Call for Contributors for September 2018 Issue, “The Education of a Nation”

The Activist History Review invites proposals for our September 2018 issue, “The Education of a Nation.”

The history of the relationship between education and representative, democratic governance is plagued with the same tensions found elsewhere in the American past. The University of Virginia not only depended upon the labor of enslaved workers, it was also established in part to provide a local alternative for southern boys, whose education could no longer be trusted to the increasingly antislavery colleges of the north.

Setting aside debates over curriculum, even access to affordable, quality education has been a contentious issue in the United States. Marginalized groups have struggled since the founding to gain entry to chiefly white and male institutions of learning, and in the process have carved out spaces all their own. The twentieth-century achievements of integration, co-education, and more equitable financial support required substantial organization and agitation. Education is, of course, inextricably tied to power.

As students across the country prepare to return to school, The Activist History Review invites proposals that examine the history of education in the United States. Special consideration will be given to essays that consider the relationship between public education and the state—from local boards of education all the way to the federal government.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• The Civil Rights Movement
• Universities and slavery
• Debates over curricular autonomy
• Religious observance in public schools
• Non-traditional education
• The boarding school movement
• White flight and privatization
• Campus culture
• Budgeting and finance

Proposals should be no more than 250 words for articles from 1250-2000 words, and should be emailed to Nathan Wuertenberg at activisthistory@gmail.com by Friday, August 17th at 11:59 PM. Please also include a short bio of no more than 100 words.