This American Political Development research explains cross-state variation in aid for children at private religious schools in the United States up to the end of 2012. Using a mixed-methods approach I examine how the institutional orderings of Federalism, Constitution, Church and Party affect policymaker decisions to instigate and sustain programmes of aid. By ‘aid’ I mean education vouchers and tax credits, transportation, textbook loans, equipment, nursing and food services, and tax exemptions for private religious school property. I conduct Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis across all fifty states, supported by interview and archival research in six case-study states – California, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, New York and Utah – and by statistical treatment of the constitutional amendments known as ‘No-Aid Provisions’. All of the aid policies examined here are ‘submerged’ in Mettler’s terms, in that they help private organizations to take on state functions, re-frame such functions in terms of the marketplace, and are poorly understood by the public. In this thesis I extend Mettler’s conception of submergedness to explain when institutions matter, which institutions matter, and why they matter for religious school student aid. State decentralization is necessary for high levels of aid and a high proportion of Catholics is sufficient for high levels of aid. Republican control of the state offices is a necessary condition for the passage of tax credit or voucher scholarships but not for other types of aid. No-Aid Provisions are unrelated to aid. Of the four institutional explanatory conditions, Federalism and Church have the most important effects on aid for children at private religious schools. Party explains some types of aid but not all, and Constitution is surprisingly lacking in explanatory power.

De nos jours, le motif de la « crise de l’éducation » est récurrent dans les discussions publiques sur le système éducatif, et ce des deux côtés de l’Atlantique. Aux Etats-Unis, c’est au lendemain de la seconde guerre mondiale qu’il prend une tournure nouvelle. Jusqu’alors on avait parlé de « crise » pour désigner les difficultés matérielles et financières du système, mais l’expression prend une autre signification après 1945, tandis que s’installe un débat entre les partisans de l’éducation moderne, modèle inspiré par les principes de l’éducation progressiste, et les défenseurs d’une éducation humaniste, qui dénoncent une dégradation des exigences intellectuelles et des résultats de l’enseignement public. Cette étude se propose de restituer les termes de ce débat et d’analyser ses répercussions sur les dynamiques du système éducatif américain. La confrontation entre deux philosophies de l’éducation ne se limite pas à la sphère des professionnels et on en retrouve les échos dans la presse de grande diffusion comme dans certains films hollywoodiens. Alors que les États-Unis font face à une crise de confiance après le lancement réussi du satellite Spoutnik, le gouvernement américain désigne le système éducatif comme maillon faible en s’appuyant sur les critiques formulées tout au long des années 1950 par les adversaires de l’éducation moderne. Le télescopage du débat sur l’éducation et des logiques de Guerre froide ouvre alors la voie à une intervention fédérale inédite dans le domaine de l’éducation, avec l’adoption du National Defense Education Act de 1958. / The “crisis in education” has been a recurrent theme in discussions about the American school system. In the United States, it was after WWII that the notion gained momentum and a new meaning. Until then, the term “crisis” had been merely used to evoke the dire material and financial state of education. The expression took another turn with the emergence of a debate between proponents of modern education (a model derived from the principles of progressive education) and partisans of liberal education who denounced an intellectual degradation in the school system. This dissertation analyzes this debate and its consequences on the dynamics of education in the United States. This strife between two conceptions of education is set apart by its significant influence and pervasion of society. Indeed, not only did it involve the circle of professional educators but it also touched lay men, so much so that it was integrated by popular culture. Confronted with a confidence crisis in the aftermath of the successful launch of satellite Sputnik, the U.S. government pinpointed the school system as the weak link of the American nation, taking advantage of the wave of criticisms against modern education that had dominated the 1950s. The combination of the debate on education with the logics of the Cold War paved the way for an unprecedented federal intervention in the field of education with the 1958 National Defense Education Act.