If you want
to know what the content of government courses in the US is, just pick up a
copy of Magruder’s American Government. This text is the overwhelming choice of most
schools and school districts. In the
upcoming postings, I will go over some of the book’s content to make my case;
i.e., the natural rights construct is the guiding perspective determining the content
of its pages. Let me be clear, as stated
previously in this blog, that educators would not use this terminology to
describe this book, but I contend that, whether conscious or not, this bias
exists and the effects of such a promoted view of government are real.
What I will
report is a content analysis. Specifically,
I will review the book and ask: what is
the assumed motivation of a student in his or her reading of this content? Is it to further the student’s role within
collectives or is it to advance his/her knowledge of what is useful to advance
personal political ambitions? Does the
book cover the needs of organizations or other arrangements or does it focus on
what the individual needs to know to advance private concerns? I expect that these issues are not addressed
directly, but I hypothesize that the language used by the text assumes a
particular tone or direction, one that basically says that when you happen to
want or “need” some service from government this is what you need to know. But the demands of encouraging a citizenry
that supports social capital need to be more proactive in encouraging a
disposition to support and bolster the values associated with social
capital. Let me remind you of how I am
using this term, social capital: social capital, as a societal quality,
is characterized by having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian
political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation. I believe the above questions address the
type of concerns associated with social capital. By answering them, we can get a good feel of
whether American government texts promote social capital or not.
Before beginning this analysis, let me first add
some context. One critique I have
offered is that curricular offerings today have relied on a view of politics
that can be described as the structural-functional approach. This is an outgrowth of a political science
construct known as political systems model.
Early in this blog, I reviewed the basic elements of political systems and
I emphasized how in mid-20th century, political scientists were
taken by this model as a way to incorporate more scientific methods into their
research. In terms of what I am focusing
on, textbook content, I feel I should draw your attention to what I perceive is
a serious problem with the approach that text writers and publishers use in
determining that content; that is, these
text producers opted for a view of governance and politics that furthers
reductionism or reductive language.
Let me explain.
The basic notion of reductionism is to conceptually dissect any aspect
of reality on the belief that by doing so, one can look at the separate
elements making up that reality so that after each element is viewed, one can
add them all together and understand them.
Let me use David Brooks’ words to describe what is being promoted:
This way of thinking [reductionism]
induces people to think they can understand a problem by dissecting it into its
various parts. They can understand a
person’s personality if they just tease out and investigate his genetic or
environmental traits. This deductive
mode is the specialty of conscious cognition – the sort of cognition that is
linear and logical.
The problem with this
approach is that it has trouble explaining dynamic complexity, the essential feature
of a human being, a culture, or a society.
So recently there has been a greater appreciation of the structure of
emergent systems. Emergent systems exist
when different elements come together and produce something that is greater
than the sum of their parts. Or, to put
it differently, the pieces of a system interact, and out of their interaction something
entirely new emerges.[1]
To the list of emergent systems Brooks identifies,
he can add governments. The
structural-functional approach that textbooks adopt, including Magruder’s American Government, portrays
a view of government very much in this dissecting mode. As result, we have a view of government more
akin to what one uses to view a machine, when what is needed is a view that
sees government and politics as an organism.
The next few postings will look at this
shortcoming more closely. In order to be
somewhat efficient in this effort, I have chosen several content topics to zero
in on: community development, placing a
demand on government, influencing local governmental policy, and describing or
explaining a governmental agency – such as Social Security. I have chosen these topics because they
directly relate to social capital.
[1] Brooks, D.
(2011). The social
animal: The hidden sources of love,
character, and achievement. New
York, NY: Random House, pp. 108-109.
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