[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).]
With this posting, this blog ends its review and evaluation
of the American government textbook, Glencoe United States
Government: Democracy in Action.[1] The overall aim has been to find evidence that
supports or negates the claim that current civics curricular content and
methods are influenced by the natural rights construct and to evaluate the
content of that book according to federation theory values and concerns.
Substantively,
if the claim is true, the content of that curriculum would emphasize only one
of Daniel Elazar’s aims for political science.
Here is what he had to say about why people are political to begin with,
Human … concern with politics focuses
on three general themes; the pursuit of political justice to achieve political
order; the search for understanding of the empirical reality of political power
and its exercise; and the creation of an appropriate civic environment through
civil society and civil community capable of integrating the first two themes
to produce the good political life.[2]
If this is why humans are political,
one would logically deduce that the reasons or aims to study that behavior
would reflect these general aims.
Currently, under the general
construct of natural rights, political science, in an attempt to be more
scientific, has zeroed in on the second aim, “the search for
understanding of the empirical reality of political power and its exercise,” to
the exclusion of the other two. Federation
theory does not belittle this aim, but strongly defends the inclusion of the
other two.
So,
in essence, what this blog is asking is to what extent does civics curriculum
in the US seek the fulfillment of all three aims – i.e., how thoroughly does
the curricular materials used in the classroom address the pursuit of justice,
understanding of political behavior, and the establishment of a civil society? This posting continues this effort by looking
at the fifth randomly selected paragraph from the Glencoe textbook.
Titles
Chapter 26, “Development
of Economic Systems,” Section 2, “Emerging Economies,” pages 723-724 –
Content:
Another
important difference distinguishes the “command” democratic socialist economies
and “command” communist economies. Under
the first type, voters can replace the government leaders who are in command of
the economy. In a Communist country,
such as the former Soviet Union or Cuba, however, only one party exists, and
the people have no control over the economic decisions.[3]
The reader will
notice that this citation has two pages.
The randomness employed by this writer called for page 724, paragraph
5. It happens that that paragraph five
continues to the next page, hence the designation 724-725.
Context:
This paragraph is contextualized
within a general treatment of the economic challenges facing emerging nations. Such nations include (as identified in an
accompanying insert) Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Chile, Ethiopia, etc. That insert, along with the inserts in the
previously chosen paragraphs, has a statistical representation of the economic
challenges these nations confront. It
also has a “Critical Thinking” question.
Of course, as the quoted paragraph indicates, the report strays into
describing the difference among capitalist democracies, democratic socialist
systems, and Communist systems.
In terms of democratic socialist
nations, mostly found in Western Europe, the text lists the array of public
services such as socialized medicine that those states provide. It hits on the criticism they generate by, in
part, highlighting the term “welfare state.”
Evaluation:
As with the other cited paragraphs,
the text presents information that reflect a controversial concern without identifying
the controversy or, by necessity, the source of the controversy. The opinion here is that the controversy
reflects what the media covered when the textbook was published. This writer sees this inclusion as catering
to the consumerist bent current civics curriculum strives to satisfy.
With
this information, in other words, the student can, if he/she takes the
information seriously, make more informed voting decisions when the student is
asked to choose between or among a set of candidates and their respective
policy proposals. The positive side of
this is, by its inclusion of data, the student is encouraged to look at the
issue and the data from an objective point of view – although nothing in the
text addresses how objective the choice of that information is. Also, the “other” aims of Elazar are totally
ignored. This follows the general
editorial choices that both Glencoe and Magruder demonstrate.
With a look at five randomly chosen
paragraphs found in Glencoe, what can one generally say about that
book? As with Magruder, this book
further demonstrates what the influence of the natural rights view has on the
civics curriculum of the nation with one qualification indicated below. That influence leads both books to share the
following attributes:
·
The books offer students an extremely
objectified language as to what they convey.
In line with scientific efforts, that language avoids any valued or
attitudinal position regarding its content.
·
The chosen information, though,
reflects what is currently debatable or controversial. Given the language, that reportage does not
indicate this bias, but given what is included, one cannot find all those
choices as coincidental. In short, the
effort of these books is to inform future voters about the predictable issues that
they will confront.
·
While many of these chosen issues can
be analyzed and debated in terms of how they relate to justice or how they
advance or detract from a civil society, the books tend to avoid such
questioning. Yes, there are exceptions,
but they are passing concerns without much focus placed on them.[4]
·
With this emphasis on providing
information to inform a future voters, the texts naturally portray an
individualistic approach to this study of politics. Very little of the books’ treatments of these
issues is expressed through the lens of a communal orientation to such
issues. Of course, as with any reportage
of politics, one must mention collective or communal arrangements at some point. But the reflected aims do not center on what
advances or hurts the common advantages of those arrangements.
·
And finally, and this is the
qualification alluded to above, Glencoe differs from Magruder to
the extent the former attempts to adopt the methodology of behavioral political
science. This blog has dedicated, in
this series, a bit of space to review what constitutes behavioral studies
especially in political science. Glencoe,
with its inclusion of raw data and inquiry questioning, reasonably mimics what
political scientists do – suitable in sophistication to its audience, high
school students.
Now
this blog is ready to move on to another area of concern; that is, another area
of obstacles facing civics teachers in promoting a federated society; that is
the bifurcated electorate one finds in contemporary America.
[1]
Richard C. Remy, Glencoe United
States Government: Democracy in Action (New York,
NY: McGraw-Hill/Glencoe, 2010).
[2] Daniel J. Elazar, Exploring
Federalism (Tuscaloosa, AL: The
University of Alabama Press, 1987), 1.
[4]
For example, in Glencoe’s coverage of economic politics, an editorial
cartoon appears in which three fish of various sizes are depicted. The smallest fish states, “There is no
justice in the world,” as it is about to be eaten by the midsize fish. The midsize fish says, “There is some justice
in the world,” as it is about to be eaten by the large fish. And, of course, the large fish says, “The
world is just.” See Richard C. Remy, Glencoe United States Government, 718.
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