Religion, the First Amendment, and Public Schools: Stories from K-12 and Teacher Education Classrooms

White Christian Nationalism is "an ideology that seeks to idealize and advocate a fusion of American Civic life with a... White Christian ethnoculture" rooted in traditionalism, anti-immigration, and their judicial codification (Gorski & Perry, 2021). Though the Establishment Clause clearly delineates a boundary between religion and state. Despite the clarity of this division in the Establishment Clause, this bedrock of our democracy has faced near-constant pressure from Christian right. Recently, this pressure has taken the form of strategic efforts to stack the Supreme Court of conserative judges and control local school boards by waging fear and misinformation campaigns. Political division, a lack of healthy discourse about religious diversity, and misunderstandings about the Establishment Clause have left many educators unsure about their role in valuing religious diversity in their schools and classrooms, and their responsibilities to maintain religious freedom for all students.

This book leverages the power of story to animate the dangerous legal and cultural assault on the separation of church and state in U.S. public schools. All of the chapter authors attend to these themes from distinct vantage points across education theory and research, K-12 education, and teacher education, addressing issues such as religious freedom, education law, teacher and student identity, and teaching for inclusive, critical citizenship in a contentious U.S. political context. Additionally, authors offer practical resources for responding to enemies of religious freedom, White Christian nationalism, and xenophobia as it is manifested in policy and practice within K-12 and higher education.