- Assistant Professor
- Email: hlavacik@tamu.edu
- Office: BLTN 302G
- Document: CV
- Personal Website
Introduction
Dr. Hlavacik studies controversies about education and education about controversies using historical, rhetorical, and qualitative research methods.
Biography
Mark Hlavacik is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism. He is the author of Willing Warriors: A New History of the Education Culture Wars (University of Chicago Press, 2025) and Assigning Blame: The Rhetoric of Education Reform (Harvard Education Press, 2016). His scholarship has appeared in the American Journal of Education, Communication Education, PMLA, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Theory and Research in Social Education, and elsewhere.
Dr. Hlavacik pursues two programs of research. Using historical inquiry and rhetorical analysis, he examines how controversies like the culture wars shape the politics of education. Using rhetorical theory and qualitative analysis, he theorizes the use of controversial issue discussions as a teaching practice in humanities and social studies classrooms.
After completing his PhD at Penn State in 2014, Dr. Hlavacik taught at the University of North Texas for ten years before he joined the CMJR faculty in 2025. Dr. Hlavacik earned his BA in history from Western Illinois University in 2007 where he also received an endorsement in secondary education. Dr. Hlavacik grew up in Joliet, Illinois. He credits his background as a debater and debate coach with setting him on the path to becoming a professor.
Courses Taught
COMM 460: Communication and Contemporary Issues
Research Interests
- Rhetoric and Public Affairs
- Humanities & Critical/Cultural Studies
Selected Publications
Representative Publications
- Hlavacik, Mark. “Lynne Anne Munson’s Memorandum to Lynne V. Cheney On the 1991 MLA Convention,” PMLA (in press).
- Krutka, Daniel G., and Mark Hlavacik. “Refining Criteria for Civic Inquiry Lessons: An Analysis of Inquiry Design Model Lessons,” Theory & Research in Social Education (in press).
- Hlavacik, Mark. "From Cultural Artifact to Culture War: The Declaration of Independence and the Fight for Control of the US Civics Classroom," in Used, Abused, and Sidelined: Deliberating the Declaration, ed. by Mary Stuckey. Penn State University Press, 2025.
- Hlavacik, Mark, and Jack Schneider. “Talking Back to the Failing Schools Narrative.” Phi Delta Kappan 106, no. 1 (2024): 15-18.
- Hlavacik, Mark, and Daniel G. Krutka. “Deliberation Can Wait: How Civic Litigation Makes Inquiry Critical.” Theory & Research in Social Education 49, no. 3 (2021): 418-448.
- Hlavacik, Mark, and Jack Schneider. “The Echo of Reform Rhetoric: Arguments About National and Local School Failure in the News, 1984-2016.” American Journal of Education 127, no. 4 (2021): 627-655.
- Hlavacik, Mark, Brian Lain, Matea Ivanovic, and Brian Ontiveros-Kersch. “The State of College Debate According to a Survey of Its Coaches: Data to Ground the Discussion of Debate and Civic Engagement.” Communication Education 65, no. 4 (2016): 382-396.
- Rhodes, Joseph, and Mark Hlavacik. “Imagining Moral Presidential Speech: Barack Obama’s Niebuhrian Nobel.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 18, no. 4 (2015): 471-503.
- Hlavacik, “The Democratic Origins of Teachers Union Rhetoric: Margaret Haley’s Speech at the 1904 NEA Convention.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 15, no. 4 (2012): 499-524.
Books
Hlavacik, Mark. Willing Warriors: A New History of the Education Culture Wars. University of Chicago Press, 2025.
In Willing Warriors, Mark Hlavacik shows how the culture wars have redefined the politics of US schooling from the 1970s to the present through vivid accounts of public controversies featuring Allan Bloom, Oprah Winfrey, Lynne Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Betsy DeVos, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and others. Beginning in the 1970s, Hlavacik shows, efforts at innovation in schooling have increasingly been met by attempts to discredit them through exposé. As the culture wars have accelerated and exploded, this cycle of innovation and exposé has embroiled public schools in increasingly heated debates. He explains the dynamics that make curriculum controversies so intractable and confronts the delicate question of whether raucous public arguments are bad for education.Hlavacik, Mark. Assigning Blame: The Rhetoric of Education Reform. Harvard Education Press, 2016.
Analyzing five of the most prominent acts of public persuasion since the founding of the US Department of Education in 1979—Milton Friedman’s appeal for vouchers on national television; the National Commission on Excellence in Education’s seminal A Nation at Risk report; Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities; the No Child Left Behind Act; and also its repudiation by Diane Ravitch—Hlavacik explores the implications of using blame to achieve policy goals, sounding a cautionary note for reformers and educators alike: while blame can be an effective, even positive tool for change, overuse can breed cynicism and undermine faith in the very institution that advocates seek to change. Hlavacik urges policy makers, scholars, educators, and the public to reconsider its favorite rhetorical tactic for pursuing education reform and offers alternatives to the overreliance on blame.