Teaching for Dissent: Citizenship Education and Political Activism

For the first time in a decade, leaders and citizens across the political spectrum are celebrating dissent. The reappearance of dissent in town hall meetings and on street corners brings new promise for improved democratic life and citizen participation. But this promise cannot be fulfilled if schools do not cultivate the skills necessary for our citizens to engage in political dissent. Indeed, this book reveals troubling practices in schools, resulting from the testing atmosphere and the hidden curriculum, that omit or suppress students' ability to dissent and voice ideas that stand in opposition to the status quo. In this exciting book, Stitzlein investigates the historical and philosophical foundations of dissent in the work of the American Founders and the pragmatist philosophers who followed them. She examines the ways in which dissent is understood as a negative right and then proposes instead that dissent should be seen as a positive right. This book calls for a realignment of curriculum and the practices of schooling with both a guiding vision and a realistic interpretation of democracy as it is currently invoked in the era of Tea Party protests.