Liberty and litearcy2

Liberty and Literacy

Now and in the future

Crash Course

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3Ox6vGteek

Class Issues

• Infrastructure• Learning & Assessment• Challenges• Differences• Equality & Equity• Students• Values & Ethics in Education• Liberal Education

Political Economy

Agrarian societyHomogenous

Family unitSlavery

RevolutionBourgeoisie

IdeologyClassical liberalism

PatriarchyReason

Republican virtueNatural aristocracy

Capitalism/FreedomLaissez-faire

SchoolingSchools

Regional differencesLocal financing

White malesReligious & Democratic

Three Rs

Fundamental Tenets of Classical Liberal Ideology

• Faith in Reason • Natural Law• Republican

Virtue

• Progress • Nationalism• Freedom

(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.Tozer/Senese/Violas, School and Society, 5e

Faith in Reason• A better guide than tradition, custom,

and dogmatic faith • Mind as “blank slate” • Humankind capable of great feats• Galileo, Copernicus, Newton


Natural Law

• “Universe is a machine”• Understanding yields control• Science replaces theology as guide to

action


Republican Virtue


Perfectibility of the individual Duties to God and to nature

The work ethicMen’s virtues/ Women’s virtues

Progress• Continual individual and societal

progress toward perfection• Changing the world to what ought to

be• Revolution as an option • Commitment to social meliorism• Education as the vehicle


Nationalism

• Allegiance to a nation, not a state• A new national identity • Uneasy balance between national

government and local self- determination


Freedom• “Negative freedom”

Intellectual• Free from external coercion of church and state

Political• Representative government

Civic• Freedom to “live as one pleases”• Bill of Rights

Economic • “Laissez-faire” economy• The Wealth of Nations


Jefferson’s Plan for Popular Education

Self-Education

ElementarySchools

GrammarSchools University


First Tier—Elementary Schools• Foundation of entire education structure• Decentralized districts• Three years of free education • Screening for future leaders• Preparing citizens for effective functioning


Second Tier—Grammar Schools• Boarding schools • Languages, advanced curriculum • Developing local leadership • Preparation for university


Third Tier—University Education• Common education from grammar schools

allowed for advanced instruction • Specialization in a “science”• Preparation for leadership—law,

government, the professions • Education for meritocracy


Fourth Tier—Self-Education• Lifelong learning as the culmination of

educational aims• Jefferson’s support of public libraries• “Knowledge is power; knowledge is safety;

knowledge is happiness”


Concluding Remarks• Political economy and ideology influenced

early education processes, inside and outside of schools

• Jefferson’s thinking reveals the tensions in classical liberalism

• Admirable ideals versus the “dominant ideology”


Developing Your Professional Vocabulary

• Bill for a More General Diffusion of Knowledge

• bourgeoisie• capitalism• civic freedom• classical liberal• conservative

• democratic localism• “divine right” of the

nobility• elementary schooling• faculty psychology• faith in human reason• feudalism• freedom and

“negative freedom”



• grammar schools• happiness• intellectual freedom• meritocracy• nationalism• natural aristocracy• natural law• patriarchy

• political freedom• progress• religious revelation• republicanism• Rockfish Gap Report• scientific reason• social meliorism• virtue


• "An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.“

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVoj9nNOKCU

• http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/educated-citizenry-vital-requisite-our-survival-free-people-quotation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVoj9nNOKCU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVoj9nNOKCU

http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/educated-citizenry-vital-requisite-our-survival-free-people-quotation



• 1787 December 20. (to James Madison) "Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to ; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty."[4]

http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/James_Madison

http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/quotations-education

Chapter Nine

Liberty and Literacy Today: Contemporary Perspectives


Literacy as a Social Construction• Past and present literacy rates affected by

differences in class, race, gender, region, and social need

• Less need and less expectation of widespread literacy in 18th and 19th centuries

• Socioeconomic marginality of illiteracy a 20th-century phenomenon


• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8N9-ubmuoM

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWDUixwo9eU

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc5TVghbj-Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc5TVghbj-Q






Hegemony TheoryWhy, in the face of massive inequalities, does

rebellion not occur in a democracy?Hegemony theory posits that:1. Institutional elites control U.S. political and economic

institutions.2. They share a common ideology that justifies their

position.3. Public is socialized into accepting these views through

schooling, mass media, workplace.4. Ideology serves to limit discussion/debate and promote

acceptance of status quo.


Mass Media and Cultural Hegemony• Corporate chains control significant numbers of

newspapers and magazines; television, publishing and films

• Concentration of ownership equals restriction of range of viewpoints

• Media criticisms of American institutions stay within acceptable bounds

• What will happen with computers and the Internet?


Schooling and Cultural Hegemony• Hierarchical distribution of power in schools fosters

compliance• Nature of students’ work promotes competition; failure is

personal, not linked to a structure that needs winners and losers

• Social stratification within the school culture encourages differences rather than commonalities

• Capitalist democracy lauded; instillation of compliance in students encouraged

• America’s social history selectively presented in textbooks


Schooling and Cultural Hegemony• American society educates in contradictory ways

Taught that this is a democratic societyDaily experiences reinforce non-participationThe option of questioning this dichotomy is not

presented

• Citizens are prevented from participating in democratic processesUltimately, is this really a democracy if the populace

cannot participate?


Four Contemporary Perspectives on Literacy

• Conventional literacy• Functional literacy • Cultural literacy• Critical literacy

Each expresses different understandings of schooling, political economy, and ideology.


Conventional Literacy• 1980 U.S. Census found 99.5% of adults literate— “the

ability to read and write a simple message in any language”

• Issues with these findings:Were data collection methods appropriate?What level of literacy is reflected in the data?Could respondents read and write in English?

• Conventional perspective useful to support claims of progress and to mask need for adult education programs


Functional Literacy• “Functional literacy” first used by Army

during WWII to mean literacy that would accommodate military demands

• A literacy that measures ability to perform tasks requiring literacy skills or to “function effectively”

• Social class and literacy acquisition go hand in hand; race and ethnicity matter


Functional Literacy• Limitations of functional literacy

perspectiveSeems to imply minimum competence as a

goalTends to lay blame on the illiterate themselves,

rather than social inequalitiesOveremphasis on mechanical skills of reading

and writing; less on understanding and critical thinking


Cultural Literacy• E. D. Hirsch’s argument that literacy includes a

basic knowledge foundation that gives meaning to what is read

• “Intellectual baggage” that supports a familiarity with the events and ideas that have shaped American culture

• Historical names and events, authors and works of literature, geographical places, phrases, scientific terms, etc.


Cultural Literacy• Limitations of functional literacy

perspective“Trivial pursuit” approach?Adds meaning, but falls short of advancing

democratic understandingEmphasizes recognition rather than critical

thinking, and is very testableReinforces Eurocentric bias; overlooks global

society


Critical Literacy• Literacy may enable some parts of society to

control others• Critical literacy draws attention to power relations

in society by focusing on racial, ethnic, gender, and class oppression

• Critical literacy attends to how knowledge and power are interrelated

• Literacy is the capacity to think and act reflectively—to understand the world and act to change social relations of oppression


Critical Literacy Method• Highlights connection between knowledge

and power• Freire's pedagogy of “dialogue” and mutual

learning• Reading and writing as tools to understand,

express, and change social relations• Balancing criticism of the dominant culture

and learning its “linguistic code”



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

• Paulo Freire• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFOhVdQt27c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFOhVdQt27c



Usefulness/Drawbacks of Perspectives• Conventional evidence of success of U.S. educational

system; obscures the way illiteracy is distributed• Functional measurement of ability to function at

minimum level in society; settles for minimal view of literacy

• Cultural familiarity with the traditional knowledge base of our culture; promotes passive absorption of random knowledge

• Critical emphasis on relationship between literacy and empowerment

• Each of these supports a different educational aim


Concluding Remarks• The concept of literacy is embedded in

social contexts and is relative to particular societies and their conditions

• Education is no guarantee of freedom when participatory self-government is not fostered by schools and media

• Critical literacy key to challenging this state of affairs



• conventional literacy• critical literacy• cultural literacy• cultural or ideological

hegemony• Paulo Freire• functional literacy• hidden curriculum

• the “information marketplace” vs. a marketplace of ideas

• literacy as a social construction

• mass media• NAEP (National

Assessment of Educational Programs)


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