Nurturing morality
Theresa Thorkildsen & Herbert Walberg (Eds), 2004, New York, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, $65.00 (hbk), 226 pp. ISBN 0‐306‐48499‐4
Nurturing Morality is the newest offering in the University of Illinois at Chicago Series on Issues in Children's and Families' Lives. This anthology offers those who work with children information designed for practical application in moral development, with chapters that focus on personal and family support for moral growth, as well as chapters that address roadblocks or obstacles to full moral functioning. Editors Theresa Thorkildsen and Herbert Walberg have selected a range of essays from diverse scholars with equally diverse perspectives.
Thorkildsen and Walberg admit ‘the title of this book is controversial, partly because individuals disagree on the meaning of morality, who is responsible for moral action, what impediments inhibit moral functioning, and how societal institutions offer support for the development and maintenance of moral ideals’ (p. ix). They have also decided to avoid focusing on prevention models, and orient their sights instead on promotion models. This choice clearly indicates their focus is on exploring how ‘individuals' moral questions, values and commitments offer structural guides for living that are challenged or reinforced in the context of a community’ (p. xi). It becomes the matrix for the articles assembled as they examine ways in which morality can be encouraged or actively impeded at both the individual and community level.
The collection is grouped into four sections. The first addresses ‘Definitions of moral functioning’, with chapters by Lawrence J. Walker, Sandra Graham, and Albert Bandura. Moral functioning is examined, responsibility in morality explored and patterns in the selection in exercising moral agency are presented. The second section addresses ‘Impediments to moral functioning’. Here Karl H. Hennig, Jennifer Steele, Y. Susan Choi, Nalini Ambady and Susan Opotow examine the role of attachment, stereotyping and discrimination, and conflict as potential impediments. The third section addresses ‘Institutional supports for moral functioning’. Nancy Eisenberg, Theresa Thorkildsen, Daniel Hart, Robert Atkins, and Constance Flanagan all present ways in which moral development and maturity can be fostered in the family, in school, in religious organizations and in community‐based or neighbourhood organizations. In the final section, ‘Considering the common good’, Robert J. Sternberg and Steven E. Stemler discuss wisdom as a moral virtue, and Martin E. Marty provides a closing reflection on the anthology.
Marty emphasizes what he calls the ‘grand themes’ that echo through the writings of all the contributors. One is ‘pluralism’ or ‘diversity’. The contributors to this collection recognize the diversity of the landscape in which moral decisions are made and emphasize sensitivity and the importance of listening. Nor do they neglect to address the conflict and differing worldviews that emerge in a pluralistic context.
Another grand theme throughout the book is responsibility. Marty notes that although Sandra Graham's chapter, ‘The role of perceived responsibility in nurturing morality’, is the only one to address responsibility in its title the theme of responsibility—for decisions, for not making decisions, and for actions toward others—pounds a steady beat throughout the chapters. One simply cannot avoid responsibility and still promote or nurture moral growth and development.
A third grand theme is a response to complexity that takes the shape of exemplarity. Emphasis on moral exemplars reminds us to what degree morality is not simply taught, but must be demonstrated. Steele, Choi and Ambady's chapter on stereotyping stresses the importance of role models to help those being nurtured from ‘being blinded by prejudice and confused by stereotyping’ (p. 202). Eisenberg, Thorkildsen, Flanagan and Walker also emphasize the importance of the human exemplar. Sternberg and Stemler's article provides an extended reflection on the same theme.
Most of the chapters remind us of the critical role of emotion and affection in nurturing morality. In real life, moral action is grounded in simple caring. Throughout these chapters we find the caring that prevents the dehumanization of others, that determinedly seeks a means to resolve conflict, that drove ‘rescuers’ of Jews in Nazi Germany to take a stand against the status quo, or that creates a commitment to community service. Caring can be seen as the cornerstone in nurturing morality, bridging the Gilligan/Kohlberg divide and humanizing theoretical abstractions.
As a closing assessment, the book's focus on institutional support, the differing contexts in which morality is nurtured, and attention to phronesis, or practical reason, all emphasize an active response and applicability. Phronesis, long familiar to those schooled in practical theology, highlights the interdisciplinary appeal of this particular collection of readings. These chapters are grounded in the practical, in what it takes to actually engage in nurturing morality, and leave specious theoretical abstracts to others. The diversity of the backgrounds of the contributors—education, psychology, social psychology, nursing, dispute resolution, and the humanities—brings sophisticated engagement with social science perspectives grounded in practical application. The editors have also done an excellent job of combining work from established or better known authors with contributions from emerging scholars. This volume holds appeal for clinicians, researchers, and students alike. The applications for those teaching in education or developmental psychology are obvious. But the volume could also spur fresh avenues of thought and provocative exchange for those working in children's programs, religious education, community groups, and social agencies. It may also prove useful to scholars whose primary interests include moral theology, ethics, spirituality, or trauma studies.
Dr Lynn Bridgers
Department of Theology, Spring Hill College, 4000 Dauphin Street, Mobile, Alabama 36608, USA. Email: [email protected]
Erikson on development in adulthood: new insights from the unpublished papers
Carol Hren Hoare, 2002, New York, Oxford University Press, $59.50 (hbk), 284 pp. ISBN 0‐1951‐3175‐4
In Erik Erikson's (1902–1994) original account of life's eight psychosocial stages (Childhood and society, 1950), he offered only a brief sketch of the last two stages encompassing middle and later adulthood—generativity versus stagnation (Stage 7), and integrity versus despair (Stage 8). This laconic description, in turn, helped stimulate an exponentially larger amount of research by other theorists in adult development. Yet Erikson continued to struggle with a central question in his writings: ‘What is an adult?’ Herein is the great importance of Carol Hoare's new book: she provides an analysis of Erikson's unpublished papers and notes on adulthood. Of particular significance to moral education, Hoare highlights valuable nuances in Erikson's ethical framework through which he described adulthood, and in his conceptualization of adulthood as a time latent with potential for moral growth and transformation.
The core of the book consists of six chapters, which depict six ‘images’ of adulthood grounded in Erikson's writings. Hoare cautions that these images should not be seen as stages nor simply reduced to a developmental paradigm. By removing the potentially obscuring interpretative lens of stage development, she convincingly argues that Erikson's writing pointed to a larger landscape beyond his original psychosocial stages.
Hoare's first image, the prejudiced adult, builds on Erikson's concept of pseudospeciation. Beginning with the evolutionary idea of irrational group prejudices, Erikson proposed that humans have an innate disposition to deflect their own fears and negative identities onto individuals outside of their perceived group. Drawing evidence from his early ethnographic research with the Yurok and Sioux, Erikson saw how individuals assume that differences in cultural patterns of behaviour are explained by attributing negative or evil intentions to the other group. He argued for a facet of moral education that would help people recognize this evolutionary dilemma with the purpose of identifying the irrational nature of such discrimination and, therein, ameliorating the severity of one's group bias.
Secondly, the moral–ethical, spiritual adult consists of three levels of assessment. Erikson describes a moral adult who is driven by rules, quickly judges others and projects negative identity onto others. Although most adults are moral, some are also ethical. While still keeping their childhood moral selves, these principled adults have an identity rooted in positive, affirming values and expressed in generativity. Finally, the moral–ethical adult develops in tandem a sense of faith and hope, which is expressed in each person's spirituality.
Thirdly, the playing, childlike adult reflects the recapturing of play with a sense of trust and wonder that renews one's own childlikeness. Having begun studying play at the beginning of his career in Vienna, Erikson focused on play as Freud did on dreams. For Erikson, adults typically move away from childlikeness due to negative stereotypes of children, who are described as helpless, little, and inferior. Setting up a necessary paradox, the playing, childlike adult longs for a childhood that cannot exist again, but may be recaptured in important but limited ways. Adult play reclaims from childhood the potential for trust, joy, and seeing the world as always new.
Fourthly, the historically and culturally relative adult realizes that one's own identity is necessarily fashioned by the local culture and historical era. The culturally relative adult is conscious of and sensitive to different ways of understanding the world. Likewise, the historically relative adult is armed with an awareness of both social history and human evolution. Erikson saw these relative perspectives as a necessary condition for ethical and humane interactions to take place between cultures.
The fifth image is the insightful adult. Differing from reason, insight is a higher ability, which incorporates a steady sense of self‐awareness, generative responsibility, and discernment. Erikson reasoned that the basis of ethical maturity is insight. The growth of insight traces a sort of moral development described in Erikson's writings. The ideological young adult forms a foundation of passionately held beliefs and the older insightful adult transforms these convictions into ‘action‐engaged commitments’ (p. 175).
Finally, the wise adult moves from a concern about the ‘I’ to a centred orientation and care for others, and then, after middle‐adulthood, a return to a concern again for the ‘I’ as one relates to and integrates one's life history. This is a ‘wisdom of functioning’ that is most evident in the generative adult caring for the next generation (p. 186). Hoare traces the aspects of wisdom from the ‘we’ of intimacy in young adulthood, to generative functioning in middle adulthood, and, finally, to the wisdom of the integrated older adult who forms coherence of the self in the face of the constricting elements of aging.
Overall, this work is indispensable for those wanting to know more of Erikson beyond his stage theory. From Erikson's writings, Hoare challenges scholars to envision adulthood as potentially independent of childhood. Instead of presenting a normalized structure of development dependent on chronological markers (such as with Erikson's own stage theory), Hoare maintains that Erikson wanted to move researchers into an understanding of development in adulthood in which each individual is qualitatively unique and that in adulthood, age has less influence over becoming developmentally mature than it does in childhood. Thus, the six images provide a thicker description of what it means to grow and develop in adulthood. Additionally, because each of the images is related to ethical and moral components, one sees more potential for a future psychosocial‐ethical treatment of adulthood.
The primary difficulty of Hoare's task was compiling the often nebulous and unfinished theoretical writings of Erikson into a comprehensible format. Hoare is honest about Erikson's often frustrating lack of specificity, and some of the images, such as the insightful adult, need more theoretical development in the future. At times, it is unclear how one is to delineate the images, and Hoare readily admits that they overlap. However, despite the unavoidable inheritance of Erikson's vagueness, Hoare elicits a level of clarity and precision from these writings. Her work realizes the potential that has been dormant is much of Erikson's unpublished works.
David M. Bell
Graduate Division of Religion, Emory University, 237 Warren Street NE, Atlanta, Georgia 30317, USA. Email: [email protected]
Religion and postmodernity
Andrew Wright, 2004, London, Routledge Falmer, £65.00 (hbk), xii+252 pp. ISBN 0‐415298‐70‐9
Andrew Wright provides an examination of the problems and possibilities postmodernity raises for religious education. He structures the book around an analysis of the emergence of postmodernity followed by a consideration of its impact on religion and on the philosophy of religion before concluding with a review of the nature of religious education in the postmodern world. Wright offers a pedagogy for religious education, which he calls critical religious education, as the response to the challenge of postmodernity:
We arrive, then, at the heart of the constructive argument presented in this book: critical religious education, drawing on the insights of post‐modern alterity and critical realism, calls religious educators to be honest about the contextual horizons within which learning takes place, receptive to alternative horizons of meaning, wise in its negotiation of horizons of meaning and truthful in its drive to engage with the ultimate order‐of‐things. (p. 226)
This is a challenging and ambitious book, one that brings together strands of thought from areas of inquiry that do not usually interact, and for this Wright is to be congratulated. However, whilst reading I found myself asking the question, who is this book for? This may seem like a rather pedestrian question to be asking, and it probably is, but let me explain why I found myself asking it.
In part my difficulty arises from the lack of consistency in defining what exactly Wright means by religious education. It is not always clear whether he is meaning to discuss education in religion or a religious education and this becomes an issue when trying to decide whether he is offering a pedagogy for religious education, a pedagogy for religion or a religious pedagogy. This dilemma is not resolved by the definition he offers of a religiously educated person: ‘The mark of the religiously educated person is their ability to engage in an intelligent conversation about religion and to live their lives in accordance with their conversations’ (p. 225). Such lack of clarity may reflect a desire to reach a wide audience, though religious education is perhaps of interest only to teachers and researchers working in the few educational contexts where there is such a discipline. However, on the other hand, it may be an elision of distinctions that some would feel to be important.
The main difficulty Wright's book presents is that the prolonged and erudite excursion into postmodernity, rejecting aspects of critical realism along the way, arrives at a position that appears to have substituted the ultimate order of things for the ultimate truth and left little else changed. This may be an unfair criticism given the complexity of the argument Wright presents, but the book raises several concerns. I find the description of the current state of teaching in religious education unfair in so far as it polarises issues and is partial in its representation of trends and approaches but, of course, this may depend on what he means to encompass by the term. Also, he appears to conflate the constructivist understanding of learning as a process whereby we try to make sense of experience with a struggle for truth. The absence of any reference to pragmatism and the work particularly of Peirce and Buchler is notable here as it may be instructive to engage with these theorists in order to challenge the opposition between abstract truth and relativism. Wright seems to distrust dialogue as a process of meaning making in community in preference for an individual process of coming to know truth by recognizing the ultimate order of things. In the end, critical pedagogy for Wright still retains a rationalist approach that privileges a correspondence rather than a coherence view of truth, or a position that favours finding meaning over establishing truth. Consequently, there is a danger that the pedagogy will in fact be the transmission of understanding rather than its construction. Wright is at his most eloquent when criticizing liberal theology and phenomenological approaches to religious education and has much to say that is of interest on these matters. Again, I am left wondering what the actual intention and purpose of this book is; are aspects of postmodernity being employed in order to engage in a debate with modernity in order to defend a position that most postmodern writers would find indefensible?
Wright has produced a complex and thought‐provoking book that merits attention and has much to contribute to the debate on pedagogy and religious education. If the intention and purpose of the book was made clearer, it would be easier to form a judgement as to the strength of the case he makes. As it stands, the book is challenging but not always easy to understand.
Dr Vivienne Baumfield
Senior Lecturer in Education, Centre for Learning and Teaching School of ECLS, University of Newcastle, Joseph Cowen House, St Thomas' Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU. Email: [email protected]
Moral teachings of Islam: prophetic traditions from al‐Adab al‐mufrad by Imam al‐Bukhari
Abdul Ali Hamid (Ed. and Trans.), 2003, Walnut Creek, CA, Alta Mira Press, $69 (hbk), 132 pp. ISBN 0‐7591‐0416‐6
This short volume will be a welcome addition to the shelves of anyone with an interest in the religious roots of moral education in Islam. A hadith (‘prophetic tradition’, plural ahadith) is a record of the words, actions or silent approval of the Prophet Muhammad or his companions, and the ahadith are the second most authoritative source of moral guidance in Islam, after the Qur'an itself. Of the many collections of ahadith in existence, that compiled by al‐Bukhari in the third century of Islam is generally considered the most authentic. Known as al‐Jami' al‐sahih, al‐Bukhari's magnum opus includes over 7,000 stories and traditions gathered from the most reliable sources and subjected to rigorous standards to establish their accuracy and truthfulness.
The current volume follows a well‐established practice of compiling selections from the larger collections of traditions grouped according to a particular theme, in this case manners and moral guidance. Al‐Adab al‐mufrad (literally, ‘good behaviour singled out’) was compiled by al‐Bukhari himself out of his larger work, and contains 1,329 narratives that provide practical moral guidance for Muslims. The present English translation includes nearly half of al‐Bukhari's selection (there is much repetition in the original), together with the Arabic text and transliteration of all the prayers mentioned in the narratives. There are a number of distinctive features in the editor's approach. Al‐Bukhari's own commentaries and headings have been left out, in favour of a new and perhaps more consistent set of headings provided by the editor. More significantly, the isnad or chain of authorities traced back to the Prophet himself (by which each individual hadith is judged authentic or otherwise) is omitted. A short introduction and brief glossary are provided, but otherwise the text is left to speak for itself.
The prophetic traditions included here encompass a wide range of issues, particularly virtues and good conduct. Since the Prophet Muhammad was the embodiment of Islamic virtue and a living example of how Muslims should behave, every incident in his life is potentially edifying. The incidents and stories that are included demonstrate the importance of being kind to parents, maintaining family bonds, being neighbourly, looking after children, respecting elders, helping others, supporting the poor and needy, and generally living virtuous lives. Personal qualities such as honesty, loyalty, generosity, kindness, modesty, sincerity and forbearance are praised and believers are warned against meanness, injustice, anger, lying, malice, ingratitude, vulgarity, arrogance and vanity. Good behaviour out of good motives is central to the Islamic worldview and is regarded as the sign of perfect faith. Many traditions place good conduct even above acts of worship, and indeed the Prophet Muhammad is quoted as saying: ‘The dearest of his servants to Allah is the one whose behaviour is the most correct’.
However, the reader with comparatively little knowledge of Islam needs to bear two points in mind in using this book. The first is that any single hadith taken in isolation does not always provide the last word on any given topic. For example, the rules about the treatment of animals in Islam are much more complex than the simple principle of kindness to animals which is enunciated here. The fact that forgiveness of sins is granted to a man who showed compassion to a thirsty dog (No. 225) should not be taken as justification for keeping dogs as house‐pets, for ahadith from other collections make it clear that dogs are ‘unclean’ animals that contaminate anything they touch with their tongue. The second point is that it would be dangerous to assume that there is an easy move from prophetic tradition to underlying principle to contemporary application. This approach to Islamic morality is sometimes possible, but it requires considerable religious knowledge and expertise, and even the editor of this text does not attempt it.
The Western reader will inevitably be struck both by the cultural gulf that exists between the world of these traditions and the contemporary world and also by the different and sometimes unexpected territory covered by the concept of morality in Islam. Inevitably, there is an extended section on the treatment of slaves, but more surprisingly there is guidance on a wide range of comparatively trivial issues, including sneezing and yawning, searching someone's head for lice, abusing a flea, laughing at the thinness of someone's legs, cursing the wind and seeing rain clouds. There is little attempt here (or indeed in other books on the concept of adab) to distinguish moral duties from religious duties, matters of etiquette or matters of social custom. Through all the anecdotes, however, what comes across most vividly is the figure of the Prophet himself, aware of human foibles yet always compassionate, caring and good‐humoured. We see him as a fully rounded individual, engaging in every aspect of human activity from hugging a child to visiting the sick or simply sitting with his legs dangling, yet constantly offering guidance and advice to his followers, sometimes directly, sometimes in metaphor or by example, but always with the assurance that he speaks with the authority of a divinely inspired prophet.
Dr J. Mark Halstead
Faculty of Education, University of Plymouth, Douglas Avenue, Exmouth, Devon, EX8 2AT, UK. Email: [email protected]
Rethinking religious education and plurality
Robert Jackson, 2004, London and New York, Routledge Falmer, £24.99 (pbk), £75 (hbk), 221 pp. ISBN 0‐415‐30272‐2 (pbk), 0‐415‐30271‐4 (hbk)
The aim of this book is to argue for a plural approach to religious education and, in particular, the interpretative approach. An overview of the ten chapters of this book will provide the reader with a flavour of the contents. Chapter One discusses the issue of religious education and plurality. Chapter Two provides a useful outline of the history of religious education in England and Wales and the current religious and cultural context. Chapter Three examines the arguments for and against religious schools. Chapter Four to Chapter Seven look at contemporary and alternative approaches to religious education: postmodernist; religious literacy; interpretative and dialogical. Chapter Eight consists of a discussion of the relation of religious education to intercultural education, citizenship and values education. Chapter Nine surveys contemporary research into religious education and Chapter Ten concludes by looking ahead to the future of religious education.
In such a rich and diverse book it is difficult to choose favourite chapters and the choice may be determined by readers' interests, but from the outset the reader should consider the relevant information contained in the acknowledgements. A fairly high proportion of the material in this book has appeared in other contexts (books, journals) and has been revised and/or adapted for inclusion. This may account for some of the unnecessary, and slightly tiresome, repetition that occurs across the chapters. The initial explanation of postmodernism (Chapter One), for example, is very clear and well explained; it does not need to be revisited or recalled. Furthermore, a curious form of internal repetition appears in some chapters (see Chapter Four). In these instances, it almost appears as if the author does not trust the reader to follow the argument and repeats it, or summarizes it, to ensure the reader stays focused. This may be advantageous for the undergraduate, but will prove frustrating for the graduate student and academic. Another consequence of the collating of pre‐existing materials and adapting them is that the style varies a little, as does the density of the writing. It may be that some readers prefer to approach this book in terms of discrete chapters rather than a coherent whole. These, however, may be minor quibbles concerning what is ultimately an important book and one that, despite the stylistic variations between some chapters, is overall well written and engaging.
The chapter on religious schools (Chapter Three) provides a good example of a well‐written and highly readable section of this book. Jackson produces a valuable summary of some of the main arguments for and against religious schools. It is a tribute to the presentational skills and clarity of articulation of Jackson that the reader is left wishing that this engrossing chapter had been expanded further. It would be intriguing to read Jackson's extended discussion of some of the deeper issues concerning the rationale for religious schools: the theological values underpinning the schools, often constructed as ‘theological communities’, with the explicit intention of maintaining/preserving religious adherence and identity.
Another stimulating and hugely enjoyable aspect of this book is Jackson's skilful engagement with proponents of conflicting philosophical positions. He uses the dichotomy between ‘dominant’ and ‘demotic’ discourses to challenge effectively the simplistic views of Hargreaves (Chapter Eight) that are rooted in a dominant discourse. The more complex and nuanced arguments of Wright (Chapter Five) and Erricker (Chapter Four) are discussed in some detail. Wright is critiqued as a neo‐modernist who can over‐generalize and lacks a practical empirical dimension to his research. Erricker's anti‐realist championing of children's narratives is considered to be naïve and not as empirically objective, or as desirable (what if a child's narrative is racist?), as Erricker claims.
Research is a recurring theme in this book. Jackson draws heavily, and often masterfully, from past and current research in religious education. He ensures that the reader clearly understands that he prefers a combination of conceptual and empirical research and he casts doubts over the claims of purely conceptual researchers or research that has a weak empirical base (Wright and Hargreaves are identified as academics lacking a strong empirical foundation or failing to recognize empirical research findings). Jackson is consistent in his support of the interpretative approach and, in Chapter Nine, opens up an important debate concerning the quality and academic rigour of empirical research in religious education. He challenges researchers to be more meticulous, calling for more accurate and more honest presentations of methodology (e.g. outlining limitations) and more coherently constructed conceptual frameworks, but, to take his argument further, he could equally have targeted triangulation of methods and depth of analysis as requiring increased academic rigour and consistency. He rightly argues that greater attention should be given to wider and more accessible dissemination of research findings. He acknowledges that the limited number of researchers in the field and limited resources available have proved restrictive, but Jackson offers a vision for the future, based firmly on his own experience, of broadening out the range of researchers and encouraging the contribution of Ph.D. students and teachers as researchers and collaborators in research projects.
This is a challenging book that is rich in scholarship and detailed insights into contemporary approaches to religious education and research in religious education. Moreover, Jackson places such discussions in the broader social, political and ethical context of a plural age. Importantly, this is a book which has a welcome critical academic edge and Jackson's discussion of conflicting and more complementary approaches to interpretative religious education presents him with opportunities to clarify and refine his own position. The result is a fascinating and spirited account of the importance of the interpretative approach, contained in an enjoyable and highly recommended book that should generate much debate among academics and students over the next few years.
Stephen J. McKinney
Department of Religious Education, University of Glasgow, St Andrew's Building, 11 Eldon Street, Glasgow, G3 6NH, Scotland, UK. Email: [email protected]
Bullying in American schools: a social‐ecological perspective on prevention and intervention
Dorothy L Espelage & Susan M Swearer (Eds), 2004, Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. $45.00 (pbk), 385 pp, ISBN 0‐8058‐4560‐7
Bullying, long a part of the social world of children and adolescents, has only recently received attention from social scientists in the United States. This new volume is a significant American response to a phenomenon that other Western countries have been studying for over 20 years. The editors of Bullying in American schools, Dorothy Espelage and Susan Swearer, have compiled an integrated collection of recent essays, literature reviews, and empirical studies that constitute a handbook for investigating and altering the social networks in which bullying occurs.
In their introductory essay, Espelage and Swearer describe the book's approach to its subject: ‘Bullying and victimization are ecological phenomena that are established and perpetuated over time as the result of the complex interplay between inter‐ and intra‐ individual variables’ (p. 1). The individual, family, school, community and cultural contexts in which these variables exist provide a useful organizational structure for the volume. It culminates in a section on prevention and intervention programs. Chapters address gender differences in aggression, empathy and caring, psychological dimensions of bullying and victimization, peer and classroom ecologies and the role of social supports, school climate, and families in bullying and victimization.
Judged on its own terms, Bullying is a success. It may well become required reading for anyone involved with studying or ‘treating’ bullying and other aggressive behaviour. Yet the book is an unsettling read. The reason for this is not the inherent unpleasantness of the subject matter, violence done by and to children, for the book offers no accounts of what it is like to be a bully or to be bullied that might cause the reader distress. Rather, the reason is the authors' amoral, behaviourist treatment of bullying, which is understood as simply ‘behavior’, not action in the moral domain. Prevention and intervention programs are understood as simply means of ‘protecting’ children, not moral and political enterprises that are complicit with the very institutions partly responsible for the problems they address.
In their investigation of the effects of school climate on aggressive behaviour, Kasen, Berenson, Cohen and Johnson acknowledge that a ‘central underlying rationale for compulsory school attendance’ is that ‘schools function as socializing agents of children’ (p. 188). But rather than examining the justice of compulsory attendance laws and address the question of how schools should socialize, the authors uncritically accept the legitimacy of the laws and conventional ideas on the power and responsibilities of schools. All of the contributors to Bullying in American Schools support and propose programs of moral change with no apparent awareness that they are doing so.
What is wrong with bullying? Bullying in American Schools has no moral position that would enable it to offer a reasoned answer to the question. The question is important, not because there is doubt that bullying (repeated aggressive behaviour toward someone weaker) is wrong, but because an account of why it is wrong would suggest grounds for a morally coherent approach to addressing it. If bullying is, say, ‘an abuse of power’, as Horne, Orpinas, Newman‐Carlson, and Bartolomucci claim in a chapter on a bullying prevention program for elementary students, then an account of the uses and abuses and power and a justification for proposed uses could provide a moral basis for bullying prevention programs. A moral vision in light of which bullying is wrong would suggest intervention programs that regard children as moral agents, albeit immature ones, not as behaviour‐emitting phenomena. The living child who thinks, conceives of the world and self, makes decisions, employs values and acts is almost missing entirely from the book. There is barely a place for such a child among the deterministic social learning and social psychology theories all of the authors use to understand bullying.
The social–ecological framework of the book encompasses every imaginable context of behaviour, but some aspects of the environment are tacitly assumed to be fixed. This reflects the book's acceptance of the status quo. While, for example, lack of power is seen to be a factor in promoting bullying, no author proposes addressing the hierarchical power structure of schools. Bullying prevention programs are for students, but no program advises consulting students on how to address bullying.
Throughout the volume, the language of pathology and convention replaces moral language. Bullying, dropping out of school, and taking drugs are ‘maladaptive behaviors’. Bullying is a threat to children's ‘health’. Aggressive behaviour is ‘problematic’. Effective programs help parents ‘recognize the inappropriateness of their children's aggressive behaviors’. Bullies need group therapy. By this logic, even terrorism is a psychological problem.
It may seem churlish to criticize such a well‐intentioned book, which, if its ideas were followed, really would improve the lives of children. Nevertheless, the absence of an overarching ethical framework in terms of which intervention programs could be judged and the failure to see children as individuals with some measure of the right to determine their own lives is a wide open door to abuse of power. The chapter by Rodkin on the ‘peer ecologies of aggression and bullying’ suggests a practical problem with viewing bullying as contingent behaviour and not also as value‐based action. Many American subcultures of children and adults see bullying and victims of bullying quite differently from the authors of Bullying in American schools. Paternalistic, didactic, social environment engineering programs, such as Bully Busters, Expect Respect, and the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program described in the book, which do not engage students and teachers as equals in dialogue, may talk right past the people they seek to change.
Dr Barry Grant
Counseling Program, Texas School of Professional Psychology at Argosy University, Dallas, Texas, USA. Email: [email protected]
Teaching democracy: unity and diversity in public life
Walter C Parker, 2003, New York, NY, Teachers College Press, Columbia University, $25.95 (pbk), 216 pp. ISBN 0‐8077‐4272‐4
In the introduction to Teaching democracy, Walter Parker begins by noting that: ‘Democratic living is not a given in nature, like gold or water. It is a social construct, like a skyscraper, school playground, or new idea.’ (p. xvii). Parker argues that there can be no democracy without democratic citizens who are skilled in the virtues of being caretakers, change agents, and builders of a democratic way of life. Given Parker's view that democracy and democratic citizens are socially constructed, how can teaching for democracy best be accomplished? What should be the goal of education for democratic citizenship in a multicultural society such as the United States?
At this pivotal time in American education history, the way in which answers to these questions are framed are likely to have civic and moral consequences. In his thoughtful and stimulating book, Parker asserts that multicultural educators and civic educators must work to bridge the gap between these two educational approaches. He explains what should be done to prepare future generations of young people to live well together in a multicultural democratic society. Parker's message emerges from four different but related themes: (1) understanding the tension between multicultural education and civic education; (2) illustrating teaching strategies that help young people develop the capacity to nurture and care about justice and cultural pluralism; (3) deconstructing the unity–diversity tension perpetuated by popular media; and (4) defining deliberative discussion and the promise it holds for democratic education. Taken together, these four themes suggest that teaching democracy is a deliberate act concerned with nurturing the heart and mind for democratic life.
Teaching democracy is organized into eight chapters that are framed theoretically by concepts such as citizenship, democracy, diversity, deliberation, idiocy, justice and mutuality. Parker's premise throughout the text is that individual moral development is central to the growth and improvement of ‘enlightened political engagement’ of all citizens in a multicultural democracy. More important, Parker points out that, ‘social position and individual moral development are core concepts and the relationship between these two is one of the most engaging and challenging puzzles that students of any age can confront’ (p. xvii). For this reason, Parker's message is that American democracy education efforts must be intentional in specifying the democratic ideal in the school curriculum. At the same time, educators must have a clear sense of their moral responsibility to foster and nurture deep democratic learning. Central to Parker's argument is the idea that teaching for democracy must do more than focus on the core subjects of reading, mathematics, and science. Rather, democracy education should also provide the skills and virtues needed to support and sustain active participation in multicultural democratic citizenship.
In the first chapter, Parker provides a robust discussion of the difference between ‘idiocy’ and ‘citizenship’. According to Parker, idiocy refers to a self‐centred individual who has little regard for public political engagement or participation. Further, self‐centred approaches to citizenship hinder the success of communities and government, resulting in limited outcomes for participants and non‐participants. A concern for the public and private aspects of citizenship is a necessary aspect of living the non‐idiotic life. Public spaces should be cared for as much as one cares for the private because the public spaces are where citizens come together to make democracy work. Throughout this discussion, Parker maintains that idiocy in any form represents a serious threat to realizing the democratic ideal. He sees the quest for the democratic ideal as an ongoing struggle that requires the active engagement of all citizens. Parker believes that citizenship resides at the opposite pole of idiocy. To illustrate his point, he uses excerpts from several speeches delivered by Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, as examples of what it means to live the non‐idiotic life. A key to Parker's argument involving Dr King's example is that the actions of the public and the private citizen must be considered along with diversity if democracy is to flourish. Democracy requires that citizens rely on moral principles to guide their thinking and actions in public and private life. Parker shows that citizen action is synonymous with participatory citizenship. If citizens think and act in self‐centred or self‐serving ways they should not expect public conditions to improve. Parker maintains that education is a necessary tool to thwart idiocy.
In another chapter, ‘Democracy and difference’, Parker's goal is to deconstruct the unity–diversity confusion that he believes is being perpetuated by popular media. He also attempts to unveil the illusive tension‐filled relationship between multicultural education and citizenship education by illustrating how these are not mutually exclusive educational aspirations. In this chapter, Parker uses three concepts to highlight what he terms ‘advanced’ ideas about teaching democracy: path, participation, and pluralism. Read together, these ideas suggest that from its inception in the United States, democracy has been an ongoing experiment that benefits from the presence of diversity as an essential fact of liberty and justice. In other words, without liberty there can be no justice and without justice there can be no liberty. At the founding of the United States of America, the framers of the Constitution engaged in vigorous debates about what should be the form and content of this political and social contract. The writers of the Constitution were more concerned with diversity of opinion than the diverse aspects represented by culture, religion, gender, and race. Parker points out that this historical event helped to frame a narrow conception of citizenship education that views differences as closure. Today, American popular media tend to restrict debates about important and complex issues, involving race, gay rights, gender, feminism, affirmative action, religion and immigration. To address these divisions, Parker offers the reader three overarching ideas. First, he notes the tensions between engagement, public life, and spectatorship. Second, he is concerned about the tension between thinking of democracy as a finished destination in need of constant maintenance and in thinking of it as a shared way of life. Third, he presents the idea of connecting diversity to a larger ‘democratic political community’. He maintains that the two concepts in this idea are not mutually exclusive but are co‐dependent and require unity on the part of individuals with varying interests and cultural identities. Throughout this chapter, Parker reminds the reader that democracy is ‘a path that people walk together’.
Although each chapter of Parker's text is thoughtful and useful, readers are likely to find the last three chapters most instructive. In these final chapters Parker focuses on the benefits and practice of democratic citizenship education. In his discussion of the practical aspects of Teaching democracy, Parker turns to education in and outside of schools. He offers a model for teaching democracy through deliberative discussion, although he is quick to point out that he means something different from the usual teacher‐centred discussion. As Parker describes it, deliberative discussion is the hallmark of democratic citizenship education and its aim is to foster enlightened political engagement. Here, he makes explicit the need to help young people understand that deliberation and discussion is a way to reason together about important social and political concerns. Drawing on his experiences as a teacher and teacher educator, Parker attempts to show how diversity strengthens democracy. Parker maintains that three actions are important: first, students should be provided with a variety of opportunities to interact with other students who are different. As Parker sees it, schools and classrooms represent a natural setting for such interactions to occur frequently. Second, these interactions should be constructed to allow students to engage in deliberation and discussion about common problems and concerns. Attention should be paid to those problems that emerge from diversity and interaction, or as Dewey characterized it, ‘problems of living together’. Third, students should have the opportunity to see models of deliberative discussion practised in their schools and classroom.
In Teaching democracy, Parker has offered an inspiring vision of educating students for the promise that democracy holds. His vision extends an invitation to all who are concerned about the benefits of democracy with unity and diversity. Parker's vision offers a far‐reaching approach that is fundamental to the process of democratic education. This book should be read by anyone who is interested in the theory and practice of promoting positive change in education. Walter Parker contributes to the debate between advocates of multicultural education and those who favour a cultural transmission approach. He demonstrates that educating for democratic citizenship in a multicultural society includes developing a deep moral respect for diversity.
Dr Paulette Patterson Dilworth
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, School of Education, Indiana University, 201 North Rose Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47401, USA. Email: [email protected]
Improving primary schools, improving communities
Tony Cotton with Jasbir Mann, Anna Hassan & Stella Nickolay, 2003, Stoke on Trent, UK and Sterling, USA, Trentham Books, £15.99 (pbk), 170 pp. ISBN 1‐85856‐259‐7
This book provides a very practical insight into case studies of three multiethnic urban primary schools in England that have been praised by the government's schools inspectorate (OfSTED) for their ability to achieve the dual aims of raising academic achievement and underpinning all of their policy and practice with a firm commitment to social justice. In the preface to the book, Tony Cotton introduces these schools as places that have given him inspiration and left him brimming with ideas about what inclusive education should look like. However, the book by no means presents the reader with a subjective view; rather what we are offered is a view of a collaborative venture put together in collaboration with colleagues from each of the three schools studied. Moreover, it incorporates the voices of the pupils, parents and governors as well as extracts from school documentation.
The book comes at a very opportune time, when education for citizenship is firmly on the political and educational agendas in all parts of Britain. The examples of good practice illustrate the way in which schools can and should represent an exemplary model of a micro‐social and political community through a strong commitment to inclusion, democracy and social justice. Tony Cotton's involvement as Chair of Governors at Mellor Community Primary School originally inspired the book, and his subsequent involvement with Radford Primary School and Millfields Community School helped him to build on his vision along with head teacher colleagues, Jasbir Mann and Anna Hassan, and senior teacher Stella Nickolay. This vision is centred on the need to fight racism and offer all pupils the opportunity to achieve through a strong commitment towards a truly inclusive approach to education.
The opening chapter presents extracts of the OfSTED reports from all three of the focus schools, illustrating the way in which such external and public views of particular schools can often be misleading and not reflective of the views of the people inside the schools. This is contrasted with Cotton's descriptions of ‘virtual visits’ to each school, where he presents a synthesis of positive practice in each educational establishment over a number of years, using audit statements derived from an earlier collaborative exercise where past and present teachers, pupils and staff illustrate the way in which each of the schools created mission statements that prefaced all policy documents and served to reflect the values that truly underpinned all of the practice seen in the school. The subsequent chapters present many illustrations of practice from each of the schools that manage to bring these stated values to life.
Reading through Chapter 3 to 11 provided me with great stimulation and I began to share Tony Cotton's view of these case study schools as places of inspiration and innovation. As an example, the work of the pupil councils seemed to be regarded as a symbol of school‐wide democratic practice, established on the principles of accessibility, accountability and partnership. What impressed me was the way in which these councils seemed active in monitoring aspects of school policy, as well as responding to the practical interests of children. The ethos of mutual respect that underpinned all policy and practice was shown in the way that pupils called teachers by their first names and the way in which pupils were actively involved in negotiating school rules and creating their own version of the school behavioural policy for both children and adults to follow. In addition, the multicultural approach to the development of the religious education curriculum ensured a focus on shared values and clear procedures for combating racist incidents. What struck me most was the way in which Cotton and his colleagues provided evidence of the collaborative approach to issues of whole‐school development which included opportunities for the pupil voice at every step. The final chapter provides some useful illustrations of what each of Cotton's colleagues learned from visiting each other's schools, and highlights the need to always focus on giving pupils the skills they will need to equip them for their future, however unsettling that may be for teachers. A useful part of the book is the inclusion of suggested development activities at the end of each chapter. These provide points of reference for school staff seeking to enhance and develop current practice.
Although this book is not grounded in any theoretical framework, is confined to case studies of three English schools and is aimed specifically at aspiring and recently appointed head teachers and teachers in primary schools, I would argue that it would be of interest to a wider audience. At a time of looking for evidence of ‘best practice’ in the areas of democratic participation and inclusive education in schools, this book provides a useful reference point for researchers, policy‐makers and practitioners.
Ross Deuchar
Lecturer, Department of Childhood and Primary Studies, University of Strathclyde, Sir Henry Wood Building, Jordanhill Campus, 76 Southbrae Drive, Glasgow, G13 1PP, UK. Email: [email protected]
In the company of owners
Joseph Blasi, Douglas Kruse & Aaron Bernstein, 2003, New York, Basic Books, $27.50 (hbk), 344 pp. ISBN 0‐465‐00700‐7
Written in the wake of corporate moral scandals such as Enron, Global Crossing, and WorldCom, the authors of In the company of owners make a compelling case for the use of stock options within corporate America and why every employee should have them. The broad‐based offering of stock options to employees at all levels, coupled with the creation of participatory cultures within the corporate setting, would create what the authors describe as ‘partnership capitalism’. Partnership capitalism, as a path toward a more moral, democratic economy, is characterized as a partnership between both individuals who work in the corporation who own stock and public investors who own stock. The authors argue that such an approach forges a new type of risk sharing among all (both employee and public) stockholders who use the corporation's assets to generate profit. At the core of their argument, the authors contend that if corporations would adopt the partnership capitalism model, corporations would benefit by increased worker motivation, productivity, and profitability.
In framing their argument, the authors use examples drawn from their study of high‐tech companies and the extensive use of employee stock options in those companies to cultivate a non‐hierarchical culture of partnership. The authors describe how this approach was first pioneered by the owners/managers of Fairchild Semiconductor during the early 1960s. Fairchild Semiconductor was unique in the sense that the company's stock was largely held by its founding employees. The company's founders also embraced an open corporate culture that dispensed with titles, dress codes, and other corporate protocol in lieu of creating an environment that fostered creativity and a free flow of information and new ideas. While Fairchild Semiconductor was eventually assimilated back into the culture of its East Coast parent company, many of the initial principals at Fairchild (otherwise known as ‘Fairchildren’) went on to form other high‐tech enterprises in the area now known as the Silicon Valley and employed the same open culture approach within their own technology companies.
The authors focus much of the book on how partnership capitalism allowed high‐tech companies to flourish during the period of the 1980s and into the 1990s. While not blind to the failure of many of these companies during the high‐tech collapse of 2000 and 2001, the authors bring the reader back to their central argument about the need to offer true ownership and voice within the corporate culture. The authors point out that in today's economy, corporations are more and more dependent upon workers who must acquire knowledge and make decisions based upon that knowledge or skill set. Contrast today's economy with that of 50 years ago. To gain maximum productivity in the old economy, corporations needed essentially to ‘tell workers what to do’. The old economy was characterized by the physical building of products that required workers not to think as much as to simply follow directions. Much of today's economy, however, is knowledge based. Many products that are produced in today's economy require that workers have the ability to think and make decisions on the job. Whether in the high‐tech machine shop or the software development shop, workers must interact with ideas and knowledge. As such, corporations are much more reliant upon human capital, as their primary assets reside in the minds of their employees. In order to challenge workers to achieve higher productivity in this knowledge‐based economy, the authors argue that employees must be involved in both decision‐making and the ownership of corporate capital in the form of stock options.
While the authors provide a great deal of analysis related to the role of employee stock options in high‐tech firms, they provide less information related to the offering of stock options to all or almost all employees in other corporate sectors. Part of this lack of information is rooted in the fact that only 6% of large corporations provide employee stock options to all or almost all of their employees. From the corporations that do provide options, however, the authors' analysis of Security and Exchange Commission data suggest that these corporations benefit over those who do not provide broad‐based employee stock options as measured across a number of indicators. These indicators include total shareholder returns, productivity, return on equity, return on assets, and profit margins. The authors are quick to remind the reader that public shareholders benefit even though public shareholder equity is, in effect, diluted as employees exercise their stock options.
The authors are highly critical of the common corporate practice of offering employee stock options to a select few employees, namely high‐level managers and/or executives. Furthermore, the authors are highly critical of the cronyism exhibited in many of today's corporate boardrooms and argue that the lack of corporate board oversight has led to excesses in the use of stock options among the executive elite. In their analysis of Security and Exchange Commission data, the authors are unable to find a statistical relationship between corporate performance and the size of executive stock option benefits. They are also highly critical of employee stock option plans and 401Ks that require employees to invest their own money in company stock, because they may be unable to liquidate those stocks prior to retirement. The collapse of corporations like Enron, which destroyed the retirement assets of many employees, illustrates the risks of this practice.
In the last chapter, the authors provide specific guidance for how companies might transform themselves and what levels of employee ownership might be expected in the exercise of authentic partnership capitalism. First, the authors stress that the levels of employee ownership may vary from sector to sector. The authors suggest that it is unreasonable to assume that the same level of employee ownership will work in high tech as in other sectors, such as automobile production. Generally, the authors suggest that 8% is the maximum level of employee stock ownership. Similarly, they predict that stockholders can expect, on average, 20% more value from their ownership stake over time, compared to investing in a corporation that does not embrace partnership capitalism.
Every book, of course, has its limitations. In the company of owners does little to reconcile our understanding of the corporate work ethos, with or without stock options, in the context of the historic sociological study of work. Nor does it provide an adequate discussion of corporate work ethics, the worker's relationship to his or her product, nor do they fully develop their concept of entrepreneurship with the corporate context. Nevertheless, In the company of owners provides the readers with valuable insights related to the nuts and bolts of increasing employee equality through employee stock ownership. The book is not a treatise on corporate distributive justice, nor does it have a heavy political agenda, but it does demonstrate that greater equality and greater profitability are not mutually exclusive. It employs an even‐handed treatment of moral issues related to workers and those for whom they work. Given the changes and demands of the new economy, the ideas proposed in the book require consideration in the marketplace of ideas.
Dr Thomas W. Pavkov
Department of Psychology, Purdue University Calumet, 2200 169th Street, Hammond, Indiana 46323, USA. Email: [email protected]