If you have been following this blog over the last two
postings, you know I am reviewing the senior high school textbook, Magruder’s American Government.[1] The purpose is to see how much the content of
the book enables or encourages those attitudes and skills supportive of social
capital. The term social capital I derive
from Robert Putnam’s writings. He uses
the term to mean a societal quality characterized by having an active,
public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social
environment of trust and cooperation.[2] In the last posting, I shared the textbook’s
table of contents. From that listing, we
can judge the book to be heavy on conveying the structure of the central
government, who and what influences Washington
– factions, political parties, etc. – and how influence upon that government
takes place. From the table of contents,
we did not denote any emphasis on how individuals or local groups can be
successful or viable to any degree in bolstering communal interests. But this only begs a closer look. I therefore will begin with this posting
looking at whether the text in its finer points addresses these more
public-spirited topics.
I will look at whether the book has anything to say about
communities, community development, neighborhoods, charities, or non-profit
organizations. I feel that these are the
types of topics one would associate with social capital. Using the index of the book, this is what I found. There is no listing for community(ies),
community development, neighborhood(s), or charity(ies). There is no listing for non-profit
organization(s), but there is one for non-governmental organizations
(NGOs). When I looked up NGOs, the text
mentions that the United Nations works with NGOs in administrating a number of
its programs around the world. While
commendable, this type of information is not what bolsters social capital among
your average high school student population.
In short, in terms of community, Magruder’s
has little to nothing to say.
But what the text does have are inserts sporadically placed throughout
the book which are entitled Citizenship
101. Each insert is dedicated to a
different topic; they are: debates,
evaluating leadership, juries, letters to the editor, political campaigns,
political roots and attitudes, polls, television news programs, using the
internet, volunteering, and writing to public officials. Each insert takes up about half a page (the entry
might take up the entire page, but a lot of the space is taken up with a photo
or words, leaving a good deal of empty space).
Given the font size and spacing of its usual text material, the
information in these inserts would take up a good deal less than half a page if
it were presented as part of the usual text.
The format is the same for all of them.
It begins with a quote, then an introduction to the topic, a list of
things to do in order to perform some action in relation to the topic follows. For example, the list for evaluating
leadership has three steps: “decide what
factors are most important to you;” “match the skills to the job;” “compare
their qualifications.” For each step,
there is a short “how to” explanation to help the student accomplish the step. I am disappointed that these entries are
given such small emphasis, but some of the topics I do believe are related to
social capital. They are: letters to the editor, political campaigns,
political roots and attitudes, volunteering, voting, and writing to public
officials.
Is the treatment of these topics really written in such a way
as to bolster or enable social capital – a federalist theory aim – or are they
written to promote self-interest agendas as those would be more in line with a
natural rights perspective? My next
posting begins to take a closer look at the six topics I have highlighted. Before I do this let me point out that no
matter what we find, these entries are a very small part of this book. That by itself conveys the notion that what
is contained is not that important.
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