Chapter 5, School as agent of culture II

Brameld, Theodore.  (2008).  The use of explosive ideas in education:  Culture, class, and evolution.  New York:  The New Press.

Teaching-Learning and the cultural process

“The preceding chapter tried to show that the key to cultural process lies in Tylor’s term ‘acquiring’ — but that metaculturally the term appears to suggest different things to different interpreters.  Thus the realist essentialist way of acquiring is primarily by means of conditioning, while the progressivist way of acquiring is primarily through inquiring.  In different words, the essentialist presupposes a psychology of learning epitomized in some such term as ‘passive mentation,’ while the progressivist takes a more functional and organismic approach through which acquiring as learning involves active and critical transactions with the cultural and physical environment.”  (p. 74)

“. . . we now see that cultural theory and research afford solid ground upon which to approach these problems with an innovating attitude.  Indeed, the contention of some essentialist educators that the school has no legitimate role as an agent of cultural change fails to stand up in the face of such research.  The attitude of innovation, when consciously and deliberately developed by the teacher within a cultural matrix, not only negates this contention, but it influences the learner if only by the contagion of the teacher’s attitude.   Meanwhile, the classroom itself undergoes alteration:  the enculturative process defined merely as passive mentation is superseded by analysis, criticism, originality, and participation, with all the modifications in learning and teaching that these processes imply.”  (p. 79)

“For the essentialist, because truth is already embodied in the nature of the universe and culture, the chief task of the school is to place the learner in a position of receptivity and then to see to it that he acquires as much truth as he possibly can by direct exposure.  For the progressivist, truth is not already present, awaiting disclosure; it is always in the making, always unfinished, always subject to correction as learners engage in further interactions with their natural and human environment.”  (p. 80)

The Control of Education and Cultural Goals

“Cultural goals actually permeate both the curriculum and the learning-teaching process, while cultural order and process are, in turn, inseparable from the problem of educational control.”  (p. 80)

“What, after all, is the purpose of all these rules and regulations?  In short, what is education for?”  (p. 81)

“To write of the need for ‘well-educated men,’ of ‘critical thinking,’ of ‘responsible citizenship,’ and similar goals is motivated by sincere intentions, certainly.  It fails, however, to tell us what we most require; it fails to place these generalities in the setting of real cultures through which alone they become meaningful.  Indeed, what any controller needs most to know is:  Where is our culture going?  And, above all:  Where ought it to go in the future?  Then, and only then, can he begin to answer parallel questions for the great enculturative agency he represents.”  (p. 81)

“From our earlier discussion of cultural goals, we recall two major ways of approaching them — the one, cultural relativism; the other, cultural univeralism.  We saw, too, that anthropologists seem to be moving toward accord that neither of these ways of looking at the goals of culture is sufficient in its use.”  (p. 81)

“From the point of view of educational goals, the bipolar concept of relativism-universalism therefore means that effective cotrol must be guided, on the one hand, by values that are distinctive to the particular community within which the school operates and, on the other hand, by the wider values of region, nation, and even the world.  A high priority task of the educational leader is to search for and develop a balance of both kinds.”  (p. 82)

“Here, indeed, is the reconstructionist type of approach to the whole problem of educational control.  This philosophy, related as it is to the science of anthropology, finds that participation is a cross-cultural value which, while not necessarily universal, appears from the evidence to be very widespread.  Therefore, administrations influenced by this approach are likely to create every conceivable opportunity for parents to engage in planning the work of the school, for involving teachers in problems of curriculum and learning, and for including students (beginning at a very early age) in their own share of cooperative responsibilities.  At the same time, they take into account the cultural habits of the individual community:  thus, a community where a high degree of religious or familial authority has been traditional can hardly be expected to move as rapidly toward a reconstructed pattern of control as one that has not.”  (p. 82)

“[the perennialist philosophy] In common with reconstructionism agrees that much more serious attention should be given the goals of education than is usually given.  But the perennialist has a special attitude, rooted as his thinking is in a special set of ontological and other metacultural assumptions.  The goals of education — and, indeed, of culture — are for him expressions of the much wider teleological direction of reality as a whole, a direction from the ‘potential’ to the ever more ‘actual.’  In a fundamental sense, the business of education is to become as conscious as possible of this unfolding of reality and so to enlist the schools in the everlasting effort to achieve it.  And yet, because the ultimate end of culture (for many perennialists, certainly) is not within culture at all, but in the afterlife of salvation and eternity, we discover this to be the great magnetic goal that finally shapes both the order of the curriculum and the central processes of enculturation.”  (p. 83)

“In terms of education control it follows that, unlike reconstructionist theory, perennialist education encourages a strong policy of authority in the hands of those who, by virtue of their higher actualization in the alleged order of reality, are also closer to the goal of education than any other members of a school system — than teachers, for example.  Therefore, these leaders are the ones who rightly control school policy and practice.”  (p. 83)

Note:  see pp. 84-85 for a clear summary of this chapter.

Chapter 4, Culture: philosophic perspectives I

Brameld, Theodore.  (2008).  The use of explosive ideas in education:  Culture, class, and evolution.  New York:  The New Press.

Metacultural assumptions of culture

“We call the assumptions or presuppositions of culture metacultural because they lie, strictly speaking, beyond or above or beneath an exclusively scientific description.  and since philosophy is itself sometimes defined as the critical study of assumptions, let us for present purposes call the philosophy of culture a metacultural discipline.”  (p. 45)

The reality of cultural order

“One of the most interesting contributions to the study of culture is Alfred L. Kroeber’s concept of the superorganic. . . . Culture, however, is a level above that of the merely organic.  It has emerged from the organic, to be sure, but, like other emergent levels of nature that have evolved from lower levels, culture has acquired its own distinctive features that are explicable in their own scientific terms.”  (p. 47)

Leslie White in The Science of Culture, explains that “culture causes culture, as it were.  Thus, the order of culture is subject to its own laws, just as the order of the biological level of nature is subject to its own laws. . . . These laws are located most centrally in the patterns [for instance, patterns of language, patterns of custom] of culture.”  (p. 47)

“The metacultural assumption implicit in this viewpoint of cultural order may be associated with a cluster of philosophic beliefs that we shall characterize as belonging to ontological realism. . . . Thus, culture too is an objective reality, just as are other levels of nature.”  (p. 47)

“Some ontological realists have been called historical materialists because they hold not only that culture has an objective reality which generates itself but that this occurs according to historical laws which are explicable in terms of the utilization of material energy in increasing complex ways.  That is, the spatiotemporal order of culture is to be viewed most fundamentally according to ways people channel the energies of nature in order to produce economic goods.”  (p. 48)

“A related but far from identical view of reality of culture . . . is called by philosophers objective idealism. . . . it is perhaps enough to recall that this theory of reality assumes that, although reality is governed by its own objective laws of stability and change, the ‘stuff’ of reality is not ‘material’ but rather ‘spiritual’ in character.”  (p. 48)

“Is it possible for one to hold a kind of superorganic view of culture and yet to be an idealist in one’s metacultural assumptions?  We think that it is.  One such proponent is the philosophically minded sociologist Pitirim Sorokin. . . . Sorokin tries to establish the basic laws of the history of culture which, despite their complexity, follow in a certain sequence, one upon the other, and are primarily characterized by the way human beings think and feel and then behave according to their thinking and feeling.  Culture has an objective reality, but this reality is spiritual in its innermost nature.”  (p. 49)

“The superorganic approach to cultural order is congenial to both the essentialist and perennialist orientations.”  (p. 51)

“Our chief conclusion is that . . . essentialism provides powerful theoretical support for the common view that education’s primary role is to induct each generation into the objective order of culture — an order that has already emerged in nature and is now waiting to be perceived and transmitted according to its own inherent laws.”  (p. 52)

“The operational approach to culture, on the other hand, has close affinity to the progressivist and reconstructionist views of education. . . . progressivists hold an operational theory of culture in the respect that they believe its members should learn how to interpret the meaning of various patterns of culture, not so much for the purpose of perpetuating them — although this role is also a necessary one — but, most importantly, for the purpose of modifying them through such operations.”  (p. 52)

Chapter Two, The Use of Explosive Ideas in Education

Brameld, Theodore.  (2008).  The use of explosive ideas in education:  Culture, class, and evolution.  New York:  The New Press.

How We Shall Proceed

“The first chapter of each section considers the nature of the explosive idea itself.”  (p. 16)

“The second chapter in the three-stage design recalls the bridge of philosophy….What does a respective idea mean when its assumptions are critically analyzed by philosophic specialists?” (p. 17)

“Insofar as each third chapter is successful, it demonstrates how professional education becomes dependent upon basic knowledge from other sources than education.”  (p. 17)

Anticipating the Explosive Ideas

“Why, then, were they [culture, class, and evolution] selected?”  (p. 17)

The Functions of Philosophy

“One, epistemology, is concerned with examining and establishing criteria of reliable knowledge.  A second, ontology (sometimes defined synonymously with metaphysics), tries to discover criteria of reality.  A third, axiology, searches for criteria of value.”  (p. 19)

“To what extent do children in the South obtain unbiased knowledge of the Negro problem?  To what extent do children anywhere in America obtain a picture of economic and political events not colored by the propaganda or vested interests of some official or unofficial pressure group?  To what extent, also, do they have opportunity to consider under critical and responsible educational direction the changing mores of our age — especially the values of sexual morality?”  (p. 20)

Types of Educational Philosophy

“Idealists, for example, are idealistic ontologists — that is, they discover the principles of reality in their conception of the universe as spiritual or mental in substance.”  (p. 21)

“Materialists are materialistic axiologists — that is, they find the meaning of value in material events such as economic patterns.”  (p. 21)

“Pragmatists are pragmatic epistemologists — that is, truths are determined by their practical workability in ongoing experience.”  (p. 21)

“Let us call our own preferred types by the following four terms:  essentialism, progressivism, perennialism, and reconstructionism.”  (p. 22)

The Sphere of Practice

“Each of the following three sections concludes with a chapter of application to educational problems and activities.  The practices selected — curriculum, learning-teaching, and control — are obvious enough at first glance.”  (p. 24)

“To mention one other that will interest us again:  concomitant learning is the sort that occurs through direct association with people — usually through informally rather than formally planned experiences.”  (p. 25)

“One widely held view of teaching that we must be wary of is to identify it with indoctrination.” (p. 26)

Control:  “Who shall determine the policies of education?  How shall they be determined?  Who shall carry them out?” (p. 26)

“Should not teachers and even students also have a voice?  And what about the state and federal governments?”  (p. 26)