General Education for a Closed Society: Neo-Puritanism in American Civic Education after World War II

SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: https://sagepub.com

Y

21

General Education; Civics; Politics of Education; Ideology; Religion; Educational Trends; Educational Change; Authoritarianism; Freedom; Educational Practices; Educational Research; Educational History; Humanism; Christianity; Higher Education; United States History

10.1177/01614681221087298

0161-4681
1467-9620

Background/Context: This research is framed by both the historical lineage of the New Civics and the legacy of educational and curricular debates in the United States. It contributes to the literature on mid-20th century education. Purpose and Research Questions: This study explores the relationship between religion, civics, and education through the lens of university and faculty leaders at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale Universities in the mid-20th century. Research questions include (a) What were some of the major trends in curricular reform before totalitarianism emerged as an idea or concept, and how were they related to questions of freedom? (b) In the mid-to-late 1930s, how did the presidents of Harvard, Princeton, and Yale view the idea of totalitarianism/authoritarianism and its potential impact on these earlier reform efforts? In addition, what role did trustees, students, faculty, and other constituents play in these conversations? (c) What educational proposals were offered as solutions or counterattacks to totalitarian ideas? (d) What lessons can we draw today from these debates about educating for freedom? Research Design: This study utilized a historical case study design based on intellectual, educational, and cultural history. I examined more than 30 archival collections at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale; my focus was on curricular meeting minutes, presidential papers, dean's papers, and individual manuscripts. Findings/Results: Most literature on 20th-century American education and civics focuses on secularization. My research instead emphasizes the dynamic relationship between religion and education, including the ways in which educational practices became religious in form and purpose. I illuminate the ways in which, even after World War II, Christian supernaturalism and secular facts were thought by a coterie of faculty and university leaders to be interconnected. Educators at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale referenced Christian Humanism--a fusion of supernatural and secular--as being highly relevant to their time.

As Provided

2022

EJ1349796