There is a widely held belief in our society that activities strengthening or maintaining the status quo are neutral or at least non-political, while activities that critique or challenge the status quo are "political" and many times inappropriate. For example, for a company to advertise its product as a good thing, something consumers should buy, is not viewed as a political act. But, if a consumer group takes out an advertisement charging that the company's product is not good, perhaps even harmful, this is often understood as political action. 

This type of thinking permeates our society, particularly when it comes to schooling, teaching, and social studies education. "Stick to the facts." "Guard against bias." "Maintain neutrality." These are admonitions or goals expressed by some social studies teachers when I ask them about keys to successful teaching. Many of these same teachers (and teacher educators) conceive of their role as designing and teaching courses to ensure that students are prepared to function non-disruptively in the society as it exist. This is thought to be a desirable goal, in part, because it strengthens the status quo and is seen as being an "unbiased" or "neutral" position. Many of these same teachers view their work in school as apolitical, a matter of effectively covering the curriculum, imparting academic skills, and preparing students for whatever high-stakes tests they might face. Often these teachers have attended teacher education programs designed to ensure that teachers were prepared to adapt to the status quo in schools. 

Anyone who has paid attention to recent debates on school reform efforts (and particularly social studies curriculum reform) knows that schooling is a decidedly political enterprise. The question in teaching (as well as teacher education and school reform) is not whether to advocate or not, but the nature and extent of one's advocacy. "The question is not whether to encourage a particular social vision in the classroom but what kind of social vision it will be." 

It is widely believed among educators that neutrality, objectivity, and unbiasness are largely the same thing and always a good when it comes to teaching social studies. But, consider the following. Neutrality is a political category, that is, not supporting any factions in a dispute. Holding a neutral stance in a conflict is no more likely to ensure rightness or objectivity than any other and often is a sign of ignorance of the issues. Absence of bias in an area is not absence of convictions in an area, thus neutrality is not objectivity. To be objective is to be unbiased or unprejudiced. People are often misled to think that anyone who comes into a discussion with strong views about an issue cannot be unprejudiced. The key question is whether the views are justified. 

The "ideology of neutrality" that dominates current practices in social studies education (at the elementary and secondary levels as well as in teacher education and research) is sustained by theories of knowledge and conceptions of democracy that constrain rather than widen civic participation in our society. In this paper I examine how the theory of knowledge and conceptions of democracy that support what has been call "traditional social studies instruction," function to obscure political/ideological consequences of mainstream social studies. These consequences include conceptions of the learner as passive; democratic citizenship as a spectator project; and ultimately the maintenance of status quo inequalities in society. Before venturing into an analysis traditional social studies it is important to explore the differences, even among progressive educators, over issues of education and indoctrination. The debates among the social reconstructionists in the 1930s, which are explored in the following section, can instructive for us in understanding issues of advocacy in classrooms and schools today. 

The principle obstacle to achieving democratic education (and thus a democratic society), according to John Dewey, is the powerful alliance of class privilege with philosophies of education that sharply divide the mind and body, theory and practice, culture and utility. In Dewey's day, and still today, prevailing educational practice is the actualization of the philosophy of profoundly antidemocratic thinkers. One of the major stumbling blocks in efforts to create democratic schools and society has been the tendency (even progressive educators) to fall prey to the ideology of neutrality, that is, the belief that advocacy in teaching is to be avoided. Even preeminent progressive educators have become "weak kneed" over teaching against the status quo, as can be seen in the debates from the 1930s over indoctrination and counter-indoctrination. 

In 1932 George S. Counts published Dare The School Build A New Social Order? In that pamphlet Counts undertook three themes: (1) criticism of the child-centered approach of romantic progressive educators; (2) assigning to teachers a key role in both educational and social reform; and (3) the democratization of the American economy. Counts' views on the role of teachers and schools in the society were bold and optimistic, but not naive. "He thought that the unique power the school possessed was its ability to formulate an ideal of a democratic society, to communicate that ideal to students, and to encourage them to use the ideas as a standard for judging their own and other societies." Counts' views on shaping students' character and the moral and political agenda of schooling had much in common with Dewey's. As Westbrook, a biographer of Dewey, argues, the moral and political aspect of Dewey's educational theory was no less explicit and a good deal more radical than his curricular aims. For example, in his efforts to transform education Dewey fought hard against the dualism of "culture and utility," which provided the basis for disparate types of education (e.g., academic and vocational) and segregation of students. Dewey described the distinction between "culture and utility" as a dualism imbedded in a social dualism: the distinction between the working class and the leisure class." 

At the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago, Dewey said, "the social phase of education was put first." 

In the 1930s, Dewey joined with Counts and other leading educators critical of the individualism of child-centered progressivism seeking to join educational reform to radical politics. These "social reconstructionists" battled for control of the Progressive Education Association, founded a journal that published a wide-ranging critique of capitalism, The Social Frontier, and urged American teachers to join the democratic left. 

The issue of advocacy was divisive, even among the social reconstructionists. Dewey and Counts disagreed over whether radicals should "indoctrinate" students with beliefs adversarial to status quo ideology. This issue produced heated debate in The Social Frontier and elsewhere in the mid-1930s. Dewey and Counts agreed that much of the education in American schools was little more than indoctrination, "especially with reference to narrow nationalism under the name of patriotism, and with reference to the dominant economic regime." However, while Dewey did not advocate a "value-neutral" education, he was confident that if teachers cultivated democratic character and intelligent judgment in their students the existing social order would be scrutinized. Counts argued that capitalism could not be reconstructed into a more humane social order unless conservative indoctrination to which students were subjected in schools (and elsewhere) was challenged by radical counter-indoctrination. Counts urged teachers to be undeterred by the "bogies of imposition and indoctrination" and to seize the power they had to shape young minds. Dewey believed that the threats to democracy that existed in schools did not justify the counter-indoctrination proposed by Counts. 

Counts argued in Dare The School, the essentialist view that maintains education is some "pure and mystical essence that remains unchanged from everlasting to everlasting" is a dangerous fallacy. According to this view, "genuine education must be completely divorced from politics, live apart from the play of social forces, and pursue ends peculiar to itself." The corollary of this fallacy is that schools should be impartial in emphases and that no bias should be given instruction. As Counts illustrates, complete impartiality is impossible because the whole of creation cannot be brought into schools. "This means that some selection must be made of teachers, curricula, architecture, and methods of teaching." Counts argued that opponents of imposition, like Dewey, who advocated the "cultivation of democratic sentiments" in children or the promotion of child growth in the direction of a "better and richer life" were acquiescing to imposition. From Counts' point of view, to isolate education from politics (or schools from society) was to undermine the goal of achieving an education that strives to promote the fullest and most thorough understanding of the world possible. Imposition is inevitable and must be accepted because the failure to do so "involves clothing one's own deepest prejudices in the garb of universal truth and the introduction into the theory and practice of education of an element of obscurantism." 

While Dewey opposed Counts' strategy for countering the indoctrination rampant in schools, he was mindful of the necessity of deciding what ought to be in schools and society. Democracy and Education opens with a discussion of the way in which all societies use education as means of social control by which adults consciously shape the dispositions of children. Dewey goes on to argue that "the conception of education as a social process and function has no definite meaning until we define the kind of society we have in mind." 

Today Counts' arguments for radical counter-indoctrination are given little heed by teachers and teacher educators. The bogies of imposition and indoctrination have deterred us from coming to grips with the ideological elements embedded in routine practices of teaching (and teacher education). And the fear of imposition and indoctrination has preempted, for many people, the conceptualization of teaching and schools as sites in the struggle for a more democratic society. 

Critical examination of the discourses of teaching and schooling is the heart of progressive education. Discussion of educational aims, priorities, curricular sequence, instructional methods, student assessment and so on are not merely about knowledge but also values and power, and thus, cannot be understood outside of their political and historical context. The institution of schooling and the conventions of teaching that exist in the present have a long history behind them. Attempts to prepare students to live in society simply on the basis of what is obvious in the present is bound to result in adoption of superficial practices that, in the end, will only make existing social and educational problems more acute and more difficult to solve. 

The following section illustrates of how contemporary social studies education is justified in relation to the status quo. 

The dominant pattern of classroom social studies pedagogy is characterized by text-oriented, whole group, teacher-centered instruction with an emphasis on memorization of factual information. This approach, labeled "traditional social studies instruction" (TSSI) by Leming, has persisted in social studies classrooms throughout the past century as a result of the pressure of the organizational setting and school culture, and despite widespread criticism and alternatives offered by some teachers, teacher educators and researchers. 

As part of his argument defending TSSI, Leming presents a composite description of four Midwestern teachers via a fictional Mr. Jones in an effort to capture the common pattern of classroom practice. The following description of a typical day in Mr. Jones' class exemplifies TSSI. 

Lecture is the primary form of instruction; coverage of material in the textbook is the dominant factor in decisions about what to teach and how to teach it. The textbook is the primary source of assignments in the course. Typically, curricular decisions are justified to students [on] the basis of: "We have to finish chapter 6 this week because we need to get one more chapter in before the end of the semester." Only rarely are controversial issues mentioned in class; when they are, it is usually in the form of a soliloquy by Mr. Jones. Students occasionally disagree with Mr. Jones, and he encourages and attentively listens to their perspectives. He appears reluctant to engage students in dialogue on such issues and quickly returns to the subject matter at hand. 

Depth is clearly sacrificed for breadth in Mr. Jones' classroom; fostering higher order thinking skills is not an important objective in his classroom. This is reflected most obviously in his exams, which are focused entirely on low-level cognitive goals. When questioned about this Mr. Jones defends his teaching style in terms of developing student's understanding and appreciation of our nation's history, its form of government, and the values upon which our society is based. Mr. Jones considers himself a loyal and patriotic American and wants his students to share that orientation. 

Students generally like Mr. Jones....He believes deeply that his job is to teach content, and he tries to do so in the most interesting manner possible. He is an avid collector of historical memorabilia. The discharge of a flintlock rifle and a display of his extensive collection of Nazi Germany artifacts are highlights of the semester that students always remember. 

In the balance of Leming's description of Mr. Jones, we find that the part of his day that gives him most satisfaction comes after school, when he sponsors activities such as the "Youth in Government" program and takes teams to the Mock United Nations, Civics Bee, and Geography Bee competitions. Mr. Jones is also actively involved in local politics, serving as mayor of his town. 

Leming points out that Mr. Jones' classroom teaching would receive low marks if commonly held standards were applied, but he argues that this bifurcated approach to social studies education is a commonly held and carefully considered approach among social studies teachers. Leming goes on to argue that focusing on "mastery of social science content in the classroom" and reserving activities aimed at developing the attributes of citizenship for outside of the classroom is the best possible approach for social studies teachers because: (1) "the reward structure in schools clearly focuses on the conventional pursuit of accepted education goals by teachers"; (2) a "realistic appraisal of teacher efficacy" illustrates that significant gains in higher order thinking, attitude change, and active citizenship skills are objectives that are "difficult, if not impossible to achieve"; and (3) teachers are expected to demonstrate disciplinary expertise because the "dominant socially accepted purpose" of schools is to transmit knowledge. 

In his explication of TSSI, Leming mounts both a bold defense for the status quo in social studies classroom and an assault on those who advocate goals and methods of social studies education that emphasize outcomes that would move beyond the "neutrality" of the status quo. For Leming's Mr. Jones, "peace," "world hunger," "poverty," and "multiculturalism" are dismissed as possible organizing topics for social studies instruction because they represent "particular ideological perspective[s]currently politically popular." Leming argues that the conventional wisdom of Mr. Jones--TSSI--is supported by evidence that shows social studies teachers are doing as well as their colleagues when it comes to achieving learning outcomes. The presumption is that routine or "traditional" organization of topics for social studies instruction is objective, neutral, and apolitical. In TSSI there is no place for self-consciousness or reflexivity regarding the politics and ethics of knowing the world and teaching about it. The ideological biases of TSSI go unquestioned. Mr. Jones most likely believes he's merely presented the world as it is. By definition, the conventional wisdom of the day is widely accepted, continually reiterated, and regarded not as ideological but as reality itself. 

Mr. Jones' beliefs reflect the ideology of neutrality that has been internalized in the consciousness of many members of the social studies education community (teachers, teacher educators and researchers). The linkages between political agendas and pedagogy or research are blurred by the legitmation function of schooling and educational research. For example, many educational research studies accept the objectives of pedagogical programs and are organized to "explain" how the objectives were reached. Research on "effective teaching" extols the value of direct instruction as opposed to teaching that promotes student-to-student interaction, democratic pedagogy, and a learning milieu that values caring and individual students' self-esteem. Many researchers (and practitioners) do not question the assumed conception of student achievement represented in this research--efficient mastery of content as represented by test scores. As a result, issues such as: the criteria for content selection; the mystification and fragmentation of course content; linkages between improved test scores and national economic prosperity; and the ways in which the social conditions of schooling might unequally distribute knowledge remain unexamined. 

Uncritical acceptance of "traditional" educational objectives as the basis for action (in research studies or classroom pedagogy) is no less ideological than proposing that social studies instruction should be multicultural, anti-racist and internationalist in its orientation. Resisting the status quo in education--rebelling against "reality"--is always difficult. A useful first step is to better understand the theories of knowledge and conceptions of citizenship that provide the foundation for the "reality" of TSSI. 

TSSI, as represented by Leming's Mr. Jones, is based upon a doctrine of inevitability, in which the status quo is accepted without serious examination. Current circumstances are understood as merely the way the world is and reflective of the general consent of the populace. In this way of thinking conceptions of the roles of teachers and students in schools and the conventional goals of education must remain unchallenged. TSSI accepts the lines as drawn and deflects questions about how education is used as a means of social control and to what ends. TSSI leaves no room to consider questions such as: What do we mean by democracy?; What kind of democracy to we want? 

Mr. Jones' bifurcation of the subject matter content of social studies education and "citizenship activities" is a manifestation of theories of knowledge and democracy that conceive of the model knower/citizen as a detached "spectator." 

Knower As Spectator 

The ideal knower in TSSI is based upon a spectatorial theory of knowledge in which the knower is "imaged as someone looking on disinterestedly from behind a plate-glass widow." Social studies content is treated as an "object" to be taken in with minimal subjective interference. This process of knowing is like the children's game of "hidden pictures." The artifacts, animals, plants, and people to be espied are already in the picture. No changes need to be make in the picture. What is needed is a more concerted effort on the part of the viewer, until the appropriate object comes in to focus." 

This theory of knowing is modeled after what takes place in the act of vision. 

The object refracts light to the eye and is seen; it makes a difference to the eye and to the person having an optical apparatus, but none to the thing seen. The real object is the object so fixed in its regal aloofness that it is a king to any beholding mind that may gaze upon it. 

This bipolar conception of a knowing situation does not work well in a world of interacting, mutually influencing affairs. There is a subject (the spectator-knower) confronting an object (that which is to be known, in this case the content of social studies education). The spectator-knower's primary task is construction of a mental image corresponding to an ordered and absolute external world. This theory of knowledge relies on absolute, singular or unified premises, most often about "taking in the world out there" rather than "world making." 

Dewey's alternative to the bipolar knowing envisioned by modern epistemology (and embodied in TSSI) is a tridimensional paradigm: inquirer, subject-matter, and objective. In this framework there are "subject-matters to be investigated. The 'objects' are the objectives aimed at in such investigations. Humans are 'inquirers who, as a result of some interest, are examining the subject-matters in light of a particular objective." By referring to the material under investigations as subject-matter rather than "object," Dewey avoids the temptation to fasten onto a single meaning as ultimately determinative, as the content of social studies is treated in TSSI. Subject matters can be investigated from various perspectives, depending on the objective of the inquiry. As Boisvert points out in his analysis of Deweyan thought, "the primacy of any particular set of results can only be judged in relation to the purposes of inquiry. It is not a direct intuition of the single, 'really real' structure hidden behind appearances." 

In the bipolar model of knowing, for example, 

the human "subjects" trying to understand the "object" water may be said to have completed their task once the chemical composition H2O has been identified. As Descarte put it in his Discourse, "since there is only one truth concerning any matter, whoever discovers this truth knows as much as can be known." It is less likely, on the Deweyan model, that subject-matter will be confused with a unidimensional "object" to be attained once and for all. 

What, then, is the objective of Mr. Jones' TSSI? The answer is, control (in two distinct, but related senses of the term). In one sense, Mr. Jones' pedagogy is shaped by the assumptions of modern epistemology (with its characteristic dualisms of mind/body and subject/object), whose aim is for students to develop a mental image corresponding to "reality"--an internal mind attempting to capture external materiality. "The spectator's meaning involves a world in some sense ordered; independence of the world from the perceiving subject; the seeking of true representations, designations, and depictions of the world; and the need to control orderthe aim is for control called knowledge." In this framework, the knower has a cognitive task, which is to perceive the "objects" that exist in the external world; knowledge is the adjustment between the thing and the intellect. 

As mentioned earlier, Dewey argued that all societies use education as a means of social control by which adults consciously shape the dispositions of children. When educators present the world that surrounds us as one-dimensional and knowable by merely "looking on disinterestedly from behind a plate-glass widow" human understanding is constructed as passive rather than active; there is no entry for an multiple examinations of the affairs of the world as represented (in textbooks, media, etc.), for alternative perspectives on the world; the objectives and interests of those who constructed the representation of the external world are obscured. This circumstance allows for control in a second sense, that is social control via thought control. If, however, humans are understood as inquirers who, as a result of some interest, are examining their world in light of a particular objective, the single, determinative meanings of the world found in many social studies texts and classrooms will be crashed upon the rocks of what Dewey described as "intelligence in operation." 

According to TSSI, the human "subjects" (i.e., students) in Mr. Jones' class trying to understand the "object" history may be said to have completed their task once the "facts" have been identified, committed to memory, and put to use on a test. When the content of social studies education is understood as a "subject-matter," in the Deweyan sense, and not as object, new emphases are introduced. The spectator theory of knowledge underlying TSSI, focuses on a single vision of the world, while Dewey's "experimental" theory of knowledge allows for and encourages multiple investigations. Investigations that are driven by explicit, and varied, interests and objectives. 

Students in Mr. Jones' class encounter history as a compendium of facts within a textbook. These "facts" are presented as the truth. Little, or no attention is given to questions of how these particular representations of the past came to be, or what objectives or interests might have motivated historians and textbook authors to write the history contained in a particular textbook. One can suppose that students in Mr. Jones' class encountered the study of the Holocaust, for example, as do most students in the United States--as an isolated event of genocide, sprung from the evil mind of Hitler and his Nazi cohorts. Can social studies teaching and curriculum that separates study of the Holocaust from the development of fascism be seen as a "neutral," "objective," or "unbiased"? How do students understand fascism when it is lifted above the mass murders and resistance it engendered in the mid-twentieth century? 

As Gibson points out, education that treats the Holocaust and fascism separately cannot begin to foster comprehension of what created fascism and its attendant mass murders, nor can it create the kind of consciousness necessary to oppose it on ideological or material terms. The film "Schindler's List," which is now a major part Holocaust studies in social studies classrooms, offers no understanding of how fascism came to power; or fascism's roots in capitalism and racist, mystical ideology that seeks to have the masses adopt the mythology of their oppressors as reality. Neither the film, nor mainstream textbook accounts of the Holocaust, mention how fascism was resisted, and ultimately defeated, by working class people of all religions and nationalities and the role of communists played in leading the resistance. Fascism did not fall from the sky, nor did the Holocaust, but TSSI, with it's emphasis on presentation of the world as a one-dimensional object waiting to be viewed correctly and once and for all, does not allow for interrogations that would uncover multiple meanings of the social world and the motivations and interests that drive certain representations. "The subject-matters that surround usare not one-dimensional objects waiting to be viewed correctly and once and for all. They are subject-matters, repositories of multiple possibilities, many of which remain latent until the activities of inquirers help bring them out." Teaching methods that are openly political and urge their own critique are pivotal in classroom practices that seek to work against the appearances of more modern forms of fascist ideology and practice. Pedagogies that encourage one-dimensional understandings of the world; obscure the objectives and interests served by dominant forms of knowledge; and fail to foster active learning that explores multiple possibilities for understanding are no less ideological, and clearly more deceptive. 

The Deweyan conception of knowing upsets traditional views of the knower as spectator receiving data from the objective world. With its emphasis on active inquiry into problematic situations, this outlook on learning: (a) undermines a single privileged perspective of the world (which is promoted by TSSI and it focus textbook memorization); (b) affirms the importance of experimentation in learning (i.e., learners/inquirers use "intelligence in operation" or some form of doing, rather than passively absorbing facts); and (c) treats doubt, uncertainly and puzzlement as not merely "subjective" conditions to be set right by obtaining a clearer picture of the world, but rather conceives of everyday experience of humans as problematic situations that provide the impetus for thinking and doing. It is this latter component of learning--the rejection of atemporal, acontextual staring points for knowing--which presents particular problems for traditional social studies instruction. 

Citizen as Spectator 

Social studies education is consistently framed in relation to citizenship education and particularly the preparation of individuals to participate in a democratic society. "Since doubt, uncertainty, and confusion are not merely internal, subjective phenomena, the path of inquiry also cannot be merely mental or internal," knowing involves some doing, active participation that alters existing conditions. 

In 1992, Marker and Mehlinger's review of the social studies curriculum concluded that the apparent consensus that citizenship education is the primary purpose of social studies is "almost meaningless." Few social studies educators disagree that the purpose of social studies is "to prepare youth so that they possess the knowledge, values, and skills needed for active participation in society." Arguments have been made that students can develop "good citizenship" through the study of history; through the examination of contemporary social problems or public policy; or social roles or social taboos or by becoming astute critics of society. The question, of course, is whether social studies should promote a brand of citizenship that is adaptive to the status quo and interests of the socially powerful, as does TSSI, or whether it should promote citizenship aimed at transforming and reconstructing society--a question that has fueled debates since Thomas Jesse Jones first employed the term "social studies." 

Marker and Mehlinger's conclusions about the meaning of "citizenship education," reflects, in part, a failure of social studies educators to interrogate the meaning of words such as "democracy," "capitalism," freedom of speech," and "equality." This failure is not really surprising in light of the modernist conception of knowing that dominates the field and which promotes acceptance of pre-formulated knowledge rather than active inquiry into the problematic situations of everyday life. That spectator knowing leads to spectator citizenship is a predictable consequence. 

What is democratic citizenship? Within the standard definition of democracy, citizens should have the opportunity to inform themselves, take part in inquiry, discussion, and policy formation, and to advance their ideas through political action. In social studies education, however, democracy is much more narrowly conceived: the citizen is a consumer, an observer, but not a participant. Citizens have the right to ratify policies that originate elsewhere, but if these limits are exceeded, we have not democracy, but a "crisis of democracy." 

As illustrated above, TSSI promotes spectator citizenship by situating students outside the knowledge construction process as passive recipients of pre-packaged information and by teaching a conception of democracy that is almost always equated with elections and voting. The procedure of allowing individuals to express a choice on a proposal, resolution, bill, or candidate is perhaps the most widely taught precept in the social studies curriculum. In this conception of citizenship, individual agency is construed primarily as one's vote and voting procedures override all else with regard to what counts as democracy. Democracy, in this case, is not defined by outcomes but by application of procedures and autonomous action of individuals. 

In social studies classes, "exercising your right to vote" is taught as the primary manifestation of good citizenship; this, along with understanding the procedural aspects of government (e.g., how a bill becomes a law; the branches of government; separation of powers, and strictly delimited "rights and responsibilities," etc.) is the primary focus of citizenship education. Preparing youth so that they possess the knowledge, values, and skills needed for active participation in society, the consensus goal of social studies, is defined in relation to the "given" nature of capitalist democracy. Rarely are students asked to consider questions such as: What do we mean by democracy? What kind of democracy do we want? What is the function of education and the communications media in a democratic society? 

Teaching citizenship based on capitalist democracy and proceduralism leaves little room for individuals or groups to exercise direct political action and the bounds of the expressible are limited. Citizens can vote, lobby, exercise free speech and assembly rights, but as far as governing is concerned, they are primarily spectators. Traditional social studies instruction preserves strict boundaries around the operative conceptions of democracy and citizenship in our society. In this sense, TSSI is a critical element within an ideological system (perpetuated by the education system writ large as well as the media and the political system) constructed to ensure that the population remains passive, ignorant, and apathetic. 

TSSI accomplishes this goal by teaching definitions and principles of democracy in the abstract and parallel to the history of events in the world and contemporary experiences of students. For the most part, school history presents the United States in terms of it magnificence and dedication to the highest moral values. There is room within this history to highlight the errors and failures of the nation's pursuit of its noble objectives, but what is missing an effort to expose the systematic patterns and to trace these "anomalies" to "the conscious planning that regularly underlies them or to their roots in the pattern of privilege and domination." For example common topics for study in social studies include the enslavement of Africans in the U. S. and the subsequent civil war, genocide of Native Americans, and the civil rights movement. But, the threads of capitalism, fascism, racism, and class domination that tie these topics together are rarely woven together. Students study the role of the U. S. in world affairs and its foreign policy doctrine of spreading American-style democracy including: the overthrowing of governments and/or invasions and of Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Cuba (1961), Grenada (1983), and Iraq (1991), (to name but a few) to protect the interests of American business. However, the first principle of U. S. foreign policy is rarely articulated in social studies classrooms (or the media), that is, to ensure a favorable global environment for U. S. industry, commerce, and finance. 

Perhaps most importantly, students in social studies education rarely have the opportunity to examine the variant of democracy which is synonymous with most peoples' understanding of the term: capitalist democracy. The Federalists expected "that the new American political institutions would continue to function within the old assumptions about a politically active elite and a deferential, compliant electorate." As Chomsky points out, despite the Federalists electoral defeat, their conception of democracy prevailed, though in a different form as industrial capitalism emerged. This view was most succinctly expressed by John Jay, president of the Continental Congress and first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, "the people who own the country ought to govern it." Jay's maxim is the principle upon which the U.S. was founded and is maintained. 

The bifurcation of knowing and doing in social studies allows narrow conceptions of democracy to survive and thrive. This is because the boundaries of the discourse on democracy and citizenship are nearly impenetrable to questions of how the lines are drawn. The democratic ideals most often taught in schools are premised on the philosophical prejudices of eighteenth century social contract theorists, like Locke, who posited that societies are composed atomistic individuals bearing an uncanny resemblance to eighteenth-century theorists themselves: educated, articulate, propertied, and with clearly defined interests. These premises, however, are rarely interrogated. In effect, TSSI gives students the instruments to trace the lines drawn by others, rather than opportunities to examine those lines and consider how they might be redrawn. 

What, for example, might students find if they examined Jay's maxim in light of the historical record and their own experience in the contemporary world? Social studies students are rarely in a position to seriously consider questions such as: Why capitalist democracy and not socialist democracy? Why does big money control lawmaking? Why does the average CEO make 173 time the wage of the average employee? What motivates the physical and constitutional assaults on immigrants and poor people? These questions are not routinely a part of social studies classrooms because they are generally considered the roots, not of democracy, but of a "crisis of democracy." Leming argues that the dominant socially accepted purpose of schools is to transmit knowledge, which is a variant of James Mill's frank acknowledgment of the purpose of schooling: to "train the minds of the people to a virtuous attachment to their government" and the arrangements of the social, economic, and political order more generally. 

Throughout the twentieth century progressive intellectuals, media figures, and educators (e.g., Walter Lippmann, George Kennan, Reinhold Niebuhr and many Deweyites) have promulgated spectator democracy--in which a specialized class of experts identify what our common interests are and then think and plan accordingly. The function of those outside the specialized class is to be "spectators"--rather than participants in action. This theory of democracy asserts that common interests elude the general public and can only be understood and managed by a elite group. According to Lippmann a properly running democracy is one in which the large majority of the population (whom Lippmann labeled "the bewildered herd") is protected from itself by the specialized class' management of the political, economic and ideological systems and in particular by the manufacturing of consent, e.g., bringing about agreement on the part of the public for things that they do not want. 

Traditional social studies instruction legitimates spectator democracy. And in many ways TSSI reflects Niebuhr's admonition that "'cool observers' must create the 'necessary illusions' and 'emotionally potent oversimplifications' that keep the ignorant and stupid masses disciplined and content." I do not doubt Leming's claim that the teachers upon which the composite Mr. Jones is based are thoughtful and professional. I do not believe that individual teachers (teacher educators and researchers) generally engage in conscious deceit. However, when practitioners readily adopt beliefs that serve institutional needs--needs defined by elites in service of their interests (e.g., test scores and standardized curriculum), rather than needs as defined by people themselves--they are likely to be contributing to the perpetuation of the status quo and all of its attendant inequities and injustices. 

Defining the visions to be pursued in social studies education is not something that can be done once and for all, or separated from the experience of everyday life in a specific time and place. We can, however, identify pedagogical means that will put teachers and students on track to discuss what the purpose of social studies education might be: Dewey's oft quote, seldom enacted, definition of reflective thought is, 

Active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends constitutes reflective thought. 

Teaching from this standpoint means focusing on outcomes and consequences that matter (not merely results of standardized tests) and interrogating abstract concepts, such as democracy, for more meaningful understandings. 

In this approach, learning is understood as synonymous with inquiry into problems faced by real people in their everyday life. The goal of citizenship education then is not to inculcate students into capitalist democracy, but rather to help students question, understand, and test the reality of the social world which we inhabit. This can be achieved, for example, through local community studies, which provide concrete laboratories for reflection, analysis, skills building, and contributions to the community. In schools that operate in poor communities, this means directly confronting and responding to the social injustices that exist in our society. Remember that neutrality is not objectivity and if educators are committed to helping students understand their own social situation and contribute to the redressing social injustices, they must engage with students in active inquiry and analysis that resists the status quo. 

Redrawing the lines of social studies education also means understanding the nested contexts of the classroom and recognizing that the contexts that shape teachers' practices are in turn shaped by teachers themselves. This dialectical relationship among teachers' beliefs and actions and the contexts in which they work harbors a powerful, and as yet untapped, rejoinder to the top-down, centralized initiatives currently dominating school reform. Social studies teachers have traditionally understood their power to affect change as stopping at the classroom door, hence the bifurcation of knowing and doing as represented in Mr. Jones' work. True educational reform, however, involves engaging policy debates and other struggles in and beyond the classroom. 

If we recognized that effective education requires students to bring their real lives into the classrooms, and to take what they learn back to their homes and neighborhoods in the form of new understandings and new behavior, how can we not to the same? Critical teaching should not be merely an abstraction or academic formula for classroom "experimentation." It should be a strategy for educational organizing that changes lives, including our own. 

There are many key educational issues that are determined in the larger context of community, state, and national politics (e.g., curriculum standards, mandated high-stakes tests, voucher plans, and privatization schemes). Teachers' efforts in the classroom are inextricably tied to broader endeavors to transform our society. If social studies educators (and others) truly want to transform schools, we must recognize and act on connections between classrooms and society. If we can find ways to link work for democratic reforms in schools and society, both will be strengthened. 

Engaging in an attempt to redraw the lines of traditional social studies instruction is not without risks. To quote Chomsky, 

To ask serious questions about the nature and behavior of one's own society is often difficult and unpleasant; difficult because the answers are generally concealed, and unpleasant because the answers are often not only uglybut also painful. To understand the truth about these matters is to be led to action that may not be easy to undertake and that may even carry significant personal cost. In contrast, the easy way is to succumb to the demands of the powerful, to avoid searching questions, and to accept the doctrine that is hammered home incessantly by the propaganda system. This is, no doubt, the main reason for the easy victory of dominant ideologies, for the general tendency to remain silent or to keep fairly close to the official doctrine with regard to the behavior of one's own state and its allies while lining up to condemn the real or alleged crimes of its enemies. 

For citizenship education to have meaning we must give it one. Social studies educators can chose to stand behind a totem that celebrates the status quo and makes spectators of us all, or we can reject the lines as drawn as the inevitable nature of things and start to construct a new vision. 
 
 
 
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