Whose America? : culture wars in the public schools Jonathan Zimmerman

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Zimmerman, Jonathan, 1961-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Educational sociology--United States.

Educational sociology.

Textbooks--United States.

Textbooks.

United States--History--Study and teaching.

United States.

Physical Description:

307 p. ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2002.

Summary:

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. Zimmerman argues that the strong American tradition of pluralism has softened the edges of the most rigorous moral and religious absolutism.

Contents:

Introduction : beyond Dayton and Chicago

History wars. Ethnicity and the history wars

Struggles over race and sectionalism

Social studies wars in New Deal America

The Cold War assault on textbooks

Black activism, white resistance, and multiculturalism

God in the schools. Religious education in public schools

School prayer and the conservative revolution

The battle for sex education

Epilogue : searching for common ground.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [233]-293) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Zimmerman, Jonathan, 1961- Whose America?

ISBN:

0674009185 (alk. paper)

9780674009189 (alk. paper)

0674018605 (pbk.)

9780674018600 (pbk.)

OCLC:

48957934

Online:

Book review (H-Net)