“STUDENT” AS A COMMONPLACE, III

 

The last posting began this blog’s review of William Schubert’s commonplace in curriculum development, the student.  It addressed students’ personal interests, and this posting will look at the social interests that students have.  Generally, the sociological literature concerning adolescence points out that that stage of life can be very confusing and is an ambitious time for young people.[1] 

While individual youths might be physically mature enough to take on the activities of the adult world, they must still finish the educational requirements that society has deemed appropriate.  Having more freedom than children, they do not, however, have the rights of the adult world.  Collectively, they prefer their own social environments, segregating themselves from adults.  In addition to this withdrawal, youths pick up from the adult world a general misunderstanding and, perhaps mistrust, of many institutions.[2] 

There is a general view in American society that institutions impinge on freedoms.  This perception is not generally viewed favorably, especially among the young.  Instead, Americans prefer that their institutions take on a neutral and dispassionate stance.  For example, schools or education should be neutral toward most value concerns of the nation. 

But neutral institutions are impersonal and therefore often cannot or are deficient in helping the populace deal with problems.  Currently, demonstrating this bias, some political figures have accused certain school districts of indoctrinating youth in such areas of racial history.  This, in its way, reflects this general view of supposed neutrality.

          To begin with, most Americans do not understand that institutions are patterns of behavior, not, as they are usually confused with, organizations.  They do have a normative quality despite the preferences of Americans; schools project values that are intended or unintended.  For example, they generally support and promote capitalist values.  Institutions, at times, are seen by students as oppressing them when specific policies or decisions are judged to interfere with their desired ends. 

The students’ views toward schools in this regard are not surprising.  Some Americans, with their dispositions and behaviors, have taken to abandoning many traditional institutions, by readily changing employment, getting divorces, or moving away from communities that they see as oppressive or lacking opportunities, instead of working within them. 

This level of indifference regarding these values is hurting the nation’s institutions, such as its families, churches, schools, and others by denying them their traditional roles in the growth of young people.  In turn, this hurts the ability of these youths to develop their full potential.

And that entails developing mature relationships between the participants of various institutions and the institutions themselves.  The citizenry needs to learn to work on these relationships directly for the sake of the institutions and for the sake of the individuals involved.  This includes adolescents within their schools and communities.[3]

          Naturally, the level of individualism that various experts have noted and documented[4] is judged by communitarians as being excessive[5] and undermines the vitality of the nation’s institutions.  But institutions assist in determining who individuals are and who others are as a people collectively seek to create a more decent society.  The liberated federalism perspective provides a more communal, less individualistic view and, therefore, is more in line with these general aims. 

It is a perspective that respects the nation’s institutions, including government.  By delving into the process of groups in institutional patterns of behavior and presenting an ideal model by which real patterns of specific cases can be evaluated, the student can gain an appreciation of the enabling character of institutions. 

In addition, the federalist format does pervade the structural make-up of many American institutions, especially the formal ones.[6]  This condition assists the use of the proposed model, because the model’s structure is congruent with those structures.  Bellah, et al. point out that the nation’s individualistic myth probably hides a more insecure psyche.  That insecurity stems from the fear that social institutions, which are beyond one’s control, are controlling people’s lives. 

Of importance is that the liberated federalism approach provides a more functional view of institutions.  It is a view that is more enabling, more interactive, and shows institutions as more sensitive to change in society and, therefore, more adaptive.  Of note, Elliot Turiel[7] writes about the development of how youth relate to social conventions, rules, and the social system in general. 

That writer formulated a seven-level model of this development.  In early adolescence, the youths are situated in level three, which is characterized by them accepting basic social relationships based on authority or conventional rules.  But with a bit more maturity, the youths enter level four in which adolescents begin to rebel against social conventions. 

These rules and relationships are seen by them as silly if they, the rules and relationships, are couched in terms that youths should follow them simply because someone says so.  While individuals see the social world as more complex and see the value in getting along in order to get along, they tend to become highly critical of conventions, not seeing the need for too many of them. 

This rebellion hits a peak in the junior high/middle school years.  Then, at about age 14, level five is reached, and youngsters start seeing social interactions as organized and the individual as part of a general collective and a cultural system.  Youths make a distinction between behavior and conventions.  Morality is seen as intrinsic to acts in terms of the harm or injustice they cause.  Conventions are seen as having to do with social order.

          Turiel’s work is based on that writer’s research and that of others and is substantively and highly supportive of the functional nature of the proposed model.  By analyzing political actions and processes regarding their moral foundation as well as the more practical aspects, as liberated federalism points out, the students are exposed to materials and discussions that are congruent to what Turiel deems to be central to adolescents’ concerns regarding social relationships. 

That is, the use of the model would encourage instruction to give reasons for actions, from a moral perspective, that address the very questions adolescents of that age are asking.  And adding to that disposition, there is general acknowledgment that adolescents can understand hierarchies.[8]  This is a central political concept in terms of how power is distributed in any social/political arrangement or within any institution.

They can also see and understand conflicts between and among parties.  While the proposed model does not emphasize these elements, they are accounted for in a responsible fashion.  The concepts do need to be usable by secondary students in order for the liberated federalism model to be viable.  Hopefully, readers can appreciate the way the model comprehensively takes account of both cooperative and contentious political conditions or situations.

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[1] For example, Ian Robertson, Sociology (New York, NY:  Worth Publishing, Inc., 1987) AND Cynthia Vinney, “What Is the Storm and Stress View of Adolescence?” VeryWell Mind (October 29, 2022), accessed September 20, 2023, URL:  https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-storm-and-stress-view-of-adolescence-6743696#:~:text=It%20is%20a%20time%20of,participation%20in%20risk%2Dtaking%20activities.

[2] Eden Pontz, “Why Teens Push Away,” Center for Parents & Teen Communication (September 4, 2018), accessed September 20, 2023, URL:  https://parentandteen.com/why-teens-push-parents-away/#:~:text=Finding%20Themselves%20by%20Separating%20from,if%20they%20are%20quite%20similar AND Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton, Good Society (New York, NY:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1991).

[3] Bellah, et al., Good Society.

[4] For example, 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] For example, Duane E. Smith, “The Implications of the Individualism/Communitarian Debate for Civic Education Observations and Prejudices,” Center for Civic Education (n.d.), accessed September 20, 2023, URL:  https://www.civiced.org/pdfs/Speech_International_Conference.pdf.  This literature, for some time, has addressed this issue.  Other writers include Robert Bellah, et al., and Amitai Etzioni.

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

[7] Elliot Turiel, The Development of Social Knowledge:  Morality and Convention (Cambridge, MA:  Cambridge University Press, 1985).

[8] Raewyn Connell, The Child’s Construction of Politics (Carleton, Victoria:  Melbourne University Press, 1971).  For an interesting review of political socializing practices by parents and other adults, see Te-Erika Patterson, “Do Children Just Take Their Parents’ Political Beliefs?  It’s Not That Simple,” The Atlantic (May 1, 2014), accessed September 20, 2023, URL:  https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/parents-political-beliefs/361462/.