ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role that religion has, and has had, in public education in the United States. Since the beginning of the Common School movement, religious leaders and adherents have struggled for influence regarding the content, ideology, and control of public schools. At the crux of this struggle is the same battle that occurs in many other aspects of the educational debate-the divergent responsibility of an institution to prepare its students for life in society. Although certain intersections of religion and education might be seen as fundamentally a cultural phenomenon, it is more appropriate in the field of social foundations to view religion as a particular theoretical lens in which to study and analyze education. The education of future members of a particular religion is as fundamental a desire of its adherents as the education of future members of a society is to its citizens. To many, religion has a profound importance in education and cannot be separated theoretically, pedagogically, or historically. Any attempts to separate the two have the propensity to make education seem antireligious.
