Contrasting Remedies to Social Tensions over Schooling

Abstract

A century ago, the United States and the Netherlands came to fundamentally different resolutions about the role of schools in dealing with social tensions and cleavages. Dutch schooling would be pluralistic, reflecting cultural and religious diversity, while the American “common school” would seek to reduce diversity by providing a uniform experience. What do those contrasting experiences have to teach us about current educational policy choices? The author argues for accommodating cultural divisions within American life by structural pluralism in education, thus providing schools capable of providing coherent education based on shared perspectives on the nature of a life well-lived.

Keywords:

• educational pluralism
• social conflict
• Netherlands
• United States
• immigration

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Charles L. Glenn

Charles L. Glenn is Professor emeritus of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Boston University. From 1970 to 1991 he was director of urban education and equity for the Massachusetts Department of Education. Glenn has published more than a dozen books on historical and comparative dimensions of educational freedom and on the education of immigrant and racial minorities, most recently Muslim Educators in American Communities (2018). He co-edited a four-volume work with chapters on 65 national systems of education.