Chapter 7 -- School
Wars: Resolving our Conflicts over Religion and Values
Literature and Curricula
Banned or considered controversial lists include textbooks, fiction, award-winning literature, classics, and the Bible.
In the Extreme
Certainly there is a broad continuum of beliefs and viewpoints on the topic
of public school educational materials and practices.
Evolution
The teaching of evolution in public schools is of primary concern to many
conservative Christians.
Global Education and Multiculturalism
Global education is best described as a set of diverse movements with a variety of foci.
Expanding the study of world history, would geography, world economics, world politics, or world ecology.
Understanding of cultural diversity through the cross-cultural study of literature, art, music, dance, religion, and social customs.
Global education efforts have the common theme of trying to expand American students' understanding of how our society interacts with other societies around the world.
To critics global education has an agenda with major weaknesses:
| Crowds out the study of Western civilization |
| Teaches that there are no absolutes |
| Seeks to politically resocialize students into liberal extremism |
For the fundamentalists freedom from egocentrism and ethnocentrism is synonymous with freedom from one's beliefs and values.
With regard to multiculturalism, fundamentalist critics maintain that they support the basic idea that children should be taught to respect and understand other cultures but they are concerned about the negative effects on American culture.
Two ways of integrating multiculturalism into the curriculum:
| Pluralistic approach- focuses on how diverse cultures help to shape a common American culture |
| Particularists- Emphasizes the unique history of specific groups |
Sex Education
Knowledge of human sexuality considered to be among those important life skills.
Many religiously conservative people have strong objections to sex education.
Arguments have been made that sex education programs are attempts to recruit students to immorality and homosexuality and to "indoctrinate them in the new morality of indiscriminate sexual behavior."
Sex education and health education programs have been challenged around the country for being too explicit, discussing sensitive material in coed settings, for "promoting" homosexuality, for discussing masturbation, for discussing condom use and AIDS, and for presenting abstinence as only one choice rather than as a moral absolute.
Gaddy, B., Hall, T. & Marzano, R. (1996). School Wars: Resolving our Conflicts over Religion and Values. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.