The New American Settlement: Religious Diversity, Democracy & Public Schooling

Hunter-Ott, Rian Ada

The New American Settlement: Religious Diversity, Democracy & Public Schooling

dc.contributor.advisor	Vaughn, Courtney
dc.contributor.author	Hunter-Ott, Rian Ada
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Hertzke, Allen
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Davies, Mark
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Maiden, Jeffrey
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Smith, Joan
dc.date.accessioned	2016-06-01T14:30:40Z
dc.date.available	2016-06-01T14:30:40Z
dc.date.issued	2016-05-13
dc.date.manuscript	2016-05-04
dc.description.abstract	As the United States becomes increasingly religiously diverse, public schools must also face the implications of such diversity. While all public schools may not witness such diversity in the classroom, it is a socio-cultural phenomena impacting the greater public conversation about what it means to be a democratic nation with the constitutional provision of religious liberty. Because of an increasingly secularistic norm promoted in many schools and religious exclusivism dominating others, public schools risk marginalizing religious minorities. Furthermore, most public schools do not provide adequate education on religious thought or religious liberty, resulting in religious illiteracy that threatens to undermine an understanding of other nations in the international community, many of which are devoutly religious. However, attention to teaching about religion is not sufficient; schools must become places in which religious liberty may thrive and new understandings of the concept can continue to develop. This dissertation proposes a “New American Settlement” in the form of a thought experiment as a way for public educators and public schools to take religious liberty seriously and address continually expanding religious diversity – and the issues sparked by it – in keeping with constitutional commitments. The New American Settlement is a blend of educational thought and philosophy, including theories of multiple educational agency, experience, and care theories, as a way to regard religion as a live option – a critical component of taking religious liberty seriously. Furthermore, the New American Settlement considers specific religious notions that can be legitimately incorporated into secular educational thought to develop a system that takes religious liberty seriously. Practical application within schools is also considered as a thought experiment; the results of which conclude that the New American Settlement is much more feasible for most public school teachers than is dedicating more time, which many do not have, to teaching about religion.	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/11244/34802
dc.language	en_US	en_US
dc.subject	Education, General.	en_US
dc.subject	Religious Liberty	en_US
dc.subject	Public Schooling	en_US
dc.thesis.degree	Ph.D.	en_US
dc.title	The New American Settlement: Religious Diversity, Democracy & Public Schooling	en_US
ou.group	Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education::Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies	en_US