A SUMMARY CHART OF CONSTRUCTS

Over the number of postings this blog has shared, recurring distinctions have been made over the vying constructs that the field of social studies has entertained.  That has been federation theory (in the form of the parochial/traditional version and the liberated federalism version), natural rights, and critical theory.  The following chart summarizes some of the attributes of each construct and how they compare to those of the other constructs:

Chart of Vying Perspectives in Civics/Social Education

Construct	Ultimate or Trump Value	View of Equality	View of Liberty	Application to Civic/Social Education
Federation Theory Two versions:  Parochial/Traditional & Liberated Federalism	Societal Welfare:  Societal Survival & Societal Health	Regulated Condition or Regulated Equality:  Gov’t regulates to assure human dignity, integrity, and the ability to participate while relying mostly on markets to distribute values – a sense of partnership prevails	Federal Liberty:  Freedom to do what one should do	Historically, Parochial/Trad. was the dominant view of gov’t/politics from colonial times up to the years following World War II – Newer version, Liberated Fed’ism, sheds parochial biases to be inclusive of all legal entities w/in a partnership
Natural Rights Construct	Natural Liberty	Equal Condition:  Equality before the Law especially in market relation-ships	Natural Liberty:  Freedom to do what one wants to do (respecting others to have the same) – a sense of transaction prevails	The dominant view of gov’t/politics since World War II; basic view of educational establishment
Critical Theory	Equality	Equal Results:  To share equally in society’s wealth; comrade-ship under a sense of solidarity prevails	Freedom from the exploitation by dominant class – Truly free to determine one’s humanity	The dominant view of American academics particularly in socially related fields of study

          The next posting will take a closer look at the critical theory construct and how it overlaps and distinguishes itself in terms of the concerns of federation theory.  In a nutshell, federation theory shares critical theory’s view of how individuals need to find their humanity.  That quality manifests itself in how each construct views exploitation by a dominant class.

Under the exploitation associated with market and traditional economies, the exploited find themselves pining to be exploiters.  This undermines an exploited and exploiting agent’s ability or disposition to view him/herself as a being entitled to dignity and the power to define his/her essence both personally (one’s view of one’s true interests) and in terms of social relationships.[1]

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[1] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York, NY:  Continuum Publishing Company, 1999).