Annotated Bibliography

Student’s Name

Institution

Jane Addams-Multiculturalism

Bilton, C. (2006). Jane Addams, pragmatism, and cultural policy. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 12(2), 135-150.

Bilton revisits Jane Addams’s ideologies, life, and work that supported her multiculturalism philosophy in education as a catalyst the society needs to embrace cultural diversity. During Addams’s time in school, the education system was solely based on vocational education structure. The policies were outlined per the industrial needs and the lifestyle of the rising middle class. However, the increasing demand for reform in the education system, spearheaded by activists like Jane Addams, brought about a shift from the vocational to liberal education, focused on culture as a tool for solving the various social problems. As a result, the integration of social purpose and cultural idealism inspired most educational facilities to extend their curriculum, factoring in cultural diversity to attain education equity. In this regard, Jane Addams’ settlement house became a product of her initiative to make culture a useful concept in bridging the inequality gap and furnishing the minds of the urban poor young graduates.

According to the author, Addams persisted in maintaining the integrity and diversity among the immigrant population despite the government’s directive for all institutions housing immigrants to uphold “Americanization.” Her stand against the policies signified her conviction to unify the ideal of culture that originated from her belief in John Dewey’s theories. In this case, Addams believed that the success of the nation’s educational system and its overall intellectual growth lay on the citizen’s ability to brace a debate between different actions and ideas brought about by the variation in the cultural backgrounds of the communities in the country. Her Hull House became the neutral space that allowed confrontations, negotiations, and tolerance of cultural differences. She consistently argued on the necessity for culture and society to evolve through art and educational curriculum that encouraged interactions between different communities, the sharing of experiences, and individuals thinking independently to attain a healthy and intellectual society (Gutek, 2011).

Wendler, R. (2014). ” Socializing Democracy”: The Community Literacy Pedagogy of Jane Addams. Community Literacy Journal, 8(2), 33-48.

The author highlights Jane Addams’s principal mission to bring positive change in her community by promoting socialized democracy through education. According to Addams, democracy was not merely a sentiment that warranted individual well-being but a step towards attaining equality in all sectors of life through the adoption of revisable actions. In this case, her concept of socializing democracy involved fostering inclusiveness in all the nation’s social activities, including its education system, to allow interaction between people from all races and classes. Therefore, the authors argue that education should be designed to connect students from all sorts of lives and advocate for positive relationships across class and cultural boundaries. As an example of what she implied in multicultural education, Addams’ created diverse English classes at Hull house and forums where immigrants from all diverse cultures would interact.

Based on the author’s analysis, she seconded Dewey’s progressivism idea of classroom experimentations and used it in teaching literacy. She believed that the student’s ability to use language within their social sphere and for non-useful and non-essential reasons guaranteed their intellectual capacity to master the language. Nonetheless, the author also brings up Addams’ and Mead’s ideology of symbolic interactionism, which like multiculturalism, relates to the growth of an individual through their interactions with other people. This element of diverse interaction allows for the development of strong societies as it enable everyone to understand and tolerate other people’s perspectives. Furthermore, developing a community-based education system coupled with experimental model of knowledge construction and application enables students to re-evaluate the problems they face outside the classroom, and link what they have learned in class with the events in the real world. According to Gutek (2011), Addams’ concept of multiculturalism enabled people from diverse communities to understand shared feelings and emotions. In this case, the introduction of multiculturalism in education stands to benefit society by developing empathy for democracy, which commits one to common good rather and self-interests.

Lake, D. (2015). Dewey, Addams, and beyond: A context-sensitive, dialogue-driven, action-based pedagogy for preparing students to confront local wicked problems. Contemporary Pragmatism, 12(2), 251-274.

The author considers the effectiveness of combining the Dewey experimental approach and Addams multiculturalism in transforming students into problem solvers by helping develop the necessary skills and fostering virtues to handle high stake social issues collectively. The author’s works’ significant aspects rely heavily on how the students are taught to engage efficiently and productively with diverse others in the community as it was the case of those in Addams’s Hull house. In this case, the framework is constructed in compliance with the necessity of collaborative, iterative, and experimental problem-solving techniques. The traditional educational systems are theoretically based and only limit students to solving pre-formed problems on paper. The results of these are students, unskilled, and unprepared to solve social problems. Therefore, the authors propose introducing courses in school that establish community and building competency, followed by enabling students to understand themselves. Lastly, the author states that it should make the students value the diverse approach to gaining knowledge and skills, as outlined in Addams’s multicultural approach to learning. The success of this approach in education generally entails constructing a connection between the student and their community at the early stages. This approach exposes the students to several life experiences and diversity of values that help them establish a comprehensive ethical framework and respect the existing differences among people in the community.

Contrary to multiculturalism, the traditional approach to education makes it difficult for students to apply what they learned in classrooms to real-world problems. The Bible in John 10:16 states that “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Hence, community actions such as engaging community stakeholders enable learners to develop effective co-action and value the different perspectives and opinions among people. Nonetheless, they acquire the ability to reflect and integrate their knowledge and skills, useful in carrying out team project analysis and personal synthesis. Hence, they can envision the positive impact their actions make in the real world.

William Chandler Bagley

Şahin, M. (2018). Essentialism In Philosophy, Psychology, Education, Social, And Scientific Scopes. Journal of Innovation in Psychology, Education and Didactics, 22(2), 193-204.

According to the author, both essentialism and traditionalism assume that everyone has natural and essential qualities that they inherit and remain unchanged throughout their life. The fact that people have these same qualities at the same point in their lives cannot prevent anyone from acting differently and thus attain different outcomes. The author reflects Plato’s argument on idealism, claiming that the idea or a form describing something is distinct and can not be explained without discriminating their essences and existence. An essentialist education’s primary goal is to pass the cultural heritage and traditional knowledge of the host region. Therefore, the subjects are based on the student’s immediate environment and the basic and constant natural laws. Essentialists support their approach claiming that it serves to preserve the intellectual and moral standards and values of the society.

Furthermore, the author highlights that the essentialists take into account the human features that are common to everyone and are not influenced by the individual’s cultural or historical backgrounds. These aspects make the concept essential for humans to flourish and have a good life. Their approach to making use of schools is based on the fact that the institutions provide the perfect forum to enforce the teachings at the early stages of an individual’s life. It is carried out through teachers, perennial textbooks, and classic works. The focus of the teachings, in this case, is to transform the students into valuable members of the society that they will work and live. According to Gutek (2011), the key aspects determining the successful implementation of essentialism in education include a single type of grounding in arithmetic, writing and reading for all students, and the establishment of respect to the school authority and teachers as the main requirement of all students. Hence, essentialism and traditionalism categorize patriotism, character development, academic knowledge, and rigor as critical elements of a good citizen and factors that will help the students become productive members of a civilized society.

Räty, H., Mononen, N., & Pykäläinen, E. (2017). Essentialism and social representations of intelligence. Social Psychology of Education, 20(4), 915-927.

In the quest to identify the role essentialism plays in educations, the authors noted a significant relationship between what the society describes as natural giftedness and essentialist conceptions of social class that defines the society’s concepts of educational reality. According to the authors, essentialism philosophy considers an underlying reality that defines an individual’s identity and the common characteristics shared among a group of individuals. The various classes of individuals in the society based on class and education originates from the essentialist conceptions that people have and serve to justify the existing social order. According to the authors, the parents that back the idea of the existence of natural giftedness among scholars subscribe to the notion that the traditional concepts of education enable the learns to develop a deeper understanding of social problems. In this case, essentialism enables the students, perceived to be naturally gifted, to build trust in themselves. It also improves the parent’s confidence in their educability, an aspect that the authors pass as a vital social-psychological resource in advancing the child’s academic life.

Another critical aspect of the author’s findings is that most of the individual who embraced essentialist education ideology was highly praised for possessing natural giftedness. 1 Corinthians 1:10 states that “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.” In this light, essentialism proposes the implementation of traditional disciplines and educational approaches in an educational institution, mandatory for students from all backgrounds. The student’s unique qualities, such as cultural backgrounds and individual conditions, including their intellectual capacities, interests, needs, and abilities, are not considered when placed in an essentialism or traditionalism education system.

Holma, K. (2007). Essentialism regarding human nature in defense of gender equality in education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 41(1), 45-57.

The author bases his work on the notion that persistent features among human beings can serve as productive aspects of an individual’s education life. He commences his article by pointing out that all feminists will openly oppose essentialism because it is linked to conservative and old-fashioned mentality, elementals that mostly contradict feminist philosophy. However, the author argues that the opposition to the ideology originates from conceptual confusions. He states that essentialism supports the idea of gender equality in education. As a result, the authors categorize the concept of essentialism into three: individual and group essentialism, and essentialism with regards to human nature. The first, individual essentialism, refers to one’s unique aspects that make them essential in the society that, when noticed, will enable them to develop a good life. An institution that upholds individual essentialism identifies each student’s essence and aligns programs to ensure they release their essences in an education environment.

The second, group essentialism, includes aspects of gender, race, and class. In this case, identifying each gender’s essence allows the formulation of social policies and structures that can accommodate both without feeling secluded. On the other hand, human nature account’s essentialism is the best alternative for subjectivism and cultural philosophies. According to the author, subjectivism fails to consider the possibility of generalization of human characteristics, thus limiting the arguments in pursuit of gender equality. Cultural accounts limit human essence to a factor that results from culture civilization and only accepts individual values present in the group’s cultural framework. Timothy, in the bible, says, ” Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity” (1 Timothy 5:1-2). Therefore, gender equality in education is dependent on the ability of society to conceive unique human characteristics that make them essential and not relying solely on the personal and cultural relative aspects.

Reference

Gutek, G. L. (2011). Historical and philosophical foundations of education: A biographical introduction (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.