ABSTRACT
The relationship between religion and public, that is to say non-private, schooling in the United States, always a matter of significant policy debate and political controversy, has received sharpened attention during the years of the Reagan Administration. This chapter overviews the historic relationship between schooling and cultural identity issues in the United States, a nation of immigrants, focusing upon main themes in contemporary scholarship. In so far as there is an emphasis upon denominational education, the focus will largely be upon Roman Catholic schooling. The relationship between schools and religion has roots in both the evolution of formal education and the social demography of the United States. The explorations of educational historians reveal a pre-eminent interest in the evolution of educational structures rather than educational processes or consciousness. The changes which are taking place in American education, then, are significant in many ways when the persistence of religious identity and the uses of religious schools are taken into account.
