[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).
He/she, in order to know the current aim of this blog, should look up
the posting, “The Magruder and Glencoe Case, Part VIII (June 9, 2020).]
Moving on with the current effort of this blog, the review
and evaluation of two popular high school American government textbooks,[1]
this posting looks at the next two paragraphs selected from Glencoe
United States Government: Democracy in
Action.
The random
system the writer is using identified page 501 for the third paragraph. The problem is that 501 is dedicated for end
of Chapter 17 activities, “Document-Based Questions,” and, as with the earlier
choice of page 3, the page does not have instructional information. Instead it offers raw material – cited from
other sources – for students to analyze.
This writer, beforehand, anticipated this possibility and planned to cite
the immediately preceding page to these end of chapter material. That is page 497.
Titles
Chapter 17, “Elections and Voting,” Section 3, “Influences
on Voters,” page 497 –
Content:
Voter Participation
The
participation of Americans voting in presidential elections declined from about
62 percent in 1960 to just over 50 percent in 2000. Even fewer Americans voted in congressional,
state, and local elections. In 2004,
however, voter participation jumped to about 55 percent in a hotly contested
race between incumbent George W. Bush and Massachusetts Senator John
Kerry. The election ended in Bush’s
victory over Kerry. Some voters in key
battleground states waited for hours to vote.
Each candidate received more votes than any presidential candidate had
ever received before.[2]
Context:
This is a very telling paragraph. Apparently, Glencoe makes a serious
effort to round out the influence of behavioral political science. That is, the book cites behavioral data to a
seemingly reflected attribute one can ascribe to American voters.
That
attribute seems to be that they, in great numbers, do not want to vote. What is missing is why this should be a
concern – a reason seems to be assumed or it just happens to be one of many
attributes that describes Americans. It
could be that this is highlighted because it distinguishes Americans from other
democracies.
For
example, Spain in their last national elections (in 2019) had a 71.8% turnout.[3] This writer noticed, that throughout the
text, there are recurring references to data – raw information concerning
political behaviors. Of course, this is
in line with how political scientists see their subject matter and reflects a
general influence that scientific thinking has had on the social sciences
including political science.
Evaluation:
Again,
if one views this text from a federation theory perspective, this text material
lacks important questioning and information.
Instead, this is judged to be influenced by the natural rights bias in
favor of behavioral political study. The
chosen paragraph would be enhanced from a federal point of view if it included
the central role voting plays in an engaged citizenry. Instead, one does not get that message from
how low voting rates are without further contextual information.
A
good example of this more detached, scientific approach is noted on page 494. There is an insert, “Electing the President,”
that features a map and a table of statistics which traces turnout rates from
1964 to 2008. The insert is captioned
with an inquiry question: “Critical
Thinking Approximately 127 million
people voted for president in 2008. In
which areas of the country did McCain receive the strongest support? Obama?”[4]
Again,
without any indication toward bringing out a federated concern, one can only
see this as a behavioral, natural rights bias.
That is, by reducing students’ attention to thinking in terms of
specific factors or variables, in this case geographic location and voter
behavior, the student would tend to miss the overall concern of how unfederated
this behavior – or lack of a behavior – tends to be.
This
reminds one of David Brooks’ observation, cited earlier in this blog, “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.” [5] This is
especially true for a person lacking much experience, such as a high school
student with these concerns.
Titles
Chapter 25, “Political
Systems in Today’s World,” Section 4, “Global Issues,” page 708 –
Content:
The global importance of the oil
industry also increased cultural exchanges between Middle Eastern countries and
the West. Many Muslim fundamentalists
resented this contact, fearing that it weakened traditional Islamic values and
beliefs. New movements arose that called
for a strict interpretation of the Quran – the holy book of Islam – and a
return to traditional Islamic religious laws.
Eventually, some of the more militant fundamentalists began using
terrorism to achieve their goals.[6]
Context:
This paragraph appears in a subsection
entitled, “International Terrorism.”
When one considers this book was published in 2010, its development occurred
in the years following the 9/11 terrorist attack. While terrorism, as an issue still garners a
great deal of concern, it has subsided a bit when compared to the interest that
problem generated during the “aught” years.
In other words, the issue is highlighted for the very market-oriented
reason, it was virulent within the citizenry of that time.
As with the previously cited
paragraph, this page has an insert with statistics. That is, the insert has a table of what it
calls, “World Terrorism Data.” Again,
one can see a behavioral “flavor” in the book’s depiction of this issue. The chart informs the reader of incidences of
attacks, fatalities, injuries, and kidnappings for the years 2005-2007. Under the chart are highlighted percent rates
of change during those years.[7]
In this insert there is a “critical
thinking” question:
Since
the September 11, 2001, attacks, nations have been alert to the possibility of
terrorist attacks at public events. Here
Chinese soldiers [the picture in the insert] guarded a missile battery during
preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. What are the objectives of terrorist attacks
and do they achieve their goals?[8]
This question,
regardless of the construct prompting its inclusion, seems to this writer to be
“too big” a question to include in an insert.
One can write a book about this question and therefore, one is hard
pressed to take it as a serious effort to elicit a classroom discussion of any
substance. Surely, one can express off-the-cuff
comments, but a serious discussion? This
writer feels the question is more filler than anything else.
As with the other analyzed paragraphs,
this one reflects a natural rights bias.
That is, it reflects what is “popular” at the time, lacks any
association to common good explanatory tie-ins, and lacks any grander view of how
one, if engaged, would enhance the federated relationships. That would be relationships one could promote
if students became involved with an issue such as terrorism.
The next posting will look at one more
paragraph from the Glencoe book and offer an overall comment regarding
this textbook.
[1] Daniel M. Shea, Magruder’s
American Government (Boston, MA: Prentice Hall/Pearson, 2019) AND Richard C. Remy, Glencoe United States Government: Democracy in Action (New York,
NY: McGraw-Hill/Glencoe, 2010).
[3]
“April 2019 Spanish General Election,” Wikipedia, n.d., accessed June 22, 2020,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_2019_Spanish_general_election
. It should be noted, European turnout
in European Union elections are comparable to American turnouts. See “Final Turnout Data for 2019 European
Elections Announced, News: European
Parliament, October 29, 2019, accessed June 22, 2020, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20191029IPR65301/final-turnout-data-for-2019-european-elections-announced
.
[5]
David Brooks, The
Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of
Love, Character, and Achievement (New York, NY: Random House, 2011), 108-109.
[7] For example, “Violence against noncombatants in
Africa rose by 96 percent in 2007.”
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