Education and the American Dream: Historical Perspectives on Democracy and Education
E52.0552 and E55.0610
Joan Malczewski
e-mail: jm186@nyu.edu
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, in order to ask whether the goals of schooling might
promote or contradict the goals of particular groups who seek to benefit from public education,
and the ways in which education does or does not promote democratic ideals.
The objectives of the course are to:
1. Consider theoretical conceptions of democracy and their relationship to education.
2. Develop an understanding of educational history.
3. Analyze the changing goals and purposes of American education, given its evolution in
social and historical context.
4. Explore the relationship between education and civic engagement.
5. Gain a deeper knowledge of contemporary policy issues, examining the way in which
debates have been shaped by historical context, and evolving conceptions of democracy
and education.
COURSE MATERIALS
Required reading for this course consists of a set of articles that can be found on Blackboard, and
the following texts, which are available at the NYU Bookstore:
Richard Arum: Judging School Discipline: The Crisis of Moral Authority
Robert Dahl: On Democracy
Alexis de Toqueville: Democracy in America (also available on-line)
George Counts: Dare the Schools Build a New Social Order?
Leonard Covello: The Heart is the Teacher
Jennifer Hochschild and Nathan Scovronick: The American Dream and the Public
Schools
David Labaree: How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning
William Reese: America’s Public Schools
Course Requirements:
1. Attendance and informed participation in class discussions: Each week, students will be
expected to complete all of the reading and submit a set of three questions that critically
explore the readings for the week. In that regard, these questions should not ask for a
restatement or summary of text, but rather an attempt to make connections between texts,
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critique the author, or relate the readings to class themes. These questions should be
submitted on Blackboard, by Sunday night, in the digital dropbox. (25% of grade)
2. Midterm Paper: Students will be asked to complete a take-home exam, which will be
comprised of a set of short answer questions and some essays. For this exam, students
will be expected to demonstrate an understanding of readings and class discussions.(35%)
3. Final Project: Students will be expected to explore one issue in depth that considers the
relationship between education and democracy in contemporary culture. 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 should
utilize the readings from the course, as well as other sources, both primary and
secondary. How might the goals of public education be the same or at odds with the
goals of a particular community? How did the readings illuminate what people believed
about teaching and learning at a particular time in American history? What did you learn
about competing ideals? How did different authors treat the same topic? (40% of grade)
GRADING
You should note carefully the dates that written assignments are due – late assignments will be
taken into account in assigning grades.
Any student attending NYU who needs 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.
Community and Democracy – The Early Years
September 3: Introduction
September 8 and 10: What is Democracy?
Robert Dahl: On Democracy
September 15: Democracy and Conceptions of Community
Alexis de Toqueville: Democracy in America – Chapters 10 – 15, Books II and III
September 17
Benjamin Barber, “The Compromised Republic”
Sheldon Wolin, “Democracy without the Citizen”
John Rawls, “Political Liberalism”
II. Education as a “Fourth Branch of Government”
September 22: Primary Documents in the Development of a Public System of
Schooling
Massachusetts Old Deluder Satan Law of 1647
Benjamin Rush: “Thought Upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic”
Thomas Jefferson: “Notes on the State of Virginia, 1743”
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Horace Mann: “Tenth Annual Report” and “Twelfth Annual Report”
September 24 – What are Schools For? The Development of a Public System of
Schooling
William Reese: America’s Public Schools, Intro, Chapters 1 and 2
III. Relationships Between Community and Schooling
September 29: The Transformation of Community in the Gilded Age
Jacob Riis – How the Other Half Lives, Selections
(http://www.yale.edu/amstud/inforev/riis/title.html)
Jane Addams: “Autobiographical Notes Upon Twenty Years at Hull House”
On Poverty:
http://tigger.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/urbanexp/main.cgi?file=viewer.ptt
&mime=blank&doc=942&type=pdf"
The Resources of the Immigrant:
http://tigger.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/urbanexp/main.cgi?file=viewer.ptt
&mime=blank&doc=943&type=pdf
October 1: The Transformation of Community in the Gilded Age
John Dewey: The Public and its Problems, Chapters 4 and 5
Walter Lippman: The Phantom Public, selections
October 6 - 8: Expansion and evolution in public education
Take-home exam to be distributed in class
William Reese: America’s Public Schools, Chapters 3-4
David Labaree, How to Succeed in Schools, Introduction and Chapter 1
Jospeh Mayer Rice: “The Public School System of the United States,” The
Forum, Chapters 1 - 4
http://books.google.com/books?id=_c8WAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22Joseph+M
ayer+Rice%22+The+forum+%22The+Public+School+System+of+the+
United+States%22&pg=PP1&ots=qL4YOB82A3&source=citation&sig=
zZ9nzwN1yCGWPb_pTq0qKEZctVc&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&res
num=11&ct=result#PPA15,M1
October 13: University Holiday – no class
October 15: “Americanizing” the Schools and the Quest for Inclusion: Coeducation
Exam due in class
David Tyack and Elisabeth Hanson: Learning Together, selections
IV. Diversity, Communities, and Democracy in Education
October 20: Americanizing” the Schools and the Quest for Inclusion: Immigration
Jonathan Zimmerman: Whose America?: Culture Wars in the Public Schools,
Chapter 1 – 3
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Leonard Covello: The Heart is the Teacher, Chapters 4-9, 12,14,17,19-27
October 22: Americanizing” the Schools and the Quest for Inclusion: Immigration
Paula Fass: Outside In, selections
October 27: African Americans and Education – Post-bellum Schooling and Beyond
W.E.B. Du Bois – The Souls of Black Folk and “The Talented Tenth”
The Souls of Black Folk:
http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/DubSoul.html Chapters II –
IV, VI, IX
“The Talented Tenth”
http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/1148.htm
Selections from Booker T. Washington – Up From Slavery
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/WASHINGTON/toc.html Chapters II
– VIII, X, XIV
October 29: Schooling and Desegregation
Jennifer Hochschild and Nathan Scovronick: The American Dream and the Public
Schools - Introduction, Chapter 1, 2
November 3: What Are New Schools For?
George Counts: Dare the Schools Build a New Social Order?
November 5: What are New Schools For?
David Labaree, How to Succeed in Schools, selections
November 10: Local Communities versus Central Control
Jeffrey Moran: The Scopes Trial, selections- Part I
November 12: Local Communities versus Central Control
Jerald Podair: The Strike that Changed New York – Introduction - Chapter 3
“Eyes on the Prize”
November 17: 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
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
Due: Proposal due for final paper
November 24: Democracy in the Schools: Student Discipline
Richard Arum: Judging School Discipline
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November 26: no class
December 1: Democracy in the Schools: Student Rights
Free Speech Movement digital archives: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/FSM/
Robbie 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
Student Press Law Report – Selections
December 3: Education in Contemporary Civil Society
Jennifer Hochschild and Nathan Scovronick: The American Dream and the Public
Schools - Chapter 6-8
December 8: Final Class – Summary and Discussion of Final Papers
December 15: Final Papers Due
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