20th century, as the U.S. became home to larger and more diverse groups of immigrants, national leaders and education reformers called on the public schools to “Americanize” the new arrivals and make them literate in English.

public schools took hold in communities, often because the local people, rather than the politicians, demanded them.

Land Ordinance,

But the conservative legislature did not want to assume the burden of educating the poor, and the bill was defeated.

brightest boys

ncome and social class usually fixed a child’s options.

Teachers were poorly paid, tran-sient, and inexperienced. Sometimes they were undereducated themselves

Massachusetts

Large groups of children—including African Americans, Native Americans, many girls, and some poor white children who did not belong to a church—were excluded from school by law or custom.

These early schools were financed from various sources, including parents’ tuition payments, charitable contributions, property taxes, fuel contributions, and, in some cases, state support.

“public education” means education that is publicly financed, tuition-free, accountable to public authorities, and accessible to all students.

The first section of this updated version briefly reviews how and why the U.S. system of public education came into being. The second section lists six public missions that public schools have been expected to fulfill, beyond what is expected of private schools, and looks at why these missions remain relevant today. The last section discusses why the nation must hold onto these missions while pursuing reforms to help all public schools live up to these ideals

But the reasons given for why it’s important to improve achievement often stress individual or private economic benefits (such as preparing youth for good jobs in a global economy), rather than public benefits (such as preparing youth for active citizen-ship in a democratic society).

These include, among others, prepar-ing youth to become responsible citizens, forging a common culture from a nation of immigrants, and reducing inequalities in American society

economic sphere would have as its basis the principles

As a social system we seek the establishment of a democracy of individual participation, governed by two central aims: that the individual share in those social decisions determining the quality and direction of his life; that society be organized to encourage independence in men and provide the media for their common participation.

Loneliness, estrangement, isolation describe the vast distance between man and man today.

we merely have faith in his potential

Men have unrealized potential for self-cultivation, self-direction, self-understanding, and creativity.

In affirming these principles we are aware of countering perhaps the dominant conceptions of man in the twentieth century: that he is a thing to be manipulated, and that he is inherently incapable of directing his own affairs.

But to direct such an analysis we must use the guideposts of basic principles. Our own social values involve conceptions of human beings, human relationships, and social systems

To have no serious aspirations, on the contrary, is to be "toughminded"

if we wanted to change society, how would we do it? -- are not thought to be questions of a "fruitful, empirical nature", and thus are brushed aside.

resolution.

wealthiest and strongest country in the world: the only one with the atom bomb, the least scarred by modern war, an initiator of the United Nations that we thought would distribute Western influence throughout the world. Freedom and equality for each individual, government of, by, and for the people -- these American values we found good, principles by which we could live as men. Many of us began maturing in complacency.

Free will and moral authority come from God; political and eco-nomic liberty are essential for a free people and free institutions; government must be strictly and constitu-tionally limited; the market economy is the economic system most compatible with freedom; and Commu-nism must be defeated, not merely contained

The free

I am

Equality is in the air we breathe.

we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it,

truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.

nsurance

I can lose 30 poundsin 30 days and that they would love to help

Whether or not people perceive Bergman as fatdepends on whether they perceive him/her as male or female

During hogging, a man approaches afat woman for casual sex, on the premise that she is an“easy target,”and then either publicly humiliates her duringor after the sex act and/or privately disparages her with hismale friends

In what follows, I emphasize theimportance of their perspective, while advocating that thisline of feminist analysis be fleshed out (pun intended) evenfurther.

Nothing that I do now or have done in thepast...has made me prouder, happier, or more fulfilled thanlosing weight and getting into shape

ealth reasons.

he views as an understandable coping mechanismfor dealing with what she sees as the veritable problems

ffortlessly lose weight

While emphasizing theimportance of their perspective, this article advocates thatthis line of feminist analysis be pushed even further

axiom

\ñ/e havc1o'g bcc' maclc to fccl guilty ,r'cr i'rrnoral bccause wc cro not ''eetunattai'ablc ar-rd clcbilitating sranclards of attractivcncss. It is time to takccontrol of our bodic

numbncss.

lìathcr, thc norms p.ofìt mcrr, dcfì'e thc erotic,purnp nìor)cy irìto thr, ccorrorrry. and rcstrict wolììclr s powcr.

argue that women's concerns with their appearânce have notlessened as they have changed other traditional gender roles

women become preoccu-pied with their appearance, are obsessed with improving deficicncies,view themselves as objects, and respond to other women as competingobjects

SØomen are portrayed as "depersonalized bodyparts" (e.g., breasts); their bodies are exploited (e.g., via pornography);they are treated as "decorative" objects, which are "collected" by menupon whom they confer status;

Physical charactcristics of dominance inclucle increased sizeand use of spacc (such as height and weight; Frieze, parsons, Johnson,Ruble, & Zellman, 1978, p. 322), yet women are cxpcced to reduceweight and take up lcss spacc

intcnded to enhance their beauty

prastic passio's;' ,i thos. that pre-occupy and cncrvatc women and rcsult i' iceli'gs of clisco'necteclness.

Mcn protesied war, whilewomcn protcstcd fcmininc clothing.

'women who want to resist social norms often resist cosmeticrituals, and may,stop wearing makeup, allow hair to gro\M urrde, th.i,arms or on their legs, and go withoutì bra.

that they wourd rather rose ten to fìfteenpounds than achieve- any other goal.

'women's refusal to wear appropriate clothing is more threatenÇ to theinstitutions of social control than any actions or words, however radicar

It does mean that when I march on washingtonin a prochoice demonstration, u.derneath my sloppy sweater and outsizedoveralls I may sport a set of lacy lingerie

hey cannot be feminists because they like lace, and arso the numberwho have told me that they are feminists despite iiking lace

Feminists have argued tÈat tlrc mcdia have creverrybrought images of thc womerr,, -orr.Ã"nt into product promotion.

onc way to exercise contror is by dcveroping a strongbody

'Wome', in fact, did not seem to prefer a ,,tapering V,, boãy in men asmuch as rnen di

They found ih.t -.r, who hadnegative attitudcs toward women prefcrrecl a "tapering v,' body

Both fcr¡ale and malc students sclected the more attracìrve womenas supporters of the feminist moverxentl Fcrnale students (but not males)also selccted morc attractive women as ûrore active pariicipants in themovemcnr

"women's liberarion," they found that both female ãrri male-collegestudents rated the unattractiue womcn in the photographs as femi'ists

wolncn wcre ûtorc likeÌy to scek part-ncrs who wcrc oldcr than thcmsclvcs and to sccrk financial security,whcrcas nrcn were morc likcly to scck partncrs who wcrc youngcr thanthcmsclvcs and to scck

Mcn spcllt lrrorc tirnc gazing at allsliclcs of womcn, and wonlcrl spcnt thc most titnc gazing at women whowerc cÌothccl. No onc spcnt much timc gazing at slidcs of mcn

Scxual plcasr-rre and scxual rclationships arc portrayccl as bcing s<-limportant that nothing can compcnsatc for thcir lack

Only hcight was juclgcd to bc llore important in malcs;

Thus, physically attractive women and men wererated as more kind, sensitive, sexually attractive and responsive, interest-ing, strong, modest, socially skilled, extraverted, nurtuiant, aná excitingthan were unattractive women and men

handsome" refers to behavior, irch as strength andaccomplishment,

rated ads that used fcmale models as morc perslra-sive and attractive, but as lcss crcdiblc, than ads that showcd only theproduct.

on the way to becoming scxual beings

This study alsofound that the greatest proportion of attractiveness messages was de-livered by female actors and male voiceovers

found only one-advertising a mop-to be of average ratherthan high attractiveness.

thc sclling of boclics is rì llotcworthy cxccpticltr.

Thc ccorÌo1rry wouldhavc r-nuch tct ktsc if wotncl'r stoppcd confortnittg t() socicty's appcarancclrorlrls, trut thc ccctnomic ncccssity of this spcncling is kcpt invisiblc.

Two ¿rrc cxalr-rinccl herc: thc cconomyencl thc nìcdia

medical texts and health professionals con-tinue to promote dieting as healthy and obesity as dangerous.

Most females diet to improve their physical appearance and toincrease their appeal, not to improve their healt

conceive of fat, healthywomen

men may be sexually drawn tofemale bodies that are childlike and helpless, rarher thân srrong

Thinness may be considered a sign of conforming to a constricting femi-nine image, whereas greater weight nray convey a strong, powerful image

she looks as though a strong gale wind would snap her in twoand dash her to the ground"

amous fashion model Twiggybecame the beauty idcal in thc media

poor countries wherc large 'umbers of people dic of malnuirition a'dinfcctious disease, thinncss is nor dcsircá

cause odor as a result of menstrual and urinary retention, and lead tocomplications during childbirth

hat the clitoriscan poison a man if it touches his penis during intercourse

or women until marriage

menstruation.

thus the girl cannot be considered female until theclitoris is removed

corset

highly erotic by men

imrnobilizc them

latter indicates that fatpeople arc systeÌnatically dcnied economic success.

foods

attractiveness of their female partners than on their ownphysical attractivcness

One way for women to achieve upward social mobility is to rrr'Ãrrywealth, and it is likely that thin women marry wealthier men than do fatwomen.

No significantdifference was found in response to photographs, but students who readresumés accompanied by written descriptions of fat women rated themlower on supervisory potcntial, selÊdiscipline, professional appearance,personal hygiene, and ability to perform a physically strenuous job thandid students who read th,e identical resumés whcn accompanied by de-scriptions of thin women.

s a way, of avoiding employment discrimination

a positive corrclation bctween weightand degree of discrimination

thin womcn have a greatcr chancc of beingaccepted by elitc colleges, such as lvy Leag'e and Scven Sisters collcgefthan do fat wome., evcn when their credentials

weight isthor"rght to be undcr voluntary control, so that fàt pcoplc are heldrcsponsible for thcir condition and for changing i

than is racism or sexism

cirilclren show a dislikc of farness, rating fìgure drawings of fatchildren morc ncgatively than drawings of children with physical dis-abilitics

reported that people who diet.d "náregained weight had higher mortality rates than thãse who did not dietand stayed at the same (high) weight.

dieting

western nations fat people are poorer than thin peopl.

confoundingvariables,

repeated dieting may result ina higher set point, as the body adjusts to this modern form ãf "famine" bystoring more fat

"set poinrs

differences in the food inrake of fat and thin people-even wirh methodsthat control for social desirability effects, such as the observation of fatand thin diners in cafeterias,

Rcgarcllcss ofactual wcight, most fcmalcs, cspccially adolcsccnts, considcr thcmsclvcs"too fat.

Faludi (1991) ancl \íolf (1991) havc argucd that thc fcminist nlovc-mcnt, rather than rcclucìng thc crnphasis on womcll's appcarancc, hascrcatcd a backlash th¿t has hcightcnc<l attcntiol-r to womcn's bodics. The

dversc cffcct on all worncnwho arc not whitc, rnicldlc-class, hctcroscxual, young, thin, and ablc-boclicd, as wcll as on many who arc

Looksism ," prcjudicc orcliscrirninaticln bascd on appcarancc

women to clc¡¡:ri]rc.thr-msclvcs, andfounclwcr

This chapter examines the social factors that influencewomen's feelings about their appearance and body siz

women's weight, the students did not believe that this hadanything to do with feminism

We reject the notion that America should becharacterized by the races, birthplaces, religious affiliations, or partisan identities of its citizens.

We, therefore, condemn all forms of bigotry such as racism, religiousintolerance, sexism, and persecution based on sexual orientation

No one is above the law, and ourcriminal justice system must treat everyone equally without discrimination based onrace, status or other unrelated factors.

evidence-basedpolicymaking and honest discourse.

honor the essential separation andbalance it establishes among coequal branches of the federal government and the states.

republic andthe endurance of our self-government, free from interference and defended against allenemies, foreign and domestic

declare our intent tocatalyze an American renewal, and to either reimagine a party dedicated to our foundingideals or else hasten the creation of such an alternative

the Constitution protects liberty by making it difficult for one person or group from taking complete control of the federal government.

We literally created a new social compact for the country that was agreed to by the people of each state.

that is, the idea that the law governs rather than the personal desires of those in power – and the argument that mankind has the capacity to participate in self-government

utopian

hierarchy and class society means to return to individuality; no longer defining human beings by their position on a ladder, but instead by the content of their character and their actions. Only then can freedom exist in reality and not just on paper.

Society needs to challenge these

We need to rethink and reshape the discourse around freedom in the 21st century, we need to seek out and analyse what shackles us.

ocial, economic and political hierarchies exist, both freedom and equality cannot exist

would argue that there is no need to make a choice between the two, as you cannot have one without the other

false dichotomy

Or, should we emphasise freedom at the expense of equality?

long-term group interests of poorer and working-class whites

o could you have “fundamental social change” in the form of a revolutionary transition from white-supremacist capitalism (the dominant variety since modernity) to non-white-supremacist capitalism?

“fundamental social change” is required to defeat such a system

class, gender, race—are all part of a political economy of domination.

differential access to jobs, promotions, bank loans, transfer payments from the state; the benefits of segregated housing and consequent wealth accumulation.

diffusion within the white economy generally of the surplus from slave labor

expropriation of the continent from Native Americans

white supremacy as a system of domination in its own right, whose dynamic—even if it is originally generated by expansionist capitalism—then attains a “relative autonomy” of its own.

claims about the peculiar political economy of imperial capitalism and the articulation of modern African slavery to its workings

hegemonic

Liberalism needs to be reconceptualized as ideologically central to the imperial project; both colonial and imperial domination need to be recognized as political systems in themselves (so, as with the gender critique, the boundaries of the polity would be redrawn); liberalism’s official ontology needs to officially admit races as social existents (they’re already tacitly there); and above all, in normative political theory (the (p.7) distinctive terrain of political philosophy), racial justice needs to be placed at center stage

My similar claim would be that liberal political theory is so shaped by the history of white domination, both national and global, that, analogously, it tacitly takes as its representative political figure the white (male) subject.

genuine gender equity in the polity itself.

racial liberalism” is then a liberalism in which—independent of which particular version we’re considering—key terms have been rewritten by race so as to generate a different set of rules for members of different “races,”

opposition to feudal absolutism, predicated on the equal rights of morally equal individuals, and having as its key figures

liberalism?

their resistance to giving up this privilege manifests itself in racial ideologies of various kinds.

legac

refer to institutions, practices, and social systems that illicitly privilege some races at the expense of others, where racial membership (directly or indirectly) explains this privileging

first sense

I would distinguish between racism in the ideational sense (a complex of ideas, beliefs, values) and racism in the socio- institutional sense (institutions, practices, social systems).

hat sense, race obviously does exist,

Instead of seeing race biologically, and as part of a natural hierarchy, one reconceptualizes it so it refers to one’s structural location in a racialized social system

Witch” has been reconceived.

“race” should be seen as comparable to “phlogiston”

eliminativism

eeking to dismantle the legacy of these systems and practices do with it?

other words, we’ve inherited a concept that was central to the justification of imperialism, colonialism, African slavery, Jim Crow, apartheid, the “color bar,” and the “color line.

What would arguably be necessary to win over (sufficient) white American support for a consistent anti-racism is not just moral suasion but a plausible case that the long-term group interests of poorer and working-class whites would be better served by a more egalitarian, redistributivist capitalism, and that racial division, by its weakening of the working class, has played a crucial role in enabling the development of plutocratic capitalism

to try to ensure that those who are usually left out of public discussions learn to speak whether their perspectives are · common or not, and those who usually dominate learn to hear the perspec­tives of others

Te stimony is also radically egalitarian: the standard for whether a view is worthy of public attention is simply that everyone should have a voice, a chance to tell her story

It has enabled underclass black youth to develop a critical voice, as a group of young black men told me, a "common literacy."

is at the core of the difference between deliberation and testimony.

should try to remedy, not reinforce, these problems.

Whites and Blacks see different worlds

of telling one's particular story to a broader group, has important precedents in American politics, particularly in African American politics and churches

begin by trying to rule out the problems that the critique of deliberation reveals

f indictment

Arguing that democratic discussion should be rational, moderate, and not selfish implicitly excludes public talk that is impassioned, extreme, and the product of particular interests.

Deliberation is a request for a certain kind of talk: rational, contained, and oriented to a shared problem

common voice steals attention from the egalitarian concern to enhance effective participation

to the extent that it is distracting from more basic problems of inclusion and mutual recognition, and to the extent that it favors a form of expression and discourse that makes it likely that the talk of an identifiable and privileged sector of the American public will dominate public dialogue

should say that I am not entirely against deliberation. But I am against it for now: I think it is premature as a standard for American democrats, who are confronted with more immediate problems.

does not engage some of the most serious challenges to the possibility of achieving democratic deliberation.

Prejudice and privilege do not emerge in deliberative settings as bad

r's superiority can never be invoked as a reason to prefer an idea ( 1980, 4, 11); they also expect prejudices

hey depend on open arguments agai

they are devoid of race, class, and gender and all the benefits and liabilities associated by Americans with these features

acknow­ledgment of the hardest problems, that is, the systematic disregard of ascrip­tively defined groups such as women and Blacks, would violate the deliberative tenet to attend to the force of argument rather than the interests of particular groups

Yet they do not, I think, fully address problems of exclusion, because there is too great a disjuncture between the hardest problems that democracy's proponents must grapple with and the formality of the acknow­ledgments and recommendations that democratic theorists make.

ar from trivial

"the absence of material deprivation is a precondition for free and unconstrained deliberation" (p. 157) and that "material inequalities can subvert a structure of free and equal public delib­eration by translating into sharply unequal capacities for political action"

subvert

disenfranchisement

fore misses by its own standards

ities without requiring a potentially oppressive education in civic virtue. They aspire to replace a faceless and possibly corrupt technocratic eli

deliberation is a process of political discussion

The pursuit of a common voice is specifically posed here as a remedy to the accumulation of private power and special interests

Autonomy is a civic or political, not individualistic, project, and it is quite usual to find democratic theorists also advocating deliberation for its poten­tial to uncover a communal identity

a need to figure out "who we are as a people

teaches citizens to see things they had previously overlooked, including the views of others, and therefore to become better citizens. This is clearly the kind of thing Ackerman hopes for when he suggests that base prejudices will be transformed, and worthy intuitions like hatred of racism vindicated, through rational criticism and dialogue

So advocates of democratic deliberation want to involve ordinary citizens in the process of rational decision-making that pluralists leave to experts.