Culture Wars in American Schools

Catalog description

This course will examine the history of “culture wars” in American public schools in the twentieth century, including debates over curriculum and who has the power to make decisions about education. Using primary and secondary sources, we'll look at debates over American history, school prayer, evolution, sex education, Americanization, and parents' rights among other topics. We'll explore how these debates over school curriculum, aims, and control raise important questions about majority and minority rights, the existence and meaning of a common national culture and narrative, and the role of schooling in a democracy. We'll use this history to think critically and with perspective about some of these debates in our current moment.