FOUR DIMENSIONS

This posting continues this blog’s review of a National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) publication, identified here as the C3 Framework.[1]  That publication is the result of social studies educators developing standards that can be utilized with the Common Core standards.  In turn, the Common Core Standards project is one in which the US Department of Education is attempting to upgrade the educational efforts of America’s schools.

Specifically, the social studies standards are to be suggested to state education officials as content components to the English/Language Arts standards – a “backdoor” entry for social studies influence to be felt through the Common Core venue.  The reader is invited to look at the last three posting for a description of this effort.

          This posting will look at the structural format this NCSS publication employs.  Actually, the structure is quite elaborate and a bit extensive for a thorough review here.  Suffice it to point out that the structure is mostly organized around a set of dimensions.  These dimensions are treated as extension of an overall organizing concept: “Inquiry Arc.”  As stated in an earlier posting, social studies educators have opted to focus on an instructional approach – one that is seen as antagonistic to the instructional approach most social studies teachers utilize.

          Since the sixties – more formally – and earlier, reformers of this subject area have riled against the didactic approaches those teachers use.  That would be mostly lecturing and perhaps using demonstrations.  Instead, these reformers argued that social studies teachers should have students engage in active research over “tantalizing” questions.  An example question, lifted from the C3 Framework, is: “Was the American Revolution a revolution?”  That is, was the American War for Independence a real transformative event or merely a shift in who had political power?

          With such a question, students in some form will hypothesize, gather information, test any hypotheses, form a conclusion, and apply the conclusion.  At least that was the process promoted initially by the New Social Studies during the sixties and seventies.  Since then, there have been other instructional models along these lines, but the general thrust has been this active research role for students to analyze the content they are studying.

          This writer is partial to this general approach, but he believes it is not for everyone.  He has known successful teachers that simply do not feel comfortable with using inquiry style instruction.  Yet, and this is seen as essential to successful teaching, these teachers have been able to get their students to reflect on the material these teachers present them. 

That is, they did not rely on students merely memorizing the material but thinking about it.  That could include analyzing, questioning, evaluating, etc.  Students do this on their own but are motivated to do so by the way these teachers present the content.  They were able to tantalize their students by their presentations.

But the NCSS publication is committed to “insisting” inquiry be “the way” by which to teach social studies.  That policy decision addresses the sequence of social studies subjects; how about the scope of those subjects?  That is, what should the content of social studies be?  In terms of this publication, scope cannot escape the Inquiry Arc. 

Here is how the C3 Framework couches the content:  “The Inquiry Arc highlights the structure of and rationale for the organization of the Framework’s four Dimensions. The Arc focuses on the nature of inquiry in general and the pursuit of knowledge through questions in particular.”[2]  The content concerns – as indirectly as the publication presents them – is through these Four Dimensions.

The four dimensions are:  1) Developing questions and planning inquiries; 2) Applying disciplinary tools and concepts; 3) Evaluating sources and using evidence; and 4) Communicating conclusions and taking action.  One can readily discern the “Inquiry Arc” having its influence throughout the substantive content of these standards.  The bias is clearly favoring the sequence, as opposed to the scope, of social studies.

The one dimension that attempts to address content most directly is dimension #2:  applying disciplinary tools and concepts.  The subjects or disciplines highlighted in this document are civics (interestingly listed first), economics, geography, and history (interestingly listed last).  There is also material (appendixes) addressing other social studies subjects:  psychology, sociology, and anthropology.[3]  But in terms of the first four subjects – civics, economics, geography, and history – the introduction of their treatment is telling.

That is, under a section of the publication which begins with an inquiry:  “What does liberty look like?:  Compelling questions through disciplinary lenses,” the judgement here is the developers betray their central view of governance and politics.  That view is the natural rights construct.  Hence, it is not critical theory and it is not – more importantly to this blog – federation theory.

More specifically, here are the identified, overall “compelling questions” the publication cites:  in terms of civics the compelling question is “what is the line between liberty and responsibility?”  In terms of economics it is “does more liberty mean more prosperity?”  In terms of geography it is “how does liberty change from place to place?” And in terms of history it is “when did Americans gain their liberty?”

Not to claim the following is the ideal set of questions, they can be considered if federation theory was the main guide in determining content.  They are:  for civics, what is the line between duties and obligations and those of liberty?; for economics, can prosperity be attained without duties and responsibilities being met?; for geography, “do duties and responsibilities vary from place to place?; and for history, how has American sense of duties and responsibilities evolved during the years of its existence? 

These latter set of questions project a whole different tone to the effort.  In terms of the hypothesis this review of the publication has been applying – that the effort falls safely within the guidance of the natural rights perspective – the evidence is it is holding up.  That means that to this point of the review, the publication content indicates that, one, it does not rely on a substantive sense of what the common good is (or good citizenship in a substantive way) and, two, relies on instructional concerns as opposed to content concerns.

This review of the NCSS publication will not, in the future, be in consecutive postings.  This writer will visit this topic from time to time in the future.  A motivator to revisit this topic will be if the writer comes across material that counters the indicated hypothesis or if parts of the publication indicates useful instructional or substantive ideas that would assist civics instruction.

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[1] National Council for the Social Studies, Preparing Students for College, Career, and Civic Life (Washington, D. C.:  NCSS, 2013), accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.socialstudies.org/c3.

[2] Ibid., 12.

[3] As stated earlier in this review – several postings ago – it is done in real time.  The writer has not read those appendixes yet.

A MEANING OF THE COMMON GOOD

The professional organization of social studies educators is the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS).  This writer is a former member.  Retirement tends to loosen such bonds.  He was a member roughly from 1970 till 2007.  His feelings concerning the organization is mostly positive.  He does wish them well.

          Recently, it came to his attention that the NCSS issued a publication which attempts to set forth a policy position regarding the Common Core Standards – a US Department of Education effort – to encourage state departments of education to upgrade their state standards.  Apparently, the concern is that since the US must compete in a global economy, its education should be comparable to those of other advanced countries.  The issuance of the Common Core Standards is a way for the federal government to promote a better posture in that competition.

Recent reviews as to that comparability between the US and other nations have not been encouraging.  The US, in various ranking estimations across the various subject areas, has not been stellar.  While different reports vary somewhat, the US ranks about seventeenth in its schools’ success rate when compared to other national systems.[1]  So, there has been pressure from numerous sources to improve the nation’s educational efforts.  One specific demand is that state’s need to improve their standards – they are lacking or so the critics claim.

There is an obstacle to the federal government just upgrading these standards.  Under the nation’s constitutional makeup, the power to run educational systems is reserved to the states.  That makes the federal role a bit tricky.  The federal government can issue standards and suggest states adopt them.  This adoption can vary in terms of how extensively they are utilized.  In the case of social studies, the story is a bit more complicated. 

Yes, the federal government has issued the aforementioned standards.  Common Core standards are issued in terms of various subject areas:  English/Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science.  Missing?  Social Studies, which is usually treated as a core subject area in most secondary schools.  But they are not totally overlooked; they are indirectly included.  They function as a source of content material for English/Language Arts standards.  In the past two postings this role is characterized as a “backdoor” role.

The current effort of this blog is to provide some critical judgement of this role, in general, and of the standards the NCSS’ publication provides.  That publication is being referred to as the C3 Framework.[2]  The last two postings began this critique by reviewing the C3 organizing principles.  Now, the blog turns to the substantive portions.  Here is an introductory statement of the body of the publication:

Introduction in the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for social studies state standards, the call for students to become more prepared for the challenges of college and career is united with a third critical element:  preparation for civic life.  Advocates of citizenship education cross the political spectrum, but they are bound by a common belief that our democratic republic will not sustain unless students are aware of their changing cultural and physical environments; know the past; read, write, and think deeply; and act in ways that promote the common good.  There will always be differing perspectives on these objectives.  The goal of knowledgeable, thinking, and active citizens, however, is universal.[3]

Perhaps one can interpret this as a summary statement of the project’s principles. 

It, though, stands as more substantive than the five principles this blog shared in its previous two postings.  This determination is made not because it is substantive enough, only that it is more so.  At least, this statement identifies an aim.  Apparently, students need to do all the listed activities, e.g., know the past, for a purpose.  That is to advance the common good.  Of course, the next concern would be:  what constitutes the common good?  Again, this is the type of philosophical element that a summary or introductory statement should address.

Without such a philosophical commitment, one is left with a circular argument:  the common good is seeking the common good.  Is the common good what most people think is the common good?  Is it one in which the economy grows irrespectively of how that growth is distributed?  Is it advancing democratic norms – perhaps moving toward dismantling such an institution as the electoral college (given its anti-democratic character)?

This writer suspects that the defenders of the publication would state that such questions get into content and the efforts of the developers of the C3 Framework were to only provide an outline toward a more demanding curriculum, leaving content issues to the states.  If this is the case, the judgement here is the effort is not worth the time used to develop this document.  Part of the problem with any deficiencies with social studies is its content.  Those who have tried to reform social studies – for decades – have seen the problem as only being one of instruction, but that is a short shrift of the entailed problems.

The message of this blog has been that, yes, instruction is deficient, but more central to the woes of social studies is the problem of a content component that is reluctant to meet responsibly and meaningfully such questions as:  what is the common good?  Further, this shortcoming is part and parcel of the establishment’s avoidance of such questions due to its reliance on the natural rights construct to determine its content decisions.  The above introductory statement presents itself as transcending ideological bias, but it is not.  It is partial toward market values.

To offer a definition for the common good that falls under this publication’s perspective, the following is provided:  The common good is what is determined it is by the collective opinions of a population at a given time.  It is as if the common good and its elements are commodities to be consumed by the preferences of the consumers, the citizens of the nation.

This view is transitory; there are no transcending concerns other than for the mechanism by which to determine what is popular and the liberty, on the part of the individual, to express that judgement.  There are no duties or obligations other than those everyone assumes for him/herself. 

In other words, why should students “know the past” or be active in the political process?  They should master these objectives to be able to voice their educated choice – period.  The argument of this blog is:  the founders of this nation started the ball rolling for more loftier purposes than this.

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[1] For example, Marian Wilde, “Global grade: How do U.S. students compare?” Great Schools, April 2, 2015, accessed on February 27, 2017, http://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/u-s-students-compare/.

[2] National Council for the Social Studies, Preparing Students for College, Career, and Civic Life (Washington, D. C.:  NCSS, 2013), accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.socialstudies.org/c3.

[3] Ibid., 5. 

FURTHERING A SECOND-RATE ROLE

This blog, in previous postings, has addressed the question:  why civics education?  It, in answering this question, placed the function of civics, and more generally of social studies, at the center of why there is public education.  Mainly, the subject area is aimed at instilling – at least, in helping to do so –those attitudes and values that support democratic-republican governance.  So, in the spirit of this mandate, in all documents that address what social studies should be doing, this central function should be prominent.

          Yet, considering the C3 Framework,[1] a National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) publication, the last posting made the argument that that work treats this central concern as an afterthought.  At least that is the opinion of this writer after reviewing the principles the NCSS identified for this effort, which is to accommodate Common Core standards to state social studies standards.

Apparently, in a time that the relative importance of social studies has taken a hit over the last several decades, the NCSS is trying to improve that standing by issuing this publication.  A problem is, though, that this effort is being attempted in a time in which general views of governance and politics is mostly held under the guidance of a mental construct, the natural rights construct, that diminishes the importance of republican (with a small “r”) values and beliefs. 

That is, that construct is mostly antagonistic to something called civic humanism:  an individual commitment to define personal interests in terms of the common good even, if by doing so, short-term interests are limited or even sacrificed.  Natural rights promotes individually defined interests and precludes any effort by public institutions to instill or even promote any normative set of beliefs other than liberty. 

Consequently, any observation of today’s political scene seems to amply demonstrate the reluctance of most people sacrificing anything that hints at being their immediate interests.  The last posting offered a criticism of this point of view as it is expressed by the first principle of the C3 Framework project.  This posting looks, with a critical eye, at the rest of the principles.

The second principle reads:  “inquiry is at the heart of social studies.”  This is an instructional principle.  Inquiry is an instructional approach that calls for students to investigate, test, make conclusions, and be able to defend and apply those conclusions.  The inquiry method was initially promoted as a reaction to the Soviet launching of Sputnik satellite back in the late fifties and sixties. 

At the time it resembled the scientific method and was applied across all the social studies subjects, including history.  It introduced a more amoral approach to the study of human behavior – students were to deal with the facts and form behaviorists conclusions as to why humans behave as they do.  At the same time, to be honest, there was also a move to promote the inquiry over “controversial” issues, but such a normative approach left moral or value questions up to what was of concern by the public at a given time without any sense of priority.[2]

The third principle reads:  “social studies involves interdisciplinary applications and welcomes integration of the arts and humanities.”  This principle betrays the diminished role of social studies.  Instead of social studies having its own set of standards within the Common Core framework, it has a “role” by providing content for the English standards – a sort of a backdoor avenue to making its presence felt.  This is a far cry from a central role social studies should have as the last posting argues.

          As a matter of fact, Common Core purposely avoids content commitments and is respectful of state educational authorities’ role in determining content.  Therefore, it bolsters, in terms of content, what is prevalent today and that tends to be overly structural in nature.  For example, in terms of civics and government, they would be emphasizing the structural elements of government and that lends itself to memorization demands on the part of students.  This is the ongoing criticism of education in America and is contrary to the second principle above.  It is also at odds with the other principles of the C3 Framework – read on.

          The fourth principle reads:  “social studies is composed of deep and enduring understandings, concepts, and skills from the disciplines.  Social studies emphasizes skills and practices as preparation for democratic decision-making.”  This principle is too vague to take seriously.  What disciplines?  The social science disciplines with their scientific commitment to shun any substantive value orientation?  Equally unclear is a commitment toward democratic decision-making.  This leaves too much up in the air. 

Of course, this is a principle, not a standard.  One needs to see how it is applied in the subsequent content.  This writer presents this concern here as a foreshadowing of what will be on his radar as he further reports on the C3 Framework’s substantive content.  To remind the reader, his hypothesis is that this effort favors such a valueless view.

The fifth principle reads:  “social studies education should have direct and explicit connections to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts.”  This principle does not need any further comment; it further supports the “backdoor” role social studies subjects play in the minds of educational authorities.

The next posting will begin reviewing the substantive content of the C3 Framework document.

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[1] National Council for the Social Studies, Preparing Students for College, Career, and Civic Life (Washington, D. C.:  NCSS, 2013), accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.socialstudies.org/c3.

[2] There was one national program, the Jurisprudential project, that did try to place in priority values inherent in the US Constitution.  See Donald W. Oliver and James P. Shaver, Teaching Public Issues in the High School (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1966) AND Fred M. Newmann, and Donald W. Oliver, Clarifying Public Controversy:  An Approach to Teaching Social Studies (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Company, 1970).

AN AFTERTHOUHGT?

The last posting introduced a publication issued by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS).  The NCSS is the professional organization of social studies educators.  The publication, referred to here as C3 Framework,[1] is meant to provide standards so that educators in this field can go about integrating state standards to the Common Core curricular standards.  State education bureaucracies can adopt Common Core standards on a voluntary basis.

          This blog, in real time, will review this publication and make comment on its content.  It will “evaluate” the standards and other rationale arguments the publication makes against this blog’s stated arguments in favor of federation theory.  Summarily, federation theory is proposed in this blog as a guide to determine social studies content, especially in the subject matter of civics and government; secondary subjects, students are required to take to gain either advancement into high school or a high school diploma.

          The last posting ended with a list of principles the NCSS devised to guide them in their development of the publication.  They are:

·        Social studies prepares the nation’s young people for college, careers, and civic life.

·        Inquiry is at the heart of social studies.

·        Social studies involves interdisciplinary applications and welcomes integration of the arts and humanities.

·        Social studies is composed of deep and enduring understandings, concepts, and skills from the disciplines.  Social studies emphasizes skills and practices as preparation for democratic decision-making.

·        Social studies education should have direct and explicit connections to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts.

The writer, in that posting, hypothesized that this effort by the NCSS would be guided by the natural rights construct since this effort is to bolster the curricular work of both national and state educational bureaucracies.  A good place to test that educated hunch is with the above principles of this national – in scope – project.

          To begin, this writer will not assume that the principles are listed in some order of priority.  That is, they could have been listed in any order without giving the reader a different sense of what is more important than something else.  Perhaps there is some logical progression involved, but that does not determine more importance to one principle over another.  If anything, one might place highest importance to the last listed principle, since it reveals the fundamental reason the project was undertaken.

          For the purposes of this review, it will, over at least two postings, begin with the first listed principle and proceed to the last.  In this, this writer has a very heavy concern with the first listed principle.  It identifies what the standards’ aim is for social studies and lists three preparational targets.  Here one can assume a priority listing since these could easily be listed in any optional order.  By listing college first, careers second, and civic life last, the developers betray a political concern.

          First, the central raison d’etre for social studies, heck for all public schooling, is good citizenship.  That is why education is guaranteed, either using public or private funds.  At least that is how the establishment of public schooling was initially sold to the powerholders of this nation.  If the main goals were college and careers, then why should tax monies be expended on them?  If a person wants his/her kids to go to college or have a rewarding career, why should that be a financial burden on the general population?

          No, the reason tax monies are used is that it is in the common good to have good citizens.  Early on this blog, it had the following to say on this topic:

Despite the prudence of instituting public schools, it took until the mid-1800s to sell the idea and begin the process culminating in the system there is today. There has been, almost since the beginning of the nation, a recurring theme by those advancing public education of what the basic aim should be. The historian Butts[2] writes about the ways some of the founders captured this theme.

He writes: “preparing the people for the common duties of republican citizenship required a common education whose first and basic priority is building and maintaining a cohesive political community devoted to the civic ideals of liberty, equality, popular consent, and personal obligation for the public good.”[3]

Among the early historical dignitaries supporting such a notion where Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington. More directly stated, the central reason for building a public-school system was to prepare good citizens. This reason does not exclude other reasons; it was and is merely held to be the most important, at least in the minds of these heroic characters and many others who followed.

Since those days, though, the status of social studies has vacillated in a generally downward direction.[4]

This writer is making a point of this priority because he feels that the stated sense of importance within this publication leads to less than optimal policy choices.  As stated, it communicates an individualist notion of what education should strive to accomplish.  This is at the sacrifice of communal interests.  It is line with the shift in American political thinking and sensitivities.

          That shift, as this blog has reported, is one from a federalist view to the natural rights view; a shift completed in the years following World War II.  Whether someone is ready for college or is being set up to take on rewarding careers is mostly a personal ambition.  Yes, a nation is healthier if its citizens can attain good, higher education or be afforded meaningful work experiences.  But this positive result is only indirectly an asset for the commonwealth.

          And with this priority, the rest of the principles take on a more personal bent.  One is more apt to read the other four principles as furthering what individual students can secure for their own benefits.  The argument here is not to do away with individual concerns; they are important.  Surely, social studies can serve to bolster those interests.  But those interests should be defined within public institution’s main concern.  That is the common good.

          The next posting will look more closely at the remaining principles and then, with subsequent postings, get into the body of the C3 Framework.  Of main interest is:  does this judged priority influence the content of this document?  Again, the hypothesis is:  yes, it does.

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[1] National Council for the Social Studies, Preparing Students for College, Career, and Civic Life (Washington, D. C.:  NCSS, 2013), accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.socialstudies.org/c3.

[2] R. Freeman Butts, The Civic Mission in Educational Reform: Perspectives for the Public and the Profession (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1989).

[3] Ibid, p. 65

[4] “Civics Education: Job One,” September 24, 2010.  Modified to adjust to current editorial format of this blog.  This posting has been deleted from the archival collection of this blog.

INTRODUCING C3

This blog in the past has identified two major groupings within the social studies education community within the US:  one, the establishment – made up of school district bureaucracies, including schools, and federal education offices and agencies dedicated to advance social studies at the state level – and two, the academic contingent at the nation’s colleges and universities.  The former is basically guided by the natural rights construct; the latter is guided by the critical theory construct.  Between the two there is palpable discord in what social studies policy should be.

          Nowhere is this discord more observable than in determining what the curriculum of social studies should contain.  This blog has dedicated quite of bit of space to describing how each construct affects or attempts to affect that curriculum.  Summarily, natural rights construct promotes a laissez-faire approach that abandons any meaningful effort toward promoting a values-based content.  The reason for this is that, being based on a natural rights view, the intent is to promote liberty. 

As such, the bias is toward content in which the individual student determines his/her value preferences.  The result is one in which social studies courses are heavy on structural matters – for example, in civics the structure of government is prominent – and any attempt at value laden issues are limited to what is popularly determined – what predominates the news of the day.  This approach has no conceptual wholeness to it; no sense of direction.  For example, given the current incidences of school shootings, gun control is an issue a civics course might handle.

This blog has made the argument that this lack of theoretical foundation for the choice of content in effect is a value bias.  Issues are determined by the collective interests of the population at a given time and reflects more of a market orientation – which issues “sells” on a given day or period. 

In turn, market biases are no more than the accumulation of individual choices.  In turn, the approach furthers an individualism that ignores communal concerns.  There is no or little thought of how the communal interest is determined:  what constitutes the general good or the commonwealth’s health and well-being?

On the other side, there is academia and that faction is guided, as stated above, by the critical theory construct.  With them there is a viable and well-thought out values commitment.  That is, those who adhere to this construct and see this nation’s – or, for that matter, that of the Western world’s – social/economic/political arrangements in the grip of an economic, exploitive class.  In turn, that class, through institutional mechanisms determine the substance, processes, and functions of establishment policies.  That includes schools.

Those policies are geared toward advancing those exploitive relations.  Therefore, these academics claim that such course work as in social studies, as they are administered today, are directed toward justifying these relations or ignoring them.  As for any substantive direction, these academics support inclusion of content guided by critical theory.  This is a compilation of theoretical/ideological substantive material, but the one tradition it favors is a Marxian view of societal conditions.

There is one institution that seems to bring these “warring” factions – the establishment education professionals and academics – physically together; that is the professional, educational organizations’ annual meetings.  It is an interesting thing to observe; these meetings attract diverse populations.  There, they communicate if only superficially.  Occasionally, these organizations issue curricular products.  Their content is interesting to analyze.  Why?  Because of the tensions just outlined.

In 2013, with a supplement added in 2017, the national professional organization of social studies – the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) – issued such a document.  It is entitled College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards.  This blog will refer to it as the C3 Framework.  Its purpose is:

To strengthen their social studies programs.  Its objectives are to: a) enhance the rigor of the social studies disciplines; b) build critical thinking, problem solving, and participatory skills to become engaged citizens; and c) align academic programs to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies.[1]

In short, the publication is to be used by state education agencies to align, on a voluntary basis, state standards to the national Common Core standards.[2]

          This posting is introducing a series of postings that will, in real time, review and make comment on the content of this publication.  Of prime interest is to test the hypothesis of whether the publication provides evidence as to the above identified biases of the educational establishment or does it incorporate the concerns of the academics.  A third option is that it designs a compromise between the two.

Yes, the standards of this effort are the product of academics, but that does not assure a critical theory bent to its content.  The academic bias identified here is not one shared by all academics.  There are those who support the more establishment position on content.  Given that this is produced to align state standards with Common Core standards, this writer believes the publication will side with the establishment view.  He is eager to find out.  The reader is welcomed to join him in his inquiry.

Before leaving this initial look at the C3 Framework, here is a list of principles the developers of the framework identify:

·        Social studies prepares the nation’s young people for college, careers, and civic life.

·        Inquiry is at the heart of social studies.

·        Social studies involves interdisciplinary applications and welcomes integration of the arts and humanities.

·        Social studies is composed of deep and enduring understandings, concepts, and skills from the disciplines.  Social studies emphasizes skills and practices as preparation for democratic decision-making.

·        Social studies education should have direct and explicit connections to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts.[3]

Perhaps these principles are a good place to start and the next posting will begin this blog’s analysis of the C3 Framework by making comment on these ideals.

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[1] National Council for the Social Studies, Preparing Students for College, Career, and Civic Life (Washington, D. C.:  NCSS, 2013), accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.socialstudies.org/c3.

[2] The Common Core Standards is a federal government’s response to the increased demands employers and colleges are exerting in their recruitment of employees and students.  In turn, these demands reflect the inherent competition a global economy places within advanced nations.  For more background information see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Core_State_Standards_Initiative, accessed April 16, 2018.

[3] National Council for the Social Studies, Preparing Students for College, Career, and Civic Life.

WILLS’ AT ODDS?

This blog has dedicated a bit of space to a historical question:  when did Lockean ideas, in the form of the natural rights construct, become dominant?  That they are dominant today is not questioned.  But, the position of this blog is that while Lockean ideas can be found in American political debates all the way back to the earliest days of the Republic, it was the federalist construct that was dominant all the way up until the years after World War II. 

This is an important issue in that many arguments that natural rights advocates advance, tend to rely on stressing that the nation’s constitution sets forth a political and legal structure based almost exclusively on a standard of liberty.  In turn, that standard relies on a more modern interpretation of Locke’s ideas.  In a nutshell, that view claims that every citizen retains the right to do what he or she wants to do as long as he/she does not interfere with others having the same right.  As such, that view bolsters a highly individualistic view of governance and politics.

A more fuller account of the Lockean view is provided in two previous postings:  “Property As Self” (March 11, 2016) and “Property As Self (continued)” (March 15, 2016).  The reader is invited to look up those postings for this background.  This posting is a quick word on the writings of the historian, Garry Wills, whose work, Inventing America:  Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, is written in the school of thought that attributes to Locke much influence on Thomas Jefferson and the other founding fathers.

After reading about the arguments that led to the adoption of the Declaration of Independence and how those arguments reflect Locke’s ideas, one gets a strong impression that Wills is promoting this much earlier dominance of Lockean ideas.  But then he writes a general description of how the Declaration is somewhat at odds with this disposition.  This posting shares an extended quote from his work which, this writer believes, undermines this whole Lockean, foundational position:

In some ways, it would make better sense to treat the 1774 Bill of Rights as the basic charter of our Revolution.  As we shall see, the Congress did not realize the import of the document [the Declaration of Independence] it cleared for printing on July 4, 1776.

          The first of many accidents that helped promote the Declaration was that it concluded with a charter form deriving from the first Association’s pledge.  Our later cult of the “the signers” as individuals has obscured the fact the “we” who “mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes & our sacred honour” are the “united states” of the document’s title.  Though individuals signed as members of the clustered delegations, only states voted, one vote per state.  This compact-form gives the Declaration a greater solemnity than the Bill of Rights possessed, while taking up a greater responsibility than the first pact, the Association, looked toward.

          … Congress had spoken for the “united states” in terms of the most comprehensive and unifying doctrine available to it.[1] [emphasis added]

          This blog will, in some future posting, make comment on the 1774 Bill of Rights.  Here the point is that by Wills referring to the Declaration as a compact, this is in line with federalist theory.  Those readers who read this blog regularly can probably explain this relationship – it has described the significance of the term, compact, more than once.  But for those readers not so “instructed,” here goes a shortened description.

          Federalist theory is based on a social contract explanation of how a polity is initiated or should be initiated.  That is, the founders of the polity come together and mutually agree to certain provisions: 

·        a statement of purposes and principles,

·        a listing of individual and collective rights,

·        a structural model by which the polity will be governed,

·        a set of powers the agreement bestows on the polity,

·        any special provisions like prohibitions,

·        sanctions on those who defy any parts of the agreements, and

·        the signers (those agreeing to the agreement or representatives of those agreeing to the agreement). 

If the agreement calls on God to witness the agreement, it is a covenant; if it doesn’t, it is a compact.  The Declaration of Independence is a covenant, the US Constitution is a compact.  The term federalism is derived from the Latin word for covenant – foedus.

          This accounting of a social contract is at odds with that of the natural rights view.  Here, federalism is not an individualistic view, it is a communal view.  This group forms and together decides to formulate this polity.  Yes, each member does have rights, but the emphasis is on the communal nature of the enterprise.  The gathering is bent on creating the common in the common good or in the commonwealth.  This writer sees their trump value is not liberty, but societal welfare.

          Whether the agreement is a covenant or compact, such an agreement is sacred, and Wills seems to understand this when he writes, “This compact-form gives the Declaration a greater solemnity than the Bill of Rights possessed, while taking up a greater responsibility than the first pact, the Association, looked toward.”  In other words, Wills, probably unintentionally, provides evidence – in the form of expert opinion – that at a more basic level, it wasn’t Lockean ideas that spurred them to issue the Declaration, but instead it was federalist ideals.

          Where they more consciously alert of the Bill of Rights of 1774?  Probably; the 1774 document was responding to the immediate issues they had with the British Crown.  But underlining these moves was a federalist concern to unite the 13 colonies under an agreement to secure their independence.  Given the potential consequences failure could mean to themselves, to their homes and communities, and to their futures, this business occupied highest level of their concerns.

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[1] Garry Wills, Inventing America:  Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (New York, NY:  Vintage Books, 1978/2018), 90.

BALANCING ACT OVER US/THEMING

In the last posting, this blog addressed what motivates citizens to exhibit two social qualities:  social capital and civic humanism.  In short, these qualities are observed when citizens support a set of values – an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation – and to exhibit them to a higher degree than he/she would act out of self-interest.

          That posting, in part, asked:  why would anyone be so motivated?  It provided a three-pronged answer to that question.  Using the thoughts of Michael Sandel, the three are:  reasons of reciprocity, of sentiment, and of self-fulfillment.  The reader is invited to visit that posting to read the descriptions these sources of motivation.  Here, this posting will outline a critique or, if not a critique, a qualifier to Sandel’s sources.

          Richard Dagger[1] begins describing this critique by indicating what to him seems to be suggested by Sandel’s work.  Dagger states that by listing these three sources, Sandel is minimizing the strength of the reciprocity source and of the sentiment source and over relies on the self-actualizing source. 

A constitutive source of motivation seems to be part and parcel of what it means to be human.  As such, it would take on the role of being a more fundamental source, even if it is not felt by all people.  For those who reach a motivational level of self-actualization, they are constituted to pursuing this civic minded motivation.  By not succumbing to this innate motivation, they would be denying their constituted self.

If this is what Sandel is intimating, Dagger believes he is a bit unrealistic.  After all, few reach this level of motivation, so a society would be ill-served if it depended on this sort of motivation.  Dagger further states that one should not see these sources as being mutually exclusive.  That is, the three can co-exist within a person and, by so doing, they should not be viewed as deficient or superior, one to the other.

          In his comments, Dagger cites Michael Taylor who views these concerns as being concerns over community.  While social capital and civic humanism are qualities of a highly developed community, they are relevant to all communities.  Taylor’s analysis starts with the observation that community is not an either/or sort of thing; it either exists or it doesn’t.  Instead, there are levels of community.  The range, not subject to quantitative measures, extends from weak to strong levels. 

Taylor further identifies three “measures” he says determines the strength or weakness of a community.  They are:  the degree the citizenry enjoys shared values and beliefs, the degree the citizenry enjoys many-sided relations, and the degree the citizenry practices reciprocity.  These measures are also relevant to social capital and civic humanism. 

As to these measures’ meaning, they are fairly self-evident, but by “many-sided relations,” Taylor is referring to social arrangements that are not limited to a single purpose – e.g., a monastery – but have numerous purposes.  If a person is a member of a community arrangement that fulfills various purposes, members interact with each other on multiple conceptual and emotional fields.

Generally, the measures are robust in smaller and stable communities and less so in wide-scale communities.  Since modern life is more apt to be experienced in wide-scale arrangements, the qualities of community suffer in any given geographic area where more modern arrangements are prevalent.  Therefore, such developments as globalization – in terms of economic and political factors – pose serious challenges to maintaining the integrity of communities and communal life.  Obviously, this nation’s constitutional framework was designed to meet this challenge by adopting a federalist structure.

Bottom line: whether one is attracted to Sandel’s imagery or Taylor’s, one can see that societies, if they want to sustain their communities and, in turn, the sources by which citizens are motivated to sustain social capital and civic humanism, they cannot turn their backs on all aspects of promoting a sense of peoplehood.  It is within communities in which this peoplehood is expressed.  Peoplehood is a summary term that captures the essence of Sandel’s sources of motivation or Taylor’s measures of community. 

On the other hand, it cannot, to maintain a healthy social harmony within and without a society’s borders, by being antagonistic to those who belong to other arrangements or represent other peoplehood.  It is unhealthy to harbor and express prejudicial postures toward the Them, whether the Themness originates from national, class, racial, and/or religious origins. 

In a pluralistic society, like the US, this is tricky, but essential in furthering its truly federated character among its citizens.  This is a challenging mandate for those charged with socializing the young toward a healthy citizenship.  It is also becoming a challenge befalling other nations.  One can see European nations facing it as more and more migrations are crossing the various European borders.  It is spurring nationalist movements from England to the Eastern European nations. 

History seems to indicate that overzealous nationalist responses are potential precursors to animosities and even war.  Hopefully, the right levels between these opposing forces, peoplehood and pluralism, can be found.  What education teaches the young is important and this is particularly true of civic subject matter.  No civic issue is more important to civic educators than this balancing act.

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[1] Richard Dagger, Civic Virtue:  Rights, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism (New York, NY:  Oxford, 1997).