CNU Professor Dr. Brian Puaca Receives Prestigious New Scholar's Book Award

(Newport News, Va.) - CNU history professor Dr. Brian Puaca's book, Learning Democracy: Education Reform in West Germany, 1945-1965, has received the 2011 New Scholar's Book Award from the American Education Research Association (AERA). The award is given biennially by Division F to the best first book on the history of education. Dr. Puaca traveled to New Orleans in April to attend the AERA annual conference and accept the prestigious award.

The New Scholar’s Book Award committee members commented that Learning Democracy “speaks to the power of education for the creation of a national identity and political ideology.” They noted its significance for Americanists as well as Europeanists, as the first “ground-level examination in any language of the U.S. educational reconstruction of West Germany written in more than twenty years.” In addition, the committee found the book persuasive in reminding readers “that education is much more than the explicit curriculum.”

The American Educational Research Association (AERA), founded in 1916, is concerned with improving the educational process by encouraging scholarly inquiry related to education and evaluation and by promoting the dissemination and practical application of research results.