CSI in the News October 2011 - CSI Today

formal training. Another regression model shows that “not only do personal beliefs influenceinstruction, they also have a stronger impact than any other factor [the authors] have examined. At theend of the day, beliefs are the most powerful predictor for teachers on both sides of the divide (pp.186,189). [*589]Does that mean that teachers are simply and only free agents? Not exactly. In Chapter 8, Berkman andPlutzer conclude their empirical inquiry with a look at the relationship between teachers and their localcommunities. Using denominational membership data and data on the percentage of the localpopulation holding advanced degrees, they construct a scale of local culture ranging from“traditionalism” to “cosmopolitanism.” They show that teachers’ personal beliefs about evolution arestrongly related to school district characteristics. What is at work here is a process akin to “assortivemating” in decisions about whom to marry. Here, what is going on is “assortive hiring and retention.”Teachers tend to look for work within fifteen miles of where they grew up, and districts tend to hireteachers who will “harmonize and fit in with the prevailing local culture” (pp.199‐200). Teachers,districts, and local residents share values. Overt community pressure is very rare, because often there isno home/school conflict (pp.202‐207). Moreover, even when community opinion is diverse, teachersdevelop ways of avoiding conflict. For example, they might never say the word “evolution,” preferringinstead to say “change over time.”Berkman and Plutzer began with the question “who decides?” An exhaustive review of public opinion onteaching evolution seemed to reveal that official policy was wildly out of line with public opinion. Lawand science seemed to have won the day. However, closer inspection state‐by‐state opinion, statepolicies, and classroom practices revealed a fair amount of “bottom‐up, democratic control,” producedthrough “multiple mechanisms” (p.213). Teachers’ views reflect the culture of the communities theyserve, and those communities are increasingly divided by religion and education. About 20% of allteachers embrace the scientific consensus and another 20% or so consistently seek to undermine it.That leaves an ambivalent 60% in the middle, groping their way cautiously through the minefield. Thiscontroversy, with its “thousands of potential arenas of conflict,” is “distinctly American.” The nature androle of religion and political decentralization in education ensure that the conflict will continue.One neglected theme in this work is the possible role of race and its relationship to religion and politics(cf: Wadsworth, 2008). The authors note that traditional Protestant black churches are every bit assupportive of creationism as their white counterparts (pp.71‐72), but, interestingly, they are notpolitically mobilized on the evolution issue. The authors surmise that evolution would not be a highpriority for traditional black churches, but they leave it at that. They also note that their national sampleunderrepresents teachers teaching in schools with substantial minority student populations (pp.118‐19).Race was not included as a variable in the many regression analyses in this book (or maybe it was butdidn’t yield any interesting result, so the results were not reported). In any event, more sustainedattention to race might have filled out the picture. To be provocative about this point, I’m wonderingwhether the strongest proponents of creationism are not also those most ardently devoted to thesurvival of white supremacy. If so, would that matter? Are evolution and a [*590] sense of white racialvictimization part of the same larger complex of underlying beliefs?This minor quibble aside, this book has many great virtues. Berkman and Plutzer strike exactly the rightbalance between, on the one hand, revealing their thought processes, describing the operationalizationof their variable, explaining their regression models, and the like, and, on the other hand, sustaining alively, engaging narrative discussion that keeps the reader engaged and thinking and learning along withthem. I would think that anyone teaching a methods course, whether at the undergraduate or graduatePage 38 of 154