A Crucial Element of Democracy

This is a blog by Robert Gutierrez ...
While often taken for granted, civics education plays a crucial role in a democracy like ours. This Blog is dedicated to enticing its readers into taking an active role in the formulation of the civics curriculum found in their local schools. In order to do this, the Blog is offering a newer way to look at civics education, a newer construct - liberated federalism or federation theory. Daniel Elazar defines federalism as "the mode of political organization that unites separate polities within an overarching political system by distributing power among general and constituent governments in a manner designed to protect the existence and authority of both." It depends on its citizens acting in certain ways which Elazar calls federalism's processes. Federation theory, as applied to civics curriculum, has a set of aims. They are:
*Teach a view of government as a supra federated institution of society in which collective interests of the commonwealth are protected and advanced.
*Teach the philosophical basis of government's role as guardian of the grand partnership of citizens at both levels of individuals and associations of political and social intercourse.
*Convey the need of government to engender levels of support promoting a general sense of obligation and duty toward agreed upon goals and processes aimed at advancing the common betterment.
*Establish and justify a political morality which includes a process to assess whether that morality meets the needs of changing times while holding true to federalist values.
*Emphasize the integrity of the individual both in terms of liberty and equity in which each citizen is a member of a compacted arrangement and whose role is legally, politically, and socially congruent with the spirit of the Bill of Rights.
*Find a balance between a respect for national expertise and an encouragement of local, unsophisticated participation in policy decision-making and implementation.
Your input, as to the content of this Blog, is encouraged through this Blog directly or the Blog's email address: gravitascivics@gmail.com .
NOTE: This blog has led to the publication of a book. The title of that book is TOWARD A FEDERATED NATION: IMPLEMENTING NATIONAL CIVICS STANDARDS and it is available through Amazon in both ebook and paperback versions.

Friday, January 23, 2015

MAGRUDER ON WORKING ON AN ELECTION CAMPAIGN

Note:  In case you missed my last two postings, let me inform you that I am posting on Tuesdays, as opposed to my previous posting day, Mondays, and Fridays.

The last few postings have been about taking a look at the most widely used American government textbook and seeing how it treats certain concerns.  Specifically, I have been seeing if the textbook has a natural rights perspective with a heavy self-centered approach or, instead, a more communal approach – one reflecting a federalist bias.  This blog has been dedicated in part to promoting a federalist view and it has claimed that this is not what the prevailing approach has been in civics instruction.  In order to back up this claim, I decided that a closer look at the most widely used textbook would give us good evidence as to whether I am correct in this assessment.  Overall, for most teachers, the textbook determines the content of what he/she teaches.  Magruder’s American Government[1] is by far the most frequently chosen text for American government classes across the US. 

Due to limited space, I have in this review of Magruder’s tried to narrow in on key questions.  I have asked:  (1) What is the assumed motivation of a student that would encourage him/her to read the material? (2)  Does the material bolster/promote participation in pursuing collective goals or does the text encourage a more individualistic/self-interest posture? (3) Does the material advance social capital,[2] especially among high school students?  Most of the text – the overwhelming amount – is taken up with “slice and dice” descriptions of the different elements of the political system.  Earlier, I stated it takes on a scientific bias of assuming that by reducing elements of reality, looking at smaller and smaller elements, one can reach clear explanations of why things are the way they are – in this case, in terms of government and politics.  All one has to do is add up the different explanations of the varied elements and have a picture of the whole.  But as I previously pointed out, while this approach might lead to some level of explanation, it usually does not lead to understanding.  Most social reality, it turns out, is greater than the sum of its parts. 

Interspersed throughout the book are eleven inserts, collectively entitled “Citizenship 101.”  These inserts seem to come closest to addressing the federalist concerns I mentioned above.  To date, I reviewed the inserts “Writing Letters to the Editor” and “Volunteering.”  My judgment of these two is that both fail to inspire much that would be supportive of social capital or communal interests.  They make attempts to address what a citizen might do to get more involved with government and politics, but, at best, the attempts are judged to be lukewarm both in terms of information and tone.  With this posting, I want to review the book’s treatment of “Working on a Political Campaign.”[3]

In this insert, it is hard to determine what motivation is assumed on the part of the student.  The tone is light-hearted, but there is no describing what campaign workers experience.  I sense the author of the insert assumes a student who would read it is already wanting to work on a campaign – any campaign.  I write any campaign because in the steps the insert lists, the first step is “Get to know the candidate.”  This is before any consideration is given as to why one would work on a campaign.  Then, curiously enough, the second step is “Choose a Candidate.”  I fail to see the logic of this progression.  The last two steps are straightforward:  “Find out about volunteer opportunities” and “Choose a task.”  The steps, though, are perfunctory with little information or enthusiasm over what type of activity the steps entail.  Let me share the text for “Find out about volunteer opportunities”:
Political campaigns offer a wide range of volunteer opportunities.  A candidate may be looking for people to go door-to-door to seek support.  The campaign may need people to host or even just attend events.  Most campaigns need people to make phone calls or send out mailings of campaign literature.  Campaigns also appreciate financial contributions.[4]
Don’t you feel yourself wanting to run out and get involved?  Don’t you get a good sense of what it means to work on a campaign?  Don’t you just feel tingly over the possibility of doing something so exciting as working to get someone elected, someone you believe will help lead us to make a better community, city, state, nation?  Sorry; it’s just that campaign work is a chance to learn some important lessons about politics and an opportunity to work with like-minded people who might turn out to be life-long friends.  As with the book’s treatment of volunteering, couldn’t there be some case studies of young people working on a campaign or quotes from campaign professionals about what all is analyzed during a campaign?  To be honest, the text does have in its regular text information about voters and voter behavior.  There is a section dedicated to explaining why people don’t vote.  All of this can be useful in campaign work, but the tie-in is not built into the explanations.  There is a question in a section review (page 178) that asks:  “How do factors such as income and level of education impact rates of voter participation? … Why do you think this is the case?”  Magruder’s claims these are critical thinking questions.  How about using the text information and ask:  From what you know about why people don’t vote, how can a political campaign encourage reluctant people to vote?  Which political party would be more inclined to encourage high voter turnout?   This last question would have students look up and analyze: who votes, which party is likely to win low turnout elections; which party is likely to win high turnout elections?  Let me add another question:  Is it good for us to have high turnout elections?  Why/why not?  This is critical thinking. 

As with the other inserts already reviewed, I believe Magruder’s could do a lot more with the topics it has highlighted in these inserts.  In terms of motivation, the text basically takes the posture that students either have the motivation to work on a campaign or they don’t.  By using only minimal language of encouragement to get involved or to promote social capital, one is left with not much motivation or excitement emanating from Magruder’s.



[1] McClenaghan, W. A.  (2013).  Magruder’s American Government (Florida Teacher’s Edition).  Boston, MA:  Prentice Hall/Pearson.

[2] Social capital is a societal quality characterized by having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.

[3] Op cit,, McClenaghan, p. 141.

[4] Ibid.

No comments:

Post a Comment