For all of its promise, public education in the twentieth century never lived up to its democratic potential. This book takes a serious look at the slow erosion of the fuller democratic meaning of a public education and a public life.

For all of its promise, education in America in the twentieth century never lived up to its democratic potential. Promises to Keep takes a serious look at the slow erosion of the fuller democratic meaning of a public education and a public life and explores the possibilities offered by emerging new progressivism. Inhabiting the intellectual and political space established by recent work in cultural studies, the essays collected here present the significant beginnings of a dialogue among various movements and discourses of democratic education and public life. Blending diverse approaches and distinguished scholars, this ambitious and timely volume struggles with the unfulfilled promises of history and offers hope for the future.

Introduction Promises to Keep: Cultural Studies, Democratic
Education, and Public Life D. Carlson &
G. Dimitriadis Part
1. Education and the New Cultural Terrain 1. The Globalization of Capitalism and the New Imperialism: Notes Towards a Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy P. McLaren &
R. Farahmandpur 2. Civic Society and the Educational Publics: Possibilities and Problems K. Abowtiz 3. Extraordinary Conversations in Public Schools L. Weis &
M. Fine 4/ A Talk to Teachers: James Baldwin as Postcolonial Artist and Public Intellectual G. Dimitriadis &
C. McCarthy 5. Promises to Keep, Finally? Academic Culture and the Dismissal of Popular Culture J. A Weaver &
T. Daspit Part 2. Reimagining Curriculum and Pedagogical Practice 6. Stan Douglas and the Aesthetic Critique of Urban Decline W. Crichlow 7. Screening Race N. Denzin 8. Troubling
Heroes: Of Rosa Parks Multicultural Education and Pedagogy D. Carlson 9. The Symbolic Curriculum: Reading the Confederate Flag as Southern Heritage Text S. Schramm-Pate &
D. Carlson 10. Urban Education, Broadcast News and Multicultural Spectatorship S. Henke 11. 'They Need Someone to Show them Discipline': Pre-Service Teachers' Understandings and Expectations of Student (Re)presentations in Dangerous Minds D. Freedman 12. Schooling in Capitalist America: Theater of the Oppressor and the Oppressed? C. Torres