Workshop on Textbook Controversies
February 8, 2008
423 ILR Conference Center, Cornell University
Overview
This workshop, free and open to the public, is sponsored by the ISS Contentious Knowledge Research Team. If you will be joining us for lunch, please RSVP to socialsciences@cornell.edu. The panels are free and no RSVP is necessary.
Public controversies over textbooks, curricular reform, and school policies highlight the domain of education as an important arena of civil engagement. Education has produced contentious politics over the value of what kinds of knowledge should be taught, to whom, and for what purposes. Education in the social sciences, such as history and politics, have provoked important debates about whether education is intended to integrate students, encouraging them to conform to particular community or national standards, or whether education is intended to provide students with an ability to be critical of their larger societies.
These vociferous debates have pitted concerned parents, educators, legislators, and state-appointed officials against one another, with each constituency mobilizing particular groups and interests. This workshop focuses on episodes of political jockeying over what constitutes appropriate knowledge for public education, particularly for school-age children. The papers will consider how knowledge becomes contentious through these disputes, whose interests are served, and how public education might best promote and critique civil society.
Participants
Ericka Albaugh, Political Science, Duke University
Mikaila Mariel Lemonik Arthur, Sociology, Hamilton College
Julian Dierkes, Sociology, University of British Columbia
Adam Shapiro, History, University of British Columbia
Gerald Skoog, Education, Texas Tech University
Tracy Steffes, Education, Brown University
Organizing Committee
Durba Ghosh, Department of History
Ron Herring, Department of Government
Ken Roberts, Department of Government
Anneliese Truame & Judi Eastburn, ISS Administrative Staff
Logistics
Registration Fee: There is no registration fee. If you will be joining us for lunch, please RSVP to socialsciences@cornell.edu. The panels are free and no RSVP is necessary.
Workshop location: Room 423 ILR Conference Center on Garden Ave. on the Cornell Campus, a block from the Statler Hotel. See this map to locate the building & then see these directions to find the room within the building.
Parking: If you are a visiting speaker, please charge your parking to your hotel room. Otherwise, you will need to purchase a visiting parking permit at a campus information booth.
Travel: Visiting Ithaca information & Maps (ISS area, Cornell, Ithaca)
Lodging: Statler Hotel, 130 Statler Dr., Ithaca, NY, 14583 (607-257-2500)
See directions to the hotel.
For More Information
Contact: socialsciences@cornell.edu
