The crucible of consent : American child rearing and the forging of liberal society / James E. Block.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: is consent credible? -- The hidden dynamic of childhood consent -- Part I. The dream of revolutionary erasure -- Part II. Framing liberal child-rearing in the early republic: from factionalism to mainstream: the emerging consensus on agency socialization; constituting the voluntary citizen; socializing society: popular education and the diffusion of -- Agency; educating the agent as liberal citizen -- Part III. Consolidating the postwar agency republic: the "self-made" citizen: the science of agency and the erasure of socialization; a superfluous socialization? shaping the self-realizing child; divided we stand: education in the emerging organizational age -- Coda: from dewey to discord-the twentieth-century crisis of the consensual society.