INITIAL PRACTICAL ABILITIES

 

The proper role of education in the US, including that of public schools, is to prepare young ones to be functioning adults in a democracy.[1]  More specifically, in order to fulfill the democratic requisite to provide equal opportunity, an individual has a right to a public education and the preparation that education provides.

          A secondary responsibility of the educational system is directed at society:  that is to develop citizens who are responsible in their duties as prescribed by law and to some extent by customs.  And to do this, certain goals need to be identified and achieved.  That is, in order to be functional and responsible, adults should:

 

·       know certain knowledge (for example, how local government functions within the nation’s federal system),

·       be able to reflectively process certain information (for example, figure out how local government agents rank in power allocations),

·       be able to form conclusions and evaluations (for example, judge how effective the acts of various agents are in relation to citizen’s desires or needs) and,

·       at least, be willing to engage in rational thought and discussion among themselves and with others (for example, in discussion, treat opposing arguments reasonably and objectively).

 

But as with most social concerns, when addressing these fundamental requirements, one deals with certain complexities.

          For example, the educational school system must avoid indoctrinating value positions even if one is addressing basic functions.  But this is not as straight forward as it might seem initially.  Just promoting the notion that students make up their own minds over social issues, assuming choices are within legal limits, is a fine notion but oversimplified.

Why?  Because that view, if held in an uncompromising way, promotes a holistic view about how one sees the way societies should be governed and what economic system they should sustain.  That would be a liberal – as in classical liberalism – capitalist nation and with that, it entails a lot of policy biases – e.g., biases against welfare-based policy choices.  In short, no approach to civics education is totally value free and commits some level of indoctrination.

So, to be functional or responsible about content choices does not prohibit the acceptance of a list of preordained values no matter how pro or anti-individual rights they may sound.  The only exception is the value of being rational on which modern life is dependent.  All this is pointed out to further couch the suggestion that the last posting proposed, i.e., the adoption of a consumer government approach to secondary civics and American government courses. 

This change would have as its aim to shift attention from the structure of government and a national focus – where current civics instruction lies – to how individuals’ roles and duties can and should function in more local environments.  This is seen as a midway step to adopting a civics curriculum based on a liberated federalism construct.[2]  While this suggested approach can be described as eclectic, this blog will emphasize its progressive qualities. 

Mostly, its progressive quality would be reflected in how the suggested approach addresses student interests, but this is geared toward having students seeking satisfaction in their communities, towns, and cities.  This would naturally lead toward interacting with local fellow citizens, their neighbors, in dealing with governmental issues and problems.

On a practical basis, this more local emphasis shifts most students’ attention from book information to community information.  A shift in concern is also anticipated from a third-person perspective to a first-person perspective as more attention to local and personnel conditions is more likely to be achieved.  Assuming the reader agrees that these changes are preferable, this blog will continue presenting this proposal in its next post.

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[1] For example, see Brett Grell, “Public Education:  Definition, Purpose, & Importance, Study.com, November 21, 2023, accessed March 20, 2024, URL:  https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-the-purpose-of-public-education.html#:~:text=The%20original%20purpose%20of%20public,These%20goals%20continue%20today.

[2] This blog has dedicated a good deal of text to describing and explaining this view of governance and politics.  For the purposes of this posting, the reader should understand that the view promotes a partnership sense of citizenship in which all citizens are in it together to advance the betterment of the commonwealth.  At the same time, it provides a strong defense of individual rights but not as a radical element, i.e., it recognizes that individuals have duties and responsibilities toward the nation.

A PRACTICAL TURN

 

To date, this blog has promoted the adoption of a civics curriculum based on the construct, federation theory.  That theory calls for citizens to take on a sense or understanding that they are federated to each other – a partnership.  That entails respect for each other’s rights but also the expectation that each has duties and obligations in assuring that the good health of the partnership is advanced. 

This blog has argued that this sense was dominant from the beginning of the nation to the years after World War II.  Since then, another construct has become dominant, that being the natural rights view that promotes a more individualist view.  And central to that mindset seems to be monetary advancement.  As Barbara McQuade points out:  “… American lust for wealth has led us to a national culture … that is more about extracting profits than about bettering humankind or the planet.”[1]

          To return to that earlier federalist mindset, albeit under a different version (from a parochial/traditional form to a liberated federalism form) some serious transformation would have to take place – some might consider it impossible.  Even this blogger wrote a book concerning the obstacles facing such a move.[2]  This post addresses a more reserved midway step that could be helpful in accomplishing such an extensive change. 

And that would be the introduction of a more consumer-based view of civics instruction. In other words, using a practical view might be an initial step to a more profound theoretical turn, one that eventually would be more communal in its orientation.  Paradoxical to a point, but usually, consumerist thinking tends to be more local in nature and interactive in behavior.

          Existing curricular content on the study of government does not adequately address the practical nature of the relationship between individual citizens and government.  Most government courses are primarily concerned with having students recall the structure of government:  federal, state, local (with little attention to the last two on this list).  Usually, the problems discussed and studied are:

 

a)     Structural problems, such as, should presidential primaries be conducted on the same day? Or

b)    Problems involving the democratization of American society or laws.  An example would be:  should the state support religious instruction in public schools?

 

Missing are concerns involving the practical day-to-day governmental services.   

Because government is the sole source of legitimate coercive force, any interaction with it can range from the mundane to situations with very tragic consequences.  For all students, but particularly those who will take on a trade job in the future – and likely no college experience – a lack of well–rounded social science instruction with its sobering content on the realities of power can be seriously detrimental. 

          In general, civics education has been judged deficient.  The NEA found only 25 percent of students taking part in a NAEP Assessment,[3] were “proficient,” and most of them are from wealthy families, more likely to receive that higher level instruction in college.  To further verify this need, some years ago the following question was asked of a group of twelfth grade American government teachers:

 

Does the regular American course you teach adequately instruct your non-college bound about his/her normal, expected involvements with government offices agencies (federal, state, local)?  Answer yes or no and comment please.

 

The overwhelming response was “No.” 

To quote one teacher, “The County Curriculum and books are available and geared to the ‘average’ student, with emphasis on the structure of government.”  This sort of questioning of teachers and students should be regularly included to see how “practical” civics instruction is perceived by both teachers and students.

This blogger, in his teaching days, was given guidance from the district office about goals for civics courses.  At the introductory level, these goals included understanding the structure and function of government, understanding the processes by which power is exercised, and understanding the relationship between majority rule and individual rights.  Reference to solving individual governmental problems seems to be missing.

This blog has a bit more to share given this topic and will dedicate a number of upcoming postings to doing so.

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[1] Barbara McQuade, Attack from Within:  How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America (New York, NY:  Seven Stories Press, 2024), 170.

[2] Robert Gutierrez, From Immaturity to Polarized Politics:  Obstacles in Achieving a Federated Nation (Tallahassee, FL:  Gravitas Civics Books, 2022).  Available through Amazon and other booksellers.

[3] Amanda Litvinov, “Forgotten Purpose:  Civics Education in Public Schools,” NEA Today, March 16, 2017, accessed March 16, 2024, https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/forgotten-purpose-civics-education-public-schools.

CHECK THE PERCEPTUAL EXTREME

 

To carry on with the series of postings, this blog has been presenting a view that argues civics education, and social studies in general, should focus on the local communities of students.  In that effort, this posting presents a taxonomy useful in developing a curriculum aimed at instituting such a change. 

The general idea has been that extreme levels of individualism and self-centeredness have encouraged a high degree of deviant behavior.  Students dealing with local issues and residents are judged to shift students’ concerns from themselves to others.  This is particularly true if opportunities to interact with neighbors or other community members, face-to-face, are possible.

The last posting introduced Stephen Toulmin’s argument model – one that presents a conclusion and the logical elements one should provide to make a case for that conclusion.[1]  That presentation is judged to be useful in forming a taxonomy, presented below, that would, in turn, assist educators devising an appropriate curriculum that would focus on local issues and problems.

          This blogger has tentatively devised this taxonomy based on Toulmin’s model.  Basically, Toulmin expands the syllogistic model of logic and demands that arguments be based on externally verifiable “warrant” statements which are really generalizations or laws.  Summarily, the presented taxonomy begins with various attributes.

 These attributes include skills dealing with conceptualizing and dealing with variables, a set of skills that has the students devise generalizations, and use them in identifying, evaluating, and formulating defensible arguments.  While presented as a process, these attributes should more appropriately be seen as individual elements that can be utilized as needed.

This blogger believes that a communal, problem-solving curriculum will both place students in the social setting where they begin to define meaning beyond individual concerns – be they materialist or otherwise – and help empower them with the proper skills and the acquisition of functional substantive knowledge to help them in the modern global economy.  It will also help students grasp the function and meaning of societal norms that check deviant behavior.

How?  As students deal with social institutions in local settings, they can begin to appreciate, implicitly, the necessity for social order and that personal success is based on organizational opportunities.  And to further accomplish a proper socialization of social norms, education should do away with the simplistic notions of perceptual psychology (which has become the dominant construct guiding educators[2]). 

While this blogger does not dispute the needs identified by perceptual psychology advocates, these should be couched in more encompassing theories of behavior.  The message that one need only perceive a goal and believe one can accomplish it and, further, will then transform the individual to assume all the sacrifice necessary for success, is absurd.  Notions that students can learn only in “democratic” classrooms (where they determine what is studied) or where they can learn to think and behave democratically, is equally without basis.

Proactively involving students with respected members of local communities, working under the democratic rubric of the nation’s society, with its opportunities and constraints, can be sufficient to achieve the “democratic” goals.  That includes such objectives as students appreciating that there are occasions to become involved and that they can express their preferences when it comes time to decide on policy.

This is different from a perceptual view that has defined democracy as exclusively being a system established to protect individual rights.  Actually, this does not agree with the definition of many constitutional scholars.  They see democracy exclusively based on a more communally founded system that allows collective action based on majority rule.[3]

But this is not the fault of the perceptual advocates alone.  A supportive tradition has long been entrenched.  Modern developments have made the intrinsic, dysfunctional nature of that tradition evident and acute.  All institutions will have to address the challenges that excessive individualism poses to American institutions.  The educational institution, including its curriculum workers, are not immune.  And with this inclusionary observation, this series of postings comes to an end.

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[1] See Stephen Toulmin, The Uses of Argument (New York, NY:  Cambridge University Press, 1958).  A logical argument contains:

·       a datum statement (e.g., since Daniel is a union laborer),

·       a claim (e.g., therefore, Daniel is a registered Democratic voter),

·       a warrant statement (e.g., because organized labor has a strong partisan allegiance for the Democratic Party),

·       a backing or data statement (e.g., because union workers vote Democratic at a 51% rate as voter choices are documented by studies such as that offered by research outfits such as PRO Morning Consult),

·       a qualifier (e.g., unless Daniel is among 23% who vote Republican or otherwise), and

·       a rebuttal, (e.g., Daniel is not a union laborer or even human – perhaps a dog)

 

[2] See the posting “The Perceptual Angle,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, February 23, 2024, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2024_02_18_archive.html.

[3] See for example Helene Landemore, “Democratic Reason:  Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many,” Yale University/Department of Political Science, 2024, accessed March 13, 2024, URL:  https://politicalscience.yale.edu/publications/democratic-reason-politics-collective-intelligence-and-rule-many.  

GETTING TO THE ABSTRACT

 

To this point, this blog, through a series of postings,[1] has developed an argument that promotes a basic change to social studies, particularly civics.  That is, that that portion of a school curriculum should focus its efforts on the social realities of students’ local communities.  This would counter the ever-increasing levels of individualism and self-centeredness that have affected the nation and led to a good deal of dysfunctional elements within the American society such as polarized politics.

          The last posting, “Localize It,”[2] indicated that this posting would, as an example, describe a construct, nativist theories, offered by Jerome Bruner.  Those theories state that the mind “is inherently or innately shaped by a set of underlying categories, hypotheses, forms of organizing experiences.”[3]

          In other words, instruction should not be so concerned, as pedagogues have encouraged classroom teachers to be, with teaching inductive skills, such as with inquiry models of instruction based on the scientific method.  One should recognize that the mind already operates in such a fashion as to approximate that process.  What is needed are experiences that further the student to feel and appreciate the function of disciplinary knowledge.  This idea is original with John Dewey in his promotion of “occupations” for elementary students.[4]

          More specifically, community-based activities and skills at the secondary level can act as a continuance of Dewey’s aim and as a bridge from the elementary school efforts to the goals of higher education and adult communal life.  The ultimate aim is for students to more centrally view their local environs as the natural setting where political realities come to bear on their welfare and that of their neighbors.

          Cognitive processes used for pedagogical purposes should not be limited by scientific logic and concern.  To advance the social action skills (introduced in the last posting) and the communal agenda described above, relevant cognitive skills should be based on a continuum because different students act on different levels of abstraction when it comes to schoolwork or life in general.

          It is believed by this blogger, based on his years of teaching and as a parent, that children operate at all levels of abstraction even at the earliest grades.[5]  The problem lies in applying abstract thinking to sophisticated and to some degree foreign cognitive substance or content.  A continuum is needed by teachers to devise activities that are both suitable for their students and functional for handling the issues, problems, or other situations a teacher chooses to study.

          One such continuum is suggested by an argumentation model, offered by Stephen Toulmin.[6]  To see a summary account of Toulmin’s model, see this blogger book, Toward a Federated Nation, in its subsection, “Toulmin’s Elements of a Logical Argument.”[7]  But for those not so disposed, here is a thumbnail summary.  A logical argument contains:

 

•   a datum statement (e.g., since Daniel is a union laborer),
•   a claim (e.g., therefore, Daniel is a registered Democratic voter),
•   a warrant statement (e.g., because organized labor has a strong partisan allegiance for the Democratic Party),
•   a backing or data statement (e.g., union workers vote Democratic at a 51% rate as voter choices are documented by studies such as that offered by research outfits such as PRO Morning Consult),
•  a qualifier (e.g., unless Daniel is among 23% who vote Republican or otherwise), and
•  a rebuttal, (e.g., Daniel is not a union laborer or even human – perhaps a dog)

 

The distinction here, simplistic but illustrative, between these elements and the inductive, scientific processes that were prominent among progressive educators, is that generalization formation – such as a scientific finding – is not the end or goal.  The end is to have students generate knowledge useful in solving issues or problems and dealing with community sources.

          If devised and used correctly, such a continuum or taxonomy can assist students in overcoming their apparent inability or reluctance to think abstractly.  The purpose is to have students deal with it at an appropriate level.  Then the lesson allows the students to work toward resolution in their natural fashion of problem-solving.  The next posting will review a taxonomy this blogger has devised using Toulmin’s model to further illustrate what this blog is promoting.

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[1] This series of postings begins with the posting, “Early On.”  See Robert Gutierrez, “Early On,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, February 13, 2024, accessed March 10, 2024, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2024_02_11_archive.html.

[2] Robert Gutierrez, “Localize It,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, March 8, 2024, accessed March 10, 2024, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2024_03_03_archive.html.

[3] Jerome Bruner, “Models of the Learner,” Educational Researcher, June/July 1985, 5-8, 6.

[4] Herbert M. Kliebard, The Struggle for the American Curriculum:  1893-1958 (New York, NY:  Routledge, 1986).

[5] For example, a form or type of abstract thinking is hypothesizing.  See “Hypothesizing:  How Toddlers Use Scientific Thinking to Learn,” Baby Sparks/Cognitive, June 9, 2020, accessed March 9, 2024, URL:  https://babysparks.com/2020/06/09/hypothesizing-how-toddlers-use-scientific-thinking-to-learn/.

[6] Stephen Toulmin, The Uses of Argument (New York, NY:  Cambridge University Press, 1958.  For a summary review of the Toulmin’s model, see this blogger’s book,

[7] Robert Gutierrez, Toward a Federated Nation:  Implementing National Civics Standards (Tallahassee, FL:  Gravitas/Civics Books, 2020).  Available through Amazon and other booksellers.  The referred to subsection begins on page 86.

LOCALIZE IT

 

After a series of postings, this blog has attempted to report a discouraging picture of the current US political landscape.  Those postings reviewed the historical effects of several movements, particularly transcendentalism, pragmatism, and perceptual psychology, that have led to the current situation.  Their sum effect was to help normalize and legitimize high levels of individualism and self-centeredness. 

In the process, communal qualities have suffered, and a basic constitutional underlying element has all but been discarded.  “We the People” has, at best, become we, a collective of individuals.  That is, the nation’s assumed sense of a grand partnership – a federated people – has suffered greatly and the consequences of that development are being experienced today. 

What should the role of social studies be in this current state of affairs?  The belief here is that there is a role but not one that can singularly save the day.  Social studies curriculums can help alleviate the condition by making their study a great deal more communal.  For only through a communal structure and processes can students begin to define a sense of citizenship other than what prevails today.

One simple change would be to focus a social studies courses’ content, especially in civics courses, on local, communal issues that students should address.  By placing these issues in a more central position – in terms of positioning within the timeframe of a course of study and in the number of references a course utilizes – students are more apt to become aware of the human challenges – economic, social, political – that manifest in their communities.  But more important, the curriculum can emphasize communal action skills. 

That is, the curriculum can have students work with members of their community.  They can also analyze how relevant societal forces operate in contemporary life.  Care should be exercised to make sure such contact does not pose any dangers to students or other negative effects on their welfare.

For example, one can arrange interactions beyond person-to-person sessions.  Even if such efforts are limited to reading about local conditions, this would be more revealing of those conditions than what usually happens today.  A review of a typical civics textbook reveals a heavy emphasis on national governmental arrangements and national issues with little concern for the local political landscape.

          Neil Postman[1] (1931-2003) sees, for example, the only way to neutralize the effects of television – effects an earlier posting described[2] – is to have students analyze them.  Extending this idea, social action skills can be intentionally utilized in the classroom to analyze all aspects of a studied problem or situation.  This blogger proposes a list of such skills:

 

1.     Devising a social plan

2.     Negotiating

3.     Advocating / counter advocating

4.     Being a change agent or status quo defender

5.     Being a concerned citizen

6.     Being a constructive follower

7.     Being an effective leader

 

The first three skills are seen as fundamental social action skills and the last four are operational social action skills.

            This blogger would like to note that these skills are not seen as linked to a particular ideology or educational philosophic construct, such as reconstructionism,[3] because every effort should be extended to have students decide which way these skills will be utilized.  More specifically, schools should not impose a particular form of communalism. 

What schools should do is have students begin participating in defining communalism as they deem appropriate.  A qualifier to this claim is that whatever form students adopt needs to be conducive with federalist principles – principles that undergird the US Constitution and promote a sense of partnership among the nation’s citizens.

Therefore, the skills are seen as getting students involved with community institutions and with other citizens.  The communal aspect does not have to be explicitly central to the issue addressed but will be implicitly a concern as students engage in the appropriate activities they are to perform, i.e., all social/political issues have their communal aspect to them.

A problem with other reform efforts of social studies is the application of social science disciplinary processes to define or strongly suggest classroom activities.  The assumption was that students would be equally intrigued with the mysteries that the social sciences address if they were creatively presented to students. 

This blogger feels that the interests of scientists are often too abstract and foreign to secondary students.  Even early advocates of these methods, such as Jerome Bruner (1915-2016),[4] eventually admitted that other methods can be utilized to engage student interests.  Bruner identified several learning paradigms that are successful in the appropriate context.  Among them, appropriate for what is being advocated here, is the nativist school of thought.

          By way of illustrating the array of ideas one can employ in pursuing this communal option, the next posting will describe this nativist school of thought and other approaches educators have introduced.  This blogger has often refuted the notion of an ideal teaching style or methodological approach can be applied to the teaching strategies of all teachers. 

That is, he has argued that teaching is too much a form of personal expression and needs to respect what sort of person that teacher is.  But that does not preclude describing and reviewing the positive elements of various approaches.  In that vein, this series of postings proceeds and hopefully shares with readers forms of instruction with which they are not as familiar and might prove to be effective in promoting communal requisites.

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[1] Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York, NY:  Penguin Books, 1986).

[2] Robert Gutierrez, “The TV Effect,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, February 20, 2024, accessed March 6, 2024, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2024_02_18_archive.html.

[3] “The philosophy of Social Reconstructionism is a student-centered philosophy. This philosophy is rooted in the belief that education should be focused on reconstructing society. This emphasis is a result of the perceived lack of leadership on the part of schools to create an equitable society.”  ‘Chapter 9:  Social Reconstructionism,” Center for the Advancement of Digital Scholarship (n.d.), accessed March 8, 2024, URL:  https://kstatelibraries.pressbooks.pub/dellaperezproject/chapter/chapter-8-social-reconstructionism/#:~:text=The%20philosophy%20of%20Social%20Reconstructionism%20is%20a%20student%2Dcentered%20philosophy,to%20create%20an%20equitable%20society.

[4] Jerome Bruner, “Models of the Learner,” Educational Researcher, June/July 1985, 5-8.

THEN THERE’S ANOMIE

 

Two honored sociologists who have contributed to the general understanding of deviant behavior have been Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) and Robert Merton (1910-2003).  The last posting of this blog, which has been presenting a series of postings regarding the development of deviant proclivities in American culture, introduced the work of Durkheim and Merton.  That posting indicated this one would share a model these writers, from different time periods, collectively present regarding deviance.

          To begin, Durkheim noted that suicide rose in times of prosperity.  Baffled, he began to theorize that in modern times people are subject to egoistic suicides, that is, suicides that are motivated by the inability to deal with fast paced societies and their unrealistic goals.  In general, modern society promotes lofty goals while designating norms regarding acceptable behavior as it addresses those goals. 

Further, people are socialized to accept these goals.

 

American culture is characterized by great emphasis on the accumulation of wealth as a success symbol without a corresponding emphasis on using legitimate means to march toward this goal … [D]eviant behavior among certain classes in American society cannot be explained by a lack of opportunity alone or by an exaggerated emphasis on a pecuniary value nexus … It is the set of equalitarian beliefs in American society, stressing the opportunity for economic affluence and social ascent for all of its members, which makes for the difference.[1]

 

If true, certain recent developments can’t help adding to deviant levels.  That is, one can add to this mix of sentiments that a certain condition promotes.  That is, a significant portion of the population has had its economic foundations pulled out from under it, such as the exportation of a significant number of manufacturing jobs during the recent past. 

This results in the chasm between aspirations and reality and consequently, one can expect levels of deviance to increase.  They can even be justified by disrupters as means to attain the goals Durkheim identifies.  It is the opinion of this blogger that much of the polarized state of American politics one observes today can be attributed to this development.

          And Merton outlines forms of behavior patterns that such disruptive conditions encourage, but common to these deviant adaptive patterns is the feeling of anomie.  Anomie can be defined as a pervading sense:  a fatalistic lack of cohesion with society.  This sense can permeate among certain groups within the nation.  Merton believed that lower income groups were naturally more predisposed to anomie.[2]

          Given the historical progression this series has outlined in earlier postings – the progression from transcendentalism, pragmatism, and perceptual psychology – the progression has glorified individualism and self-centeredness.  Plus, sociological/economic developments – increasing divorce rates, globalization of the economy, exportation of manufacturing jobs – anomie has become prevalent among larger segments of the population.[3]

          This state of conditions naturally affects schools.  The teacher corps and other school professionals around the country should be concerned with augmenting social norms which encourage non deviant behavior, and at the same time try to impart the necessary skills that empower individuals in attaining their social and economic goals.  But beyond that, those very goals need to be questioned.  While this blogger denotes a tinge of elitism in the Merton model, the reality is that pecuniary rewards are inordinately emphasized in this nation’s society.

          As pointed out earlier in this series, American society lacks a substantive cultural philosophy.  What philosophy it has is made up of vague notions of the “American dream” and individual rights.  Institutions such as American education have promoted individualism.  One finds oneself hearing only a limited social message in this vacuum, from Madison Avenue or disinformation being constantly emitted through social media.[4] 

As for advertising, the message is simple and direct:  buy things and services.  As for social media:  “you are getting screwed and you need to support X.”  Either way, social worth is most exclusively tied to the ability to attain the things advertised or be associated with those who are sharing a delegitimate status while joining together to save the day.

With more and more misalignment – i.e., social ties lacking meaningful commitments – or the availability of meaningful employment especially among low educated people, the social conditions leading to anomie are readily observable.  Add to this the communication facility that social media affords, and the mix is quite disruptive and deviant.

With that staging, social studies curriculum development has a “full plate” of challenges to address.  That will be the topic of the next posting as this blog continues this series of postings addressing deviance in the American culture.  And just to give this notion of a curricular response legitimacy, one should keep the meanings of anomie – lacking social and ethical standards – and nihilism – rejecting moral principles due to seeing life as meaningless – in mind.

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[1] Marshall B. Clinard, “The Theoretical Implications of Anomie and Deviant Behavior,” in Anomie and Deviant Behavior, edited by Marshall B. Clinard (New York, NY:  The Free Press, 1964), 1-56, 14-15.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Given inherit challenges with measuring anomie among a population, the literature is not “one-sided” as to the levels and consequences of anomie to American society.  See for example, Jean Paul Azzopardi, “America’s Overdose of Anomie,” Medium, January 10, 2017, accessed March 4, 2024, URL:  https://medium.com/@jp_azzopardi/americas-overdose-of-anomie-1c0049844774#:~:text=They%20believe%20that%20American%20society,actively%20resist%20any%20institutional%20controls.

[4] In terms of the latter, see Barbara McQuade, Attack from Within:  How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America (New York, NY:  Seven Stories Press, 2024).