This book is a comparative history that explores the social, cultural, and political formation of the modern nation through the construction of public schooling. It asks how modern school systems arose in a variety of different republics and non-republics across four continents during the period from the late eighteenth century to the early…

This article sketches a post-Occidental interpretation of the historical/conceptual relationships between modern western education and European civilizational identity formation. Modern western education will be interpreted as a modern/colonial institution that emerged along with the sixteenth-century responses to the questions provoked by the…

The Congress for Cultural Freedom is remembered as a paramount example of the "cultural cold wars." In this paper, I discuss the ways in which this powerful transnational organization sought to promote "science studies" as a distinct--and politically relevant--area of expertise, and part of the CCF broader agenda to offer a renewed framework for…

The federal Bilingual Education Act (BEA; 1968) augured a new era in the national politics of diversity, schooling, and state, and California became symbolic of the problems and promise of bilingual pedagogy. This article explores how the BEA was pivotal not only in conceiving a federal commitment to the educational achievement of…

Postcolonial theory remains part of the challenge of literary theory to curriculum development. As the author's personal history suggests, it is more than simply another way of reading and interpretation, but enables an engagement with, a bearing witness to, the gross inequalities of the world today. Drama is a good example, evidenced by the…

Education has rarely been absent from local and national public discourse. Throughout the history of modern education spanning more than a century, individuals have as a culture lamented the failures of public schooling, often making such claims based on assumptions instead of any nuanced consideration of the many influences on teaching and…

The sheer amount of American children's and young adult literature, boasting an outpouring of 5,000 titles every year, often amazes a person who is new to this field. Not only is a large proportion of these books of high printing and binding quality, but, at a quick glance, among them is also a pleasant diversity of genre, format, targeted age…

Secondary school history textbooks in South Korea, Japan, and the United States have long struggled to give meaning and significance to the war waged on the Korean Peninsula between 1950 and 1953. Comparing commonly-used, contemporary history textbooks from each of these three nations, this analysis suggests that students on both sides of the…

The book is entitled History Wars in the Classroom: Global Perspectives and examines how ten separate countries have experienced debates and disputes over the contested nature of the subject, for example the "Black Armband" and "Whitewash" factions in Australia who adopt opposingly celebratory or denigratory views of Australian…

Since the founding of the modern Chinese state in 1949 until the end of the century, China has mobilised and experienced several social/political movements and economic transformations. Entering the twenty-first century, China's repositioning within the global context has brought about its new national policy and blueprint to build a socialist…

The paper reviews school practice in Spain through the long historic period of the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco between the 1936 Civil War and Franco's death in 1975. For this purpose, an analysis is made of the most relevant documents (school materials, reports, direct testimonies by practising teachers, scientific papers on education…

Studies Flora Annie Steel, an uneducated woman who nonetheless became an Inspector of Female Schools in Punjab, India, in 1884. Focuses on her reports within the context of British imperialism and late 19th-century report conventions. Concludes that cultural expectations for women in imperialism influenced Steel's response to the genre; and the…

Argues against the common-sense view that children's literature dealing with the Jews in Nazi Germany is necessarily useful as an aid to studying the Holocaust. Finds a number of significant issues overlooked in the classroom. Discusses the novel "Friedrich" by H.P. Richter. (PA)

Using rhetorical and historical approaches, this paper examines speech excerpts of four speakers active during the civil rights movement in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The paper's first section discusses Malcolm X and a speech delivered two months before his assassination; the second section studies James Allen speaking on…

Secondary-level history textbooks' treatments of United States-Soviet relations can be biased and misleading. Ideological treatments present the relationship as a struggle between good and evil; "real politik" treatments recognize opposing viewpoints but are usually subordinate interpretations. Neither approach discusses U.S.-Soviet…