[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.]
It’s time for this
blog to begin looking at civics textbooks most commonly used in America’s high
schools. Those would be Magruder’s American Government and Glencoe United States Government: Democracy in Action. This writer, when a high school civics
teacher, used Magruder’s for many years.
He never used Glencoe’s book.
For the following comparison, this
blog looks at two versions of Magruder and one version of Glencoe. The Magruder versions include its 2013
edition[1] and its 2019 edition.[2] As for the Glencoe book, the most
recent edition this writer could acquire is the 2010 edition.[3]
Upon first impression, one is apt to think these books have a lot
of information since they are both thick and heavy. The Magruder text has in its California
edition, 655 pages. The Glencoe book has
739 pages. Both have comparable size
dimensions, 8 ½ inches wide x 11 ½ inches high x 1 ½ inches deep, probably one
of the weightiest books a student is called upon to carry.
The writer, in his use of Magruder’s, found it to be a good
source of basic information about the federal government. He cannot say much about how that text
covered state government; in his case that would be Florida. In any given term, there would not be much
time to dedicate to the state or local government, if one followed the book’s
prescribed order of topics. More on this
in the upcoming pages of this blog.
Again,
the purpose here is to see how much either of these books encourages a student to
think in a communal way or an individualist way. This will not be anything like an extensive
review; one is not needed. For this
purpose, by asking a few questions about a few topics, one can get a good sense
of where a book’s emphasis is.
The
more specific questions guiding this analysis are: what is the assumed
motivation of a student in his or her reading of the book’s content? Is it to further the student’s role within a
community or is it to advance his/her knowledge of what is useful to advance
personal political/governmental ambitions?
By
political/governmental ambition this writer does not necessarily mean a pursuit
of a career in politics or government.
He is referring to any desire one might have in which government action
is necessary. This can extend from
installing a traffic light to paying for medical expenses under Medicaid. Of course, it also can include getting a
government job.
And, one other question:
does the book cover the needs of organizations or other arrangements or
does it focus on what the individual needs to know to advance his/her private
concerns within any organization?
One
place to start is to share each books’ table of contents. That is, initially, one can get a sense of
each book’s priority by simply looking at the main topics (chapter titles) upon
which the book focuses. Therefore, here
are the chapter titles and number of pages in each one for the first book under
consideration:
Name of Text: Magruder (2013 edition)
Chapter/Title Number
of Pages
1. Principles of Government 26
2. Origins of Government 38
3. The Constitution 26
4. Federalism [a
structural view] 28
5. Political Parties 30
6. Voters and Voter
Behavior 32
7. The Electoral
Processes 30
8. Mass Media and
Public Opinion 28
9. Interest Groups 26
10. Congress 28
11. Powers of Congress 34
12. Congress in Action 34
13. The Presidency 36
14. The Presidency in
Action 26
15. Government at Work:
the Bureaucracy 30
16. Financing
Government 26
17. Foreign Policy and
National Defense 38
18. The Federal Court
System 26
19. Civil Liberties:
First Amendment Freedoms 32
20. Civil Liberties:
Protecting Individual Rights 34
21. Civil Liberties: Justice
Under Law 34
22. Comparative
Political Systems 32
23. Comparative
Economic Systems 30
24. Governing Florida
and the States* 34
25. Florida’s Local
Government and Finance * 31
* Florida edition
And with that the
reader is given an assignment. See if
he/she can glean the emphasis of this book.
Apply the questions this posting lists above.
The
next posting will share this writer’s take on whether these chapter titles and
page allocations reveal a priority or two.
Chances are it will also look at the 2019 version of this text.
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