Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Corporatizing Rural Education pp 39–66Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Religious and Market Fundamentalisms

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

  • 237 Accesses

Part of the book series: New Frontiers in Education, Culture, and Politics ((NFECP))

Abstract

This chapter examines fundamentalist Christian education in the rural United States and the ways in which it allows for an increase of neoliberal education policies. Both forces are pushing an agenda that devalues critical thought, public institutions, and democracy in general. It begins with a look at the ways in which fundamentalist Christians have been able to take power in rural areas, and then examine the forms of education they are providing, with a critical analysis of three different homeschool providers as well as looking at several examples of Christian influence on public schools.

Acknowledgement: This chapter is derived in part from an article published in the Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies (2017) Taylor and Francis, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10714413.2017.1326278.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

eBook
USD   19.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   24.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Henry Giroux, America at War with Itself (San Francisco: City Lights, 2017), 34.

  2. 2.

    Benjamin Wermund, “Trump’s education pick says reform can ‘advance God’s Kingdom’” Politico, December 12, 2016, accessed February 4, 2017, http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/betsy-devos-education-trump-religion-232150.

  3. 3.

    Alex Johnson, “Jerry Falwell Jr. asked to lead Trump Higher Education task force,” NBC News, January 31, 2017, accessed February 4, 2017, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jerry-falwell-jr-asked-lead-trump-education-task-force-n715116.

  4. 4.

    David Weigel, “In rural America, a startling prospect: Voters Obama lost looks to Sanders,” Washington Post, October 5, 2015, accessed February 4, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-rural-america-a-startling-prospect-voters-obama-lost-look-to-sanders/2015/10/04/5465ce22-6883-11e5-8325-a42b5a459b1e_story.html.

  5. 5.

    Benjamin J. Bindewald, “In the World but Not of the World,” Educational Studies 51 (2): 93, accessed February 4, 2017, doi:10.1080/00131946.2015.1015343.

  6. 6.

    Frederick Clarkson, Eternal Hostility (Monroe: Common Courage Press, 1997), 3.

  7. 7.

    “Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections: 1828–2012,” American Presidency Project, accessed March 26, 2016, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/turnout.php.

  8. 8.

    Brian J. McCabe, “Primary voter turnout stays low, but more so for Democrats,” FiveThirtyEight, September 14, 2010, accessed March 26, 2016, https://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/primary-voter-turnout-stays-low-but-more-so-for-democrats/?_r=0.

  9. 9.

    Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War (New York: Crown, 2007), 168.

  10. 10.

    Katherine Stewart, “The dark side of home schooling: Creating soldiers for the culture war,” The Guardian, May 8, 2013, accessed March 26, 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/08/christian-home-schooling-dark-side.

  11. 11.

    Warren A. Nord, “Science Religion and Education,” Religion and Education 26 (2): 55–66, accessed March 26, 2016, doi:10.1080/15507394.1999.11000904.

  12. 12.

    Bageant, Deer Hunting with Jesus.

  13. 13.

    Valerie Strauss, “Alabama’s Governor makes a surprising—and scary—education appointment,” Washington Post, July 29, 2015, accessed March 26, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/07/29/alabamas-governor-makes-surprising-and-scary-education-appointment.

  14. 14.

    Clarkson, Eternal Hostility, 5.

  15. 15.

    Ibid., 76.

  16. 16.

    David Berliner, “Educational Psychology Meets the Christian Right: Differing Views of Children, Schooling, Teaching, and Learning,” Teachers College Record, 98 (1997): 381–416.

  17. 17.

    Aimee Howley, Craig Howley, and Marged Dudek, “The ‘Ins’ and ‘Outs’ of Rural Teachers: Who are the Atheists, Agnostics, and Freethinkers,” Journal of Research in Rural Education, 31 (2016): 1–22.

  18. 18.

    Michael Apple, Educating the “Right” Way (New York: Routledge, 2006), 21.

  19. 19.

    Berliner, “Educational Psychology Meets the Christian Right,” 383.

  20. 20.

    Ibid., 384.

  21. 21.

    Paul Theobald and Kathy Wood, “Learning to be Rural: Identity Lessons from History, Schooling, and the U.S. Corporate Media,” In Rural Education for the 21st Century, edited by Kai A. Schafft and Alecia Y. Jackson (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), 21.

  22. 22.

    Patrick Carr and Maria Kefalas, Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America, Boston: Beacon Press, 2009.

  23. 23.

    Paul Theobald, Teaching the Commons, Boulder: Westview Press, 1997.

  24. 24.

    Bindewald, “In the World, but Not of the World.”

  25. 25.

    Apple, Educating the “Right” Way, 189.

  26. 26.

    Henry Giroux, America’s Education Deficit and the War on Youth (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2013), 118.

  27. 27.

    Clarkson, Eternal Hostility.

  28. 28.

    Apple, Educating the “Right” Way, 136.

  29. 29.

    Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 1969), 141.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., 177.

  31. 31.

    Apple, Educating the “Right” Way.

  32. 32.

    Henry Giroux, The Violence of Organized Forgetting: Thinking Beyond America’s Disimagination Machine (San Francisco: City Lights, 2014), 17.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., 17.

  34. 34.

    Chris Cillizza, “Inside Donald Trump’s dangerous strategy to discredit the media.” Washington Post, October 18, 2016, accessed February 7, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/18/what-donald-trump-is-doing-to-discredit-the-media-is-very-very-dangerous.

  35. 35.

    Henry Giroux, Dangerous Thinking in the Age of the New Authoritarianism (Boulder: Paradigm, 2015), 15.

  36. 36.

    Ibid., 44.

  37. 37.

    Ibid., 44.

  38. 38.

    Bindewald, “In the World but Not of the World,” 107.

  39. 39.

    Milton Gaither, “Home Schooling Goes Mainstream,” Education Next 9 (2009): 10–18.

  40. 40.

    “The A Beka Difference,” A Beka Book, accessed March 26, 2016, http://www.abeka.com/abekadifference.aspx.

  41. 41.

    Simone Schweber, “Fundamentally 9/11: The Fashioning of Collective Memory in a Christian School,” American Journal of Education 112 (2006): 392–417.

  42. 42.

    “The A Beka Difference.”

  43. 43.

    “What is CLASS,” Christian Liberty Academy School System, accessed March 26, 2016, http://www.homeschools.org/whatIsCLASS/index.html.

  44. 44.

    “Biblical Worldview Curriculum,” Christian Liberty Academy School System, accessed March 26, 2016, http://www.homeschools.org/worldview/biblicalWorldviewCurriculum.html.

  45. 45.

    Ibid.

  46. 46.

    Ibid.

  47. 47.

    Giroux, The Violence of Organized Forgetting, 15.

  48. 48.

    “Sound Education,” BJU Press, Accessed March 26, 2016, http://www.bjupresshomeschool.com/content/about-critical-thinking.

  49. 49.

    Robert Kunzman, “Understanding Homeschooling: A Better Approach to Regulation,” Theory and Research in Education 7 (2009): 311–330.

  50. 50.

    Bryan Smith, “Biblical Integration: Pitfalls and Promise,” BJU Press, Accessed March 26, 2016, https://www.bjupress.com/images/pdfs/bible-integration.pdf.

  51. 51.

    Giroux, Dangerous Thinking in the Age of New Authoritarianism.

  52. 52.

    Smith, “Biblical Integration.”

  53. 53.

    Apple, Educating the “Right” Way.

  54. 54.

    Jacqueline Edmondson, Prairie Town: Redefining Rural Life in the Age of Globalization (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), 7.

  55. 55.

    Mary Emily O’Hara, “Oklahoma school’s ‘Hobby Lobby Bible Curriculum’ raises bias concerns,” Vice, April 19, 2014, accessed March 26, 2016, https://news.vice.com/article/oklahoma-schools-hobby-lobby-bible-curriculum-raises-bias-concerns.

  56. 56.

    Dan Arel, “Why religious fundamentalists are so excited about charter schools,” Salon, March 26, 2014, accessed March 26, 2016, http://www.salon.com/2014/03/26/why_religious_fundamentalists_are_so_excited_about_charter_schools_partner.

  57. 57.

    Ibid.

  58. 58.

    Bill Hurley, “$2.5 million in federal money given to Wisconsin charter school that quickly closed,” MTEA News, October 21, 2015, accessed March 26, 2016, http://mtea.weac.org/2015/10/21/2-5-million-in-federal-money-given-to-wisconsin-charter-schools-that-quickly-closed.

  59. 59.

    Kristina Rizga, “Betsy DeVos wants to use America’s schools to build ‘God’s Kingdom,’” Mother Jones, January 17, 2017, accessed February 7, 2017, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/betsy-devos-christian-schools-vouchers-charter-education-secretary.

  60. 60.

    Ibid.

  61. 61.

    Zack Kopplin, “Dismissing Darwin,” Slate, April 21, 2015, accessed March 26, 2016, http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/04/creationism_in_louisiana_public_school_science_classes_school_boards_and.html.

  62. 62.

    Valerie Strauss, “Alabama’s Governor makes a surprising—and scary—appointment,” Washington Post, July 29, 2015, accessed March 26, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/07/29/alabamas-governor-makes-surprising-and-scary-education-appointment.

  63. 63.

    Bageant, Deer Hunting with Jesus, 173.

  64. 64.

    Tristan Hallman, “TribBlog: Islamapalooza,” Texas Tribune, September 24, 2010, accessed March 26, 2016, https://www.texastribune.org/2010/09/24/sb.

  65. 65.

    Kiah Collier, “Outspoken candidates could renew rancor on Education Board,” Texas Tribune, February 15, 2016, accessed March 26, 2016, https://www.texastribune.org/2016/02/15/candidates-could-revive-rancor-on-education-board.

  66. 66.

    Ibid.

  67. 67.

    Kiah Collier, “Keven Ellis defeats Mary Lou Bruner in State Board of Education race,” Texas Tribune, May 24, 2016, accessed May 24, 2016, https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/24/state-board-education-runoffs.

  68. 68.

    Yanan Wang, “A Texan who called Obama a gay prostitute may soon control what goes in children’s textbooks,” Washington Post, March 4, 2016, accessed March 26, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/03/04/a-texan-who-called-obama-a-gay-prostitute-may-soon-control-what-goes-in-childrens-textbooks.

  69. 69.

    Giroux, The Violence of Organized Forgetting, 82.

  70. 70.

    Ibid., 167.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Weymouth, Massachusetts, USA

    Jason A. Cervone

Authors
  1. Jason A. Cervone
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Cervone, J.A. (2018). Religious and Market Fundamentalisms. In: Corporatizing Rural Education. New Frontiers in Education, Culture, and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64462-2_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64462-2_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-64461-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-64462-2

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation