The Students for a Democratic Society

Examples of The Students for a Democratic Society in the following topics:

• Student Rebellions and the New Left

  • The New Left was a loosely organized, mostly white student movement that protested the Vietnam War and advocated for democracy, civil rights, and various types of university reforms.
  • The New Left did not seek to recruit industrial workers but rather concentrated on a social activist approach to organizing, convinced they could be the source for a better kind of social revolution.
  • The organization that came to symbolize the core of the New Left was the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).
  • A mass rally and a student strike then closed the university for several days.
  • Outline the course of New Left politics, especially the Students for Democratic Society

• The Social Reproduction of Inequality

  • In democratic societies, education is meant to be a path to opportunity, and public education is meant to ensure society continues to strive for equality.
  • Thus, students must learn not only basic skills such as reading, writing, and math, but also skills useful in a capitalist economy and behaviors appropriate to the work environment, especially docility and obedience to a manager or boss—the teacher.
  • For example, working class students may begin to understand that they are in a double-bind: either they must strive to succeed, and in doing so abandon their own culture in order to absorb the school's middle class values, or they will fail.
  • On the other hand, for middle and especially upper-class children, maintaining their superior position in society requires little effort.
  • In this way, the continuation of privilege and wealth for the elite is made possible.

• Democratic Socialism

  • On the other end, democratic socialism may refer to a system that uses democratic principles to organize workers in a firm or community (for example, in worker cooperatives).
  • Rather than focus on central planning, democratic socialism advocates the immediate creation of decentralized economic democracy from the grassroots level—undertaken by and for the working class itself.
  • Democratic socialism became a prominent movement at the end of the 19th century.
  • Debs made five bids for president: once in 1900 as candidate of the Social Democratic Party and then four more times on the ticket of the Socialist Party of America.
  • In Britain, the democratic socialist tradition was represented historically by William Morris's Socialist League and, in the 1880s, by the Fabian Society.

• Public Sphere and Civil Society

  • Sometimes the term is used in the more general sense of "the elements such as freedom of speech, an independent judiciary, etc, that make up a democratic society. "
  • Others, however, have questioned how democratic civil society actually is.
  • Partha Chatterjee has argued that, in most of the world, "civil society is demographically limited. " For Jai Sen, civil society is a neo-colonial project driven by global elites in their own interests.
  • The public sphere mediates between the private sphere and the Sphere of Public Authority, "The private sphere comprised civil society in the narrower sense, that is to say, the realm of commodity exchange and of social labor. " Whereas the Sphere of Public Authority dealt with the state, or realm of the police and the ruling class, the public sphere crossed over both these realms and "through the vehicle of public opinion it put the state in touch with the needs of society. " "This area is conceptually distinct from the state: it [is] a site for the production and circulation of discourses that can in principle be critical of the state. " The public sphere "is also distinct from the official economy; it is not an arena of market relations but rather one of discursive relations, a theater for debating and deliberating rather than for buying and selling. " These distinctions between "state apparatuses, economic markets, and democratic associations...are essential to democratic theory. " The people themselves came to see the public sphere as a regulatory institution against the authority of the state.
  • Formulate an argument which advocates for a strong civil society based on the definitions of civil society in this text

• The Election of 1968

  • The election of 1968 capped a year of national turmoil.
  • This turmoil provided the backdrop for a contentious campaign.
  • The second faction, which rallied behind Senator Eugene McCarthy, was composed of college students, intellectuals, and upper-middle-class whites who actively opposed the war.
  • Humphrey, meanwhile, promised to continue and expand the Great Society welfare programs started by President Johnson and to continue the Johnson Administration's "War on Poverty".
  • Nixon won the popular vote with a plurality of 512,000 votes, or a victory margin of about one percentage point.

• Athenian Society

  • Classical Athenian society was structured as a democratic patriarchy that strived towards egalitarian ideals.
  • For example, the Athenian democracy provided the following to its population:
  • The Athenian elite lived modestly and without great luxuries compared to the elites of other ancient societies.
  • Subjects included reading, writing, mathematics, and music, as well as physical education classes that were intended to prepare students for future military service.
  • Athenian society was a patriarchy; men held all rights and advantages, such as access to education and power.

• Tracking Systems

  • Tracking is one of the predominant organizing practices of American public schools, and has been an accepted feature in the country's schools for nearly a century.
  • Defined tracks often mirror class divisions in society.
  • Students are usually not offered the opportunity to take classes deemed more appropriate for another track, even if the student has a demonstrated interest and ability in the subject.
  • Research suggests that tracking produces substantial gains for gifted students in tracks specially designed for the gifted and talented, meeting the need for highly gifted students to be with their intellectual peers in order to be appropriately challenged.
  • Lessons taught in low-track classes often lack the engagement and comprehensiveness of the high-track lessons, putting low-track students at a disadvantage for college because they do not gain the knowledge and skills of the upper-track students.

• The Growth of Bureaucracy

  • Weber listed several preconditions for the emergence of the bureaucracy: The growth in space and population being administered, the growth in complexity of the administrative tasks being carried out and the existence of a monetary economy – these resulted in a need for a more efficient administrative system.
  • As Weber understood, particularly during the industrial revolution of the late 19th century, society was being driven by the passage of rational ideas into culture that in turn transformed society into an increasingly bureaucratic entity.
  • Society, for Weber, would become almost synonymous with bureaucracy.
  • Black Student Welders Work in a Machine Shop Course Taught at The Chicago Opportunities Industrialization Center
  • Black Student Welders Work in a machine shop course taught at the Chicago opportunities industrialization center at a former grade school in the heart of the Cabrini-Green Housing Project on Chicago's near north side.

• The Disadvantages of Mixed Economies

  • Many pubs in Britain are suffering due to drinking and smoking regulations imposed by the government for the good of society.
  • Social democratic programs intended to ameliorate capitalism, such as unemployment benefits or taxation on profits and the wealthy, create contradictions of their own through limiting the efficiency of the capitalist system by reducing incentives for capitalists to invest in production.
  • Market socialists criticize social democracy for maintaining a property-owning capitalist class, which has an active interest in reversing social democratic policies and a disproportionate amount of power over society to influence governmental policy as a class.
  • The Democratic party in the United States is seen by some critics of contemporary social democracy (and mixed economies) as a watered-down, pro-capitalist movement.
  • Examine the criticisms of social democracy as a vessel to understanding the disadvantages of mixed economies.

• Compassionate Conservatism

  • Bush, conservative techniques are thought to improve the welfare of society.
  • Students are given the option to transfer to a better school within the school district, if any exists.
  • Missing AYP for a third year forces the school to offer free tutoring and other supplemental education services to struggling students.
  • If a school misses its AYP target for a fourth consecutive year, the school is labelled as requiring "corrective action," which might involve wholesale replacement of staff, introduction of a new curriculum, or extending the amount of time students spend in class.
  • Similarly, the act requires states to set "one high, challenging standard" for its students.