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Social Foundations

Dr. Jeff Sapp

Social Foundations Our textbook says, “Social astuteness is essential for curriculum planners and developers.” What IS “social astuteness” and why is it important for all educators?

Social Foundations Social Astuteness – To be skilled in social functions and clever in your interpretation of the interaction of social groups around you and their intentions and goals.

Social Foundations Intention and Impact matter. Dewey said that some things are “educative” and others are

“miseducative.”

Microcosm & Macrocosm The curriculum worker who helps determine education’s content, activities, and environment plays a major role in shaping and indirectly socializing students.

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In the early 1950’s, a social scientist named David Riesman proposed

that there are 3 common types of modal personalities that occur around the world.

Modal Personalities 1. Tradition-Oriented Personality:

This one places a strong emphasis on doing things the same way that they have always been done. Individuals with this sort of personality are less likely to try new things and to seek new experiences.

Modal Personalities 2. Inner-Directed Personalities: They are guilt-oriented. That is to say, their behavior is strongly controlled by their conscience. As a result, there is little need for police to make sure that they obey the law. These individuals monitor themselves. If they break the law, they are likely to turn themselves in for punishment.

Modal Personalities 3. Other-Directed Personalities: They have more ambiguous feelings about right and wrong. When they deviate from a societal norm, they usually don’t feel guilty. However, if they are caught in the act or exposed publicly, they are likely to feel shame.

Modal Personalities •  Ruth Benedict says, though, that for the most part our shared experiences temper individual differences so that the majority of people behave in similar ways.

•  The textbooks speaks of “keeping up with the Joneses” and rugged individualism, among other values.

Developmental Theories •  Robert Havighust’s 6 periods in human

development (infancy & early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle age, and late maturity)

•  Harry Giles’ 4 basic needs (personal, social, civic, and economic)

•  Florence Stratemeyer’s 10 areas of living & 3 life situations

•  B. Othanel Smith’s 30 life activities

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Developmental Theories All of them basically suggest that there are environment, moral, civic, psychological, physical, and economic dimensions of learning.

Developmental Theories All of them basically suggest that there are environment, moral, civic, psychological, physical, and economic dimensions of learning.

Suggested we were moving from inner-directed people (who have behaviors and goals influenced in childhood by adult authority) to other-directed people (who are sensitized to expectations and preferences of others – like peers and mass media).

In other-directed society, parents and other adults have less influence over children and adult knowledge is diminished relative to the child’s knowledge.

Postmodernism – a late-20th-century style and criticism that has at its heart a general distrust of grand theories and ideologies.

Funnies…  

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Postmodernism In technological & scientific societies, according to critics, schools become distributors of cultural capital; they play a major role in distributing various forms of knowledge, which, in turn, leads to discrimination by one group over others as well as power and control over others. Under the guise of objectivity and generalizable situations, it is argued by postmodernist thinkers that artistry, drama, poetry, and qualitative research have been disparaged.

Postindustrial Society A postindustrial society is produced by information and technology. The singular feature of this new society is the importance of knowledge (including the transmission, storage, and retrieval of it).

Postnuclear Family

25%  

New Family Types Moral Education

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Moral Education Moral Education

Moral Education Moral Conduct & Controversy

“Let’s just talk about

it…”

Each year the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) receives hundreds of reports on book challenges, which are formal requests to remove a book from a library or classroom because of an objection to the book’s content. There were 346 recorded attempts to remove materials from libraries in 2010, and more than 11,000 attempts recorded since OIF began compiling information on book challenges in 1990. Here are 10 popular children’s classics and the reasons why attempts were made to remove them from circulation.  

What’s the difference between a challenge and a

banning? A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials.  

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The Top 3 Reasons for Challenging Materials:

1. The material was considered to be “sexually explicit”

2. The material contained “offensive language”

3. The material was “unsuited to any age group”

 

Free Access to Libraries for Minors, an interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights:

“Librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents – and only parents – have the right and responsibility to restrict the access of their children – and only their children – to library resources.”  

Parents challenge materials more often than any other group.  

It was challenged in 1996, but retained by the Catawba County School Board in Newton, NC. A parent requested the book be pulled from the school library because it allegedly undermines religious beliefs.

It was challenged in 1994 in Arizona for racism and violence. It was restricted to 6-8 grade classrooms at the Kyrene elementary schools due to its excessive violence, negative portrayals of female characters, and anti-Semitic references.

The story was challenged at the Mount Diablo, CA School District in 1992 because it teaches children that it is acceptable to kill witches and paints witches as child-eating monsters.

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Since 1999 to present day, multiple attempts have been made to remove the books from school and public libraries due to themes of witchcraft, wizardry, cults, Satanism, death, hate and dark content.

In 1999, the book was banned from an elementary school in Lufkin, TX because it contains the word “ass.”

The book was challenged in 1990 in the Howard County, MD School System because it depicts “graphic violence, mysticism and gore.”

In 1994 an edition with illustrations of bare-breasted mermaids was challenged in the Bedford, TX School District because it was “pornographic” and contained “satanic pictures.”

In 1991 a Bradford County, FL teacher initiated a complaint that the book was violent because of the actions of the wolf. The teacher questioned the appropriateness of the little girl taking wine to her grandmother and her grandmother later drinking the wine.

In 1989, the book was challenged in the Laytonville, CA Unified School District because it “criminalized the foresting industry.”

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In 1992, the story was restricted to students with parental permission at the Duval County, FL public school libraries because of its graphic violence: a hunter kills a wild boar, and a wicked witch orders Snow White’s heart torn out.

www.jeffsapp.com

CUR 513 Class Adolescent Novel One of the three most commonly challenged books in America

•  Franklin County, KS on the grounds that it is “concerned with murder, suicide, and the degradation of motherhood and adolescence.”

•  In Wrenshall, Minnesota, on the grounds of offensive and objectionable language.

•  In Johnson County, Missouri complaints charged that the book desensitized children to euthanasia.

•  A parent in Sidney, NY objected to it because of the “usage of mind control and selective breeding.”

•  In OK, a parent objected to the novel’s use of terms like “clairvoyance,” “transcendent,” and “guided imagery” because they were New Age practices.

•  San Dimas, CA because parents complained that violent and sexual passages were inappropriate for children.

Moral Conduct & Controversy

“Let’s just talk about

it…”

Moral Teaching

The content of moral knowledge covers 5 main areas: 1.  Human rights – involving conditions of life

that ought to prevail; 2.  Ethics – concerning family relations and sex; 3.  Social relationships – dealing with class,

racial, ethnic, and religious groups; 4.  Economic life – involving wealth and poverty;

and 5.  Political life – involving justice, equity, and

power.

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Moral Teaching The way we translate moral content into moral

conduct defines the kind of people we are. It is not our moral knowledge that counts, but our

moral behavior in everyday affairs.

Moral Teaching More is caught than

taught.

Moral Teaching

Moral Teaching

“Everything is a TORG story!”

What does it mean to have moral character

as a teacher?

Habits of the Mind In an overly connected digital world, reading books has become a chore for most of us, especially for children and youth. It is much easier to blog, twitter, or text – free from contemplation, analysis, or logic. Has the ability to read lengthy prose, to think and integrate ideas, or even to read for pleasure been lost by the new generation that is wired, networked, and distracted by the Internet?

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The Culture of the School

• Formal • Conformity • Apathy

Peers Conclusion

Curricularists must be social historians, current social analysts, and social futurists.

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Conclusion