"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without plowing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will." --Frederick Douglass

Title(s):
Co-Coordinator, Social Studies Education Program,
Assistant Professor of Education

Education:
B.A., History, Yale University
M.A., History, Stanford University
Ph.D., Education (History of Education), Stanford University

Affiliations:

American Educational Research Association
American Historical Association
History of Education Society
National Council for the Social Studies

Research interests:

I am interested in ideas about education and history as contested terrain. My current interests include religion and public education, social and civic education, and education in nation building.

Recent publications:

Books:

Benjamin Justice, The War That Wasn't: Conflict and Compromise in the Common Schools of New York State, 1865-1900 (SUNY Press, 2005).

Articles:

Benjamin Justice, "The Great Contest: The American Philosophical Society and the Education Prize of 1797," American Journal of Education 114:2 (February 2008).

Benjamin Justice, "The Blaine Game: Are Public Schools Inherently Anti-Catholic?," Teachers College Record (November 2007).

James Giarelli and Benjamin Justice, "Historia Pro Patria," in Kal Alston (ed.) Philosophy of Education 2003 (Philosophy of Education Society, 2004).

Benjamin Justice, "Thomas Nast and the Public School of the 1870s," History of Education Quarterly 45:2 (Spring 2005).

Benjamin Justice, "Bones of Contention: Excavating the Case Files of the Superintendent of Public Instruction," New York History (Spring 2004).

Benjamin Justice, "Historical Fiction to Historical Fact: The Gangs of New York and the Whitewashing of History," Social Education (May/June) 2003.

Benjamin Justice, "A College of Morals: Educational Reform at San Quentin Prison, 1880-1920," History of Education Quarterly 40:3 (Fall 2000).

Book Chapters:

Benjamin Justice, "Beyond Nationalism: The Founding Fathers and Educational Universalism in the Early Republic," in Bradley Levinson and Doyle Stevick, Rethinking Civic Education: How Diverse Societies Form Democratic Citizens (Information Age Publishing, in press).

Benjamin Justice, "Looking Back to See Ahead: Some Thoughts on the History of Civic Education," in Beth C. Rubin and James Giarelli (eds.) Social Studies for a New Millennium: Re-Envisioning Civic Education for a Changing World (Earlbaum, in press).

Benjamin Justice, "Public Education," "Aid to Schools," and "Release Time," Encyclopedia of New York State (Syracuse University Press, 2005).

Beth Rubin and Benjamin Justice, "Preparing Social Studies Teachers to be Just and Democratic," in N. Michelli and D. Keiser (eds.), Teaching for Democracy in Conservative Times (Routledge Falmer, 2005).

David Tyack and Benjamin Justice, "Vocational Education in the United States, Some Historical Perspectives," in Jurgen Oelkers (ed.) Futures of Education II: Essays from an Interdisciplinary Symposium (Bern: Peter Lang, 2003).