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Warren Nord's thoughtful book tackles an issue of great importance in contemporary America: the role of religion in our public schools and universities. According to Nord, public opinion has been excessively polarized by those religious conservatives who would restore religious purposes and practices to public education and by those secular liberals for whom religion is irrelevant to everything in the curriculum. While he maintains that public schools and universities must not promote religion, he also argues that there are powerful philosophical, political, moral, and constitutional reasons for requiring students to study religion. Indeed, only if religion is included in the curriculum will students receive a truly liberal education, one that takes seriously a variety of ways of understanding the human experience. Intended for a broad audience, Nord's comprehensive study encompasses American history, constitutional law, educational theory and practice, theology, philosophy, and ethics. It also discusses a number of current, controversial issues, including multiculturalism, moral education, creationism, academic freedom, and the voucher and school choice movements.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Preface(p. xiii)
• Introduction(p. 1)
• Religion and Modernity 1(p. 15)
• The Secularization of American Education 2(p. 63)
• The Constitutional Politics of Religion in America 3(p. 98)
• Textbooks 4(p. 138)
• Indoctrination 5(p. 160)
• Religion and Liberal Education 6(p. 199)
• Fairness and Neutrality 7(p. 236)
• Academic Freedom 8(p. 262)
• Evolution and Economics 9(p. 282)
• Religious Studies 10(p. 304)
• Religion and Moral Education 11(p. 320)
• Vouchers 12(p. 352)
• Conclusions(p. 376)
• Postscript Setting Standards(p. 384)
• Notes(p. 389)
• Bibliography(p. 435)
• Index(p. 459)

Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

Library Journal Review

In this comprehensive study, Nord (philosophy, Univ. of North Carolina) addresses religion in the curriculum in American public schools and universities. Although he professes that public institutions should not promote religion, he takes to task those secular liberals who discount its importance in the curriculum. He concludes by strongly suggesting that "a little humility is in order" when tackling this issue. Nord also discusses such other relevant topics as multiculturalism, creationism, and academic freedom. His timely work should appeal to a wide academic audience, as it incorporates history, law, educational theory and practice, theology, philosophy, and ethics. Recommended for academic libraries.‘Samuel T. Huang, Northern Illinois Univ. Libs., DeKalb (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Nord argues for the teaching of religion in public schools and universities, not to indoctrinate students but to help them take religious worldviews seriously in the pursuit of knowledge. His reasoning is convincing, but his writing is laborious and repetitive. To put his proposals in context, he attempts to summarize all relevant Supreme Court rulings, religion's role in the intellectual history of Europe and the United States, and major contemporary philosophical movements and worldviews. Three long chapters, more than a third of the text, are devoted to such background material, much of which is summarized again in later chapters. The end result is a thin argument with more background than development: require courses in religious studies, but don't institutionalize school prayer. Nord directs a program in the humanities and values at the University of North Carolina. While his historical knowledge is broad, he appears not to have concrete information about contemporary U.S. secondary education other than that gleaned from having analyzed the textbooks used in North Carolina schools, and he seems ignorant of current experiments in teaching religion and values in schools. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Nord supports teaching religion in public schools in order to meet constitutional tests of neutrality, fairness, and equality. This comprehensive study of religion and public education begins with a history of modern religion and traces the growth of secularization. Nord, a religious liberal, defines varieties of humanism, considers several religious heritages, and reviews curriculum and textbook developments. He concludes that educators no longer take religion seriously, citing as influencing factors anti-Catholicism, pluralism, and the refusal of liberal Protestants to defend themselves. Nord contends that public schools exist to foster an "overlapping moral consensus that grounds at least a few common moral and civic virtues" within a shared Constitutional and civic framework for public decision making. He finds fundamental injustice in an educational system that indoctrinates students in current secular fads while excluding all aspects of religious philosophy, morals, and practices. Nord writes about a serious public problem with clarity and fairness. For intelligent general readers who seek to understand historical, constitutional, and philosophical implications of the current cultural war over religion and public education.

Booklist Review

Nord's central argument is that, given the significant role religion has played and does play in the world, education must include attention to religion if it is to accurately attend to the world. This is to say that religion is a necessary dimension of a secular education (though Nord sometimes uses "secular" and "religious" as though they were opposites). The book is most useful to the extent that it poses education itself (and religion itself) as dilemma, particularly in the context of the U.S. Whether consciously or unconsciously, it exposes a textbook-centered approach to education, oriented more to training (or indoctrination) than to teaching. This adds to the mountain of evidence already available that suggests a real dilemma regarding the purpose and practice of teaching (the teaching of science even more than the teaching of religion) as well as the purpose and practice of both religion and science. (Reviewed May 15, 1995)0807821659Steve Schroeder

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Warren A. Nord is director of the Program in the Humanities and Human Values and teaches in the department of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.