When Americans write about democracy and education, they typically write about the constructive effects that education can have for democracy by improving future citizens' knowledge, political judgment, capacity for independent thought, and by building common political values. Very few Americans put the question the other way around: What effects has U.S. democracy had on education? This course will examine those effects in several domains: equality and inequality in the provision of schooling and educational resources; the structure of the occupation of teaching; the content of the curriculum; the extent to which teaching and curriculum encourage independent thought and political judgment; and what students learn about democracy in school.
