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Enhancing Professional Socialization Through the Metaphor of Traditionconflicting in logic. Indeed, most academic programs seek a diverse faculty,with the specific intent of providing a broad range of theoretical perspectives totheir students. As a result, students are encouraged to adopt competing idealsand approaches from these three traditions, and the various hybrids that seekto integrate or conciliate them.Alternatively, formal academic programs may be conscientiously designed topromote a specific tradition of public administration. In PA Times, themonthly newspaper of the American Society for Public Administration,Bourgon (2004) presents a case for unifying public service around a central,underlying philosophy about the role of the state in society. She describes thetraditional approach to public administration, as well as the paradigmemerging under the New Public Management, citing many of the sameshortcomings and negative consequences noted by the normative camps withinthe Constitutional and Discretionary traditions described here. In essence,certain theories are privileged by default of prevalence, if nothing else. Ratherthan unifying public service around the authority of the state or themarketization of the state, she suggests that public service unite around “acommon mission, a common sense of purpose, and common values” (Bourgon,2004, p.6). She reflects back on a time when mandatory training ensured thatpublic administrators shared a common understanding of the values of publicservice. These orientations supported collective values, cooperation, politicalconsensus, democratic outcomes, individual rights, fairness, and the rule of law.She suggests that the field has experienced a great loss because this type oftraining has gone by the wayside.This claim would appear to be evident in empirical studies. In general, issuessuch as legitimacy and role conceptualization are covered in ethics andleadership courses. However, Paul Light’s (1999) content analysis of the corecurriculum of 13 of the top 20 public administration and public policyprograms in the United States found that, on average, only 0.4 courses in ethics,and 0.2 courses in leadership, were required. This lack of coverage wassupported by graduates reporting less satisfaction with these elements of theirprograms than they did with policy analysis, and budgeting and finance. Thevast majority of graduates felt that maintaining ethical standards was the topskill that they considered very important for success. No other skills (includinginfluencing policymakers, policy analysis, and budgeting and public finance)ranked consistently in the 80th percentile range. Leadership followed ethics,ranking in the 70th percentile range. Thus, “as a general rule, these graduateswould have closed the gaps identified above on their own, through on-the-jobtraining, personal experience, and their own reading throughout career [sic]”(Light, 1999, p.118).304 Journal of Public Affairs Education
Enhancing Professional Socialization Through the Metaphor of TraditionThese perspectives on public administration pedagogy suggest that aparticular substantive and normative content is desired from professionalsocialization, but is not consistently present in graduate programs, or at least notcalled out through specific courses in ethics and leadership. Alternatively,perhaps these ideas are integrated into the theories taught throughout manycourses during graduate study, as suggested by the elements described in Table1. Indeed, NASPAA accreditation standards call for a program of study thatgives graduates “values, knowledge, and skills to act ethically and effectively”(NASPAA, 2008), and the new draft standards promote “public values as theheart of the discipline” (NASPAA, 2009, p.4), demanding that programs“demonstrably emphasize public values” (NASPAA, 2009, p.1). Specific valuesmentioned include civic virtue, participatory processes, social equity,transparency, accountability, responsiveness, fiscal and environmentalsustainability, efficiency, and effectiveness (NASPAA, 2009, p.7).Whether these ideas are disseminated via specific courses, or integratedthroughout the program of study, the normative models informing professionalsocialization are desired, and are believed to make a difference in the attitudesand actions of the role-takers. Unfortunately, there is a lack of agreement onwhich set of values to inculcate. The values listed by NASPAA are linked tocompeting legitimacy logics. If we anticipate a public administrator acting inaccordance with these role conceptualizations when they become part of one’sidentity, it will benefit faculty to be cognizant and conscientious about whichmodels we are prescribing.Interestingly, we seem to deny that this type of normative socialization isoccurring. “To be more precise, we frown not on socialization, but on consciousand responsible control of it” (Bennis, 1967, p.15). For example, MPAprograms in China are roundly criticized for intentionally imparting a uniformapproach to legitimacy, according to Marxist and socialist theory: “The Chinesegovernment is clearly unwilling to give up political indoctrination in the MPAprogram” (Tong & Straussman, 2003, p.112). This is done in order to ensureprofessional characteristics that are appropriate for China’s political, historical,and cultural attributes.Comparatively, it is reasonable to assert that MPA students in the UnitedStates are similarly indoctrinated with representative democratic capitalism as apart of their programs of study. Not considering the very few who mighttranscend representative democracy altogether, most individual scholars tend toprofess liberalism in one of its classical, modern, conservative, or radicalmanifestations. As Bennis (1967) notes of all organizations, MPA programs are“magnificent, if undeliberate, vehicles of socialization. They teach values,inculcate ethics, create norms, dictate right and wrong, influence attitudesnecessary for success and all the rest” (p.15). But, because of our individualisticmistrust of intentional indoctrination and our pluralist tendencies, socializationJournal of Public Affairs Education 305
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