Public Schooling and Democracy in the United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah M. Stitzlein
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Political System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Schooling ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Relationship

Public schools are intricately connected to the stability and vitality of our democracy in the United States. The important relationship between public schooling and democracy began as a foundational idea in our fledgling republic, and it grew slowly over the course of our country’s history. Along the way, the relationship has been tested and challenged, encountering significant problems and limitations over time, including some that continue today. Despite these struggles and the many ways in which we’ve failed to fully fulfill the relationship, it has become a key one for maintaining the strength of our society and our political system. Unlike a monarchy and other forms of government, it is difficult to maintain a democracy. Democracies take work; they rely upon the ongoing effort of elected officials and citizens, because they cannot run themselves or rely on just one person to lead. While democracy may be a highly desirable political system, its benefits are not always self-evident to children, and the pursuant skills and work it requires do not come naturally to most people. This is the rather precarious position of democracy; in order to maintain it, we have to educate children about its benefits and rationale while also equipping them with the skills and dispositions they need in order to for them to perpetuate it well. This is why we must link education and democracy. Democracy requires informed and active voters who seek information to make wise decisions on behalf of themselves and the common good. Such voters must understand their own rights and freedoms, as well as those of others, as they deliberate together to reach mutually agreeable policies and practices. They must be equipped to engage in free and critical inquiry about the world and the problems surrounding them. And, they need the imagination and creativity to construct, revise, add to, and share the story of democracy with others, including the next generation. The relationship between public schooling and democracy is best understood and fulfilled when it is not just a unidirectional one, where public schools support democracy, but rather when it moves in both directions, with the formal and cultural elements of democracy shaping the governance, content, and practices of schools. In this way, democracy is not just the end of public schooling, but also the means by which we achieve it.

Historical Perspective of Technoethics in Education

2009 ◽  
pp. 651-667 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. José Cortez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Schooling ◽  
Good Citizenship ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
Professional Teaching

Fundamental democratic principles and values that guide our social relationships have been important concerns in the evolution of this nation’s system of formal public schooling. With its increased use and reliance on advanced technologies, education faces some fundamental challenges that have potentially far-reaching implications for educational institutions, professional teaching strategies and practices, and student learning. This chapter explores the topic of technoethics as an applied field of ethics and research, viewed from a historical perspective of education in the United States and its embrace of technology. The underlying intent is to inform the readers’ understanding of the basic concepts of common good, citizenship, and democratic values that are the underlying precepts associated with the history of public schooling in the United States. Additionally, the author discusses the increasingly critical need for educators to address the social and ethical dilemmas associated with new technological developments and their application to educational settings.

scholarly journals El colegio electoral y su historia: de los debates constitucionales a las elecciones de 2016 = The Electoral College and its History: From the Constitutional Debates to the 2016 Elections

2018 ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Pedro Francisco Ramos Josa
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Political System ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
The United States ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
El Sistema ◽  
The Relationship

El presente artículo tiene por objeto analizar la finalidad y utilidad de la institución del Colegio Electoral en el sistema político de Estados Unidos. Para dicho propósito haré un repaso histórico de los orígenes constitucionales del Colegio Electoral, seguido de una descripción de su evolución a lo largo de más de 200 años de existencia, finalizando con un análisis de su influencia en el resultado de las últimas elecciones presidenciales del pasado 8 de noviembre de 2016. Por último, y teniendo en cuenta todo lo anterior, valoraré la relación entre el Colegio Electoral y la democracia estadounidense.It is the object of the present article to analyze the purpose and usefulness of the institution of the Electoral College in the United States political system. For that purpose I will make a historical review of the Electoral College constitutional origins, followed by a description of its evolution throughout more than 200 years of existence, to conclude with a review of the main arguments for and against the Electoral College. Finally, and bearing in mind the aforementioned, I will assess the relationship between the Electoral College and the American democracy.

Leadership, Equality & Democracy

Daedalus ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 145 (3) ◽  
pp. 8-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nannerl O. Keohane
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
The United States ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Institutional Constraints ◽  
The Political ◽  
Abuse Of Power ◽  
Key Terms ◽  
The Relationship

The goal of this essay is to clarify the relationship between leadership and equality as two essential constitutive factors of a democratic political system. The essay is motivated by concern about increasing inequalities in the political system of the United States and other countries that describe themselves as democracies. The first section notes the logical tension between leadership and equality, and spells out my understanding of the key terms I use in this essay. I show how the tension between leadership and equality poses a conundrum for democratic governance. Yet the crux of my argument is that profound socioeconomic inequalities pose the more basic threat. I identify disparities in power, as distinct from leadership, as the root of the problem here. Leadership and power are often conflated. Eliding the differences between the two impedes our understanding of the dilemmas we face. The classical answer to concerns about the abuse of power is to establish institutional constraints on political leadership. Yet good leadership is essential in solving the problems we confront. Because leaders can take significant steps to reduce inequality, leadership and equality are not always in tension. If we are to emerge from our current malaise, we must recognize and draw upon the positive contributions of leadership to efficacious democratic governance.

Introduction

1979 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Nasaw
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Social History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Schooling ◽  
The Public ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Public Colleges And Universities

A history of American public schooling reduced to graphs would tell a simple story of almost continuous growth. In every category, the graphs would incline upwards, recording a steady rise in the number of students in school, the time they spent there, the teachers who taught them, the schools that housed them, and the dollars expended. The upward trend would continue unbroken from the 1820s until the 1970s. We cannot, at this time, chart the downward course that has commenced (if only temporarily) in the mid-1970s. We know only that that part of the American public that votes on school bond issues and makes its opinions known to professional pollsters is no longer willing to spend as much money or place as much trust in public schooling as it once was. It is too soon to predict the future course of public schooling in America, but a good time to reconsider the past. To understand why Americans have grown disillusioned with their public schools we must look beyond the immediate present to the larger history of the United States and its public schools. The public schools of this country—elementary, secondary, and higher—were not conceived full-blown. They have a history, and it is the social history of the United States. This essay will not attempt to present that history in its entirety but will focus instead on three specific periods decisive for the social history of this society and its public schools: the decades before the Civil War, in which the elementary or “common schools” were reformed; the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, in which the secondary schools “welcomed” the “children of the plain people”; and the post-World War II decades, which found the public colleges and universities “overwhelmed” by a “tidal wave” of “non-traditional” students— those traditionally excluded from higher education by sex, race, and class. In each of these periods, the quantitative expansion of the student population was matched by a qualitative transformation of the enlarged institutions.

scholarly journals Abortion in Israel: Community, Rights, and the Context of Compromise

1994 ◽  
Vol 19 (02) ◽  
pp. 313-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noga Morag Levine
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Cleavages ◽  
Collective Rights ◽  
Community Rights ◽  
Abortion Politics ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Relationship

In contrast to American understandings of abortion as a uniquely tragic dilemma, the Israeli abortion issue is a tangential controversy in a larger debate over the relationship between the state's national and democratic identity. The divergent paths of abortion politics in Israel and the United States reflect important differences in underlying religious doctrines, geographical size, feminist ideologies, and the immediacy of other social cleavages. More profoundly, the two abortion stories are the product of distinct understandings of the mutual obligations between citizens and their state and of the relationship between individual and collective rights and duties. While these differences may account for the capacity of Israeli activists on both sides to forge pragmatic compromises, the stability of these policies is uncertain both because of changing Israeli priorities and the import of American conceptions of the abortion dispute.

Energy and Security

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Duffield
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Oil Shocks ◽  
Resource Nationalism ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
Oil Shock ◽  
Run Up ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Related Theme

A substantial amount of scholarly literature about the relationship between energy and security, and how it has changed over time, has been produced before the early 1970s through the 2000s. Relatively few scholarly works were written on energy and security prior to the 1970s, and few scholars paid attention to the growing dependence of the United States and its allies on oil, whether imported or not, and its potential political, economic, and security ramifications. During the 1970s, two major oil shocks prompted two overlapping waves of scholarship on energy and security. The first oil shock began in 1973, when the Arab members of OPEC cut back production and embargoed exports to the United States and several other countries that were deemed too sympathetic to Israel during the October War. A closely related theme was Western cooperation on energy security. In the late 1980s and 1990s, there was a notable decline in the amount of scholarship published on the theme of energy and security, probably due to an overall improvement in the oil security situation. The 2000s witnessed a renewed interest in the relationship between energy and security owing to a variety of factors, such as the run up in oil prices that occurred in 1999 and 2000, and the reemergence of resource nationalism. Despite the significant volume of scholarship on energy and security, it could be argued that the important relationship between them has yet to be fully explored and deserves more research.

Religion in Schools in the United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Rosenblith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Public Education ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
The United States ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between religion and public education has been fraught with misunderstanding, confusion, tension, and hostility. Perhaps more so than other forms of identity, for many, religion evokes a strong sense of exclusivity. Unlike other forms of identity, for many, particularly the religiously orthodox, religious identity is based on a belief in absolute truth. And for some of the orthodox, adherence to this truth is central to their salvation. Further, unlike cultural identity, religion is oftentimes exclusive in its fundamental claims and assertions. In short, matters of religious faith are indeed high stakes. Yet its treatment in public schools is, for the most part, relatively scant. Some of this is because of uncertainty among educators as to what the law permits, and for others it is uncertainty of its rightful place in democratic pluralistic schools.

Discursive scaling: Moral stability and neoliberal dominance in the narratives of transnational migrant women

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia Catedral
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Analytic Methods ◽  
Time Space ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Relationship

In this article I apply the notion of scaling as agentive discursive practice to analyze the construction of moral positionings by migrant women. I draw from semi-structured interviews with Uzbek women in the United States and use discourse analytic methods to focus on the relationship between linguistic choices and existing power structures. I show that although these women are caught between multiple moral orders, by linking behaviors associated with these orders to different time–space configurations and different scopes of generalizability, they are able to justify their choices and highlight the stability of their own morality. I further demonstrate that while these acts of scaling are agentive, they may also be used to reinforce rather than dismantle existing hierarchies, pointing to the need for further investigation of the relationship between agency, discourse and power in contemporary globalization.

scholarly journals The political mechanism of governance in the United States public opinion assessments

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 251-262
Author(s):  
S. N. Bolshakov
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Political System ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Basic Facts ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Stability

The article discusses the current problems of functioning democratic institutions in the United States. The consequences of presidential elections and their influence on public opinion are analyzed. In the face of growing tensions toward world democracy and democratic values, US citizens usually agree on the importance of democratic ideals and values that are important to the United States. The results of the study also demonstrate the awareness of American society of the objective existence necessary criticism. Most respondents emphasize their knowledge of basic facts about the political system and democracy in the United States. The majority of respondents said that “significant changes” are necessary in the fundamental structure of the executive bodies of the American government in order for it to work effectively at the present time.The article states the complexity of the ongoing domestic political processes in the United States, the existence of existing contradictions and the split of public opinion regarding the stability of democratic mechanisms of the functioning of the US political system. The complexity of religious, national, social and other contradictions of social development brought to the surface of public debate a complex of problems of the dynamics of political development and the state mechanism of government.

Abusive Men's Use of Children to Control Their Partners and Ex-Partners

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisa L. Beeble ◽  
Deborah Bybee ◽  
Cris M. Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Intimate Partner Violence ◽  
Partner Violence ◽  
Emotional Abuse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Intimate Partner ◽  
Anecdotal Evidence ◽  
Multiple Variables ◽  
The Relationship

While research has found that millions of children in the United States are exposed to their mothers being battered, and that many are themselves abused as well, little is known about the ways in which children are used by abusers to manipulate or harm their mothers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that perpetrators use children in a variety of ways to control and harm women; however, no studies to date have empirically examined the extent of this occurring. Therefore, the current study examined the extent to which survivors of abuse experienced this, as well as the conditions under which it occurred. Interviews were conducted with 156 women who had experienced recent intimate partner violence. Each of these women had at least one child between the ages of 5 and 12. Most women (88%) reported that their assailants had used their children against them in varying ways. Multiple variables were found to be related to this occurring, including the relationship between the assailant and the children, the extent of physical and emotional abuse used by the abuser against the woman, and the assailant's court-ordered visitation status. Findings point toward the complex situational conditions by which assailants use the children of their partners or ex-partners to continue the abuse, and the need for a great deal more research in this area.

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