#477 - Can Schools Save Democracy?: A Dialogue with James Traub episode artwork

EPISODE · Feb 27, 2026 · 55 MIN

#477 - Can Schools Save Democracy?: A Dialogue with James Traub

from Converging Dialogues · host Converging Dialogues

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with James Traub about education and democracy. They talk about the distinctness of American education, history evolving into social studies, the Classical model, and charter schools. They discuss the 1619 Project, “Wokeness” in schools, “Anti-wokeness” in schools, Hirsch’s core model, and many more topics. James Traub is a journalist and scholar specializing in international affairs. He is a columnist and contributor to the website foreignpolicy.com. He worked as a staff writer for The New Yorker from 1993 to 1998 and as a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine from 1998 to 2011. He has also written extensively about national politics, urban affairs, and education. He has written many books, such as, True Believer: Hubert Humphrey’s Quest For A More Just America and the most recent, The Cradle of Citizenship: How Schools can help save our Democracy. He teaches classes on American foreign policy and on the history of liberalism at NYU Abu Dhabi and at NYU. He is a fellow of the Center on International Cooperation and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.Substack: James Traub Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

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#477 - Can Schools Save Democracy?: A Dialogue with James Traub

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