Presenter D

• In Event: 54.035 - Religion and Public Education in the United States: An Interdisciplinary Symposium

Abstract

1. Objectives or purposes. My work has focused on conservative religious activism in American education, both public and private. I am not religious or conservative myself (see next answer), but I think any conversation about religion and education requires a solid and sympathetic understanding of the history and goals of conservative religious Americans.
2. Perspective(s) or theoretical framework. I have studied conservative religious activism in American public education from the outside. In a recent book about the history of evolution education, for example, my co-author and I argue in favor of more robust evolution education. Yet we devote much of the book to a sympathetic account of the history of creationism and anti-evolution activism. Only by understanding the anti-evolution side on its own terms could we hope to offer new policy suggestions that might break the century-old deadlock.
3. Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry. My work is historical, so I draw on archival data to support my arguments. I situate my work within the field of educational history, informed by American religious history and the history of American conservatism.
4. Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials. My recent work has investigated conservative activism in American education during the twentieth century. I have focused in much of my work on conservative evangelical Protestant activism. I’ve used archives of activist groups such as the American Legion and Daughters of the American Revolution, as well as institutional archives of fundamentalist Protestant universities such as Liberty University and Bob Jones University.
5. Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view. Conservative activism in education has inarguably played a significant role in shaping policy and day-to-day practice in America’s public school. Yet historical scholarship about it is surprisingly scant. When it comes to religiously loaded questions of school prayer, creationism, and sex education, the motives of conservative activists has too often been viewed as a mystery, a black box of “anti” activism. By focusing on the historical development of conservative religious activism in public schools, I believe my work can help us better understand the true complexity of debates about the role of religion in public education.
6. Scholarly significance. By studying the conservative evangelical Protestant viewpoint, my studies have fleshed out the history of religion in public education.

Author

• Adam Laats, Binghamton University - SUNY