Religion, Education, & Democracy: Generational Responsibility for the American Proposition

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This is a course in the philosophy of education. The goal of the course is to produce a philosophy of education that engenders in the current generation of students (i.e., you) responsibility for what has been called the “American proposition.” The notion of “America” is distinct from the United States of America, but is often conflated with and conveyed by the latter. It sits at the intersection of religion, education, and democracy, an intersection at which the atrophy of each is seen by many to be caused by the values of the other. With the discipline of education as its platform and Catholicism, among other voices, as a particular conversation partner, the course examines historical, contemporaneous, and ecclesial resources, including notions of the common good, humanism, and ecological thinking, to ask, among other questions: Are religion, education, and democracy commensurable or incommensurable in such ways as to facilitate social coherence in the 21st century? If not, what accounts for decades, if not centuries, of robust educational systems designed to bolster democratic and religious institutions alike?