El. knyga: Have a Little Faith: Religion, Democracy, and the American Public School

In Have a Little Faith historian Benjamin Justice and political philosopher Colin Macleod explore the complex and contentious relationship between religion and democracy in American public schools. Despite their different academic orientations, they reach a common conclusion: Public schooling can and should be a site for fostering mutual understanding between different faith perspectives, and for the creation of a public with shared values of reasonable compromise and reasoned discourse. In order to do that, they believe, Americans need to rethink the place of religion and democracy in our public schools. After some helpful background, the authors analyze three critical areas of religious controversy in public education today: student-led religious observances in extracurricular activities; the tension between the freedom of student expression and the need for safe, inclusive environments; and the shift from democratic, public control of schools to loosely regulated charter and voucher programs. These analyses show that resolving religious controversies in public schools must proceed from an informed understanding of the role of public schools as legitimate sites of civic education, where children learn to become reasonable citizens of a religiously pluralistic society.

It isn’t just in recent arguments over the teaching of intelligent design or reciting the pledge of allegiance that religion and education have butted heads: since their beginnings nearly two centuries ago, public schools have been embroiled in heated controversies over religion’s place  in the education system of a pluralistic nation. In this book, Benjamin Justice and Colin Macleod take up this rich and significant history of conflict with renewed clarity and astonishing breadth. Moving from the American Revolution to the present—from the common schools of the nineteenth century to the charter schools of the twenty-first—they offer one of the most comprehensive assessments of religion and education in America that has ever been published.

From Bible readings and school prayer to teaching evolution and cultivating religious tolerance, Justice and Macleod consider the key issues and colorful characters that have shaped the way American schools have attempted to negotiate religious pluralism in a politically legitimate fashion. While schools and educational policies have not always advanced tolerance and understanding, Justice and Macleod point to the many efforts Americans have made to find a place for religion in public schools that both acknowledges the importance of faith to so many citizens and respects democratic ideals that insist upon a reasonable separation of church and state. Finally, they apply the lessons of history and political philosophy to an analysis of three critical areas of religious controversy in public education today: student-led religious observances in extracurricular activities, the tensions between freedom of expression and the need for inclusive environments, and the shift from democratic control of schools to loosely regulated charter and voucher programs.

Altogether Justice and Macleod show how the interpretation of educational history through the lens of contemporary democratic theory offers both a richer understanding of past disputes and new ways of addressing contemporary challenges.