Schooling, the Puritan Imperative, and the Molding of an American National Identity PDF Download

Author: Douglas McKnight
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135631069
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
Present-day America is perceived by many as immersed in a moral crisis, with national identity fractured and uncertainty and anxiety about the future. Public schools in this country are, historically and still today, the major institution charged with preserving and teaching the symbols of national identity and a morality that is the concrete expression of those symbols and the ideas for which they stand. A widespread belief is that only through schooling can America be saved from the current "crisis," but the schools have failed in this mission and must be reformed. In this book, Douglas McKnight develops a historical interpretation of how the New England Puritans generated a powerful belief system and set of symbols that have fed American identity and contributed to preserving and perpetuating it into the present time. He explores the relationship between the purposes of education (and how this term has shifted in meaning) and the notion of an American identity and morality--rooted in the Puritan concept of an "errand into the wilderness"--that serves a particular sacred/secular purpose. The phrase "errand into the wilderness" is taken from a 1956 book by Perry Miller with this title, where it refers to the Puritan dream of creating a city in the wilderness (the North American Colonies) that would be a utopian community--a beacon for the rest of the world for how to organize and live in the ideal religious community. Highly pertinent to the current debate about the purposes and crisis in education and in America, morality in schools, the cultural function of education, the changing nature of the language of education, the complex relation of schooling and national identity, this book explicates these elements within the American psyche by exploring the effects of the Puritan "symbolic narrative" at three different points in American history: Puritans during the 1600s and 1700s; the Gilded Age, when the urban Protestant middle class ascended to cultural dominance; and the present age. Schooling, the Puritan Imperative, and the Molding of an American National Identity: Education's "Errand Into the Wilderness" makes an important contribution to the fields of curriculum studies and the history of education. It will interest students and scholars in these fields, as well as those in educational philosophy, religion and education, intellectual and social history, and American studies.

Author: Elisabeth Hultqvist
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319619713
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
This book represents a set of critical analyses of educational reforms where issues of transnational governance are of vital concern. It focuses on different aspects of, and practices in educational reform-making, and in particular on governing techniques and the working of new agencies such as supranational and multinational organizations. In addition, the book examines contemporary issues of immigration/immigrants in the politics of schooling, by reflecting on matters of migration, and problematizing how concepts such as exclusion and abjection make the migrants appear “failed”, “insufficient” and even “dangerous”. The book provides theoretical insights into critical relations between knowledge and power, governance and governmentality, and notions concerning educational systems, as well as how these are compared. The central themes of the book are models for organizing and reflecting on transnationalization and educational reforms. In its discussion of those themes, the focus lies on changing conceptions of education and the educational system; on how school or teacher education is adapting to discourses of effectiveness and efficiency; and on their transformation according to standardized templates. Such changing conceptions define the meanings of education and educational progress; they are important for the identification and analysis of educational knowledge, and for critical discourses on education in society.

Author: William H. Jeynes
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 031335104X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
This book offers an examination of the related topics of school prayer and character education in the United States, advocating for their return to public schools. According to William Jeynes, the lack of both school prayer and consistent moral instruction in our schools has had devastating consequences both for our education system and for the nation as a whole. In A Call for Character Education and Prayer in the Schools, Jeynes makes a compelling case for restoring moral instruction and nonspecific religious moments to the classroom as a way of restoring a much needed moral grounding in American society in general. A Call for Character Education and Prayer in the Schools traces the history of character education in the public schools, including coverage of leading advocates of their inclusion from Thomas Jefferson to DeWitt Clinton to Horace Mann. Jeynes then offers a broad survey of the country since the Supreme Court decisions of 1962 and 1963, asserting that most of America's greatest problems are moral in nature, and could be addressed by making moral instruction and a focus on the spiritual a part of our young citizens' school lives.

Author: JoAnn Phillion
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1412909902
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 625

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Book Description
The SAGE Handbook of Curriculum and Instruction is the first book in 15 years to comprehensively cover the field of curriculum and instruction. Editors F. Michael Connelly, Ming Fang He, and JoAnn Phillion, along with contributors from around the world, synthesize the diverse, real-world matters that define the field. This long-awaited Handbook aims to advance the study of curriculum and instruction by re-establishing continuity within the field while acknowledging its practical, contextual, and theoretical diversity. Key Features"Offers a practical vision of the field" Defines three divisions school curriculum subject matter, curriculum and instruction topics and preoccupations, and general curriculum theory. "Presents the breadth and diversity of the field" A focus on the diversity of problems, practices, and solutions, as well as continuity over time, illustrates modern curriculum and instruction while understanding historical origins."Gives an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary focus" Offers a new way of interpreting the history of curriculum studies, which connects past, present, and future, leading to more productive links between practice, policy, and politics. Intended Audience This Handbook contributes to stronger ties between school practice, public debate, policy making, and university scholarship, making it a valuable resource for professors, graduate students, and practitioners in the field of education. It is an excellent choice for graduate courses in Curriculum and Instruction, Curriculum Theory and Development, Curriculum Studies, Teacher Education, and Educational Administration and Leadership. List of Contributors Mel AinscowKathryn Anderson-Levitt Rodino Anderson Michael Apple Kathryn Au William Ayers Rishi Bagrodia Cherry McGee Banks Nina Bascia Gert Biesta Donald Blumenfeld-Jones Patty Bode Robert E. Boostrom Keffrelyn D. Brown Elaine Chan Marilyn Cochran-Smith Carola Conle F. Michael Connelly Geraldine Anne-Marie Connelly Alison Cook-Sather Cheryl J. Craig Larry Cuban Jim Cummins Kelly Demers Zongyi Deng Donna Deyhle Elliot Eisner Freema Elbaz Robin Enns Frederick Erickson Manuel Espinoza Joe Farrell Michelle Fine Chris Forlin Jeffrey Frank Barry Franklin Michael Fullan Jim Garrison Ash Hartwell Ming Fang He Geneva Gay David T. Hansen Margaret Haughey John Hawkins David Hopkins Stefan Hopmann Kenneth Howe Philip Jackson Carla Johnson Susan Jurow Eugenie Kang Stephen Kerr Craig Kridel Gloria Ladson-Billings John Chi-kin Lee Stacey Lee Benjamin Levin Anne Lieberman Allan Luke Ulf Lundgren Teresa L. McCarty Gary McCulloch Barbara Means Geoffrey Milburn Janet Miller Sonia Nieto Kiera Nieuwejaar Pedro Noguera J. Wesley Null Jeannie Oakes Lynne Paine JoAnn Phillion William F. Pinar Margaret Placier Therese Quinn John Raible Bill Reese Virginia Richardson Fazel Rizvi Vicki Ross Libby Scheiern Candace Schlein William Schubert Edmund Short Jeffrey Shultz Patrick Slattery Roger Slee Linda Tuhiwai Smith Joi Spencer James Spillane Tracy Stevens David Stovall Karen Swisher Carlos Alberto Torres Ruth Trinidad Wiel Veugelers Ana Maria Villegas Sophia Villenas Leonard Waks Kevin G. Welner Ian Westbury Geoff Whitty Shi Jing Xu "

Author: Luke Winslow
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498544150
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
Our economic arrangements require a persuasive story that can explain who is rich, who is poor, and why. This story shapes our attitudes toward what is just and unjust; this story dispenses power to some and withholds it from others; and the deeply political and paradoxical nature of this story presents a valuable site of rhetorical inquiry. Economic Injustice and the Rhetoric of the American Dream fills an important scholarly gap by connecting the need to make sense of economic arrangements with the rhetoric of the American Dream. Luke Winslow examines how the rhetoric of the American Dream has emerged as a dominant cultural touchstone in oscillation with a widespread shift to individualistic explanations for economic arrangements, the arrival of neoliberalism, growing levels on inequality, and dismal rates of economic mobility. By developing the tools of rhetorical and ideological criticism this book explores the American Dream in relation to religious, economic, educational, and political institutions ranging from Prosperity Theology to the candidacy and election of Donald Trump. Recommended for scholars in Communication, Economics, Political Science, and Religious Studies.

Author: Daniel Tröhler
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317448170
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
As contemporary education becomes increasingly tied to global economic power, national school systems attempting to influence one another inevitably confront significant tensions caused by differences in heritage, politics, and formal structures. Trajectories in the Development of Modern School Systems provides a comprehensive theoretical and empirical critique of the reform movements that seek to homogenize schooling around the world. Informed by historical and sociological insight into a variety of nations and eras, these in-depth case studies reveal how and why sweeping, convergent reform agendas clash with specific institutional policies, practices, and curricula. Countering current theoretical models which fail to address the potential pressures born from these challenging isomorphic developments, this book illuminates the cultural idiosyncrasies that both produce and problematize global reform efforts and offers a new way of understanding curriculum as a manifestation of national identity.

Author: Kevin J. Burke
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 131723247X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
Using critical curriculum theory as its lens, this book explores the relationship between religion—specifically, Christianity and the Judeo-Christian ethos underlying it—and secular public education in the United States. Despite various 20th-century court decisions separating religion and education, the authors challenge that religion is in fact absent from public education, suggesting instead that it is in fact very much embedded in current public educational practices and discourses and in a variety of assumptions and perspectives underlying understandings of teaching, learning, and teacher preparation. The book reframes the discussion about religion and schooling, arguing that it remains in the language and metaphors of education, in the practices and routines of schooling, in conceptions of the "’child" and the "teacher" (and what happens between them in the spaces we call "learning," the "classroom," and "curriculum") as well as in assumptions about the role of schools emanating from such conceptions and in the current movement toward accountability, standardization, and testing. Christian Privilege in U.S. Education examines not whether Christianity has a place in public education but, rather, the very ways in which it is pervasive in a legally secular system of education even when religion is not a topic taught in school.

Author: Susan K. Harris
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199781079
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
When the U.S. liberated the Philippines from Spanish rule in 1898, the exploit was hailed at home as a great moral victory, an instance of Uncle Sam freeing an oppressed country from colonial tyranny. The next move, however, was hotly contested: should the U.S. annex the archipelago? The disputants did agree on one point: that the United States was divinely appointed to bring democracy--and with it, white Protestant culture--to the rest of the world. They were, in the words of U.S. Senator Albert Beveridge, "God's arbiters," a civilizing force with a righteous role to play on the world stage. Mining letters, speeches, textbooks, poems, political cartoons and other sources, Susan K. Harris examines the role of religious rhetoric and racial biases in the battle over annexation. She offers a provocative reading both of the debates' religious framework and of the evolution of Christian national identity within the U.S. The book brings to life the personalities who dominated the discussion, figures like the bellicose Beveridge and the segregationist Senator Benjamin Tillman. It also features voices from outside U.S. geopolitical boundaries that responded to the Americans' venture into global imperialism: among them England's "imperial" poet Rudyard Kipling, Nicaragua's poet/diplomat Rubén Darío, and the Philippines' revolutionary leaders Emilio Aguinaldo and Apolinario Mabini. At the center of this dramatis personae stands Mark Twain, an influential partisan who was, for many, the embodiment of America. Twain had supported the initial intervention but quickly changed his mind, arguing that the U.S. decision to annex the archipelago was a betrayal of the very principles the U.S. claimed to promote. Written with verve and animated by a wide range of archival research, God's Arbiters reveals the roots of current debates over textbook content, evangelical politics, and American exceptionalism-shining light on our own times as it recreates the culture surrounding America's global mission at the turn into the twentieth century.

Author: John White
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113420387X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
The nature of intelligence and how it can be measured has occupied psychologists, educationalists, biologists and philosophers for hundreds of years. However, there has been little investigation into the rise of the traditional dominant educational ideology that intelligence and IQ have innate limits and are unchanging and unchangeable. This book traces the roots of this mind set back to early puritan communities on both sides of the Atlantic, drawing parallels between puritan dogma and the development of the traditional curricula and selection processes that are still firmly embedded in school practice today. Drawing on the work of Galton, Pearson, Burt, Goddard, Terman and others in his search for the truth about intelligence testing, John White looks at the personal histories and socialised religious backgrounds of these key psychologists and casts an entirely new light on schooling in Britain and the USA in modern times. This work also shows how we can transcend this heritage and base our educational system on values and practices more in tune with the twenty-first century.

Author: Thomas S. Popkewitz
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135905185
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
In Cosmopolitanism and the Age of School Reform, noted educationalist Thomas Popkewitz explores turn-of-the-century and contemporary pedagogical reforms while illuminating their complex relation to cosmopolitanism. Popkewitz highlights how policies that include "all children" and leave "no child behind" are rooted in a philosophy of cosmopolitanism—not just in salvation themes of human agency, freedom, and empowerment, but also in the processes of abjection and the differentiation of the disadvantaged, urban, and child left behind as "Other."