[Note: If the reader has taken up reading this blog
with this posting, he/she is helped by knowing that this posting is the next
one in a series of postings. The series begins with the posting, “The Natural
Rights’ View of Morality” (February 25, 2020, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-natural-rights-view-of-morality.html). Overall, the
series addresses how the study of political science has affected the civics
curriculum of the nation’s secondary schools.]
The last posting reviewed data collection protocols utilized by
political scientists. This topic is
being highlighted because of the influence political science has on the content
of civics courses in American classrooms.
Civics teachers should have a solid understanding of that content and,
in turn, a general understanding of that discipline’s research methods. To the extent they do, therefore, what
political scientists discover, generally, can and does have a guiding effect on
what is taught in secondary classrooms.
This posting will
proceed to describe how discovered findings in the form of generalizations
function to develop the models of political behavior that that discipline promotes. The last posting ended with how behavioral
studies report on correlations.
Correlations are relationships between or among factors (variables) that
basically establish what happens to one or a set of factors when one or a set
of other factors varies. The first type
of factor is known as a dependent variable and the second type is an
independent variable. The point was
made, correlations are not statements of cause and effect.
Cause and effect
relationships are theorized in either theories or models. Political science mostly relies on models –
their proposed cause and effect claims are not grounded enough to be theory or
elements of a theory. So, Davies “J”
curve model, that states that people who experience improving conditions but
then see their fates in short order turn negative, will be disposed to behave disruptively
or rebelliously due to their unmet rising expectations is an example. That model has some support in the real
world, but one can probably find non supportive evidence as well.
Stated in other words, a
theoretical claim cannot be established simply by discovering a
correlation. Correlations can only hint
at cause and effect, they do not prove them (although, they can, if extensive
enough, disprove a theory). Basically,
that is what behavioral studies can do, hint at theoretical relationships, but
that is no small contribution. These
findings become the “where as” or “since” elements of reasoned arguments that
propose causations.
An ensuing issue is whether
this research approach is ignored in classrooms that rely on didactic
techniques – which have been the common instructional approaches of secondary
schools. By not demonstrating how this
more interactive form of research might be conducted, civics students are
deprived any experience at engaging with political factors or events. They instead are lectured at about what
behavioral studies reveal, however non-determinant such descriptions are.
If the academic field that
provides the basic information avoids normative questioning, which behavioral
studies do, then the resulting secondary school instruction will most likely
avoid any semblance of controversy or relevancy. It made the question of moral or immoral
politics seem irrelevant. This general
observation should be kept in mind as this blog, in a future posting, reviews
the content of the leading high school textbook in US schools.
But what about the previously
cited post behavioral revolt that came about in the 1980s, which was pointed
out in a previous posting? One should
keep in mind that the aim of the initial behavioral revolt was to allow
political scientists to develop an overall theory that would explain why humans
behave politically as they do. The revolt
came about because political science could not develop an overall theory as the
individual natural sciences had been able to do over their subject matters.
In an earlier posting, for
example, it is pointed that out biology has the theory of natural selection to
guide its research.[1] Not so for political science; it instead is
characterized as having a multitude of models that strive to explain or shed
light on what determines various aspects of political phenomena. And that goes for more recent research over
societal problems that characterize post-behavioral studies.
To this point, the
discipline, according to influential leaders in the field, needs to shift its
attention to addressing pressing political problem areas, such as
discriminatory policies by government or other powerful entities. This, in turn, reintroduces a level of
normative concerns that pure behavioralist studies purposely avoided so as to
be more objective in their approach of their subject matter. Here is a summary statement of this shift of
concerns by a blogger this writer feels captures the it,
Post-Behaviroural Approach is both a movement and academic
tendency. It opposed the efforts of the
Behavioural Approach to make Political Science a value free science. The Post-Behavioural Approach is a future
oriented approach which wants to solve problems of both present and future. To this approach, the study of Political
Science should put importance on social change.
To it political science must have some relevance to society. Along with relevance, this approach believes
that action is the core of … political science [study]. It accepts that political science needs to
study all realities of politics, social change, values, etc.[2]
It turns out Elazar’s concerns[3] have not been totally
forgotten or ignored.
With the next
posting, this blog will more directly address how the elements of political
science research and theorizing affect civics instruction. This effect, in line with the message of this
posting, is not a cause and effect relationship. It turns out that both the progression of
political science and the evolution of civics curriculum seem to be affected by
the same cultural force, the overall dominance of the natural rights view of
governance and politics.
[1] A book that extensively reports on findings based on
research that utilizes natural selection theory in the study of the human mind
see Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Company, 1997).
[2] Pankaj,
“Behavioral and Post Behavioral Approach to Political Science,” Samaj the
Society” – a blog, April 4, 2011, accessed February 19, 2020, http://samaj-thesociety.blogspot.com/2011/04/behavioral-and-post-behavioral-approach.html .
[3] Daniel J. Elazar identifies aims for political
science (reported in a previous posting).
They are: the pursuit of political justice in government’s role
in establishing and maintaining order; discovering the generalizable factors
that correlate with the various political actions that characterize a polity;
and discover, communicate, and promote those policies that create a functional
civic environment – through a civil society and a civil community.
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