Volume 12, Number 1
September, 2008
Table of Contents
Editors’ Comments (pp. 5-7)
Michael James, Joseph M. O’Keefe, S.J., Lorraine Ozar, Co-Editors
Articles
Teaching Justice after MacIntyre: Toward a Catholic Philosophy of Moral Education
Roger Bergman
Creighton University
(pp. 7-24)
How is the commitment to social justice sustained over a lifetime? This would seem to be a matter of character, and that calls attention to the Aristotelian tradition in ethics. No one provides as much insight into the challenge of the contemporary appropriation of this tradition as Alasdair MacIntyre. Although a moral philosopher rather than a moral educator, MacIntyre’s critique of the failure of the Enlightenment project to construct a rationally based universal ethic, coupled with a critique of the modern nation-state of liberal capitalism as antithetical to the practice of virtue for the common good, provides a challenging if controversial context in which moral educators might think about justice pedagogy today.
The Grammar of Catholic Schooling and Radically “Catholic” Schools
Martin Scanlan
Marquette University
(pp. 25-54)
A “grammar of Catholic schooling” inhibits many elementary and secondary Catholic schools from reflecting on how they practice Catholic Social Teaching (CST). The values of human dignity, the common good and a preferential option for the marginalized are central to CST. Schools can live these values by serving children who live in poverty, are racial, ethnic, and linguistic minorities, or have disabilities. This article demonstrates how a grammar of Catholic schooling has allowed Catholic schools to fall into recruitment and retention patterns antithetical to CST. Drawing upon a multicase, qualitative study of three urban Catholic elementary schools serving marginalized students, the article illustrates how select Catholic schools are breaking the grammar of Catholic schooling by practicing CST. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
Focus Section – University Outreach
Enacting Social Justice to Teach Social Justice: The Pedagogy of Bridge Builders
Karen E. Eifler, Jeff Kerssen-Griep, & Peter Thacker
University of Portland
(pp. 55-70)
This article describes a particular endeavor, the Bridge Builders Academic Mentoring Program (BAMP), a partnership between a school of education in a Catholic university in the Northwest and a community-based rites of passage program for adolescent African American males. The partnership exemplifies tenets of Catholic social teaching, in that it is community-based, justice-oriented and in many ways countercultural. The pedagogy aligns with the goals of service learning; that is, the service extended by university students satisfies a genuine community need, and at the same time affords those engaged in service an opportunity to acquire crucial knowledge, skills, and dispositions to which they would not otherwise have access. Implications for translating this program to other contexts are provided.
Neighbors Engaging in Dialogue: A University-Community Partnership
Pete Miller
Duquesne University
(pp. 71-95)
The purpose of this case study was to learn more about the emergence and development of the Rogers Community Learning Center over its initial 5 years of operation. The interview, observation, and documental data were viewed through a theoretical lens informed by the work of Paulo Freire, Myles Horton, and Cornel West in order to examine how notions of history, culture, and power affected the collaborative work of the Rogers Center. The findings indicated that the disconnect and distrust that previously described the relationship between St. Benedict University and its adjacent Northeast Neighborhood were mitigated to a degree by the work of the Rogers Center. Although Neighborhood residents expressed gratitude for the many educational and social opportunities present at the Rogers Center, their value for being engaged as equal partners by St. Benedict’s resonated most clearly as the foundational element to their emerging friendship. The article concludes with several suggestions that attempt to assist the continued development of the Rogers Center and also serve as helpful insights for other partnerships that seek similar relationships.
Service, Ethnography, and the “Leap of Faith”:
A Spiritan Catholic Perspective on Service Learning
Kathleen Glenister Roberts
Duquesne University
(pp. 96-116)
This article considers the state of service and experiential learning initiatives in higher education, especially in Catholic universities. Concluding that the Catholic mission of service, education, moral values, world concerns, and ecumenism can be integrated into student experience, the essay offers a model of service ethnography. Service ethnography is a research method wherein ethnographers undertake service with the intercultural community as a central component of their learning. The model is explored via a case study, demonstrating the experiences of students at a Catholic university and uses their reflections to describe a new vision of ethnography as a “leap of faith.”
Book Reviews
Catholic Higher Education: A Culture in Crisis
By Melanie Morey & John J. Piderit, S.J.
Reviewed by Robert Adrien Martel
Studying Educational and Social Policy: Theoretical Concepts and Research Methods
By Ronald H. Heck
Reviewed by Betsy Ferrer
All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half Century of Brown v. Board of Education
By Charles J. Ogletree, Jr.
Reviewed by Carrie Jane Williamson
The Science Education of American Girls: A Historical Perspective
By Kim Tolley
Reviewed by William Watson