In this blog’s concerns for how current efforts
in civics education has fallen short in encouraging a more engaged citizenry in
the governance and politics of this nation – unless when confronted with some
personally affecting issue (read abortion) – the blog promotes a different view
to civics. Currently, that discipline
relies on the natural rights view. That
view promotes a highly individualistic orientation and does not encourage young
students – maybe outside of voting – to become involved in those situations or
concerns that confront local citizenries or, if ambitious, statewide, or
national concerns.
In
its stead, this blog promotes the adoption of the liberated federalist view to
guide the development and implementation of civics education. The blog has done much to explain this view,
but to summarize, the view or approach seeks to encourage students to have a
federated view of their citizenship. To
be federated means to take on and feel a sense of partnership with each student’s
fellow citizens – a communal view that strongly expects cooperation and collaboration
among the citizens.
The
effort is guided by a central research question. That is: does a federalist perspective, in
the form of liberated federalism, provide a legitimate and viable construct for
the study of governance and politics in both middle schools (civics) and high
schools (U.S. government)? The blog chose
to answer that question from the perspective of the disciplines most involved
theoretically: history and political
science with a strong sociology input.
The answer to this main question is, in part, hidden in the development
of the nation, insofar as the nation today is a product of that history.
That
history can be characterized as a dialectic struggle between two perspectives: parochial/traditional federalism and natural
rights. That struggle became a thing of
the past in the years after World War II when natural rights ascended to the
prominent position. Today, the struggle
is between natural rights view and critical theory (a Marxian view that places
emphasis on equality as it defines that quality). Therefore, this analysis set out to study the
components of that struggle, ascertain the functions of each position, and
strive toward a new compromised position that could benefit from the positive
elements of both sides (natural rights and critical theory) of the dialectic
argument.
This
blog presented the product of that analysis in the form of a dialectic argument. The components of the argument were:
Pre
thesis – the parochial/traditional (republican) federalism perspective presents
a viable and legitimate theoretical construct for the study of civics at the
secondary level. This view was prevalent
from the colonial days to the years just after World War II.
The
thesis – the natural rights perspective presents a viable and legitimate theoretical
construct for the study of civics at the secondary level. Has been prevalent since the years after
World War II.
The
antithesis – the critical theory perspective presents a viable and legitimate
theoretical construct for the study of civics at the secondary level.
And
the synthesis – the liberated federalist perspective presents a viable and
legitimate theoretical construct for the study of civics at the secondary
level.
The next posting will pick up on this development
and identify a list of subsidiary questions one can ask of this historical
development.
