The Diverse Origins Of American Catholic Education

Defined less by geography than by demographic character, Block, Kansas, in many ways exemplifies the prevalent yet seldom-scrutinized ethnic, religion-based community of the rural midwest. Physically small, the town sprang up around four corners formed by crossroads. Spiritually strong and cohesive, it became the educational and cultural center for generations of German-Lutheran families. Block provided a religious and cultural oasis-a welcome transition for German-Lutheran immigrants faced with a new language and unfamiliar customs. Yet the tight bond between an ethnic society and a religion that shunned Americanism and the English language paradoxically slowed the transition and maintained a culturally isolated community well into the twentieth century. In Life at Four Corners, Carol Coburn analyzes the powerful combination of those ethnic and religious institutions that effectively resisted assimilation for nearly 80 years only to succumb to the influences of the outside world during the 1930s and 1940s. Emphasizing the formal and informal education provided by the church, school, and family, she examines the total process of how values, identities, and all aspects of culture were transmitted from generation to generation. "Few ethnic or community studies have focused on a 'village' community that defined itself less by geographic boundaries and more by ethnic and religious identity," writes Coburn. "The community's strong religious and ethnic identity, coupled with its homogeneity and rural isolation, provided a unique educational environment that was total, ongoing, and more pervasive than in most rural settings or ethnic urban environments." "This book is clearly and engagingly written. It opens a window on the inner life of an early rural settlement in Kansas and allows the reader to understand the values, fears, and beliefs of this important group of settlers. The author offers insight into the intersection of several variables, including gender, religion, and region."—Glenda Riley, author of The Female Frontier: A Comparative View of Women on the Prairie and the Plains.

"For far too long Catholic teaching sisters have been denied their rightful place in the history of education. It is only during the past twenty-five years that researchers in many countries have begun to reveal the fundamental role played by these women in the schooling of children of both the masses and the elite during the 19th and 20th centuries. This essay provides for the first time a detailed overview of the historiography of the teaching sisters in Western Europe, North America, Latin America and Australasia, surveying scholarship since 1985. It reviews the literature on six major themes: contribution to schooling, teaching orders and schools, educational philosophy, content and practice, life and lived experience of teachers and students, the professionalization of teaching, and changes in the composition of the teaching staff. Very rich in bibliographical references, this book is indispensable for all further research on this significant but underexplored group of women teachers."--Publisher's website.

This new volume of original essays focuses on the presence of European ethnic culture in American society since 1830. Among the topics explored in Immigrant America are the alienation and assimilation of immigrants; the immigrant home and family as a haven of ethnicity; religion, education and employment as agents of acculturation; and the contours of ethnic community in American society.

This text offers a sweeping view of urban religion in response to the transformations of large cities. Focusing on Chicago, it explores the ways in which religious organizations both reflect and contribute to changes in American pluralism.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

If free market advocates had total control over education policy, would the shared public system of education collapse? Would school choice revitalize schooling with its innovative force? With proliferating charters and voucher schemes, would the United States finally make a dramatic break with its past and expand parental choice? Those are not only the wrong questions—they’re the wrong premises, argue philosopher Sigal R. Ben-Porath and historian Michael C. Johanek in Making Up Our Mind. Market-driven school choices aren’t new. They predate the republic, and for generations parents have chosen to educate their children through an evolving mix of publicly supported, private, charitable, and entrepreneurial enterprises. The question is not whether to have school choice. It is how we will regulate who has which choices in our mixed market for schooling—and what we, as a nation, hope to accomplish with that mix of choices. Looking beyond the simplistic divide between those who oppose government intervention and those who support public education, the authors make the case for a structured landscape of choice in schooling, one that protects the interests of children and of society, while also identifying key shared values on which a broadly acceptable policy could rest.

St John Neumann established the parochial school system in the United States of America! The Roman Catholic school system has been the pioneer of the national organized educational system in our country, as well as the standard of success in pedagogy! In AD 1950, there were more than eleven thousand Catholic elementary schools in America; sadly, there are only around twelve hundred still functioning. The title of this work serves as a hallmark and a means of exaltation for the contributions made by the Roman Catholic Church in the field of education!