American Studies 124 - The American Educational Empire

From the inception of the United States, Americans have seen education as the foundation of self-governance, a primary mechanism for alleviating inequality, a facilitator of economic development, and a tool for social control.  In the nineteenth century the United States developed one of the most robust systems of education in the world.  As the United States spread across the continent and acquired its own empire, school systems were developed to civilize unruly subjects and ready colonial peoples for democracy, all under the strict supervision of the American schoolmaster.

This course investigates the long relationship between education and the American imperial project from Native American boarding schools, to vocational training for African Americans, to Puerto Rican colonial assimilation programs, to culturally-relevant programming in the Philippines.  Models of American K-12 and higher education have been replicated across the globe and continue to inform international educational policymaking.  This course approaches the subject of education historically but also transnationally, focusing on both the architects of American education as well as the many groups and leaders who resisted, adapted, and informed the hegemony of American education.  Studying American education from the outside in, through the critical lens of American empire, this course works to unpack the promises, tensions, and systems of control that undergird American schooling.
 

Enrollment 20. Fall semester. Professor McLeod and Professor del Moral.

How to handle overenrollment: Priority to AMST and EDST students and then first year students and sophomores.

Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Intensive reading and discussion, archival research, visual analysis.