Law and order in the classroom: reconsidering A Course on Citizenship, 1914

Abstract

This article explores the tension between social control and democratic participation in the first American peace education curriculum, A Course in Citizenship (1914). Previously, this Course has been read as a case study of progressive era peace education, during which the call to teach democratically increased in volume. Building on this critical history, the Course can also offer historical perspective on the high value of discipline and obedience to law inscribed in some teachers’ views of citizenship education. Read alongside archival transcripts from the American peace movement before World War I, the warrants for predicting future peace in the Course in Citizenship suggest that peace education requires innovative methods of constituting classroom authority on the basis of representation.

Keywords:

• global citizenship
• education
• World War I
• peace movements
• international law
• curriculum
• teacher professional development