HOW FEDERALIST?

Here's an idea for seniors in high school. In a government class, they can see how federalist their community is. By federalist, I mean how much a community fits an ideal model. That model states that ideal political system is formed when a people bind together under the auspices of a covenant or compact in which all of them are equal under that agreement – equal under the law – with equal opportunity to accomplish their self-defined goals in life. This ideal does not call for equal results where all share equally in income or wealth or reputation or any other social or economic advantage. But it does, by implication, hint that the disparity of income or wealth cannot be so large that those at the bottom or middle lack any reasonable chances to improve their lots or even earn a place among those at the top.

Now this blog doesn't, as a rule, address instructional issues, but this posting will, because the implication of its topic has a strong relevance on content. So here is an instructional strategy that does point students in a specific content direction. One project for these seniors would be to investigate who belongs to the top echelon of the social and economic hierarchy within their community. This project would be especially revealing if the students live in a large urban area, but the exercise can be useful if the community is smaller and more homogenous in terms of social groupings or economic activity.

An instructional strategy for such a project can follow the research design Floyd Hunter used in his famous study, Community Power Structure.¹ I will reveal that strategy over several postings, but let me summarize briefly that a large part of the study had Hunter interview a list of forty top individuals of a city he calls Regional City. Apparently, by using the made up name he was able to keep the anonymity of those interviewed and, thereby, get more revealing information from the interviewees.

The first step was to identify those fields in which the top individuals would be found. He writes:

In Regional City the men of power were located by finding persons in prominent positions in four groups that may be assumed to have power connections. These groups were identified with business, government, civic associations, and “society” activities.²

The important element here is that the determiner for Hunter is power. That is, he is trying to determine who the people are who can get others to do what they want them to do irrespective of those other people's wishes. Given this structure, students could first inquire as to what the leading organizations are in each of these four categories. This can be determined by a variety of ways – reputation, importance, longevity, etc, – but how large their respective budgets are is probably most useful. One can probably find out what the respective budgets of these entities are – they are, for the most part, public knowledge – and the information has a more objective quality than such factors as reputation.

Once the organizations are determined, their leaders – chief executive officers, chief financial officers, chairpersons of the board, high profile board members – can be identified. A list can be formulated and by comparing budgets and what people in the know – like journalists – say about these people, a class of students can determine who the final forty should be. Once identified, the subsequent steps can begin. What those steps are will be the subject of future postings.

The object is to ascertain what these leaders believe their role is in their community, what they see is or should be the structure of opportunity in that community, and what they believe is the legitimacy of their power. Do they see themselves and their organizations as structures limited to advance their shareholders' interests or do they see a role that goes beyond that responsibility? What percentage of economic activity do they control within the community? Do they provide opportunities beyond meeting their immediate needs from the labor pool of the community? For civic associations, how do they perceive their role in advancing opportunities? What rates of success have they been able to achieve in advancing opportunities? These are some of the questions students can ask of these leaders once they are identified and interviews with them are secured. Just finding out how open to being questioned by these students can be revealing. A summary article in the high school paper can be written and published. Subsequent years can extend the list to other leaders that were not in the original list of forty and the effect over some years can be an expanded study of the power structure within the community. This would be a useful view of the kind of place in which these students live. They can get a sense of how federalist it is.

1Hunter, F. (1953). Community power structure: A study of decision makers. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.

2Ibid., p. 11.