{"id":14009,"date":"2014-07-16T09:13:04","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T13:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=14009"},"modified":"2014-07-16T09:13:04","modified_gmt":"2014-07-16T13:13:04","slug":"pluralism-project-case-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=14009","title":{"rendered":"needed: the case method for civics"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Garvin has written<\/a>, “All professional schools <\/span>face the same difficult challenge: how to prepare students for the world of practice. Time in the classroom must somehow translate directly into real-world activity: how to diagnose, decide, and act. A surprisingly wide range of professional schools\u00a0…\u00a0have concluded that the best way to teach these skills is by the case method.”<\/span><\/p>\n

I propose that we need cases for citizens. Of course, there are many case studies<\/em> available. Participedia<\/a>\u00a0provides\u00a0hundreds of examples of citizens’ engagement with government. Many books (including my own) tell stories of successful or failed civic efforts.<\/p>\n

But the case method<\/em> is a little different. A “case” in this context means a deliberately incomplete story. It ends at a point of decision for a character or small group. The decision is contrived or chosen to be difficult in the specific sense that it is unresolvable by any formula or algorithm. Such\u00a0difficulty\u00a0may arise\u00a0because the situation\u00a0involves conflicting and incommensurable values or because the facts and likely outcomes are uncertain–or both. These two sources of indeterminacy are extremely common. Yet we must act. Garvin writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe case system, \u201d business school alumnus Powell Niland, now of Washington University, has observed, \u201cputs the student in the\u00a0<\/span>habit<\/em>\u00a0of making decisions.\u201d Day after day, classes revolve around protagonists who face critical choices. Delay is seldom an option. Both faculty and students cite the \u201cbias for action\u201d that results\u2014what Fouraker professor of business administration Thomas Piper calls \u201ccourage to act under uncertainty.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the Summer Institute of Civic Studies last week, we discussed a case study<\/a> from Harvard’s Pluralism Project. It involves an adult leader (who, coincidentally, I happen to know) who helped youth organize an interfaith event in a synagogue and who must decide, at very short notice,\u00a0what to do about a sign that says, “We support Israel.” This is a case about religious pluralism,\u00a0but we could also consider it a case of civic action. We need more cases like it.<\/p>\n

By the way, if you follow the argument of Bent Flyvberg<\/a>\u00a0(whom we also read in the Institute), then you will conclude that all<\/em> knowledge of the social world is particularistic and case-specific. The only valid knowledge comes from cases. I think that\u00a0is too strong. General knowledge is also helpful. If there are no laws or algorithms that tell us what we should do, there are at least useful rules-of-thumb and principles, both explanatory and normative. Yet\u00a0cases play an essential role, especially if the purpose is to educate citizens\u00a0to act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Garvin has written, “All professional schools face the same difficult challenge: how to prepare students for the world of practice. Time in the classroom must somehow translate directly into real-world activity: how to diagnose, decide, and act. A surprisingly wide range of professional schools\u00a0…\u00a0have concluded that the best way to teach these skills is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,26,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocating-civic-education","category-civic-theory","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14009"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14059,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14009\/revisions\/14059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}