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This special guest-edited issue of Policy Futures in Education
draws upon the expertise of scholars from Israel, Germany, Norway,
South Africa and the USA. Two of the articles appearing here (Farnen
and German & Lally) stem from the June 2005 conference on
childhood, youth and society in Wuppertal, three others (Michel,
Schertges, and Sünker & Swiderek) were also created in that
city and the last three articles (Hemson, Westrheim & Lillejord,
and Shepherd) come from South Africa, Norway, and the USA, having
only been commissioned from Wuppertal. In a sense this collection
of articles on political socialization, childhood and education
would not exist without the long-standing support and inspiration
that the Bergische University provided to all of us.
This collection of articles fits within the thematic genre which
this journal has identified for its authors to address for its
readership. This includes a shared interest in social inclusion
and cohesion (e.g. Shepherd, Hemson, Sünker & Swiderek), political/national
culture and identity (Farnen, Michel, Westrheim & Lillejord),
global media trends (German & Lally, Schertges), and citizenship
(Farnen, German & Lally, Westrheim & Lillejord, Sünker
& Swiderek). The three principal topics with which contributors
deal are, namely, childhood and class/politics; political media;
and political socialization and education. These subheadings provide
the organizing scheme for the presentation of this diverse work.
Now we shall say a few introductory words about each of the eight
articles.
Childhood and Class/Politics
Farnen deals with the much neglected subject of class and
its educational links in North America. He singles out the current
obsession with mass, criterion-based, high-stakes testing for
particular criticism and excoriation. He also claims that socio-economic
status (SES) repeatedly is a ‘principal determinant’ of test performance
along with race, ethnicity, and urban residence. Another case
examined is service learning, also a middle-class treasure trove
and new civic panacea providing the ‘great white hope’ for an
in-school civic epiphany with an instant infusion of social capital
to offset serious losses which the Harvard scholar, Robert Putnam,
regularly bemoans. Farnen also proposes two other meliorations
of class’s meretricious effects, namely, reconstruing political
socialization’s research paradigm to emphasize now-neglected topics
(such as SES, cognitive processing, family and group activities)
and educational reforms consonant with radical pedagogy/critical
theory. Civic education reforms, group work, and calling a halt
to the class warfare now under way in North American schools,
churches, job sites, media, and public life are needed.
Also speaking to the theme of political socialization and education,
Sünker & Swiderek examine the politics of childhood, democracy,
and communal life. They discuss children’s rights from the perspective
of the United Nations, UNICEF, the Council of Europe, relevant
German child and youth welfare law (KJHG) and similar European
initiatives providing for protection, provision, and participation
(e.g. the Children’s Office/Parliament). Too many present trends
in childhood and youth policy are paternalistic, encourage conformity
rather than emancipation, and serve to reinforce the status quo
and traditional hegemonic relationships. Child politics in Germany,
for example, still tends to be for rather than of children,
is less democratic and participatory than is needed, fails to
advance democratic initiatives, and lacks spontaneity, imagination,
and creativity. Yet we must work with what we are given while
focusing on empowerment, maturity, self-determination, emancipation,
liberation, and participation.
Hemson discusses rural children in South Africa collecting water
for much of the day, which in turn takes time away from their
schooling with deleterious effects on their health, education
and lives. These water carriers are mostly young boys who never
recover from this type of debilitating experience. Their education
is given short shrift in that the water carriers are fatigued,
late for school, lack concentration, have low morale, and leave
early, making it a short school day. Although youth are highly
valued in South Africa, there are not enough regional public water
supply projects to provide relief for these youth so that they
may complete their schooling in proper fashion. Since the South
African water supply projects are behind in their scheduled implementation,
there is no great hope that they will provide relief for this
problem, especially since some of the completed projects have
not had a great impact on this aspect of child labor exploitation
in the country. To succeed, there is a need for planning, child
protection, and participation in policy making, advocacy, priority
ranking, research, and elimination of this major, but hidden,
social problem.
Media
German & Lally present an updated, revised and much expanded
version of their June 2005 Wuppertal conference paper on US media
use and its effects. The Internet, social capital formation, and
the global electronic media outbreak combined with the devolution
of print media as well as the Internet. Specialized electronic
media and the Internet combine to decrease group connectedness
while increasing individualization, loneliness, apathy, and occasionally
anomie. Race and SES are two other factors causing a ‘digital
divide’ in that the financially poor are also electronically/technology
poor so they now have fewer books and paper media at home as well
as a meager electronic diet to choose from there. Yet African
Americans are more television dependent than are whites/Hispanics,
and African Americans and Hispanics are less Internet connected
(because of high associated costs) than whites.
These media developments do not support the growth of new social
capital already seriously injured by television dependence and
isolation. Improved access to new technology is essential for
knowledge production as well as political socialization, identity
development and personal democratic growth. Media research clearly
documents television/filmic violence and its contribution to aggressive
behavior, but additional studies are under way on the Internet
and its political socialization effects. Politicians, legislators,
media suppliers and consumers, and American citizens will then
have to decide if the new information found supports the media–violence
link and, if so, does this mean censorship or more regulation?
Or will it be just a continuance of press freedom and commercial
profit taking?
Schertges adopts a Habermasian approach to political media in
the public sphere. That is, media are not just political agenda
setters, nor do they just tell us what to think about, they are
also an integral part of politics and the public sphere since
there is a close link between political news and political consciousness,
public opinion, and public knowledge. Media research to date supports
the convergence hypothesis in competitive environments, i.e. the
most entertaining parts of, say, a popular newscast, will soon
be adopted by other news agencies, especially commercial broadcasters.
Media are used in modern societies as boredom eliminators, companions,
and time killers. The news they supply is retrospective and seemingly
complete and current but it is always lacking in analysis and
predictive power or utility. Media also provide a common format,
a sense of completeness, but events reported are trivial, disjointed,
selective, misleading and, in some cases, productive of anomie,
frustration, and alienation.
Political Socialization and Education
Michel’s piece on political socialization, consciousness,
and agency in Israel discusses first-hand political research results
from a study of older Israelis, Jewish-German citizens, divided
into two groups, namely, pre-May 1948 immigrants (German Zionists
and asylum seekers) who came directly to Israel, and a second
group of respondents who were Holocaust survivors sharing their
concentration camp experience and going to Israel after May 1948.
These interviews focused on their historical-political experiences
as well as attitudes about Israeli politics and Middle East conflicts.
The pre-1948 Israelis were more interested in their past creativity
and stressed meritocracy and internal security. They were more
open-minded about working with Palestinians and Arabs for the
peaceful settlement of disputes. The Holocaust survivors were
externally security focused and opposed giving any concessions
to the Arabs. Domestically, the second group expected more from
the state and was more critical while the Zionists were more supportive
of present-day internal affairs practices. Each group showed that
they clearly were products of their times and personal experiences.
Next, Westrheim & Lillejord relate the story of their personal
research efforts among the PKK guerillas in Turkey, dealing with
knowledge production and identity formation. The Freirean tradition
of emancipatory/liberating research is used. A ‘zone for deliberation’
can be created for developing intersubjectivity and understanding,
especially when the experiences of the interviewee and the interviewer
are culturally distant and seemingly unbridgeable.
These authors also examine the ideas of ‘objectivity’ and ‘bias’
control within the framework of critical pedagogy/theory, concluding
that such qualitative research properly done is done with,
not to or for subjects using dialogue and participation,
especially if the interview climate is rife with conflict and
the interviewees have been previously isolated and marginalized,
never before serving as the focal point of research apart from
their institutional/organizational ties. This ‘zone’ is something
that develops over time as an outcome of mutual trust and confidence
building where the subjects can freely express themselves before
the interviewer starts to ask his/her own questions. The goal
is to listen, understand and learn.
In addition to growing mutual trust, decency, transparency and
shared power relationships are equally necessary, just as is individualization
of the non-traditional interview process, rather than taking a
collective, perhaps non-productive, approach. The interviewer
may have initially been deliberately manipulated; but once trust
builds up, he/she may be fully accepted into the group as a working
partner. The other trap interviewers must avoid is to be used
as propaganda peddlers for the marginalized group in question,
one which lives on free publicity while always seeking legitimacy.
One cannot be a comrade and friend as well as a researcher in
such a case.
Finally, Linda Shepherd discusses community violence and its
cultural and political socialization effects in Northern Ireland.
She examines sectarian violence and its interrelationships with
anxiety, aggression, segregation, intimidation, and fractured
community unity with restricted political participation. She employs
a Northern Ireland data set called the Youthquest 2000 Survey.
Scalogram analysis of property, proximity, violence and personal
experience was conducted along with measures of political information,
attitudes and anxiety.
Results indicated that exposure to violence was positively correlated
with, for example, political interest and support for youths’
voting rights whereas property/personal violence were not related
to support for voting rights for the youth. Violence exposure
also seems to affect political information and attitudes. The
combination of low political trust and high political efficacy
levels may be a harbinger of future paramilitary activity, protest,
and other violent behaviors. Both political and group political
development may also be arrested if this process takes root.
Russell Farnen University
of Connecticut, USA
Heinz Sünker University of Wuppertal, Germany
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