VIABILITY OF THE LIBERATED FEDERALISM, VIII

Using Eugene Meehan’s criteria for judging social science theory and models[1] – its mental constructs – this blog, over its last seven postings, has provided the bulk of its viability statement regarding the model, liberated federalism.  While such a review is helpful to civics teachers, it does not directly address pedagogic concerns that civics educators have in their day-to-day responsibilities. 

This posting rectifies this – to a degree – by adding to Meehan’s list of criteria two more areas of concern, abstract level, and motivation.  This blogger believes these two concerns, while separate, are highly related and that relationship is highlighted below.  To begin with, both reflect mental qualities that affect how people learn.

Their meanings are fairly straightforward.  Abstract level refers to how much the construct's information or images contain elements of reality which constitute the phenomena it describes or explains.  Any representation, by necessity, has to strip elements of reality from it and, therefore, be abstract to some degree. 

For example, if someone asks how a person’s day was, that person would only be able to convey very little of that day.  If the person had gone to a movie, the person would very likely not relate the color of the person’s seat or whether it was cushy or not.  The more one leaves out, the more abstract the information is.  As for scientific research, it is known for its abstraction as a scientist tries to distill the causal factors that account for some occurrence or condition.[2]

As for the motivational quality, it simply refers to the potential a body of information has in soliciting interest on the part of an observer, consumer, or, in this case, learner.  Of course, the motivational quality of any material varies among the people who are exposed to it.  What's interesting to this blogger might be downright boring to a reader of this blog. 

But there are certain general aspects about motivation that one can abstract that helps one explain why some presentations tend to be more motivating than others.  Such characteristics as relevance, understandability, entertainment, curiosity, challenge, etc. are some of those aspects.  These are generally seen as qualities that enhance the motivational quality of information or other symbolic presentations. 

The connection between abstraction and motivation, how they relate, zeroes in on the quality of understandability.  It is hard to see any presentation or activity being motivational unless it is at least understandable to the learner or consumer of the content to some minimal degree.  Whether the presentation or activity meets this minimal degree reflects on the sophistication of the person consuming the information.  Sophistication in each area, in turn, reflects the level of abstraction the consumer can handle in dealing with the content in question.

There have been two theorists whose ideas help us see this relation between sophistication and abstraction and are highlighted here and in the next posting.  They both understood that the abstract level of information is dependent on the media in which the information is presented.  Some modes of presentation, by their very nature, contain more or less the reality contained in the situations or conditions described or explained. 

Before identifying these pioneers, let this blogger make the central point of this posting.  For presentation media or instructional activity to be motivating, the presentation of the content must employ an instructional effort that suitably matches the sophistication level of the student vis-a-vis the content being taught.  This is done by employing appropriate levels of abstraction or lack of abstraction in the media employed. 

Some media, simply due to the nature of the media, will contain, to various degrees, elements of the reality being addressed.  The general trend is that the less sophistication the student has, the less abstract the media needs to be.  Conversely, the more sophisticated the student is, in relation to specific content, the more abstract the media can be and probably should be to sustain the student’s interest.

That is, while for the lesser sophisticated students, to be successful, lower abstraction media can be considered necessary, for higher sophisticated students, higher abstraction media can be considered preferable.  This is because such instruction takes less time to implement and is likely to maintain the interest of such students.  Low abstraction material can easily turn out to be boring for the more knowledgeable students. 

The other factors affecting media choices are availability of material options, time availability, and technological options.  Material options are affected by the financial resources of the purchasers of the materials and access to material markets.  Time availability refers to the amount of time the instructor can dedicate to any lesson or set of lessons. 

As indicated, in general, instruction that is less abstract takes more time to use – if for no other reason due to the amount of reality it contains – and the more abstract material takes less time, assuming students are sophisticated enough to understand and appreciate its educational value.  In addition, technological availability is a concern.  Technological options refer to the media hardware and software the instructor or instructional institution can secure, and the instructional staff can proficiently use.

The two theorists referred to above are Jerome S. Bruner[3] and Edgar Dale.[4]  Both of these educational academics provided relevant insights to this topic in the 1960s.  This posting will stop here and promise that the next one will delve into the work of Bruner and Dale which this blogger believes is still powerful today.

---

[1] For readers wishing to read the previous postings relating to these viability claims that the blog is making, they can read the last seven postings found in the online site http://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/.  As for Meehan’s criteria, see Eugene J. Meehan, Contemporary Political Thought:  A Critical Study (Homewood, IL:  Dorsey Press, 1967).  To date, the blog has reviewed comprehensiveness, power, precision, consistency/reliability, isomorphism, compatibility, predictability, and control.

[2]This could be, for example, information relating to what causes water to freeze.  A scientist observes water in a variety of environmental conditions and might eventually abstract the varying temperatures in which water is found and detect a pattern between lower temperatures and the freezing of water.  The abstracted bits of information would be the falling temperature of the water's environment, the changing temperature of the water, and the degree to which the water hardens into ice.

[3]See Saul McIeod, “Jerome Bruner’s Theory of Learning and Cognitive Development” (June 14, 2023), accessed August 31, 2023, Jerome Bruner's Theory of Learning And Cognitive Development - Simply Psychology.  The issue was how the material was presented.  And one of the factors determining success was the nature of the media used to present the information.  To this blogger’s understanding, Bruner was not arguing that young students had to mature to learn complicated material.  He was of the mind that any content could be taught to any student regardless of his/her sophistication.  The issue is how the material is presented.

[4] “Edgar Dale,” Wikipedia (n.d.), accessed September 1, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Dale.

VIABILITY OF THE LIBERATED FEDERALISM, VII

 

With this posting, this blog continues to make its viability statement regarding the mental construct, liberated federalism.  The construct is proposed by this blogger to guide the efforts of civics educators in selecting the content they present to secondary students in American classrooms.  To date, the blog has described how the construct measures up to Eugene Meehan’s criteria[1] – the criteria’s first six concerns – and this posting will address the seventh, predictability, and eight, control.

            The criterion, predictability, asks:  Does a construct predict conditions associated with the phenomena in question?  There are two key predictive statements that can be made regarding the use of the liberated federalism model.  One, effective political behavior is conducted by associations, not individuals.[2]  Two, that dysfunctional social behavior will be lessened by shifting from an individual to communal political culture orientation.[3] 

          As this blog has related in its historical account of past and present political views (an account that starts with its posting, “Parochial’s Comprehensiveness,” April 1, 2022), the American society has moved from a more communally oriented perspective of the parochial/traditional federalism view to the individualistic, natural rights perspective, and consequently has experienced a drift to a more crime-ridden and uncivil society.[4]

          The model presented here is a compromise between the older versions of responsible citizenship and the liberated individualism the nation has adopted as its prominent political view.  Yes, this synthesis also includes ideas from critical theory – mainly its concerns for the underprivileged – but in the main, liberated federalism incorporates the communal concerns federalism promotes and the de-parochialism natural rights favors.

          And this posting has room for the last of Meehan’s criteria, that being control.  That criterion asks:  Does a construct imply ways to control the phenomena in question?  That is, does it have purpose?  The presented model identifies the relevant variables affecting both the communal harmony and the moral decision-making as pursuant to the analysis Philip Selznick[5] provides and is congruent with the ideas advanced by Amitai Etzioni,[6] Daniel Elazar,[7] Donald S. Lutz,[8] Robert D. Putnam,[9] and Michael J. Sandel.[10]

          In general, these writers provide ideas about how a communally strong, federally organized, functional society operates and maintains itself.  Insofar as their ideas are contained in the presented model and are true to their purpose, the model presented implies ways of controlling the phenomena in question:  through effective and moral political behavior.  This is placed in priority since, as often claimed in this blog, in the long run societal survival depends upon these qualities.

          The next posting will add two criteria to Meehan’s list.  They are the criteria, abstract level, and motivation.  These last two more directly address the concerns of teachers.

---

[1] For readers wishing to read the previous postings relating these viability claims that the blog is making, they can read the last six postings found in the online site http://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/.  As for Meehan’s criteria, see Eugene J. Meehan, Contemporary Political Thought:  A Critical Study (Homewood, IL:  Dorsey Press, 1967).  To date, the blog has reviewed comprehensiveness, power, precision, consistency/reliability, isomorphism, and compatibility.

[2] Philip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1992).

[3] Michael Walzer, On Toleration (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 1997).  The predictions this model would make are qualitative because the model does not provide quantitative values to variables it identifies.

[4] As for individualistic view being dominant, see Jean M. Twenge, Generations:  The Real Differences between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents – and What They Mean for America’s Future (New York, NY:  Atria Books, 2023).

[5] Philip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1992).

[6] Amitai Etzioni, The Spirit of Community:  Rights, Responsibilities, and the Communitarian Agenda (New York, NY:  Crown Publisher, 1993)

[7] Daniel J. Elazar, “How federal is the Constitution? Thoroughly.”  In a booklet of readings, Readings for classes taught by Professor Elazar (1994, 1-30) prepared for a National Endowment for the Humanities Institute. Conducted in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

[8] Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Baton Rouge, LA:  Louisiana State University Press, 1988).

[9] Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone:  The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York, NY:  Simon and Schuster, 2000).

[10] Michael J. Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent:  America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge, MA:  The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996).