AN AMERICA CURRICULUM

Public schooling in the United States serves the purposes of Americani zation and assimilation. Group and national identifies a-e continually refashioned, however; and in the late 1990s, it is much less clear wh at students asr being socialized or assimilated to than it tons twenty or forty or eighty years ago. The resurgence of policy activity and c ontroversy, regarding American pluralism-diversity-multiculturalism ha s raised questions about what vision or, version of the nation is to b e transmitted to future generations via school curricula. The focus of the study: presented here is the images of America actually being con veyed in elementary middle, and high school social studies classes. Th e absence of a single, predominant image of America in these classes c an be understood as, reflecting the complex,realities of United States history and contemporary! society. Closest to a dominant theme was '' imperfect but best''-America as the best country in the world despite past problems, current difficulties, and various complaints. Alternati ve interpretations were offered, all pointing to disruption of the tra ditional story of America, ct disruption that challenges not only rite conventional wisdom but also the privileged positions of those indivi duals and groups who have benefited from dominant ideologies and preva iling distributions of power.