"""A sturdy native plant"": The American Catholic education
system, the American Catholic philosophy of education, and
American Catholic identity, 1919-1972"
Kennedy, Patrick Daniel
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/72333
Description
Title
"""A sturdy native plant"": The American Catholic education
system, the American Catholic philosophy of education, and
American Catholic identity, 1919-1972"
Author(s)
Kennedy, Patrick Daniel
Issue Date
1994
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Solberg, Winton U.
Department of Study
History
Discipline
History
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Religion, History of
History, United States
Education, History of
Education, Philosophy of
Abstract
For much of its existence, the American Catholic Church labored against native Protestant beliefs that its Roman connections hampered Catholic assimilation into American life. Millions of ethnic Catholics lived in a culture dominated by white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants who expected conformity to their ideals of the American way of life. This hostility varied in tenor over the years, yet it profoundly shaped resistance to the dominant culture. American Catholics founded hospitals, newspapers, devotional societies, charitable organizations, and fraternal organizations to shelter themselves from Protestant hostility and to preserve their beliefs. They also built an extensive educational system to meet these needs, one that instructed millions of Catholic youths in both secular and religious subjects. While the American Catholic school accepted most of the structures of public schools and American society, the Catholic faith remained its defining dimension. Catholics saw the need to adjust their faith to American society while retaining the essentials of their religion. American pluralism forced Catholics to interact with non-Catholics but did not force them to give up the faith. The Catholic school, by teaching about American institutions, by adopting American pedagogical practices and organizational structure, and by accepting the state's role in education, taught millions of Catholic children about American society--with a Catholic perspective. The Catholic faith and organizational structure enlivened a school that was both American and Catholic, loyal to both and yet different from the educational institutions in which other Americans studied.
"""A Sturdy Native Plant"" studies the evolution of the American Catholic philosophy of education as manifested in the Catholic educational bureaucracy, the curriculum of the elementary and secondary schools, and teacher training in the period from 1919 to 1972. By considering the ethnic composition of the American Church, the effects of industrialization, and the pressures exerted by the dominant culture, this dissertation reveals the unique Catholic conception of pluralism and identity within American culture."
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