Fluent Essays

Need help on assignment SHORTENED TITLE UP TO 50 CHARACTERS 2 Construct a Rogerian Argument ASSIGNMENT: As you learned in this unit, a Rogerian argument is one that presents two sides of a debate and argues for a solution that will satisfy both sides. Given two articles presenting opposing sides of an issue (mandatory uniforms in schools), construct your own 2-3 page Rogerian argument essay in which you attempt to arrive at a workable solution or middle ground. A. Assignment Guidelines DIRECTIONS: Refer to the list below throughout the writing process. Do not submit your Touchstone until it meets these guidelines. 1. Summary of Positions ❒ Have you briefly introduced the author and publication context (year, journal, etc.) of Article 1? ❒ Have you included a summary of the stance presented in Article 1? ❒ Have you briefly introduced the author and publication context (year, journal, etc.) of Article 2? ❒ Have you included a summary of the stance presented Article 2? 2. Thesis/Claim ❒ Does you claim address both sides of the issue, including specific points raised in the articles? ❒ Does your claim present a clear, workable solution that could be viewed as a middle ground between the two sides? 3. Analysis ❒ Have you backed up your claim using facts from both sides of the argument? ❒ When using direct quotations, have you supplemented them with your own explanation of their relevance? 4. Reflection ❒ Have you answered all reflection questions thoughtfully and included insights, observations, and/or examples in all responses? ❒ Are your answers included on a separate page below the main assignment? B. Reflection DIRECTIONS: Below your assignment, include answers to all of the following reflection questions. 1. How does the Rogerian model of argument help you better understand the topic that’s being discussed? Why is it a good practice to acknowledge both sides of the argument? (3-4 sentences) 2. Will you use the Rogerian Approach in your own argumentative essay? Why or why not? (2-3 sentences) C. Rubric   Advanced (90-100\%) Proficient (80-89\%) Acceptable (70-79\%) Needs Improvement (50-69\%) Non-Performance (0-49\%) Summary of Positions Introduce the two sources and summarize each side of the argument. Effectively introduces both authors and provides a complete and concise summary of both positions presented in the articles. Introduces both authors and provides a concise summary of both positions presented in the articles. Provides a brief overview of the authors and positions, but key details of the positions may be missing. Introduces both authors, but does not provide a complete summary of positions presented in the articles. Does not introduce both authors and/or does not provide a summary of each position presented in the articles. Thesis/Claim Present a thesis that advocates for a solution to satisfy both sides of the argument. Provides a thesis that clearly and effectively advocates for a solution to satisfy both sides of the argument. Provides a thesis that clearly advocates for a solution to satisfy both sides of the argument. Provides a clear thesis; however, it does not suggest a solution to satisfy both sides of the argument. Provides a thesis, but it is unclear and/or does not advocate for a solution to satisfy both sides of the argument. No clear thesis has been presented. Organization Exhibit competent organization and writing techniques. Includes all of the required components of a Rogerian argument paper, including an engaging introduction with source summaries and a claim, body paragraphs with topic sentences, and a conclusion with a concluding statement. Includes all of the required components of a Rogerian argument paper, including an introduction with source summaries and a claim, body paragraphs with topic sentences, and a conclusion with a concluding statement. Includes nearly all of the required components of a Rogerian argument paper; however, one component is missing. Includes most of the required components of a Rogerian argument paper, but is lacking two components. Sequences ideas and paragraphs such that the connections between ideas (within and between paragraphs) are sometimes unclear and the reader may have difficulty following the progression of the argument. Lacks several or all of the components of a Rogerian argument paper. Sequences ideas and paragraphs such that the connections between ideas (within and between paragraphs) are often unclear and the reader has difficulty following the progression of the argument. Style Establish a consistent, informative tone and make thoughtful stylistic choices. Demonstrates thoughtful and effective word choices, avoids redundancy and imprecise language, and uses a wide variety of sentence structures. Demonstrates effective word choices, primarily avoids redundancy and imprecise language, and uses a variety of sentence structures. Demonstrates generally effective style choices, but may include occasional redundancies, imprecise language, poor word choice, and/or repetitive sentence structures. Frequently includes poor word choices, redundancies, imprecise language, and/or repetitive sentence structures. Consistently demonstrates poor word choices, redundancies, imprecise language, and/or repetitive sentence structures. Conventions Follow conventions for standard English. There are only a few, if any, negligible errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, formatting, and usage. There are occasional minor errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, formatting, and usage. There are some significant errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, formatting, and usage. There are frequent significant errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, formatting, and usage. There are consistent significant errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, formatting, and usage. Reflection Reflect on progression and development throughout the course. Demonstrates thoughtful reflection; consistently includes insights, observations, and/or examples in all responses, following or exceeding response length guidelines. Demonstrates thoughtful reflection; includes multiple insights, observations, and/or examples, following response length guidelines. Primarily demonstrates thoughtful reflection, but some responses are lacking in detail or insight; primarily follows response length guidelines. Shows limited reflection; the majority of responses are lacking in detail or insight, with some questions left unanswered or falling short of response length guidelines. No reflection responses are present. D. Requirements The following requirements must be met for your submission to be graded: · Composition must be 2-3 pages (approximately 500-750 words). · Double-space the composition and use one-inch margins. · Use a readable 12-point font. · All writing must be appropriate for an academic context. · Composition must be original and written for this assignment. · Plagiarism of any kind is strictly prohibited. · Submission must include your name, the name of the course, the date, and the title of your composition. · Include all of the assignment components in a single file. · Acceptable file formats include .doc and .docx. Sophia Pathways for College Credit – English Composition II SAMPLE TOUCHSTONE AND SCORING Sophia Pathways for College Credit – English Composition II SAMPLE TOUCHSTONE AND SCORING Name College Class Date Eat More Greens!: Why Everyone Should Adopt More of a Plant-based Diet For many people around the globe, meat is the highlight of the dinner plate. From gyros to hamburgers, chicken shawarma to veal pie, people love their meat-based diets, and for good reasons, too. It tastes good, it is versatile in many dishes, and it provides complete amino acids, the building blocks of protein. However, there are also many people who choose to omit meat from their diet completely and choose a plant-based diet instead. Vegetarians, for example, do not eat meat, and vegans do not eat any animal products. People have a variety of reasons for avoiding meat: religious, moral, or health-related. However, there are other reasons in recent decades that have led more people to see the value of a meat-free, plant-based diet. As the effects of climate change and the threats of overpopulation loom, more and more people are considering vegetarianism as a simple, positive way to help reduce their carbon footprints and to encourage stores, restaurants, and food suppliers to do the same. Although meat has been a longstanding and important part of many balanced diets, cultures, and food industries around the world, I want Comment [1]: Great summary of the pro-meat argument. It gives many reasons why people like it and find it an important part of their daily lives. Comment [2]: This is another great summary of the reasons why people do not eat meat. It gives a good list of different reasons why a person wouldn’t want meat as part of their diet. to argue that everyone practices an informed and balanced diet of less meat and more greens for the good not only of their health but for the well-being of the entire planet. Everyone on both sides seem to agree that meat should not lightly be cut out of the human diet or the economy. For example, everyone knows protein is an important part of human health. Meat has historically played an important role both as a major source of complete proteins (Bailey, 2018, para. 1). There are many amino acids that the body cannot produce on its own, and meat provides all of them in readily available forms in a way that many other food groups cannot, especially since the vegetarian diet requires a fair amount of knowledge and planning to ensure one gets all nutritional needs met (para. 2). Additionally, meat is the reason underlying many jobs, from farmers and ranchers to meat packers, butchers, and chefs (Abbot, 2018, para. 5). What would happen to those jobs if people suddenly stopped eating meat? Finally, one does not need to do careful research to know that meat can be delicious, and almost everyone around the world involves meat in some form as part of cultural or ethnic traditions. Proponents of meat-based diets believe that animal proteins should continue to play a crucial role in the health of our bodies and our economy. Roger Abbot (2018), for example, has noted that aside from protein, meat is an important source of iron and many B-vitamins, particularly B12 which is crucial for energy production (para. 7). He also argues that the meat and poultry industries are pillars of U.S. agriculture, producing together nearly 100 billion pounds of product and generating hundreds of thousands of jobs in 2017 (para. 5). Obviously, these are important points, not to mention there are also many people who raise livestock for consumption in sustainable ways, and many people also hunt for their food, which is also a valuable way of culling otherwise-uncontrollable animal populations (para. 6). In other words, many economies and food chains are very much dependent on people who seek out meat. Comment [3]: Excellent Thesis! You do a great job of showing the merit of both sides, and presenting an argument that advocates for a compromise in each. Comment [4]: Great use of the source to help strengthen your essay. Comment [5]: This is a good point! Nevertheless, advocates for plant-based diets argue that cutting out the majority of meat one of the many steps we need to ensure good health for our bodies and the earth. First, it is possible to get all of the required nutrients and sufficient protein without meat. As Jane Bailey (2018) has pointed out, “You cannot just eat pizza and chips and call it vegetarian…You need to educate yourself and do it right” (para. 2). According to Bailey, “A diverse, well-balanced diet of beans, legumes, grains, fruits, and vegetables is more than enough to provide all of a typical human’s dietary needs, and supplements exist to fill in any leftover gaps” (para. 2). Additionally, a well-informed plant-based diet contains less saturated fat, cholesterol, and fewer carcinogens, as well as more fiber and antioxidants (para. 3). As for taste, there are now more delicious meat substitutes than ever, including the popular Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat (para. 4). Individual health and taste aside, however, are the pressing problems of climate change. Bailey catalogs the toll that meat production takes on our planet, naming everything from deforestation of the Amazon and other regions (para. 9) to the massive amounts of water and energy it takes to raise, transport, and prepare livestock for consumption (para. 10). Alternatively, most edible plant products do not require the fraction of a fraction as much land, water, or energy per pound, in addition to actively absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (para. 11). Finally, there is tons of economic, job-creating potential in green farming and green initiatives, including new research looking into growing entirely new crops underwater (para. 13). We can begin to make vegetables and veggie proteins more accessible and find new ways to fit them into our diets, our cultures, and our lives. There are so many good individual, national, and global reasons for everyone to begin making the shift to a more plant-based diet, without having to completely omit meat. Although it has been a longstanding part of our life and many people would be sad to see less of it, it is Comment [6]: This is something that many people don’t know about the meat industry. I’m glad you called attention to it! nothing compared to the losses and damages we will continue to witness as a part of climate change. I admit that not all animal products need to disappear for this to happen. Also, hunting certain animals such as deer probably has to continue unless we are willing to increase the number of their natural predators. However, even small changes can have a big impact. For the sake of our planet, the world’s population, and our health, I encourage everyone to eat meat a lit tle less, and eat green a little more! Comment [7]: Wonderful concluding sentence. I like that you’re taking both sides of the argument into account, satisfying both sides. References Abbot, Roger (2018). “Why Meat Matters.” The Economist. June 17, 2018. Retrieved 29 October 2019 from http://www.theeconomist.com/articles/2018/june/195782.html. Bailey, Jane (2018). “Why the World Needs a Meatless Diet.” The Atlantic. June 11, 2018. Retrieved 29 October 2019 from http://www.theatlantic.com/articles/economy/ 2019/846362.html. Sophia Pathways for College Credit – English Composition II SAMPLE TOUCHSTONE AND SCORING Sophia Pathways for College Credit – English Composition II SAMPLE TOUCHSTONE AND SCORING Reflection Questions: 1. How does the Rogerian model of argument help you better understand the topic that’s being discussed? Why is it a good practice to acknowledge both sides of the argument? The Rogerian model helps me put both sides of an argument into perspective. If I can put myself in the shoes of anyone who is for and against a topic, I can better form my argument to address their views and come up with a solution that can satisfy either side. It helps me to be more objective instead of jumping to one conclusion right away. 2. Will you use the Rogerian approach in your own argumentative essay? Why or why not? I believe I’ll use the practice of putting each side into perspective, but I think in order to be truly argumentative, I will want to take one side of the issue. I think it can be difficult to stay in middle-ground for certain arguments, and I have a bit more passion for that argument when it comes to my stance. Rogerian Argument Essay Rubric and Feedback Rubric Category Feedback Score (acceptable, needs improvement etc.) Summary of Positions You have included a complete summary of each argument. Don’t forget to introduce the authors! 8/10 Claim Your claim is a great one. Instead of cutting out meat completely, and in order to help satisfy the movement against meat, you propose a reduction in the amount of daily meat consumption instead. You’ve used many of the supports from both sides to enhance your argument. Well done! 19/20 Organization You have a well-organized essay here. Everything flows together nicely. 5/5 Style There are few, if any, major sentence-level errors. 5/5 Conventions You adhere to the conventions of standard written English throughout your paper. 5/5 Reflection You have complete and well thought out responses to the questions provided. 5/5 Overall Score and Feedback: 47/50 I think you’ve done a great job in creating a Rogerian response to this argument. You’ve got great supporting claims from each of the sources to help strengthen your argument, and you have proposed a response that could help create a workable solution to the issues. Excellent work! © 2015 Ohio Valley Philosophy of Education Society DRESSING DIVERSITY: POLITICS OF DIFFERENCE AND THE CASE OF SCHOOL UNIFORMS Samantha Deane Loyola University Chicago In The New York Times parenting blog, Motherlode, Debra Monroe writes about “the dynamic that makes public school democratic—a place to confront the humanity of others,” because she is concerned with what schooling teaches children about diversity and difference.1 This paper begins with a similar assumption and concern; I too think schools ought to be places where children learn to confront the humanity and difference of others, and I am concerned with how children are taught to do so. Through an analysis of school uniform policies and theories of social justice, I argue not that children consciously experience school uniforms as uniforming, but that school uniforms and their foregoing policies assume that confronting strangers—an imperative of living in a democratic polity—is something that requires seeing sameness instead of recognizing difference. Imbuing schooling with a directive that says schools ought to be places where children learn to confront the humanity of others requires that we ask questions about how educational policies teach children to deal with human difference. Broadly speaking, uniform policies undergird the assumption that a child’s capacity to confront difference is unimportant.2 To consider the ways in which school uniform policies unjustly teach children to disregard difference so that they can reasonably participate in public and school life, this paper engages in a rich conversation about social justice. Fundamentally, social justice is about recognizing grave injustices between individual persons and groups of people living in, or being prevented from living in, the world. The works of John Rawls, Iris Marion Young, and Nancy Fraser represent three common theoretical constructs for dealing with social justice. Rawls comes from a social contract position and constructs a floating theory of justice based on a Kantian self that ultimately addresses injustices by way of redistribution.3 Young aligns herself with critical theory, founds her critique in the messiness of the “real world,” and tackles injustice by 1 Debra Monroe, “When Elite Parents Dominate Volunteers, Children Lose.” Motherlode (blog), New York Times (January 19, 2014), http://nyti.ms/19EIwRF. 2 I am purposefully not differentiating between public and private schooling, because all schooling situated in a democratic context ought to teach children to confront the humanity of others. Moreover, children are a part of the larger “public” in a Deweyan sense. 3 John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, ed. Erin Kelly (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001). Deane – Dressing Diversity 112 advocating for a politics of difference.4 All the while, Fraser works out a bivalent conception of social justice that bridges the divide between the spheres of distribution and recognition.5 Rawls’s Justice as Fairness: A Restatement is the theoretical backdrop against which this paper employs Young’s Justice and the Politics of Difference and Fraser’s “Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics: Redistribution, Recognition, and Participation” to speak to the ways in which diversity can and should be “undressed,” and therefore, “addressed” by children in school. To “address” diversity, the first section of this paper will focus on the language of school uniform policies. Policy makers tell us that school uniform policies are meant to: minimize disruptive behavior, remove socioeconomic tension, and maintain high academic standards.6 There is nothing unjust about wanting to reduce socioeconomic difference, nor valuing high academic standards. What is unjust is that these policies do not remove socioeconomic difference, nor cure disruptive behavior. School uniform policies dress difference; they do not address it. Accordingly, in an attempt to “undress” difference, and, perhaps, “redress” the injustice of school uniform policies, the second section of this paper argues that schools ought to be places where children are confronted with the humanity of others. The argument is that removing uniforms should not be a mere undressing that leaves children to deal with difference and humiliation on their own, but that we must redress the injustice by philosophically resituating schooling. Finally, the concluding section will sketch out what it might mean to philosophically resituate schools and to think of school life as a reflection of city life where, “the public is heterogeneous, plural, and playful, a place where people witness and appreciate the diverse cultural expressions that they do not share and do not fully understand.”7 Schools in this vision are not apolitical sanctuaries where children develop into perfect rational subjects; rather, schools are messy, vibrant, lively, worlds where children both constitute and come to know the diverse world and public(s) that surround them. Dressing Diversity: The School Uniform Policy A policy bulletin from Los Angeles states: “The Los Angeles Unified School District believes that appropriate student dress contributes to a 4 Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990). 5 Nancy Fraser, “Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics: Redistribution, Recognition, and Participation.” Tanner Lecture Series, Stanford University (April 30– May 2, 1996), http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/f/Fraser98.pdf. 6 David L. Brunsma, “School Uniforms in Public Schools,” National Association of Elementary School Principals (January/February 2006), 50. 7 Young, Politics of Difference, 241. PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES IN EDUCATION – 2015/Volume 46 113 productive learning environment.”8 While a policy from Pitt County states: “The implementation of school uniforms will help minimize disruptive behavior, promote respect for oneself and others, build school/community spirit, and, more significantly, help to maintain high academic standards.”9 Most school uniform policies echo these sentiments. They appear to originate from a genuine desire for students to succeed academically, and/or a need to improve behavior and safety. Yet, the history of asking students to appear one way or another is a story of mingled concerns about academic achievement, juvenile delinquency, gender appropriateness, race relations, and gang affiliation.10 Ines Dussel historically situates these concerns within a broad trend toward institutional organization and control of people who pivot around the “axis of difference.”11 According to Dussel, “such policies were tied to the disciplining of ‘unruly’, ‘savage’, ‘untamed’ bodies, that is, the bodies of those who were not able to perform self‐regulation or self‐government: women, Black, Indian, poor classes, immigrants, toddlers or infants.”12 In Young’s language, the victims of cultural imperialism are frozen “into a being marked as other,” while the dominant group occupies a universal “unmarked” position.13 The impetus to uniform is at once entangled in a project to mark or dress difference and to extend the “universalized” position to the “other.”14 The policy trend toward institutional control vis-à-vis school uniform policies is enmeshed in the desire for definition and regulation of student’s personal bodies and is a means to regulate and define children’s relationships with one another. School uniform policies are not merely concerned with what one wears, but are a part of how we organize schools and the students therein. These policies are an attempt to make schools safer and better, to regulate what happens, and who affiliates with whom. A District of Columbia uniform policy hints at these underlying tensions by taking measures to define what “uniform” means within the policy: “The term ‘uniform,’ for the purposes of a mandatory uniform policy, is defined as clothing of the same style and/or color and 8 Jim Morris, “Student Dress Codes/Uniforms,” Los Angeles Unified School District Policy Bulletin, BUL-2549.1 (December 2009), 1. 9 Ibid. 10 Wendell Anderson, “School Dress Codes and Uniform Policies,” Policy Report (ERIC Clearinghouse on Education Management), no. 4 (2002), 4. Anderson briefly captures this history in the synopsis of his policy report. 11 Ines Dussel, “When Appearances Are Not Deceptive: A Comparative History of School Uniforms in Argentina and the United States (Nineteenth–Twentieth Centuries),” Paedagogica Historica 41, no. 1–2 (2005): 191. 12 Ibid. 13 Young, Politics of Difference, 123. 14 To this point, Dussel, notes that elite, private, “preppy” school dress was extended down, as it were, to public mass schooling and has become the school uniform we are familiar with today, e.g. khaki pants and Oxford shirts. Deane – Dressing Diversity 114 standard look, as agreed upon by the school community.”15 Nonetheless, a definition of “uniform” does little to draw attention away from the fact that the policy is asking all children to appear the same. The concluding advice from a US Department of Education policy report for drafting a uniform policy reads: “when they are justified by a school’s circumstances, wisely conceived in collaboration with the community, and coupled with appropriate interventions, dress codes and school uniforms may positively influence school climate, student behavior, and academic success. However, it is critical to keep such polices in proper perspective and avoid overestimating or exaggerating their potential benefits.”16 This hesitant endorsement of school uniform policies manages to advise caution about drawing specific cause-and-effect relationships between school uniforms and academic gains, and in the same instance, it glosses over the historical and philosophical significance of asking students to uniformly dress their difference. Standardizing how students appear may give the school an air of control over the schooling environment, but in doing so, these policies tell students that when and where appearances differ, danger lurks. Addressing Diversity: Social Justice and the School Uniform Policy Claims for social justice, more often than not, stem from one of two directions; summed up by references to distribution or recognition, social injustices are either rectified by redistributing wealth/social goods, or by recognizing and valuing difference. Redistributive claims generally follow the logic of John Rawls’ theory of justice and utilize some version of an “original position.” The policy logic, or reasoning behind, school uniform policies broadly appeals to logic derived from a distributional ethic, which finds its ideal articulation of the student in the rational, reasoning, and regulated self. The problem with this ideal articulation and the distributional ethic is best illustrated by evaluating the ways in which Rawls’ theory of social justice informs the rationale of school uniform policies. Rawls’s theory of justice and the school uniform policy share a similar objective: thinly constructed reasoning parties. In Justice as Fairness Rawls develops the “original position” whereby parties can agree to the terms of society and justice without conceding “differences in life prospects.”17 That is to say, difference or diversity is an essential consideration in Rawls’ project. In an effort to deal with the mandates of diversity, the fact of pluralism, Rawls adopts and builds upon the Kantian deontological self to describe the sort of people contracting in the original position. Accordingly, the original position 15 “District of Columbia Public Schools: Notice of Final Rule Making,” (District of Columbia Register, vol. 56, no. 33, Chapter B24, Section B2408, August 2009), 3. 16 Anderson, “School Dress Codes,” 4, my emphasis. 17 Rawls, Justice as Fairness, 6.3–6.4, 12.2. PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES IN EDUCATION – 2015/Volume 46 115 imbues these intrinsically worthy subjects with neutrality and structural impartiality, both of which ensure that they are representative of any person from society. Placed behind the “veil of ignorance,” the parties are situated symmetrically and on this undifferentiated plane they do not claim a social class, racial or sexual orientation, a comprehensive conception of the good, or any other distinguishing factor.18 Rawls states, “the parties are artificial persons, merely inhabitants of our device of representation: they are characters who have a part in the play of our thought experiment.” 19 In consequence the representatives in the original position are, admittedly, non-real characters with limited knowledge, or “complicated amnesia.”20 Moreover, it is the “complicated amnesia,” or the “veil of ignorance” that gives the parties the ability to be impartial and, more importantly, rational. It is true that Rawls works to construct a thin consensus in the public about society’s basic structures because he wants to leave open the ability to construct individually defined thick lives; however, the parties of the original position are abstracted to such an extent that a monological position ensues. Michael Sandel summarizes the problem aptly: “The notion that not persons but only a single subject is to be found behind the veil of ignorance would explain why no bargaining or discussion can take place there.”21 The “veil of ignorance” removes the parties’ “thickness” so that they can reason together. The problem is that a truly pluralistic or diverse society will not be the product when a single subject conceives the definitions of justice. What’s more, the agreement of like-minded parties does not necessitate actual participation—it merely requires appearance. Uniform policies are theoretically similar. They function as a “veil of ignorance” for children who are too poor, too brown, or too different from one another to be members of the same school. Uniform policies imply that children in uniform are freed from any context that might impose a restraint on reason. Under a “veil of ignorance” children are not asked to think about why their classmate is poor, or brown; they are required to show up. Rawls’ theory of justice constructs thin, uniform, rational people (students) who can operate in the political sphere (school) as a way to achieve some kind of overlapping consensus (standard academic achievement). I believe it is clear that these thinly constituted people are both objectionable and impractical; nonetheless, Young helps draw out the unwelcome side affects of favoring the impartial subject and proposes an alternative solution. Young approaches justice from within the messy, situated context of the world. Her argument for a politics of difference highlights the fact that theories of distributive justice have monopolized the conversation about what justice entails in the era of modern political philosophy, such that “displacing 18 Ibid., 23.3, 25.3. 19 Ibid., 23.4. 20 Michael J. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 105. 21 Ibid., 132. Deane – Dressing Diversity 116 the distributive paradigm” is part of accepting her theory of justice as recognition of difference.22 For Young the distributive paradigms pose a large- scale problem in the sense that the “ideal of impartiality or logic of identity” infiltrates every aspect of civic life. The logic of identity is problematic because of the intrinsic desire for unity. As such, “The logic of identity seeks to reduce the plurality of particular subjects, their bodily, perspectival experience, to a unity, by measuring them against the unvarying standard of universal reason.”23 The reverence deferred to universal reason is part of the project of moral ethics, which defines impartiality as necessary for the capacity to reason. The Kantian deontological ideal is to find a point of view that everyone can agree to, or see from, irrespective of their particular difference. School uniform polices strive for the same ideal. The hope is that if kids are all wearing the same clothing, no one will notice another’s socioeconomic status, or speak from their particular position. The ideal of impartiality creates a dichotomy between the “universal and the particular, public and private, and reason and passion” to the extent that the civic public, the terrain of schooling, becomes the place of universal reason.24 Much like the problem identified by Sandel’s reading of Rawls’ original position, universal reason requires agreement of abstracted parties, not dialogue with those who are differently situated. Furthermore, if the terrain of schooling is a place of universal reason it is no wonder that the “either-or thinking” of dichotomies reigns. Children are either uniformed or partial, uniformed or needy, uniformed or irrational. Young pointedly explains that the “ideal of impartiality” is flat out impossible, because it requires expelling the aspects of difference that do not fit. In fact, “no one can adopt a view that is completely impersonal and dispassionate.”25 Additionally, my sense of imbeddedness defines my “social location” to the degree that I cannot enter someone else’s location. Nevertheless, if it is possible to strip myself of my location, what then is the purpose of having a location?26 Requiring the removal of particularity for uniformity, whether for moral cohesion or universal reason, is an affected wish. People do not have to be the same to get along; rather, it is possible for people to be both partial and have reasonable associations with each other. Young argues, “If one assumes instead that moral reason is dialogic, the product of discussion among differently situated subjects all of whom desire recognition and acknowledgement from the others, then there is no need for a universal point of view to pull people out of egoism.”27 Thus, the ideal of impartiality is not a necessity, and should not be a desire since it is a fanciful fiction. Instead, 22 Young, Politics of Difference, 15. 23 Ibid., 99. 24 Ibid., 97. 25 Ibid., 103. 26 Ibid., 105. 27 Ibid.,106. PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES IN EDUCATION – 2015/Volume 46 117 if we grant that differently situated people can and should have a voice to discuss what matters to them, we will see their differences shed new light on relevant issues and aspects of justice. School uniform policies, like the “ideal of impartiality,” create unjust expectations of neutrality on behalf of students, and in removing the space for actual conversation, depoliticize difference. In contrast, the recognition of difference presumes that “blindness to difference disadvantages groups whose experience, culture, and socialized capacities differ from those of privileged groups”28 and that “assimilation always implies coming to the game late.”29 As reflected in school uniform policies, the ideal of impartiality, in its blindness to difference, disadvantages students who are asked to assimilate by removing the space for conversation about difference. Moreover, no child should feel like they are coming to the game late, especially in a learning environment. Recognition of difference should be an essential function of schooling to the extent that any language of assimilation finds no purchase. Writ large, Young’s solution may appear obvious at this point, but it is worth stating explicitly: “A democratic public should provide mechanisms for the effective recognition and representation of the distinct voices and perspectives of those of its constituent groups that are oppressed or disadvantaged.”30 The solution writ small in, say, a school system, should mimic the same sentiments. Requiring student to wear uniforms is not the problem: the problem is the reason for requiring uniforms. A unique answer to Young’s demand to displace the distributive is Nancy Fraser’s mixing of the distributive paradigm with recognition. Fraser starts by noting that the distributive paradigm has a certain theoretical heft—at some point various groups or individuals have appealed to their common humanity, the original position, or impartial reason out of necessity, perceived or actual. With the weightiness of the distributive paradigm in mind, Fraser erects a “bivalent axis” of social justice she calls a “two pronged” approach. The bivalent axis of social justice is best thought of as a spectrum within which a pendulum can swing from distinctly distributional problems to those characterized as distinctly recognition-based, but where neither is ever the singular answer.31 The pendulum is always in motion. According to Fraser, “A bivalent conception treats distribution and recognition as distinct perspectives on, and dimensions of, justice, while at the same time encompassing both of them within a broader overarching framework.” This does not mean that either claim, distribution or recognition, is subsumed into the other.32 Instead, Fraser locates their shared normative core as a “parity of participation.”33 As she explains, “According to this norm, justice requires social arrangements that 28 Ibid., 164. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid., 184. 31 Fraser, “Age of Identity Politics,” 22. 32 Ibid., 24. 33 Ibid., 30. Deane – Dressing Diversity 118 permit all (adult) members of society to interact with one another as peers.”34 In other words, justice both of the distributional and recognition varieties, stems from the supposition that each member of society has equal dignity and ought to have the means to interact with one another in the public sphere. Fraser’s “parity of participation,” relies on an understanding of the imbricated nature of culture and the economy. To say that justice spans a continuum from distribution to recognition is also to say that the economy and culture are institutions that make up our shared social world.35 The conditions for this parity of participation require a form of legal equality, and preclude “forms and levels of material inequality, [and] cultural patterns that systematically depreciate some categories of people.”36 People within this framework are thickly defined and contextually situated. They have both objective being that requires some kind of material position, and an intersubjective status that mandates recognition. The objective condition is, thus, most often rectified by redistribution, whereas the intersubjective condition is nullified by recognition. Fraser takes a decidedly rooted stance in a turn toward the pragmatic and recommends that answers to the injustice fit the practical situation. The pragmatic approach is the tool by which we ought to deploy the bivalent pendulum, which is always seeking the normative ideal, parity of participation. In every case the remedy of an injustice should be tailored to the harm, and in all cases the goal is to create, maintain, and reimagine a space for equal participation of each person or group of people. Fraser’s pragmatic answer, and its normative assumption, is not radically divergent from Young’s grounding in critical social theory whereby she defines a “politics of difference.” Young’s politics of difference, after all, takes that differently situated people can have a discussion that leads to moral reason and just social structures.37 The distinction between Fraser’s parity of participation and Young’s politics of difference rests on how equality is imagined to function. For Fraser the norm “parity of participation” holds that each person’s voice has equal weight or worth within political discourse. Conversely, Young notes that the groups who are “oppressed and disadvantaged” are those for whom mechanisms of recognition must be appropriated.38 The distinction lies in the fact that Fraser’s “parity of participation” necessarily strives toward structural equality, as opposed to merely “mitigating the influence of current biases,” as Young puts it.39 Thus, Fraser’s bivalent conception is an excellent tool to help us think about the 34 Ibid. 35 As Fraser aptly characterizes the argument, the answer does not lie in statements like: “it’s the culture stupid,” nor its counterpart “it’s the economy stupid,” 39–41. 36 Ibid., 31. 37 Young, Politics of Difference, 106. 38 Ibid., 192–225. 39 Ibid., 198. PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES IN EDUCATION – 2015/Volume 46 119 pointed experience of injustice, but Young’s normative politics of difference is a fuller norm to reach toward. Conclusion: Redressing Diversity, City Life as School Life Employing Fraser’s bivalent continuum, we can say that school uniform policies are attempts to organize children who may be experiencing both distributional and recognition related injustices, but because the policies appeal to a logic of identity and distributional ethic, school uniform policies operate at the expense of a politics of difference. Following Fraser, a pragmatic remedy for the injustice of uniforming children in school requires that we rearticulate the value of “bringing children together in a common space.”40 An assumption of this paper is that the value of schooling is manifest in more than narrowly defined achievement or the acceptance of socialized roles. Rather, because education is always answering a question about what it means to be human,41 the value of bringing children together in a common space is evidenced when they learn how to recognize and speak from places of personal difference. The “dynamic that makes public schools democratic” is the activity of engaging children and their humanity. Higgins and Knight Abowitz ask, “What might it mean to think of the classroom not as a room within an institution that is already public, but as a space in which teachers and learners make public?”42 It means that we must see children and their teachers, and the school at large, as a public making project. Democratic schooling demands that we see children as full of vigorous and playful humanity. It requires that we engage with children as partial, situated members of the public. Young imagines an alternative form of social relations—public— where a politics of difference prevails as analogous to city life.43 Young’s imaginative view of city life highlights democratic modes of being and is one way to think about what it might mean to envision the school as forever “becoming” public. In Young’s parlance, “By ‘city life’ I mean a form of social relations which I define as the being together of strangers. In the city persons and groups interact with spaces and institutions they all experience themselves as belonging to, but without those interactions dissolving into unity or commonness.”44 Each day an encounter with the city on the train, in the park, at a restaurant, or in a building requires that we find ways to live together. The persistent encounter with difference forces city dwellers to recognize that 40 Chris Higgins and Kathleen Knight Abowitz, “What Makes a Public School Public? A Framework for Evaluating the Civic Substance of Schooling,” Educational Theory 61, no. 4 (2011), 369. 41 Gert J. J. Biesta, Beyond Learning: Democratic Education for a Human Future (Boulder: Paradigm, 2006), 2. 42 Higgins and Knight Abowitz, “Public School,” 379. 43 Young, Politics of Difference, 226–27. 44 Ibid., 237. Deane – Dressing Diversity 120 people are just differently situated, or socially located beings, with whom they can have a partial dialogue. Recognition of …