In this essay Sharon Lamb considers how progressives have begun to win the longstanding battle to shape sex education and what they have had to give up in the process. After framing the battle in historical context, Lamb uses discourse analysis to explore the hidden values in the "evidence-based" (EB) curricula that progressives…

In this essay, James Scott Johnston claims that a dispute over moral teleology lies at the basis of the debate between John Dewey and Robert M. Hutchins. This debate has very often been cast in terms of perennialism, classicism, or realism versus progressivism, experimentalism, or pragmatism. Unfortunately, casting the debate in these terms…

The marked tendency of Americans to look upon the rural Midwest as the "national reservoir of values" points to the need for deeper analyses and interpretation regarding the origins of Midwest rural education, focusing on analyses which square well with the realities of the rural Midwest today. (CB)

Homer's epic poetry illustrates correspondence between society's needs and the values stressed in education, while Socrates' thought uncovers contradictions between social and educational values and seeks a new form of correspondence. Examples from the Epics and Plato's early dialogues trace changing educational attitudes among the Classical…

Wayland wrote what is arguably the most influential nineteenth-century moral philosophy text. This article examines the Calvinist tradition, from which Wayland diverged; explores his views as they relate to the home and school; and describes his impact on the formation of the middle class of his day. (IAH)

The current attempts of religious and political conservatives to influence public education is placed in a wider historical context. The impact of religious groups and their ideas on the evolution of the public schools in America is traced from colonial times to the present. (PP)