The Debates over the Curriculum in Public Schools and Religion in the United States: A Study on Supreme Court Cases.

• Main Authors: Chih-Kuang Yin, 尹志光
• Other Authors: Fang-Shen Chiang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/36410375331003159112

碩士 === 國立暨南國際大學 === 比較教育學系 === 96 === The U.S.A. is the first country with the written constitution that originates the separation of Church and State to ensure the freedom of faith. However, the dispute between religion and the curriculum in public schools has existed for a long time, especially for the debate between evolutionism and creationism. This thesis aimed at probing into the historical causes of the dispute and analyzing the impact on educational policies in the U.S. Besides, an analysis of American viewpoint of religious education and moral education was done to understand how the government kept neutrality among education and religion. Moreover, the study scrutinized the content of three major precedents on the Supreme Court of the United States (State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, the Epperson vs. Arkansas, and the Edwards vs. Aguillard), generated the reasons, and analyzed the trend from the judgment. This research utilized the document analysis method. The critical cases of the Supreme Court had been analyze and supplemented by relevant policies and decree clause of U.S. Department of Education, books, journal articles, and theses, etc. Due to the influence from the colonization period, the U.S. government believes that separation of Church and State is an access to protect people’s freedom of faith. However, the fundamentalists have used various tactics to make the creationism a part of the curriculum in public schools. After several crucial lawsuits, the evolutionism obtained the legal position in public schools. Even though the creationism didn´t win the lawsuits, the supporters still utilized different strategies to pursue the legal status for creationism in public schools. During the process, the Supreme Court of the U.S. used the Establishment Clause as the standard for judgment, and proposed that the Free Exercise Clause might be an alternative criterion. Therefore, a debate on the principle of application for the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause was going on. This research got four conclusions：（1）the American conservative fundamentalists still possess the leading role in schooling.（2）the moral concepts of the Bible have a deep and powerful influence on the American.（3）the content of equal time is redefined.（4）the dispute about the application of the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause to relevant cases has not reached a consensus.