2025/05/26 by Sarah E. Brown, Tamar Malloy · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy #Critical Race Theory in Education #Global Education and Multiculturalism
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/rep.2025.28
openalex publication_date 2025/05/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/16
Abstract Some theorists and practitioners argue that public schools in liberal democracies should teach students to be engaged, participatory citizens. Others argue that schools function as disciplinary training grounds, producing docile workers and obedient members of society. How can we reconcile these normatively different views? In exploring this question, we analyze school documents from a national random sample of U.S. public charter schools, examining the terms schools use most frequently and how schools discuss normative conceptions of citizenship. Using text-as-data methods and qualitative analysis, we suggest that both models appear in U.S. schools, but are implemented largely along racialized lines, with majority White schools tending to emphasize democratic values and majority non-White schools emphasizing obedience.