Whose America?: Culture Wars in the Public SchoolsWhat do America's children learn about American history, American values, and human decency? Who decides? In this absorbing book, Jonathan Zimmerman tells the dramatic story of conflict, compromise, and more conflict over the teaching of history and morality in twentieth-century America. In history, whose stories are told, and how? As Zimmerman reveals, multiculturalism began long ago. Starting in the 1920s, various immigrant groups--the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, even the newly arrived Eastern European Jews--urged school systems and textbook publishers to include their stories in the teaching of American history. The civil rights movement of the 1960s and '70s brought similar criticism of the white version of American history, and in the end, textbooks and curricula have offered a more inclusive account of American progress in freedom and justice. But moral and religious education, Zimmerman argues, will remain on much thornier ground. In battles over school prayer or sex education, each side argues from such deeply held beliefs that they rarely understand one another's reasoning, let alone find a middle ground for compromise. Here there have been no resolutions to calm the teaching of history. All the same, Zimmerman argues, the strong American tradition of pluralism has softened the edges of the most rigorous moral and religious absolutism. |
Contents
Ethnicity and the History Wars | 15 |
Struggles over Race and Sectionalism | 34 |
Social Studies Wars in New Deal America | 57 |
The Cold War Assault on Textbooks | 83 |
Black Activism White Resistance and Multiculturalism | 109 |
GOD IN THE SCHOOLS | 133 |
Religious Education in Public Schools | 137 |
School Prayer and the Conservative Revolution | 162 |
The Battle for Sex Education | 188 |
Searching for Common Ground | 215 |
Abbreviations | 233 |
Notes | 235 |
| 297 | |
| 299 | |
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activists African-Americans American History American Legion April argued attack Bible reading black history Board of Education Buckley Jr Calderone California campaign Carter G Catholic Charles Edward Russell Chicago Christian Church civil rights classes classroom Committee communism communist conservatives controversy Council courses Culture Wars curriculum defenders folder 12 Fries fundamentalist Harold Rugg heroes high school historians history textbooks history texts history wars ibid Jewish Jews June LCCP leaders liberal Library mainline March moral Muzzey Negro History Papers parents patriotic Paul Blanshard Philadelphia political programs protest public schools race racial released released-time religion Report Revolution Rugg's school board school districts school officials school prayer Sept sex education sexual SIECUS social studies Society South southern struggle subversive Supreme Court teach teachers tion United University Press W. E. B. Du Bois Washington Weekday Religious Education William Woodson wrote York