MAGRUDER ON WORKING ON AN ELECTION CAMPAIGN

Note:  In case you missed my last two postings, let me inform you that I am posting on Tuesdays, as opposed to my previous posting day, Mondays, and Fridays.

The last few postings have been about taking a look at the most widely used American government textbook and seeing how it treats certain concerns.  Specifically, I have been seeing if the textbook has a natural rights perspective with a heavy self-centered approach or, instead, a more communal approach – one reflecting a federalist bias.  This blog has been dedicated in part to promoting a federalist view and it has claimed that this is not what the prevailing approach has been in civics instruction.  In order to back up this claim, I decided that a closer look at the most widely used textbook would give us good evidence as to whether I am correct in this assessment.  Overall, for most teachers, the textbook determines the content of what he/she teaches.  Magruder’s American Government[1] is by far the most frequently chosen text for American government classes across the US. 

Due to limited space, I have in this review of Magruder’s tried to narrow in on key questions.  I have asked:  (1) What is the assumed motivation of a student that would encourage him/her to read the material? (2)  Does the material bolster/promote participation in pursuing collective goals or does the text encourage a more individualistic/self-interest posture? (3) Does the material advance social capital,[2] especially among high school students?  Most of the text – the overwhelming amount – is taken up with “slice and dice” descriptions of the different elements of the political system.  Earlier, I stated it takes on a scientific bias of assuming that by reducing elements of reality, looking at smaller and smaller elements, one can reach clear explanations of why things are the way they are – in this case, in terms of government and politics.  All one has to do is add up the different explanations of the varied elements and have a picture of the whole.  But as I previously pointed out, while this approach might lead to some level of explanation, it usually does not lead to understanding.  Most social reality, it turns out, is greater than the sum of its parts. 

Interspersed throughout the book are eleven inserts, collectively entitled “Citizenship 101.”  These inserts seem to come closest to addressing the federalist concerns I mentioned above.  To date, I reviewed the inserts “Writing Letters to the Editor” and “Volunteering.”  My judgment of these two is that both fail to inspire much that would be supportive of social capital or communal interests.  They make attempts to address what a citizen might do to get more involved with government and politics, but, at best, the attempts are judged to be lukewarm both in terms of information and tone.  With this posting, I want to review the book’s treatment of “Working on a Political Campaign.”[3]

In this insert, it is hard to determine what motivation is assumed on the part of the student.  The tone is light-hearted, but there is no describing what campaign workers experience.  I sense the author of the insert assumes a student who would read it is already wanting to work on a campaign – any campaign.  I write any campaign because in the steps the insert lists, the first step is “Get to know the candidate.”  This is before any consideration is given as to why one would work on a campaign.  Then, curiously enough, the second step is “Choose a Candidate.”  I fail to see the logic of this progression.  The last two steps are straightforward:  “Find out about volunteer opportunities” and “Choose a task.”  The steps, though, are perfunctory with little information or enthusiasm over what type of activity the steps entail.  Let me share the text for “Find out about volunteer opportunities”:

Political campaigns offer a wide range of volunteer opportunities.  A candidate may be looking for people to go door-to-door to seek support.  The campaign may need people to host or even just attend events.  Most campaigns need people to make phone calls or send out mailings of campaign literature.  Campaigns also appreciate financial contributions.[4]

Don’t you feel yourself wanting to run out and get involved?  Don’t you get a good sense of what it means to work on a campaign?  Don’t you just feel tingly over the possibility of doing something so exciting as working to get someone elected, someone you believe will help lead us to make a better community, city, state, nation?  Sorry; it’s just that campaign work is a chance to learn some important lessons about politics and an opportunity to work with like-minded people who might turn out to be life-long friends.  As with the book’s treatment of volunteering, couldn’t there be some case studies of young people working on a campaign or quotes from campaign professionals about what all is analyzed during a campaign?  To be honest, the text does have in its regular text information about voters and voter behavior.  There is a section dedicated to explaining why people don’t vote.  All of this can be useful in campaign work, but the tie-in is not built into the explanations.  There is a question in a section review (page 178) that asks:  “How do factors such as income and level of education impact rates of voter participation? … Why do you think this is the case?”  Magruder’s claims these are critical thinking questions.  How about using the text information and ask:  From what you know about why people don’t vote, how can a political campaign encourage reluctant people to vote?  Which political party would be more inclined to encourage high voter turnout?   This last question would have students look up and analyze: who votes, which party is likely to win low turnout elections; which party is likely to win high turnout elections?  Let me add another question:  Is it good for us to have high turnout elections?  Why/why not?  This is critical thinking. 

As with the other inserts already reviewed, I believe Magruder’s could do a lot more with the topics it has highlighted in these inserts.  In terms of motivation, the text basically takes the posture that students either have the motivation to work on a campaign or they don’t.  By using only minimal language of encouragement to get involved or to promote social capital, one is left with not much motivation or excitement emanating from Magruder’s.

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[1] McClenaghan, W. A.  (2013).  Magruder’s American Government (Florida Teacher’s Edition).  Boston, MA:  Prentice Hall/Pearson.

[2] Social capital is a societal quality characterized by having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.

[3] Op cit,, McClenaghan, p. 141.

[4] Ibid.

MAGRUDER ON VOLUNTEERING

Note:  With this posting, I begin a schedule that has me posting on Tuesdays (as opposed to Mondays) and Fridays.  Oh yes; the Perry referred to in my last posting is, of course, Perry Como.

Let me continue my current focus in this blog; that is, taking a closer look at the content of the most popular government textbook, Magruder’s American Government,[1] and see if that material either leans toward advancing a disposition to self-interests or communal interests.  Does it present government as a social institution established to protect and advance individuals, much like the individual student, or does it present government as that organized effort to protect and advance the common good, the common welfare?  Of course, this is not an either/or question.  The textbook can advance both the individual and the community, but can we detect a bias since oftentimes the interests of the community are at odds with the interests of the individual and vice-versa?  In the last posting, I looked at one of eleven sporadically placed inserts.  Its title was “Writing a Letter to the Editor.”  With this posting, I will look at what might be considered a more directly related topic to community welfare or, as I called it in the last posting, advancing social capital.[2]  That is “Volunteering.”[3]

Again, the context of these inserts is that they take up a page each, though the actual amount of written information is less than the amount of information the text provides in its regular pages.  This one, dedicated to volunteering, begins with a call to volunteer by President George W. Bush.  A few organizations are mentioned as well as federal government’s efforts to facilitate volunteering such as USA Freedom Corps – the organization acts as an information distribution service and as a connector between non-governmental organizations and citizens interested in volunteering.  The insert informs the reader that while 20% of young people engage in some sort of volunteering, the overall number of people volunteering has dropped off.  The description does mention several sorts of activities that volunteers perform such as tutoring and maintaining hiking trails.  All of this information is presented in a matter of fact tone without any real effort to sell this “obligation” to the reader.  The information includes – following its usual format in these inserts – a list of steps that an interested party should follow in order to hook up with some volunteering effort.  They are:  make a list of interested activities, seek out opportunities of potential organizations that might put to work those interests, and make contact by emailing or calling.  As for seeking out opportunities, apparently teachers are a source of information to help a student find an appropriate organization or a student can research using the Internet to find that opportunity.  In making contact, the student is warned that he/she might need a resume or have references.

Of course, any reaction I might have as to the efficacy of this insert is purely an opinion.  But the insert could have done a lot more in selling this “opportunity.”  It could have presented case studies of actual volunteers.  It definitely is a topic that should have been given a lot more space.  Part of the information mentions how the system depends on volunteers to provide services that are important, but are not mandated by law or covered by a government program.  Perhaps a discussion on whether government should or should not provide some of these services might have been suggested or called for.  In any event, the whole topic, in my opinion, was treated as something quite inconsequential.  While the text benefits from having something about volunteering, it does not warrant the judgment, “well done.”  As a promotor of federalist values, I believe Magruder’s effort on this topic does not reach even the level of adequate.

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[1] McClenaghan, W. A.  (2013).  Magruder’s American Government (Florida Teacher’s Edition).  Boston, MA:  Prentice Hall/Pearson.

[2] Social capital is a societal quality characterized by having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.

[3] Op cit., McClenaghan.  The insert, “Volunteering,” can be found on page 19.

“WE GET LETTERS”

I want to look more closely at those elements of content in the Magruder’s American Government textbook that I judged to address social capital.  Social capital is a societal quality characterized by having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.[1]  A civics curriculum (and that includes government classes) which is guided by the federalist theory in its content choices should strive to support, promote, and enable social capital generally, but specifically among high school students.  In my last posting, I made the claim that one content topic that a federalist theory-minded course should include is material regarding community development.  On that score, Magruder’s falls short.  I did mention that one potentially saving element in the text is sporadic inserts that, if treated appropriately, could support social capital.  I indicated that with this posting I would begin to take a closer look.  I want to begin with the insert topic of “Writing a Letter to the Editor.”  The institutionalized practice of local newspapers to dedicate space, usually on their editorial pages, to letters from their readership is a way to encourage and promote average citizens to voice their opinions, knowledge, and beliefs about current public issues.  It promotes active, public-spirited citizenry.

So, how does Magruder’s treat this topic?  My concern here is to detect a bias toward a communal orientation versus a self-interest orientation.  The insert begins with a sample letter to an editor. Let me reproduce the letter here:

Editor:

Regarding the article on additional budget cuts to public education (“Government Proposes Slashing School Funding,” May 9), I believe that every penny spent is a necessary investment in the future of this community.  As a junior at Westfield High School, I know that these cuts would place students’ futures in greater jeopardy.  Last year 15 percent of the teaching staff and 10 percent of all elective courses were eliminated due to severe reductions in funding.  These cuts ultimately impacted the quality of our education, and that is a sacrifice this town should not be willing to make again.

-Thomas Grey, St. Clairsville[2]

This letter couldn’t be a better example of lobbying.  Take a public policy that negatively affects your interests, manipulate the pitch so as to provide a general welfare angle, and use language that denotes a concern for the community.  Interesting, I think, is the fact that textbook funds come out of the same pot of money as those affecting the budget cuts referred to in the letter.  Couldn’t another example be thought of?  Anyway, I believe this example to be well within the guidance of the natural rights construct – a construct that promotes self-interest.

And here, following this sample letter, is the introduction:  when writing a letter to the editor choose a topic that affects you and your community.  The rest of the insert lists steps you should take in writing your letter:  briefly summarize the issue, explain your position, make a suggestion, and identify yourself.  Given this advice, there would never be letters from middle class citizens about the plight of the poor or what we should do about undocumented citizens or the space program.  These issues are too far removed from a typical individual or community.  In short, in terms of writing to the editor, I believe Magruder’s is far less than a promoter of community development and basically presents the topic as just another way to help students get what individually advances their self-interests.

Note:  Since the inception of this blog, my postings have been on Mondays and Fridays.  Starting with my next postings, due to other activities, my posting days will be Tuesdays and Fridays.

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[1] Putnam, Robert D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

[2] McClenaghan, W. A.  (2013).  Magruder’s American Government (Florida Teacher’s Edition).  Boston, MA:  Prentice Hall/Pearson, p. 631.

MAGRUDER ON COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

If you have been following this blog over the last two postings, you know I am reviewing the senior high school textbook, Magruder’s American Government.[1]  The purpose is to see how much the content of the book enables or encourages those attitudes and skills supportive of social capital.  The term social capital I derive from Robert Putnam’s writings.  He uses the term to mean a societal quality characterized by having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.[2]  In the last posting, I shared the textbook’s table of contents.  From that listing, we can judge the book to be heavy on conveying the structure of the central government, who and what  influences Washington – factions, political parties, etc. – and how influence upon that government takes place.  From the table of contents, we did not denote any emphasis on how individuals or local groups can be successful or viable to any degree in bolstering communal interests.  But this only begs a closer look.  I therefore will begin with this posting looking at whether the text in its finer points addresses these more public-spirited topics.

I will look at whether the book has anything to say about communities, community development, neighborhoods, charities, or non-profit organizations.  I feel that these are the types of topics one would associate with social capital.  Using the index of the book, this is what I found.  There is no listing for community(ies), community development, neighborhood(s), or charity(ies).  There is no listing for non-profit organization(s), but there is one for non-governmental organizations (NGOs).  When I looked up NGOs, the text mentions that the United Nations works with NGOs in administrating a number of its programs around the world.  While commendable, this type of information is not what bolsters social capital among your average high school student population.  In short, in terms of community, Magruder’s has little to nothing to say.

But what the text does have are inserts sporadically placed throughout the book which are entitled Citizenship 101.  Each insert is dedicated to a different topic; they are:  debates, evaluating leadership, juries, letters to the editor, political campaigns, political roots and attitudes, polls, television news programs, using the internet, volunteering, and writing to public officials.  Each insert takes up about half a page (the entry might take up the entire page, but a lot of the space is taken up with a photo or words, leaving a good deal of empty space).  Given the font size and spacing of its usual text material, the information in these inserts would take up a good deal less than half a page if it were presented as part of the usual text.  The format is the same for all of them.  It begins with a quote, then an introduction to the topic, a list of things to do in order to perform some action in relation to the topic follows.  For example, the list for evaluating leadership has three steps:  “decide what factors are most important to you;” “match the skills to the job;” “compare their qualifications.”  For each step, there is a short “how to” explanation to help the student accomplish the step.  I am disappointed that these entries are given such small emphasis, but some of the topics I do believe are related to social capital.  They are:  letters to the editor, political campaigns, political roots and attitudes, volunteering, voting, and writing to public officials.

Is the treatment of these topics really written in such a way as to bolster or enable social capital – a federalist theory aim – or are they written to promote self-interest agendas as those would be more in line with a natural rights perspective?  My next posting begins to take a closer look at the six topics I have highlighted.  Before I do this let me point out that no matter what we find, these entries are a very small part of this book.  That by itself conveys the notion that what is contained is not that important.

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[1]McClenaghan, W. A.  (2013).  Magruder’s American Government (Florida Teacher’s Edition).  Boston, MA:  Prentice Hall/Pearson.

[2] Putnam, Robert D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

FOCUS

As I indicated in my last posting, I want to present a content analysis of the government textbook, Magruder’s American Government.[1]  The book will be from here on referred to as Magruder’s – that’s what we in the business call it.  Again, my purpose is to see how much the book encourages a student in one direction or the other between thinking in a collectivist fashion or an individualist fashion.  This will not be anything like an extensive review; one, I believe, is not needed.  For my purposes, by asking a few questions about a few topics of content, we can get a good sense of where the book’s emphasis is along this dimension.  The questions guiding this analysis are:  what is the assumed motivation of a student in his or her reading of the book’s content?  Is it to further the student’s role within collectives or is it to advance his/her knowledge of what is useful to advance personal political/governmental ambitions?[2]  Does the book cover the needs of organizations or other arrangements or does it focus on what the individual needs to know to advance private concerns?  The content choices are developing community (better known as community development), placing a demand on government, influencing local governmental policy, and describing or explaining a governmental agency – such as Social Security.  I have chosen these topics because they relate directly to social capital.  In turn, social capital refers to a societal quality which is characterized by having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.

Let me start by sharing the book’s table of contents.  Remember, we are interested, as I pointed out in my last posting, in how much the author of the book, William A. McClenaghan, dissects the subject matter.  Here are the chapter titles and number of pages in each chapter:

Chapter 1 – Principles of Government, 26 pages

Chapter 2 – Origins of Government, 38 pages

Chapter 3 – The Constitution, 26 pages

Chapter 4 – Federalism, 28 pages

Chapter 5 – Political Parties, 30 pages

Chapter 6 – Voters and Voter Behavior, 32 pages

Chapter 7 – The Electoral Process, 30 pages

Chapter 8 – Mass Media and Public Opinion, 28 pages

Chapter 9 – Interest Groups, 26 pages

Chapter 10 – Congress, 28 pages

Chapter 11 – Powers of Congress, 34 pages

Chapter 12 – Congress in Action, 34 pages

Chapter 13 – The Presidency, 36 pages

Chapter 14 – The Presidency in Action, 26 pages

Chapter 15 – Government at Work:  The Bureaucracy, 30 pages

Chapter 16 – Financing Government, 26 pages

Chapter 17 – Foreign Policy and National Defense, 38 pages

Chapter 18 – The Federal Court System, 26 pages

Chapter 19 – Civil Liberties:  First Amendment Freedoms, 32 pages

Chapter 20 – Civil Liberties:  Protecting Individual Rights, 34 pages

Chapter 21 – Civil Liberties:  Justice Under Law, 34 pages

Chapter 22 – Comparative Political Systems, 32 pages

Chapter 23 – Comparative Economic Systems, 30 pages

Chapter 24 – (Florida edition) Governing Florida and the States, 34 pages

Chapter 25 – (Florida edition) Florida’s Local Government and Finance, 31 pages

There are 180 days in the school year.  Many weeks of the school year are not made up of five days.  For example, Thanksgiving week is only three days.  Many schools operate under the assumption that every course taught can follow the same format in that tests are assigned a specific day of the week so as not to overload a student with too many tests on the same day.  So your test day in biology would be on a Monday, social studies on a Friday, language arts on a Wednesday, and so on.  The natural approach is to divide your course by units that last a week and attempt to cover a chapter per unit.  That means a chapter needs to be covered – given the practical constraints of the calendar – in a week’s time.  Now put yourself in the shoes of the average high school student – a person who cares next to nothing about the topics covered in Magruder.  And then there is the fact that government is one of six courses you are taking.  Government in Florida is offered usually in the senior year and some of your other courses might include pre-calculus, physics, and world literature.  So figure in applying to colleges and the general exhaustion of being at this type of schooling for twelve or more years.  And for the teacher, this is the challenge if you choose to accept it:  teach American government in such a way as to promote social capital using the above content.

My first reaction to the above list of chapters is that the above content puts almost all of its emphasis on the structure and working of the central government and how it is influenced – only two chapters, at the end of the text, are dedicated to local government and most of that attention is at the state level.  Social capital is promoted by participation in governmental affairs.  For most of us, effective participation is limited to involvement with local government – usually city or county government, not national government.  Why?  Most of us do not have the resources to affect national policy, but we do have the resources to influence local politics and policy formation.  So if the goal is to promote participation which in turn encourages social capital, shouldn’t the emphasis in our government education be directed to the local level?  That’s what makes sense to me.  The above distribution of attention, on the other hand, I judge to be geared not to participation, but observation.  If successful, the above content seems to me to be geared to informing the average citizen so that he or she will be knowledgeable enough to view the national news, understand it, and perhaps vote for national policy makers from a knowledge base that can translate personal preferences to those voting decisions.

What I will outline in the next few postings are exceptions to this general observation of Magruder’s.  Let me emphasize that the exceptions are just that; they make up few entries in the textbook and are easily lost and ignored, given the overall challenge of “teaching” an almost 800 page textbook in fewer than 36 weeks.  In the next posting, I will specifically address the topic of community development.

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[1] McClenaghan, W. A.  (2013).  Magruder’s American Government (Florida Teacher’s Edition).  Boston, MA:  Prentice Hall/Pearson.

[2] By political/governmental ambition I do not necessarily mean a pursuit of a career in politics or government.  I am referring to any desire one might have in which government action is necessary to fulfill.  This can extend from filling in a pothole to receiving a Social Security payment.  Of course, it also includes getting a government job.

A TEXTBOOK BIAS

If you want to know what the content of government courses in the US is, just pick up a copy of Magruder’s American Government.  This text is the overwhelming choice of most schools and school districts.  In the upcoming postings, I will go over some of the book’s content to make my case; i.e., the natural rights construct is the guiding perspective determining the content of its pages.  Let me be clear, as stated previously in this blog, that educators would not use this terminology to describe this book, but I contend that, whether conscious or not, this bias exists and the effects of such a promoted view of government are real.

What I will report is a content analysis.  Specifically, I will review the book and ask:  what is the assumed motivation of a student in his or her reading of this content?  Is it to further the student’s role within collectives or is it to advance his/her knowledge of what is useful to advance personal political ambitions?  Does the book cover the needs of organizations or other arrangements or does it focus on what the individual needs to know to advance private concerns?  I expect that these issues are not addressed directly, but I hypothesize that the language used by the text assumes a particular tone or direction, one that basically says that when you happen to want or “need” some service from government this is what you need to know.  But the demands of encouraging a citizenry that supports social capital need to be more proactive in encouraging a disposition to support and bolster the values associated with social capital.  Let me remind you of how I am using this term, social capital:  social capital, as a societal quality, is characterized by having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.  I believe the above questions address the type of concerns associated with social capital.  By answering them, we can get a good feel of whether American government texts promote social capital or not.

Before beginning this analysis, let me first add some context.  One critique I have offered is that curricular offerings today have relied on a view of politics that can be described as the structural-functional approach.  This is an outgrowth of a political science construct known as political systems model.  Early in this blog, I reviewed the basic elements of political systems and I emphasized how in mid-20^th century, political scientists were taken by this model as a way to incorporate more scientific methods into their research.  In terms of what I am focusing on, textbook content, I feel I should draw your attention to what I perceive is a serious problem with the approach that text writers and publishers use in determining that content;  that is, these text producers opted for a view of governance and politics that furthers reductionism or reductive language. 

Let me explain.  The basic notion of reductionism is to conceptually dissect any aspect of reality on the belief that by doing so, one can look at the separate elements making up that reality so that after each element is viewed, one can add them all together and understand them.  Let me use David Brooks’ words to describe what is being promoted:

This way of thinking [reductionism] induces people to think they can understand a problem by dissecting it into its various parts.  They can understand a person’s personality if they just tease out and investigate his genetic or environmental traits.  This deductive mode is the specialty of conscious cognition – the sort of cognition that is linear and logical.

The problem with this approach is that it has trouble explaining dynamic complexity, the essential feature of a human being, a culture, or a society.  So recently there has been a greater appreciation of the structure of emergent systems.  Emergent systems exist when different elements come together and produce something that is greater than the sum of their parts.  Or, to put it differently, the pieces of a system interact, and out of their interaction something entirely new emerges.[1]

To the list of emergent systems Brooks identifies, he can add governments.  The structural-functional approach that textbooks adopt, including Magruder’s American Government, portrays a view of government very much in this dissecting mode.  As result, we have a view of government more akin to what one uses to view a machine, when what is needed is a view that sees government and politics as an organism.

The next few postings will look at this shortcoming more closely.  In order to be somewhat efficient in this effort, I have chosen several content topics to zero in on:  community development, placing a demand on government, influencing local governmental policy, and describing or explaining a governmental agency – such as Social Security.  I have chosen these topics because they directly relate to social capital.

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[1] Brooks, D.  (2011).  The social animal:  The hidden sources of love, character, and achievement.  New York, NY:  Random House, pp. 108-109. 

POSSIBLE: A COMMUNITY OF TOLERANCE

Let me wish all a happy new year.  May 2015 bring peace and prosperity to all, but may it have enough discord so that all bloggers like myself have something to write about.  You do need to keep us off the streets.

You might have noticed this space has not been active since last July.  I begged whoever reads it to allow me a respite.  And a respite I have taken and enjoyed.  A lot has happened since I have posted and I must comment that our president went through a string of misfortunes leading up to the mid-term elections.  Since then, his luck has changed.  The economy is doing well, a development that began before the election but upon which Democrats could not seem to capitalize.  As we know, the Republicans have taken over both houses of Congress and the next years will see little cooperation between the executive and legislative branches of our central government.  The Republicans also did well at the state level.  What that means, among many effects, is that austere forces will prevail in terms of government spending.  In turn, that will be a dampening influence on our overall economic comeback.  Yet other forces might overcome this soft spot – hopefully so.

On this first posting back, I want to comment on an argument that might be seen as countering much of what this blog has promoted.  Richard Dagger[1] expresses the notion that community, while a positive thing, can more or less be excessive and that is not so good.  He also believes that too strong a sense of community has a stunting effect.  How?  As the shared sense of community grows, a population might easily develop and feed into exclusivity.  That is, a recurring problem is in social arrangements in which the people tie themselves individually as members of a community which in turn fosters among themselves an “us versus them” concept or construct.  This, in turn, marries the individual to the norms of that community to the point that its members discard other views and discourage or, might even seek, to abolish any tolerance for any diverse view or way of life.  Intolerance might even take on an authoritative posture as the group might legislate against any symbolic or behavioral expressions of different ways.  The most obvious occurrence of such a policy was the Jim Crow laws of the South in the pre-Civil Rights era of the 1960s.  We still suffer from the remnants of those intolerant policies.  How many of our current problems between the police and African American males, for example, are a product of this tension?  But even to a lesser degree, everyday disdain for the unusual or foreign can function – or dysfunction – in such a way as to cause narrowness and bigotry.  Further, it can stunt the individual from realizing potential within himself or herself as would any other limitation.  By its very nature, intolerance is just another example of putting blinders on to the realities of life, to the opportunities life offers.  In Dagger’s words:

Membership is usually defined not only inclusively – that is, in terms of who the members are – but also exclusively, by ruling some people out.  Thus one may appeal to membership in an effort to exclude as well as to include people.  A self can be so situated, so imbued with a sense of membership in a community, that he or she will fail to acknowledge the claims to membership made by those he or she considers to be outsiders.[2]

But is this necessarily so?

I have chosen this topic for my first posting as a way to ease into the main theme of this blog:  the nation could benefit from a more heightened sense of community and that a means to that end is to establish in our secondary schools a civics curriculum that enables and even encourages a more communal approach to the study of governance and politics.  In addition, that approach should be pervasive throughout the curriculum – both in the explicit and the implicit elements of the curriculum.  To do this, one needs a well-thought out mental construct to guide the choices one makes when choosing the content of such a curriculum.  I am proposing, through this blog, a federation theory construct and much of what this blog has stated are descriptions and explanations of what that choice entails.  The issue Dagger poses in his book is a legitimate one:  can you have too much of a good thing – so much that it becomes a bad thing with serious consequences?  Yes, you can, but that is why I am introducing a version of federalism that addresses this very problem and one that is addressed by contemporary communitarian writers such as Michael Sandel and Amitai Etzioni.  They have described their positions as being sensitive to the problem of intolerance and Dagger’s representation of their efforts is, in my estimation, too critical of their efforts.  That aside, under the auspices of federation theory, the individual is given the latitude to be a self-defining participant in the grand partnership we call citizenship.  As a matter of fact, he or she is obligated to be as open and as much a seeker of truth and beauty as he or she can be.  This is not only for his or her own well-being, but for the well-being of the community.  There is no either/or here, at least not necessarily.  Both the interest of the community and those of the individual are mutually served when the individual is disposed to question and criticize common or conventional wisdom.  A citizenry so populated is more open to innovation and improvement.

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[1] Dagger, R.  (1997).  Civic virtue:  Rights, citizenship, and republican liberalism.  New York, NY:  Oxford.

[2] Ibid., p. 52.