boston and New Haven forcefully opposed the education of black residents, their counterparts in slaveholding Baltimore did little to resist the establishment of African American schools. Such discrepancies, Hilary Moss argues, suggest that white opposition to black education was not a foregone conclusion. Through the comparative lenses of these three cities, she shows why opposition erupted where it did across the United States during the same period that gave rise to public education. As common schooling emerged in the 1830s, providing white children of all classes and ethnicities with the opportunity to become full-fledged citizens, it redefined citizenship as synonymous with whiteness. This link between school and American identity, Moss argues, increased white hostility to black education at the same time that it spurred African Americans to demand public schooling as a means of securing status as full and equal members of society. Shedding new light on the efforts of black Americans to learn independently in the face of white attempts to withhold opportunity, Schooling Citizens narrates a previously untold chapter in the thorny history of America’s educational inequality.

Author: Dameon Alexander
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781604977943
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
American education is at a critical juncture because the traditional skills taught in schools and universities might no longer be valid to prepare students for a global economy. This is a prevailing argument in the education reform debate. Corporations are now being turned to for the solution. Regarding western educational discourse, transitional periods in education extend as far back as the Middle Ages in Europe. In America, since the turn of the century there has been an underpinning influence on education: the role of business. Yet, how often do we hold businesses accountable for their contributions to education? Business and education alliances can greatly benefit the system on both the K-12 and university levels. However, if the work that education is supposed to accomplish is underestimated and the plight of education is handed blindly over to a corporate paradigm, there might be more harm done than good. For some, it might seem unsavory that education has turned into a profitable business. For others, it is a dream come true. Although several scholars have analyzed the correspondence between education and the economy, few have examined it using a British pedagogical framework combined with an economic typology of power. The goal of this book is to explore the existence of certain capitalist realities in the American education system to find a balance between the distinct ideologies of education and business. This book is a theory-building exercise that centers on a descriptive multiple-case study of two senior high schools: a private, Jesuit school with a mission to educate students for university disciplines and a public charter school designed for career preparation, both located in Washington, D.C. A combination of survey, dialogic, observational, and documentary techniques was employed in a multi-methodological approach. This enterprise draws on Basil Bernstein's pedagogical theory of symbolic educational knowledge codes while attempting to fill a gap in its theoretical apparatus. The endeavor highlights some effects of alliances between business and education, while exploring concepts of power, critical thinking, and knowledge. A realist theoretical lens is a key component in this study where business norms are conceptualized as a social entity ontologically effectual to educational processes. Traditional forms of education are revealed to be in competition with alternative forms of education, where the high-technology age is perceived as a contributor to educational change. One of the unique analyses drawn from the research fieldwork elucidates differences between a religious paradigm and a careerist pedagogical approach. Ultimately, three contextual themes emerge from the data: entrepreneur ethics, social skills, and technology; all of these are indications of how business mores are apparent in education. The salient theme in this endeavor is the control of knowledge by institutions and/or individuals. The Imprint of Business Norms on American Education is an important book for social entrepreneurs, education reformers, education and sociological studies.

Author: Michael B. Katz
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674039378
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
One of the leading historians of education in the United States here develops a powerful interpretation of the uses of history in educational reform and of the relations among democracy, education, and the capitalist state. Michael Katz discusses the reshaping of American education from three perspectives. First is the perspective of history: How did American education take shape? The second is that of reform: What can a historian say about recent criticisms and proposals for improvement? The third is that of historiography: What drives the politics of educational history? Katz shows how the reconstruction of America’s educational past can be used as a framework for thinking about current reform. Contemporary concepts such as public education, institutional structures such as the multiversity, and modern organizational forms such as bureaucracy all originated as solutions to problems of public policy. The petrifaction of these historical products—which are neither inevitable nor immutable—has become, Katz maintains, one of the mighty obstacles to change. The book’s central questions are as much ethical and political as they are practical. How do we assess the relative importance of efficiency and responsiveness in educational institutions? Whom do we really want institutions to serve? Are we prepared to alter institutions and policies that contradict fundamental political principles? Why have some reform strategies consistently failed? On what models should institutions be based? Should schools and universities be further assimilated to the marketplace and the state? Katz’s iconoclastic treatment of these issues, vividly and clearly written, will be of interest to both specialists and general readers. Like his earlier classic, The Irony of Early School Reform (1968), this book will set a fresh agenda for debate in the field.