Curriculum and Instruction Commons^™

Legislated Love And Loyalty: An Analysis Of State Patriotism Statutes, Benjamin R. Wellenreiter

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

State statutes require students to engage in patriotic exercises and to learn the concept of patriotism. Through emphasis on ceremonial exercises, requirement of specific document study, framing of patriotism as a character trait, and language regarding civic engagement, state statutes promote various conceptualizations of patriotism. Rarely fitting into a dichotomic framework of either authoritarian or democratic patriotism (Westheimer, 2006, 2009), statutes emphasize varying levels of maintenance of status quos or acknowledgement of societal flaws. Identified were four patriotism statute categories related to the degree to which they maintain status quos or acknowledge societal flaws: active maintenance of status quos; ceremonial …

How Teaching Virtues Became A Movement. A Book Review Of The Rise Of Character Education In Britain: Heroes, Dragons, And The Myths Of Character, Judith L. Pace

Democracy and Education

How did character education become so popular? What does its curriculum look like? And what is its educational impact? Lee Jerome and Ben Kisby answer these and other questions in a bold and brilliant book. Focusing on the character education movement in Britain, they dissect its theoretical foundation, explain its ascendancy, analyze its curricula, and examine its results. The authors construct a compelling argument that character education clashes with education for democracy.

Character education claims to be a panacea for improving individual children’s life chances as well as an array of societal problems. But with its deeply flawed ideology, curricula, …