Teaching about religion in the public schools of the United States

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston UniversityProblem and Limitation. Our society has become increasingly alarmed with what is apparently a weakening of ethical conduct. This result has at least been coincidental with a failure to recognize the significance of religion for daily life. Tbe public school, by its limited handling of religion, has contributed to this situation. Among the various proposals for remedying the condition, while maintaining the American principle of separation of Church and State, teaching about religion is held in high regard. Although there have been several studies advocating teaching about religion in public education, it remained to be seen whether or not a suitable teacher guide could be prepared for this purpose. The need of such a guide has called into being this work. The study under consideration has been curtailed by: (1) other works in the field, (2) limitation of the areas of study, (3) limitation of syllabi, and (4) careful selection of bibliographical entries. Procedure. The body of this study, eliminating the introductory and concluding chapters, may be divided into two sections of three chapters each. The first section lays the context out of which the teacher's guide is developed in the next three chapters. These contextual chapters consist of a historical evaluation of the development of religious liberty, and the public school system, and a description of the various proposals for solving the present difficulty. Those three chapters which make up the teacher's guide deal with criteria for the selection and use of material, creating and maintaining a favorable atmosphere, and a selected syllabus for teaching about religion in American History on the Senior High School level. The first two of these subjects provide a general guide, and the last a specific aid for a given course and age group. The criteria for selection and use of material were developed by the writer, with motivation supplied by a variety of works. These were refined by consultation with the 1954 Seminar in Religion and Public Education at Boston University. Materials for the chapter on creating and maintaining a favorable atmosphere were drawn primarily from (1) group dynamic studies, and (2) inter-cultural works. In this case, as with the chapter on criteria, hypothetical instances were used to illustrate and sharpen the issues involved. The selected syllabus was geared to David Muzzey's widely used text, A History of Our Country. The content of this specific guide was affected by the critical appraisal of Dr. Charles Peltier and certain of his colleagues of the history department of Newton High School (Newton, Massachusetts). However, this should not be construed to mean an endorsement by the staff. Findings and Recommendations. The contextual chapter's have yielded the following conclusions: 1. The United States is deeply rooted in religion in general, and the Hebrew-Christian tradition in particular. It is equally committed to the ideal of freedom of religion, a position not maant to repudiate its religious foundations. 2. Earlier mistrust and controversy which helped usher secularism into the schools, seems to be giving way to a more favorable attitude conducive to increased experimentation in finding a more important role for religion in public education. 3. The approaches for bettering the present educational situation may be divided into those (1) outside, and (2) inside the school system. The proposals outside of the public schools are (1) improving education in the church and home, (2) marginal time education, (3) released time education, and (4) sectarian schools for instruction. The proposals inside the public schools are the (1) common core approach, (2) teaching of moral and spiritual values, (3) use of religious exercises and observances, and (4) teaching about religion approach. 4. That teaching about religion is a live option can be seen from other studies in the field, and the evaluative historical chapter on the development of religious liberty and the public school system. 5. Those who advocate teaching about religion recommend that it be done either (1) in context, or (2) by way of special units. Only the former proposal can break down the illusory dastinction between religious and secular. 6. Religious subject matter appears to have been lacking in the schools, except where teachers have been particularly concerned about and adept at providing for this lack. In any case, the teacher is the key to the success of this approach, and must be properly equipped for the task. 7. The community approach has been advocated as the best way of securing the goals set forth, and in maintaining the relations necessary for the program's continuance. The following findings are drawn from the three chapters constituting a teacher's guide: 1. Six criteria of complex character have been presented, and illustrated by appropriate hypothetical cases. They are (1) student relevance, (2) intelligent understanding, (3) integration, (4) preparation for choice, (5) variety, and (6) community awareness. "Student relevance" means that the material selected must have pertinence for the pupil; his maturity, needs and interest, and training in and for life. "Intelligent understanding" indicates that the material must aid the student in better understanding the subject matter and himself. "Integration" points out the role of religious material in unifying the varied elements in the subject matter and the self. "Preparation for choice" recognizes that life choices are made, and seeks to allow freedom in, show the importance of, and accept as of worth the pupil's religious decisions. "Variety" as a criterion is valid as it reflects upon subject matter and method. "Community awareness" signifies the recognition of one's debt to and responsibility for the community of which he is a part. In the context of this study, the religious community is particularly in view. These criteria are significant whenever relevant to a given area of study, but are contingent on the actual teaching situation. 2. Group-dynamic insights will help provide and maintain a conducive atmosphere for this study. The diverse religious convictions of the pupils can be protected by a democratic process of preparing, sharing, acting, and evaluating together. 3. The teacher must set the example in good personal relations. He must function as a (1) person, (2) learner, (3) research person, and (4) leader. 4. Careful effort must be maintained to guard against emotionally strained situations. Methods of control include prevention, suppression, exhortation, diversion, exemplification, mediation, consideration, consolidation, and visualization. The best of these methods is prevention, but a combination of effective means can be employed. Lines of communication must be kept open between all those affected by the proposal. 5. The history of the United States is rich with materials for teaching about religion, as well as weighted with explosive issues. Religious subject matter must be presented in context, with the objectivity demanded in any other realm of study. 6. History in general, and religion in particular have relevance for daily life. Students should be aware of religious alternatives, with the understanding that decision is their prerogative and that of their religious affiliation. Among the areas demanding further study are the following recommendations: 1. There is a need for extensive work in the realm of semantics. Much misunderstanding is due to lack of clarity at this point. 2. What is the role of the school in religious counseling? It cannot expect to deal with life issues without soon confronting religion in one form or another. 3. The preparation of pamphlets on religious themes and movements, would be most helpful. There is a dearth of religious material suitable for school purposes. 4. Public school text books should be written which will adequately deal with religious factors. 5. Until such books are provided, a multiplication of adequate syllabi is called for. 6. Attempts to deal with religious preparation on the teacher college level is needed. The new Danforth Foundation study is in the spirit of this recommendation. 7. The proposal to teach about religion would benefit from the experience of experimental pioneer communities. This would permit the principles to be put to work, and allow for evaluation. 8. There is need for experimentation with controlled classes dealing with religious themes. This would help clarify the problem of tension control. 9. How can the teacher measure the effectiveness of his efforts? It would be profitable to ascertain effective means of testing

Framing people and planning: 50 years of debate

The last 50 years have not only seen major changes in the forms and practices of participation but also in the ways in which it has been characterized and understood. Alongside the report of the Skeffi ngton Committ ee on public participation in planning, 1969 saw the publication of Sherry Arnstein's 'ladder of participation' which famously typified participation from tokenism to citizen control. Since then the ladder has been replaced by the networks of collaborative planning and both have been challenged by the focus on planning's 'dark side' where participation is associated with coercive forms of governmentality and governance through community. This article discusses the evolution of these ideas, not to provide a historiography per se, but to highlight the themes, issues and contradictions they suggest lie behind participation. These include debates about the extent to which power can ever be devolved to the people; clashes between the different modes of governance inherent in planning (representative, legal/bureaucratic, participatory); the significance of action outside the formal participation apparatus (insurgent planning); and the ways in which the publics of planning have been made and remade within different planning regimes, often with profound implications for the inclusion and exclusion of different social groups and concerns. The article concludes that as a result public participation in planning can be seen as a shifting terrain of underlying tensions and contradictions, which presents both openings and closures for citizens seeking to influence the use and development of land

Exploring planning as a technology of hope

Following Baum’s (1997) proposition that planning be understood as “the organization of hope” there has been limited scholarly engagement with what might be involved in fostering hope through planning practices. Reflecting on three years of participatory action learning and research on a deprived housing estate in Sheffield in northern England, we explore core challenges raised by appealing to hope as an objective of community-led planning. Overall, we argue for further work to explore how the organizational technologies of planning relate to core dimensions of hope, including the ways in which unevenly developed capacities to aspire shape diverse modes of hoping

The timely return of the repressed – commentary to Walton

This reflection discusses my response to William Walton's research paper in this issue of the journal. In it I explore how a timely invitation to take part in the open review process prompted thoughts about my ongoing involvement in the politics of planning in Scotland. Drawing on experience of campaigning for a fair and inclusive planning system, I briefly reflect on why the post-political has proven such an attractive theoretical lens for recent attempts to understand urban planning under neoliberalism. Suggesting that it seems to capture something important about ongoing attempts to reshape planning ideas and practices in Scotland, I go on to consider how Walton’s paper brings to light important concerns about the loss of democratic accountability. Overall, I try to explore how the repression of energies required to sustain a post-political settlement may nonetheless provide a resource for acting in and against the dominance of market rationalities

INTREPID Futures Initiative: Universities and Knowledge for Sustainable Urban Futures: as if inter and trans-disciplinarity mattered. 4th INTREPID REPORT

This London Workshop is meant to advance the agenda of “Universities and Knowledge for Sustainable Urban Futures: as if ID and TD mattered”, by helping to define the scope of the EU COST Action INTREPID contribution, and of the activities to be funded for 2017-2019. Intention statement: ‘To contribute to the shaping of tomorrow’s universities & their urban curricula: as if inter and transdisciplinary ways of knowing actually mattered’. For this purpose, the Workshop was a one-day gathering of experts and practitioners with diverse experience and disciplinary backgrounds. The report outlines the results obtained

Putting Localism in Place: Conservative Images of the Good Community and the Contradictions of Planning Reform in England

Over the past five years, the UK Coalition and subsequent Conservative governments have sought to develop an agenda of localism. Recent research has evaluated how this has played out in practice. This paper takes a different approach, interpreting how the language of community and place in English politics has been mobilised in reforms of the country’s planning system. We do this by tracing how conservative traditions of political thought and imagery of place were used to advance localism. This reveals a range of contradictions within the English localism agenda, and highlights the wider political challenges raised by attempts to mobilise the affective and morally-charged language of the local

Working in the Public Interest? What must planners do differently? Critical thoughts on the state of planning

The current moment is generating huge challenges and raising significant questions about how our societies operate and the future of our cities and countryside. Economic shutdowns are bringing structural inequalities into sharp relief even as they illustrate the daunting scale of the transformations required to reduce our environmental impacts. Many pieces have already been written about how we might not just adapt to a post-Covid world but take the opportunity to build better, healthier, fairer, greener cities. Any hopes for significant change would entail fundamental shifts in the role of planning. At the same time, however, powerful property lobbies threaten a return to a business-as-usual model of development that is led not by care for people and place but the greedy hand of an ever less fettered free market. In England, this is symbolised by a new Conservative government promising to yet again radically streamline a planning system it sees as an impediment to economic recovery. Current circumstances also therefore challenge us to think more broadly about what planning and being a planner really mean in 2020. What is the purpose of planning? Do planners have the tools, resources, and capabilities to address significant societal challenges, and are they trusted to do so? What role should public authorities have and how might this interface with the logics of the market and private-sector driven development? And finally, what is the ‘public interest’ that planners often invoke as the foundation for their work, and how might it be compromised by the nature of the systems we operate in and where we work? The ESRC-funded Working in the Public Interest project has been seeking answers to these questions over the past three years. The project team from the University of Sheffield, Newcastle University and University College London has been engaging closely with contemporary planning practice in both the public and private sectors, focusing attention on what planners do all day. In depth interviews, focus groups to discuss contemporary challenges in planning, and extensive and engaged ethnography have yielded a rich set of insights into the state of planning and the nature of contemporary planning work across the UK. In this booklet we offer a series of brief overviews of key themes that this research has highlighted. Our aim here is not to offer a definition or detailed theoretical discussion of the public interest. Instead we hope to explore how various different facets of planning work are changing. At a broad level our argument is that a much wider range of issues and practices, including for example work-life balance and organisational change, need to be considered alongside issues such as professionalism and ethics when thinking about what it means to work in the public interest. In doing so we hope to stimulate broader debate within and beyond the planning profession about the nature and value of planning. We also aim to highlight a series of key questions and challenges that are shaping planners’ work and that will have significant implications for the future

Serving the public interest? Towards a history of private sector planning expertise in England

Until recently there has been little critical consideration of the privatization of urban planning expertise. In this paper we draw on archival research in England to present an historical analysis of the role of private sector planners over the post-war period. In so doing, the paper provides one of the first considerations of changing historical perceptions of the roles of private sector professionals in the delivery of public planning, assessing the claims through which markets in urban planning expertise have been both problematized and justified over time. Tracing the reorganization of planning expertise allows us to view public and private sector roles not as fixed and immutable categories but instead as historically contingent outcomes of struggles over how the contested public interest purposes of planning have been defined and realized

Planning amid crisis and austerity : in, against and beyond the contemporary conjuncture

This article introduces the special issue ‘Planning amid crisis and austerity: in, against and beyond the contemporary juncture’. It starts by acknowledging two limits of the existing body of literature on the planning/crisis/austerity nexus: on the one hand, the excessive reliance on cases at the ‘core’ of the financial crisis of 2007–2008, with impacts on the understanding of austerity as a response to economic crises; and, on the other, the limited attention given to the impacts of austerity on planning, and their implications for planning practice and research. Based on the contributions in the special issue, the article reflects on some lessons learned: first, the need for a more nuanced understanding of the multiple geographies and temporalities of crisis and austerity; second, the problematic standing of planning practice and research in the face of crisis and austerity; and, third, the potential and limitations of (local) responses and grassroots mobilizations in shaping alternatives

Planning in the face of immovable subjects: a dialogue about resistance to development forces

Urban development can often seem an irresistible force. The imperatives of development are deeply inscribed in the DNA of liberal capitalist societies. As well as realising profit-making opportunities for the private sector, urban change is a mechanism for (re)generating neighbourhoods, for providing public goods such as waste management, energy generation or public housing. The state may seek to mediate, ameliorate or shape development forces, thereby alleviating tensions and inequalities between divergent publics, and establishing claims to a greater public interest in certain forms of change. As it does so, state support may make development seem even more irresistible, especially if space for political challenge closes down. Yet, the seemingly irresistible force often summons seemingly immovable subjects of resistance: namely citizens and campaign groups who stand against planned changes and declare: ‘we shall not be moved’. Sometimes resistance dissolves with meaningful public input and project improvements; sometimes it remains steadfast in its opposition. The ‘immovable subjects’ who resist are mobilised by concerns to which we may be more or less sympathetic: perceived threats to valued place attachments and identities; outrage at environmental injustices; the desire to defend private property rights; racism and anti-immigrant sentiment. Whether singly or collectively, these claims and their nuanced interpretations can motivate intractable and sometimes violent opposition. The starting point for this Interface is a view that contemporary planning theory and practice continue to struggle with the complex and ambiguous political and ethical challenges posed by the forms of opposition that coalesce around state-mediated urban development. How can, and how should, the ‘essential injustices’ (Davy, 1997) that planning and development generate be managed and distributed? Can meaningful engagement with opposition address tensions and contribute to better outcomes? The implications for representative democracy and collaborative governance are no less profound: from the local to the global, resistance and opposition are central but also often disruptive to the democratic exercise of power.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio