Education and the American Dream: Historical Perspectives on Democracy and Education
HSED-UE 610 and HPSE–GE 2011 -- Silver 621
Fall, 2012
Joan Malczewski
7th Floor Pless Hall
jm186@nyu.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday 12 - 1, and by appointment
This course will examine the role of education in American society. Specifically, the course will
consider different conceptions of democracy, community, and the relationship between public
schooling and the promotion of democratic ideals. Students will explore some of the central
goals and purposes of American public education over the past two centuries, and the
historiographical debates about those goals and purposes. In the second half of the course,
students will explore the relationship between schooling and civic education, and between
schooling and specific communities. Students will be asked to consider whether the goals of
schooling might promote or contradict the goals of particular groups who seek to benefit from
public education, and how education does or does not promote democratic ideals.
COURSE MATERIALS
Required reading for this course consists of a set of articles that can be found on Blackboard and
on the web, and the following texts, which are available at the NYU Bookstore:
Required
Robert Dahl, On Democracy (New Haven, Yale University Press: 1998).
Jennifer Hochschild and Nathan Scovronick: The American Dream and the Public
Schools (Oxford: 2003).
Richard Arum: Judging School Discipline: The Crisis of Moral Authority (Cambridge:
2000).
Suggested:
Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America, available on-line, but you may want to
own a copy, which is available in limited numbers at the NYU Bookstore. Ed.
Arthur Goldhammer, (Library of America, February, 2004).
Course Requirements:
1. Written Responses and Informed Participation in Class Readings and Discussion:
Students are expected to read thoroughly the assigned readings for the week and come to
class prepared to discuss the ideas and the positions raises therein. Every member of the
class is expected to play an active role in discussions and group exercises, both as an
informed participant and an engaged listener. To facilitate this participation, students
should submit a weekly response to the readings. This response will be due on Monday
each week, and will cover all of the readings for that week. This response can be either a
written essay that discussed a particular aspect of the readings, or a set of questions that
would be used to critically review the readings. Your response should not focus on just
one reading, but rather assimilate and critically consider the body of work for that week.
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This might include a comparison between authors perspectives for that week, or with
authors from other weeks. In addition, as noted on the syllabus, there will be four
comprehensive essays due during the semester. On the weeks that these are due, students
do not also have to write a weekly response paper. (20%)
2. Comprehensive Essays: Students will be expected to submit four essays during the
semester, 3 – 5 pages each. Questions will be posted on Blackboard throughout the
semester. These questions will explore important themes presented in the readings and
class discussions and will help students to respond critically to these ideas. (Due
September 26, October 24, November 14, December 5 (40%)
3. Final Project: Students will be expected to explore one issue in depth that considers the
relationship between education and democracy in contemporary culture. According to
Robert Dahl, a democratic political society is dependent upon citizens having access to
alternative sources of information – and a free press is an important source.1 Students
should be regularly reading the news and should explore articles that relate to the course.
One of these articles should be used as the basis for your final paper. In this paper,
students will be asked to provide historical context for the issue, describe the goals of
particular constituencies, and develop their own response to the issue. Students will be
expected to utilize the readings from the course, both primary and secondary. The essay
should include a well-developed thesis statement, a set of arguments, and a clear
conclusion. Each paper should explore the following questions: how the goals of public
education might be the same or at odds with the goals of a particular community; how the
readings illuminate what people believed about teaching and learning at a particular time
in American history; an analysis of competing ideals; how different authors treated the
same topic; and, your own analysis of the topic based on this information. I encourage
you to e-mail me a paper proposal by November 30 so that we can discuss any questions
or concerns. Final Paper Due December 17. (40%)
GRADING
You should note carefully the dates that written assignments are due – late assignments will be
taken into account in assigning grades. Please note that papers will not be accepted via e-mail.
All papers must be submitted either in class or in my mailbox on the 7th floor of Pless Hall.
Students who need an accommodation due to a chronic psychological, visual, mobility and/or
learning disability, or is deaf or hard of hearing, should register with the Moses Center for
Students with Disabilities at 212 998-4980, 240 Greene Street, www.nyu.edu/csd.
COURSE SCHEDULE
I. Education in a Democracy
September 5: Introduction
September 10: What is Democracy and Introduction to the Free Speech Movement
with Professor Robert Cohen
1
Robert Dahl, On Democracy, (New Haven, 1997), 97.
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Robert Dahl: On Democracy, Chapters 3 – 8, 12 required, remaining chapters
suggested
September 12: Exploring one facet of the relationship between democracy, education
and policy: The Free Speech Movement at Berkeley
Guest Lecturer: Professor Bettina Aptheker
Robert Cohen, “This was their right, and they had to fight,” chapter from The
Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960’s, ed. Robert
Cohen and Reginald Zelnick
View the Speech by Mario Savio, December 2, 1964 on You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcx9BJRadfw
Robert Cohen, “Speaking out and Sitting In,” in Freedom’s Orator: Mario Savio
and the Radical Legacy of the 1960’s (Oxford: 2009), 178 - 208
II. Education as a “Fourth Branch of Government”
September 17: No Class
September 19: What are Schools For? The Development of a Public System of
Schooling
Karl Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic, (New York: 1983), Chapters 1 – 5
Massachusetts Old Deluder Satan Law of 1647 ** (James W. Fraser, ed., The
School in the United States: A Documentary History, McGraw Hill, 2001, p.
8)
Thomas Jefferson: “Notes on the State of Virginia, 1743”** (James W. Fraser,
The School in the United States: A Documentary History, McGraw Hill, 2001,
p. 24 - 27)
Benjamin Rush: “Thought Upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic”
(James W. Fraser, The School in the United States: A Documentary History,
McGraw Hill, 2001, p. 27 - 31)
Horace Mann: “Tenth Annual Report” and “Twelfth Annual Report” in Lawrence
A. Cremin, ed. The Republic and the School: Horace Mann on the Education
of Free Men, (New York: Teachers College Press, 1957)
III. Relationships Between Community and Schooling
September 24: Democracy and Conceptions of Community
Alexis de Toqueville: Democracy in America: Volume 1, Chapters XII – XVI and
Volume 2, Chapter XXVI and XXVII; Chapter XXXV. URL provided on
Blackboard.
Benjamin Barber, “The Compromised Republic”
Sheldon Wolin, “Democracy without the Citizen”
John Rawls, “Political Liberalism”
September 26: No Class
First Essay Due: Question posted on Blackboard
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October 1: The Transformation of Community in the Gilded Age
Cobbs-Hoffman, Elizabeth and Jon Gjerde, ed., “Industrialization, Workers and
the New Immigration,” in Major Problems in American History, Volume
II: Since 1865 (Boston: 2002), 66 – 96.
Jacob Riis – How the Other Half Lives, Selections
Read through as many chapters as possible to get a sense of the book, and
specifically look at chapters 5, 6, 9, 10, 12- 16, 18, 20 - 22
Jane Addams: “Autobiographical Notes Upon Twenty Years at Hull House”
Chapters 6, 8 and 11.
October 3: Expansion and evolution in public education
Herbert Kliebard: The Struggle for the American Curriculum, Chapter 1
Jospeh Mayer Rice: “The Public School System of the United States,” originally
written for The Forum, (New York: 1893). Chapters 1, plus one other
chapter
“Report of the Committee on Secondary School Studies,” Commissioned by the
National Education Association (Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1893)
Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, 1918
October 8 - 10: The role of the public
John Dewey: The Public and its Problems, Chapters 4 and 5
Walter Lippman: The Phantom Public, Chapters I - VII, Chapter XIII, XVI
October 15: No Class – University Holiday
IV. Diversity, Communities, and Democracy in Education
October 17: Women and Education
David Tyack and Elisabeth Hansot, Learning Together: A History of Coeducation
in American Public Schools** Chapters 2, 4, 5, 8
Nancy Cott, “Equal Rights and Economic Roles: The Conflict over the Equal
Rights Amendment in the 1920’s,” in Women’s America, (New York:
2011), 441-451.
Primary Document Packet –
 Catherine Beecher, “Peculiar Responsibilities of American Women,”
Chapter 1 in Treatise on Domestic Economy (Boston: 1842)
 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Declaration of Sentiments, 1848,”in
Women’s America, ed., Linda Kerber, Jane Sherron De Hart, Cornelia
Hughes Dayton ((New York, Oxford University Press: 2011), 264 –
266.
 Margaret Haley, “Why Teachers Should Organize,”
 “The Civil Rights Act, Title VII, 1964.
 Equal Rights Amendment, 1972
 Title IX, Education Amendments of 1972
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
“Meritor Savings Bank v. Mechelle Vinson et al., 1986,” and Violence
against Women Act, 1994, 2000, 2005,” in Women’s America, 741 –
745.
October 22 -24: African Americans and Education – Post-bellum Schooling and
Beyond
W.E.B. Du Bois – The Souls of Black Folk and “The Talented Tenth”
Booker T. Washington – Up From Slavery
Primary Document Packet on Blackboard
Second Essay Due: Question posted on Blackboard
October 29: Americanizing” the Schools and the Quest for Inclusion
Jonathan Zimmerman: Whose America?: Culture Wars in the Public Schools** ,
Chapter 1 – 3
Leonard Covello: The Heart is the Teacher**, Read through as much of the book
as possible, and look specifically at Chapters 4-9, 12,14,17,19-27
October 31: What Are New Schools For?
Cobbs-Hoffman, Elizabeth and Jon Gjerde, ed., “The Depression, the New Deal
and Franklin D. Roosevelt,” in Major Problems in American History,
Volume II: Since 1865 (Boston: 2002), 215 - 244.
George Counts: Dare the Schools Build a New Social Order?, Chapter 1-3.
November 5 - 7: Local Communities versus Central Control
Jeffrey Moran: The Scopes Trial **, selections- Part I
Jonathan Zimmerman: Whose America?: Culture Wars in the Public Schools** ,
Chapter 6– 8
Jerald Podair: The Strike that Changed New York **– Introduction - Chapter 3
“Eyes on the Prize” – to be viewed in class
November 12: Schooling and Desegregation
Jennifer Hochschild and Nathan Scovronick: The American Dream and the Public
Schools - Introduction, Chapter 1, 2
“Achievement Gap,” in Education Week, published August 3, 2004 and updated
July 7, 2011
Gary Olfield, “Reviving the Goal of an Integrated Society: A 21st Century
Challenge,” from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, published January 1,
2009
November 14: The Individual v. the Community: How should money be spent?
Jennifer Hochschild and Nathan Scovronick: The American Dream and the Public
Schools - Introduction, Chapter 3 – 5
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Third Essay Due: Question posted on Blackboard
V. Democracy in the Schools
November 19: Democracy in the Schools: The Profession
Gerald Grant and Christine Murray: Teaching in America – the Slow
Revolution,** chapter 6 - 8
November 21: No Class
November 26: Democracy in the Schools: Student Rights
Gael Graham, “The High School Student Rights Movement,” in Young Activists:
American High School Students in the Age of Protest (DeKalb: 2006).
Student Press Law Report
November 28: Democracy in the Schools: Student Discipline
Guest Speaker: Professor Richard Arum
Richard Arum: Judging School Discipline
December 3 - 5: Education in Contemporary Civil Society
David Labaree, How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning: The
Credentials Race in American Education, Chapters 1 – 4
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Executive Summary
The Education Trust, “ESEA: Myths versus Realities: Answers to Common
Questions about the NCLB”
Au, Wayne, “No Child Left Untested: The NCLB Zone,” in Rethinking Schools
(Fall, 2004).
Evans, Ronald, “The Runaway Train of Standards Reform,” in The Social Studies
Wars (New York: 2004), pp. 149 – 174.
Fourth Essay Due: Question posted on Blackboard
December 10: Separation and Inclusion – Challenging the American Dream
Jennifer Hochschild and Nathan Scovronick: The American Dream and the Public
Schools - Chapter 6-8
December 12: Final Class – Summary and Discussion of Final Papers
December 17: Final Papers Due – Deposit in mailbox, Pless Hall, 7th Floor
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