Eat More Greens, Cut Back on Meat for Your Health and the Planet

Dear Dads: Save Your Sons
In the short story of “Dear Dads” by Christopher Bacorn,
Christopher explains about a young man who is rebellious
towards his mom and gives examples on how the absence of a
male figure may affect young boys.
A mother around her mid-30’s, with a fifteen-year-old boy, sits
on a couch crying, heart-broken about her son’s and how she
notices he is spiraling down a wrong path. The young boy is
getting in trouble with the authorities, failing school, drinking
and joined a gang. The mother felt hopeless and she stayed up
late worrying about her son and where he may be late at night or
if he even will come home. Sadly, you could tell the mother was
physically and emotionally being affect knowing she is losing
control of her son.
Four years from when Christopher had spoken with the mother
and hearing her story, his father had left him and that was when
he started to act out. The boy was becoming unmanageable and
eventually ended up getting in a fight with another person,
physically hurting them to where charges were filed and now is
forced for counseling. The young teen, we soon learned had
absolutely no male or father figure in his life, which started
Christopher’s statement on father figures and how their
presence can make a great change in many boys’ lives.
He starts to talk about how the young children are grown up
around and to be related to having to deal with many things:
Violence, gangs, weapons and drugs. Sadly, the majority of the
troubled youth are males, males who father figures are absent in
their lives. Wondering where many fathers go, he talks about
how you may find them in places that they feel they can have

fun and basically be irresponsible, only worrying about their
well-being. Fathers should be at things such as PTA meeting,
games, recitals, paying attention and help truly raise their
young boys.
I feel as if what this short story is about is honestly, almost
exactly accurate. Sadly, in America, it’s very common for the
father figure to be missing in their children’s lives, rather its
them being in jail, simply they don’t care or passed away. The
male figure missing in a child’s life is a big thing, father figures
are very important. Being a father is not only important to the
child but also to the mother of the child as well. The mother is
able to have help and as a team they provide a great system in
raising a child, which reflects on how they come up in the world
and treat others. Not only does it help the child and mother, but
it shows a child how to be there for his future family and how
he should treat a woman by supporting her and being a strong
role in both his wife and child’s life.
Sophia Pathways for College Credit – English
Composition II
SAMPLE TOUCHSTONE ANDSCORING
Nyeri Robison
Sophia Pathways
English Composition II
December 13, 2019
Eat More Greens!: Why Everyone Should Adopt More of a

Plant-based Diet
For many people around the globe, meat is the highlight of the
dinner plate. From gyros
to hamburgers, chicken shawarma to veal pie, people love their
meat-based diets, and for good
reasons, too. It tastes good, it is versatile in many dishes, and it
provides complete amino acids,
the building blocks of protein. However, there are also many
people who choose to omit meat
from their diet completely and choose a plant-based diet
instead. Vegetarians, for example, do
not eat meat, and vegans do not eat any animal products. People
have a variety of reasons for
avoiding meat: religious, moral, or health-related. However,
there are other reasons in recent
decades that have led more people to see the value of a meat-
free, plant-based diet. As the effects
of climate change and the threats of overpopulation loom, more
and more people are considering
vegetarianism as a simple, positive way to help reduce their
carbon footprints and to encourage
stores, restaurants, and food suppliers to do the same. Although
meat has been a longstanding

and important part of many balanced diets, cultures, and food
industries around the world, I want
Comment [1]: Great summary of the pro-meat
argument. It gives many reasons why people like it and
find it an important part of their daily lives.
Comment [2]: This is another great summary of the
reasons why people do not eat meat. It gives a good
list of different reasons why a person wouldn’t want
meat as part of their diet.
Composition II
to argue that everyone practices an informed and balanced diet
of less meat and more greens for
the good not only of their health but for the well-being of the
entire planet.
Everyone on both sides seem to agree that meat should not
lightly be cut out of the
human diet or the economy. For example, everyone knows
protein is an important part of human
health. Meat has historically played an important role both as a
major source of complete
proteins (Bailey, 2018, para. 1). There are many amino acids
that the body cannot produce on its

own, and meat provides all of them in readily available forms in
a way that many other food
groups cannot, especially since the vegetarian diet requires a
fair amount of knowledge and
planning to ensure one gets all nutritional needs met (para. 2).
Additionally, meat is the reason
underlying many jobs, from farmers and ranchers to meat
packers, butchers, and chefs (Abbot,
2018, para. 5). What would happen to those jobs if people
suddenly stopped eating meat?
Finally, one does not need to do careful research to know that
meat can be delicious, and almost
everyone around the world involves meat in some form as part
of cultural or ethnic traditions.
Proponents of meat-based diets believe that animal proteins
should continue to play a
crucial role in the health of our bodies and our economy. Roger
Abbot (2018), for example, has
noted that aside from protein, meat is an important source of
iron and many B-vitamins,
particularly B12 which is crucial for energy production (para.
7). He also argues that the meat
and poultry industries are pillars of U.S. agriculture, producing
together nearly 100 billion

pounds of product and generating hundreds of thousands of jobs
in 2017 (para. 5). Obviously,
these are important points, not to mention there are also many
people who raise livestock for
consumption in sustainable ways, and many people also hunt for
their food, which is also a
valuable way of culling otherwise-uncontrollable animal
populations (para. 6). In other words,
many economies and food chains are very much dependent on
people who seek out meat.
Comment [3]: Excellent Thesis! You do a great job of
showing the merit of both sides, and presenting an
argument that advocates for a compromise in each.
Comment [4]: Great use of the source to help
strengthen your essay.
Comment [5]: This is a good point!
Composition II
Nevertheless, advocates for plant-based diets argue that cutting
out the majority of meat
one of the many steps we need to ensure good health for our

bodies and the earth. First, it is
possible to get all of the required nutrients and sufficient
protein without meat. As Jane Bailey
(2018) has pointed out, “You cannot just eat pizza and chips
and call it vegetarian…You need to
educate yourself and do it right” (para. 2). According to Bailey,
“A diverse, well-balanced diet of
beans, legumes, grains, fruits, and vegetables is more than
enough to provide all of a typical
human’s dietary needs, and supplements exist to fill in any
leftover gaps” (para. 2). Additionally,
a well-informed plant-based diet contains less saturated fat,
cholesterol, and fewer carcinogens,
as well as more fiber and antioxidants (para. 3). As for taste,
there are now more delicious meat
substitutes than ever, including the popular Impossible Burger
and Beyond Meat (para. 4).
Individual health and taste aside, however, are the pressing
problems of climate change. Bailey
catalogs the toll that meat production takes on our planet,
naming everything from deforestation
of the Amazon and other regions (para. 9) to the massive
amounts of water and energy it takes to
raise, transport, and prepare livestock for consumption (para.

10). Alternatively, most edible
plant products do not require the fraction of a fraction as much
land, water, or energy per pound,
in addition to actively absorbing carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere (para. 11). Finally, there is
tons of economic, job-creating potential in green farming and
green initiatives, including new
research looking into growing entirely new crops underwater
(para. 13). We can begin to make
vegetables and veggie proteins more accessible and find new
ways to fit them into our diets, our
cultures, and our lives.
There are so many good individual, national, and global reasons
for everyone to begin
making the shift to a more plant-based diet, without having to
completely omit meat. Although it
has been a longstanding part of our life and many people would
be sad to see less of it, it is
Comment [6]: This is something that many people don’t
know about the meat industry. I’m glad you called
attention to it!
Composition II

nothing compared to the losses and damages we will continue to
witness as a part of climate
change. I admit that not all animal products need to disappear
for this to happen. Also, hunting
certain animals such as deer probably has to continue unless we
are willing to increase the
number of their natural predators. However, even small changes
can have a big impact. For the
sake of our planet, the world’s population, and our health, I
encourage everyone to eat meat a
little less, and eat green a little more!
References
Abbot, Roger (2018). “Why Meat Matters.” The Economist.
June 17, 2018. Retrieved 29 October
2019 from
http://www.theeconomist.com/articles/2018/june/195782.html.
Bailey, Jane (2018). “Why the World Needs a Meatless Diet.”
The Atlantic. June 11, 2018.
Retrieved 29 October 2019 from
http://www.theatlantic.com/articles/economy/
2019/846362.html.

Comment [7]: Wonderful concluding sentence. I like
that you’re taking both sides of the argument into
account, satisfying both sides.
Composition II
Reflection Questions:
1. How does the Rogerian model of argument help you better
understand the topic
that’s being discussed? Why is it a good practice to
acknowledge both sides of the
argument?
The Rogerian model helps me put both sides of an argument
into perspective. If I can put
myself in the shoes of anyone who is for and against a topic, I
can better form my
argument to address their views and come up with a solution
that can satisfy either side.
It helps me to be more objective instead of jumping to one
conclusion right away.
2. Will you use the Rogerian approach in your own
argumentative essay? Why or why

not?
I believe I’ll use the practice of putting each side into
perspective, but I think in order to
be truly argumentative, I will want to take one side of the issue.
I think it can be difficult
to stay in middle-ground for certain arguments, and I have a bit
more passion for that
argument when it comes to my stance.
Composition II
Rogerian Argument Essay Rubric and Feedback
Rubric
Category
Feedback Score
(acceptable, needs
improvement etc.)
Summary of
Positions
You have included a complete summary of
each argument. Don’t forget to introduce the

authors!
8/10
Claim Your claim is a great one. Instead of cutting
out meat completely, and in order to help
satisfy the movement against meat, you
propose a reduction in the amount of daily
meat consumption instead. You’ve used
many of the supports from both sides to
enhance your argument. Well done!
19/20
Organization You have a well-organized essay here.
Everything flows together nicely.
5/5
Style There are few, if any, major sentence-level
errors.
5/5
Conventions
You adhere to the conventions of standard
written English throughout your paper.
5/5

Reflection You have complete and well thought out
responses to the questions provided.
5/5
Composition II
Overall Score and Feedback: 47/50
I think you’ve done a great job in creating a Rogerian response
to this argument.
You’ve got great supporting claims from each of the sources to
help strengthen your
argument, and you have proposed a response that could help
create a workable
solution to the issues. Excellent work!
© 2015 Ohio Valley Philosophy of Education Society
DRESSING DIVERSITY:
POLITICS OF DIFFERENCE AND THE CASE OF SCHOOL
UNIFORMS
Samantha Deane

Loyola University Chicago
In The New York Times parenting blog, Motherlode, Debra
Monroe
writes about “the dynamic that makes public school
democratic—a place to
confront the humanity of others,” because she is concerned with
what
schooling teaches children about diversity and difference.1 This
paper begins
with a similar assumption and concern; I too think schools
ought to be places
where children learn to confront the humanity and difference of
others, and I
am concerned with how children are taught to do so. Through an
analysis of
school uniform policies and theories of social justice, I argue
not that children
consciously experience school uniforms as uniforming, but that
school
uniforms and their foregoing policies assume that confronting
strangers—an
imperative of living in a democratic polity—is something that
requires seeing
sameness instead of recognizing difference. Imbuing schooling
with a directive
that says schools ought to be places where children learn to
confront the
humanity of others requires that we ask questions about how
educational
policies teach children to deal with human difference. Broadly
speaking,
uniform policies undergird the assumption that a child’s

capacity to confront
difference is unimportant.2
To consider the ways in which school uniform policies unjustly
teach
children to disregard difference so that they can reasonably
participate in public
and school life, this paper engages in a rich conversation about
social justice.
Fundamentally, social justice is about recognizing grave
injustices between
individual persons and groups of people living in, or being
prevented from
living in, the world. The works of John Rawls, Iris Marion
Young, and Nancy
Fraser represent three common theoretical constructs for dealing
with social
justice. Rawls comes from a social contract position and
constructs a floating
theory of justice based on a Kantian self that ultimately
addresses injustices by
way of redistribution.3 Young aligns herself with critical
theory, founds her
critique in the messiness of the “real world,” and tackles
injustice by
1 Debra Monroe, “When Elite Parents Dominate Volunteers,
Children Lose.”
Motherlode (blog), New York Times (January 19, 2014),
http://nyti.ms/19EIwRF.
2 I am purposefully not differentiating between public and
private schooling, because all
schooling situated in a democratic context ought to teach
children to confront the
humanity of others. Moreover, children are a part of the larger

“public” in a Deweyan
sense.
3 John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, ed. Erin
Kelly (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2001).
Deane – Dressing Diversity
112
advocating for a politics of difference.4 All the while, Fraser
works out a
bivalent conception of social justice that bridges the divide
between the spheres
of distribution and recognition.5 Rawls’s Justice as Fairness: A
Restatement is
the theoretical backdrop against which this paper employs
Young’s Justice and
the Politics of Difference and Fraser’s “Social Justice in the
Age of Identity
Politics: Redistribution, Recognition, and Participation” to
speak to the ways in
which diversity can and should be “undressed,” and therefore,
“addressed” by
children in school.
To “address” diversity, the first section of this paper will focus
on the
language of school uniform policies. Policy makers tell us that
school uniform
policies are meant to: minimize disruptive behavior, remove
socioeconomic
tension, and maintain high academic standards.6 There is

nothing unjust about
wanting to reduce socioeconomic difference, nor valuing high
academic
standards. What is unjust is that these policies do not remove
socioeconomic
difference, nor cure disruptive behavior. School uniform
policies dress
difference; they do not address it. Accordingly, in an attempt to
“undress”
difference, and, perhaps, “redress” the injustice of school
uniform policies, the
second section of this paper argues that schools ought to be
places where
children are confronted with the humanity of others. The
argument is that
removing uniforms should not be a mere undressing that leaves
children to deal
with difference and humiliation on their own, but that we must
redress the
injustice by philosophically resituating schooling. Finally, the
concluding
section will sketch out what it might mean to philosophically
resituate schools
and to think of school life as a reflection of city life where, “the
public is
heterogeneous, plural, and playful, a place where people witness
and appreciate
the diverse cultural expressions that they do not share and do
not fully
understand.”7 Schools in this vision are not apolitical
sanctuaries where
children develop into perfect rational subjects; rather, schools
are messy,
vibrant, lively, worlds where children both constitute and come
to know the
diverse world and public(s) that surround them.

Dressing Diversity: The School Uniform Policy
A policy bulletin from Los Angeles states: “The Los Angeles
Unified
School District believes that appropriate student dress
contributes to a
4 Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1990).
5 Nancy Fraser, “Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics:
Redistribution,
Recognition, and Participation.” Tanner Lecture Series,
Stanford University (April 30–
May 2, 1996), http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-
z/f/Fraser98.pdf.
6 David L. Brunsma, “School Uniforms in Public Schools,”
National Association of
Elementary School Principals (January/February 2006), 50.
7 Young, Politics of Difference, 241.
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES IN EDUCATION – 2015/Volume
46
113
productive learning environment.”8 While a policy from Pitt
County states:
“The implementation of school uniforms will help minimize
disruptive
behavior, promote respect for oneself and others, build

school/community
spirit, and, more significantly, help to maintain high academic
standards.”9
Most school uniform policies echo these sentiments. They
appear to originate
from a genuine desire for students to succeed academically,
and/or a need to
improve behavior and safety. Yet, the history of asking students
to appear one
way or another is a story of mingled concerns about academic
achievement,
juvenile delinquency, gender appropriateness, race relations,
and gang
affiliation.10 Ines Dussel historically situates these concerns
within a broad
trend toward institutional organization and control of people
who pivot around
the “axis of difference.”11 According to Dussel, “such policies
were tied to the
disciplining of ‘unruly’, ‘savage’, ‘untamed’ bodies, that is, the
bodies of those
who were not able to perform self‐regulation or
self‐government: women,
Black, Indian, poor classes, immigrants, toddlers or infants.”12
In Young’s
language, the victims of cultural imperialism are frozen “into a
being marked as
other,” while the dominant group occupies a universal
“unmarked” position.13
The impetus to uniform is at once entangled in a project to mark
or dress
difference and to extend the “universalized” position to the
“other.”14 The
policy trend toward institutional control vis-à-vis school
uniform policies is
enmeshed in the desire for definition and regulation of student’s

personal
bodies and is a means to regulate and define children’s
relationships with one
another.
School uniform policies are not merely concerned with what one
wears, but are a part of how we organize schools and the
students therein.
These policies are an attempt to make schools safer and better,
to regulate what
happens, and who affiliates with whom. A District of Columbia
uniform policy
hints at these underlying tensions by taking measures to define
what “uniform”
means within the policy: “The term ‘uniform,’ for the purposes
of a mandatory
uniform policy, is defined as clothing of the same style and/or
color and
8 Jim Morris, “Student Dress Codes/Uniforms,” Los Angeles
Unified School District
Policy Bulletin, BUL-2549.1 (December 2009), 1.
9 Ibid.
10 Wendell Anderson, “School Dress Codes and Uniform
Policies,” Policy Report
(ERIC Clearinghouse on Education Management), no. 4 (2002),
4. Anderson briefly
captures this history in the synopsis of his policy report.
11 Ines Dussel, “When Appearances Are Not Deceptive: A
Comparative History of
School Uniforms in Argentina and the United States
(Nineteenth–Twentieth
Centuries),” Paedagogica Historica 41, no. 1–2 (2005): 191.
12 Ibid.

14 To this point, Dussel, notes that elite, private, “preppy”
school dress was extended
down, as it were, to public mass schooling and has become the
school uniform we are
familiar with today, e.g. khaki pants and Oxford shirts.
114
standard look, as agreed upon by the school community.”15
Nonetheless, a
definition of “uniform” does little to draw attention away from
the fact that the
policy is asking all children to appear the same. The concluding
advice from a
US Department of Education policy report for drafting a
uniform policy reads:
“when they are justified by a school’s circumstances, wisely
conceived in
collaboration with the community, and coupled with appropriate
interventions,
dress codes and school uniforms may positively influence
school climate,
student behavior, and academic success. However, it is critical
to keep such
polices in proper perspective and avoid overestimating or
exaggerating their
potential benefits.”16 This hesitant endorsement of school
uniform policies
manages to advise caution about drawing specific cause-and-
effect
relationships between school uniforms and academic gains, and

in the same
instance, it glosses over the historical and philosophical
significance of asking
students to uniformly dress their difference. Standardizing how
students appear
may give the school an air of control over the schooling
environment, but in
doing so, these policies tell students that when and where
appearances differ,
danger lurks.
Addressing Diversity: Social Justice
and the School Uniform Policy
Claims for social justice, more often than not, stem from one of
two
directions; summed up by references to distribution or
recognition, social
injustices are either rectified by redistributing wealth/social
goods, or by
recognizing and valuing difference. Redistributive claims
generally follow the
logic of John Rawls’ theory of justice and utilize some version
of an “original
position.” The policy logic, or reasoning behind, school uniform
policies
broadly appeals to logic derived from a distributional ethic,
which finds its
ideal articulation of the student in the rational, reasoning, and
regulated self.
The problem with this ideal articulation and the distributional
ethic is best
illustrated by evaluating the ways in which Rawls’ theory of
social justice
informs the rationale of school uniform policies.

Rawls’s theory of justice and the school uniform policy share a
similar
objective: thinly constructed reasoning parties. In Justice as
Fairness Rawls
develops the “original position” whereby parties can agree to
the terms of
society and justice without conceding “differences in life
prospects.”17 That is
to say, difference or diversity is an essential consideration in
Rawls’ project. In
an effort to deal with the mandates of diversity, the fact of
pluralism, Rawls
adopts and builds upon the Kantian deontological self to
describe the sort of
people contracting in the original position. Accordingly, the
original position
15 “District of Columbia Public Schools: Notice of Final Rule
Making,” (District of
Columbia Register, vol. 56, no. 33, Chapter B24, Section
B2408, August 2009), 3.
16 Anderson, “School Dress Codes,” 4, my emphasis.
17 Rawls, Justice as Fairness, 6.3–6.4, 12.2.
46
115
imbues these intrinsically worthy subjects with neutrality and
structural
impartiality, both of which ensure that they are representative

of any person
from society. Placed behind the “veil of ignorance,” the parties
are situated
symmetrically and on this undifferentiated plane they do not
claim a social
class, racial or sexual orientation, a comprehensive conception
of the good, or
any other distinguishing factor.18 Rawls states, “the parties are
artificial
persons, merely inhabitants of our device of representation: they
are characters
who have a part in the play of our thought experiment.” 19 In
consequence the
representatives in the original position are, admittedly, non-real
characters with
limited knowledge, or “complicated amnesia.”20 Moreover, it is
the
“complicated amnesia,” or the “veil of ignorance” that gives the
parties the
ability to be impartial and, more importantly, rational.
It is true that Rawls works to construct a thin consensus in the
public
about society’s basic structures because he wants to leave open
the ability to
construct individually defined thick lives; however, the parties
of the original
position are abstracted to such an extent that a monological
position ensues.
Michael Sandel summarizes the problem aptly: “The notion that
not persons
but only a single subject is to be found behind the veil of
ignorance would
explain why no bargaining or discussion can take place
there.”21 The “veil of
ignorance” removes the parties’ “thickness” so that they can

reason together.
The problem is that a truly pluralistic or diverse society will not
be the product
when a single subject conceives the definitions of justice.
What’s more, the
agreement of like-minded parties does not necessitate actual
participation—it
merely requires appearance. Uniform policies are theoretically
similar. They
function as a “veil of ignorance” for children who are too poor,
too brown, or
too different from one another to be members of the same
school. Uniform
policies imply that children in uniform are freed from any
context that might
impose a restraint on reason. Under a “veil of ignorance”
children are not asked
to think about why their classmate is poor, or brown; they are
required to show
up. Rawls’ theory of justice constructs thin, uniform, rational
people (students)
who can operate in the political sphere (school) as a way to
achieve some kind
of overlapping consensus (standard academic achievement). I
believe it is clear
that these thinly constituted people are both objectionable and
impractical;
nonetheless, Young helps draw out the unwelcome side affects
of favoring the
impartial subject and proposes an alternative solution.
Young approaches justice from within the messy, situated
context of
the world. Her argument for a politics of difference highlights
the fact that
theories of distributive justice have monopolized the

conversation about what
justice entails in the era of modern political philosophy, such
that “displacing
18 Ibid., 23.3, 25.3.
19 Ibid., 23.4.
20 Michael J. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 1982), 105.
21 Ibid., 132.
116
the distributive paradigm” is part of accepting her theory of
justice as
recognition of difference.22 For Young the distributive
paradigms pose a large-
scale problem in the sense that the “ideal of impartiality or
logic of identity”
infiltrates every aspect of civic life. The logic of identity is
problematic because
of the intrinsic desire for unity. As such, “The logic of identity
seeks to reduce
the plurality of particular subjects, their bodily, perspectival
experience, to a
unity, by measuring them against the unvarying standard of
universal reason.”23
The reverence deferred to universal reason is part of the project
of moral ethics,
which defines impartiality as necessary for the capacity to
reason. The Kantian

deontological ideal is to find a point of view that everyone can
agree to, or see
from, irrespective of their particular difference. School uniform
polices strive
for the same ideal. The hope is that if kids are all wearing the
same clothing, no
one will notice another’s socioeconomic status, or speak from
their particular
position. The ideal of impartiality creates a dichotomy between
the “universal
and the particular, public and private, and reason and passion”
to the extent that
the civic public, the terrain of schooling, becomes the place of
universal
reason.24 Much like the problem identified by Sandel’s reading
of Rawls’
original position, universal reason requires agreement of
abstracted parties, not
dialogue with those who are differently situated. Furthermore, if
the terrain of
schooling is a place of universal reason it is no wonder that the
“either-or
thinking” of dichotomies reigns. Children are either uniformed
or partial,
uniformed or needy, uniformed or irrational.
Young pointedly explains that the “ideal of impartiality” is flat
out
impossible, because it requires expelling the aspects of
difference that do not
fit. In fact, “no one can adopt a view that is completely
impersonal and
dispassionate.”25 Additionally, my sense of imbeddedness
defines my “social
location” to the degree that I cannot enter someone else’s
location.

Nevertheless, if it is possible to strip myself of my location,
what then is the
purpose of having a location?26 Requiring the removal of
particularity for
uniformity, whether for moral cohesion or universal reason, is
an affected wish.
People do not have to be the same to get along; rather, it is
possible for people
to be both partial and have reasonable associations with each
other. Young
argues, “If one assumes instead that moral reason is dialogic,
the product of
discussion among differently situated subjects all of whom
desire recognition
and acknowledgement from the others, then there is no need for
a universal
point of view to pull people out of egoism.”27 Thus, the ideal
of impartiality is
not a necessity, and should not be a desire since it is a fanciful
fiction. Instead,
23 Ibid., 99.
24 Ibid., 97.
25 Ibid., 103.
26 Ibid., 105.
27 Ibid.,106.
46
117

if we grant that differently situated people can and should have
a voice to
discuss what matters to them, we will see their differences shed
new light on
relevant issues and aspects of justice.
School uniform policies, like the “ideal of impartiality,” create
unjust
expectations of neutrality on behalf of students, and in
removing the space for
actual conversation, depoliticize difference. In contrast, the
recognition of
difference presumes that “blindness to difference disadvantages
groups whose
experience, culture, and socialized capacities differ from those
of privileged
groups”28 and that “assimilation always implies coming to the
game late.”29 As
reflected in school uniform policies, the ideal of impartiality, in
its blindness to
difference, disadvantages students who are asked to assimilate
by removing the
space for conversation about difference. Moreover, no child
should feel like
they are coming to the game late, especially in a learning
environment.
Recognition of difference should be an essential function of
schooling to the
extent that any language of assimilation finds no purchase. Writ
large, Young’s
solution may appear obvious at this point, but it is worth stating
explicitly: “A
democratic public should provide mechanisms for the effective
recognition and
representation of the distinct voices and perspectives of those of

its constituent
groups that are oppressed or disadvantaged.”30 The solution
writ small in, say, a
school system, should mimic the same sentiments. Requiring
student to wear
uniforms is not the problem: the problem is the reason for
requiring uniforms.
A unique answer to Young’s demand to displace the distributive
is
Nancy Fraser’s mixing of the distributive paradigm with
recognition. Fraser
starts by noting that the distributive paradigm has a certain
theoretical heft—at
some point various groups or individuals have appealed to their
common
humanity, the original position, or impartial reason out of
necessity, perceived
or actual. With the weightiness of the distributive paradigm in
mind, Fraser
erects a “bivalent axis” of social justice she calls a “two
pronged” approach.
The bivalent axis of social justice is best thought of as a
spectrum within which
a pendulum can swing from distinctly distributional problems to
those
characterized as distinctly recognition-based, but where neither
is ever the
singular answer.31 The pendulum is always in motion.
According to Fraser, “A
bivalent conception treats distribution and recognition as
distinct perspectives
on, and dimensions of, justice, while at the same time
encompassing both of
them within a broader overarching framework.” This does not
mean that either

claim, distribution or recognition, is subsumed into the other.32
Instead, Fraser
locates their shared normative core as a “parity of
participation.”33 As she
explains, “According to this norm, justice requires social
arrangements that
28 Ibid., 164.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid., 184.
31 Fraser, “Age of Identity Politics,” 22.
32 Ibid., 24.
33 Ibid., 30.
118
permit all (adult) members of society to interact with one
another as peers.”34
In other words, justice both of the distributional and recognition
varieties,
stems from the supposition that each member of society has
equal dignity and
ought to have the means to interact with one another in the
public sphere.
Fraser’s “parity of participation,” relies on an understanding of
the
imbricated nature of culture and the economy. To say that
justice spans a
continuum from distribution to recognition is also to say that
the economy and

culture are institutions that make up our shared social world.35
The conditions
for this parity of participation require a form of legal equality,
and preclude
“forms and levels of material inequality, [and] cultural patterns
that
systematically depreciate some categories of people.”36 People
within this
framework are thickly defined and contextually situated. They
have both
objective being that requires some kind of material position,
and an
intersubjective status that mandates recognition. The objective
condition is,
thus, most often rectified by redistribution, whereas the
intersubjective
condition is nullified by recognition. Fraser takes a decidedly
rooted stance in a
turn toward the pragmatic and recommends that answers to the
injustice fit the
practical situation. The pragmatic approach is the tool by which
we ought to
deploy the bivalent pendulum, which is always seeking the
normative ideal,
parity of participation. In every case the remedy of an injustice
should be
tailored to the harm, and in all cases the goal is to create,
maintain, and
reimagine a space for equal participation of each person or
group of people.
Fraser’s pragmatic answer, and its normative assumption, is not
radically divergent from Young’s grounding in critical social
theory whereby
she defines a “politics of difference.” Young’s politics of
difference, after all,

takes that differently situated people can have a discussion that
leads to moral
reason and just social structures.37 The distinction between
Fraser’s parity of
participation and Young’s politics of difference rests on how
equality is
imagined to function. For Fraser the norm “parity of
participation” holds that
each person’s voice has equal weight or worth within political
discourse.
Conversely, Young notes that the groups who are “oppressed
and
disadvantaged” are those for whom mechanisms of recognition
must be
appropriated.38 The distinction lies in the fact that Fraser’s
“parity of
participation” necessarily strives toward structural equality, as
opposed to
merely “mitigating the influence of current biases,” as Young
puts it.39 Thus,
Fraser’s bivalent conception is an excellent tool to help us think
about the
34 Ibid.
35 As Fraser aptly characterizes the argument, the answer does
not lie in statements like:
“it’s the culture stupid,” nor its counterpart “it’s the economy
stupid,” 39–41.
36 Ibid., 31.
38 Ibid., 192–225.
39 Ibid., 198.

46
119
pointed experience of injustice, but Young’s normative politics
of difference is
a fuller norm to reach toward.
Conclusion: Redressing Diversity,
City Life as School Life
Employing Fraser’s bivalent continuum, we can say that school
uniform policies are attempts to organize children who may be
experiencing
both distributional and recognition related injustices, but
because the policies
appeal to a logic of identity and distributional ethic, school
uniform policies
operate at the expense of a politics of difference. Following
Fraser, a pragmatic
remedy for the injustice of uniforming children in school
requires that we
rearticulate the value of “bringing children together in a
common space.”40 An
assumption of this paper is that the value of schooling is
manifest in more than
narrowly defined achievement or the acceptance of socialized
roles. Rather,
because education is always answering a question about what it
means to be
human,41 the value of bringing children together in a common
space is
evidenced when they learn how to recognize and speak from
places of personal

difference. The “dynamic that makes public schools democratic”
is the activity
of engaging children and their humanity. Higgins and Knight
Abowitz ask,
“What might it mean to think of the classroom not as a room
within an
institution that is already public, but as a space in which
teachers and learners
make public?”42 It means that we must see children and their
teachers, and the
school at large, as a public making project. Democratic
schooling demands that
we see children as full of vigorous and playful humanity. It
requires that we
engage with children as partial, situated members of the public.
Young imagines an alternative form of social relations—
public—
where a politics of difference prevails as analogous to city
life.43 Young’s
imaginative view of city life highlights democratic modes of
being and is one
way to think about what it might mean to envision the school as
forever
“becoming” public. In Young’s parlance, “By ‘city life’ I mean
a form of social
relations which I define as the being together of strangers. In
the city persons
and groups interact with spaces and institutions they all
experience themselves
as belonging to, but without those interactions dissolving into
unity or
commonness.”44 Each day an encounter with the city on the
train, in the park, at
a restaurant, or in a building requires that we find ways to live
together. The

persistent encounter with difference forces city dwellers to
recognize that
40 Chris Higgins and Kathleen Knight Abowitz, “What Makes a
Public School Public?
A Framework for Evaluating the Civic Substance of Schooling,”
Educational Theory
61, no. 4 (2011), 369.
41 Gert J. J. Biesta, Beyond Learning: Democratic Education
for a Human Future
(Boulder: Paradigm, 2006), 2.
42 Higgins and Knight Abowitz, “Public School,” 379.
43 Young, Politics of Difference, 226–27.
44 Ibid., 237.
120
people are just differently situated, or socially located beings,
with whom they
can have a partial dialogue. Recognition of our relationally
defined being is the
foundation for meaningful conversation about justice and the
bivalent
structures, cultural and economic, which shape our shared
world. Democracy is
premised on the human ability to engage in dialogue, to plan
consequences, and
to generate publics. Moreover, democracy is a human endeavor
that requires
people to think about each other from the inside out, a dynamic

Young sees in
expressions of city life.45
Extending Young and Fraser into the school, which is a vital
and
political part of city life, requires that we imbue children with
the capacity to
converse with and about difference. It is unjust and naïve to
believe a student’s
capacity for confronting difference is any less than a typical
member of a city.
City living implies a form of social relations that requires “a
being together of
strangers,” but it does so no more than school living ought to, if
schools do
have “the dynamic that makes them democratic.”46 Moreover,
the school is an
institution each child can belong to; it is a place where they
ought to be given
the opportunity to come together as a public of strangers to
workout the
problems of associated living. By appealing to a “veil of
ignorance” or logic of
impartiality school uniform policies unjustly teach children to
rid themselves of
emotion, race, and gender so that they can reason.47 All this
logic does is
perpetuate the idea that you cannot reason while emotional, that
race and
reason cannot be articulated together, and that gender affects
who is rational
and when. In my evaluation, social justice requires that we
facilitate “a politics
of difference” and foster a “bivalent approach” toward the axes
of injustice to
support children in their growth. The “dynamic that makes

school democratic”
only works when children are trusted with difference, diversity,
and
strangeness—at least to the extent that we trust members of a
city with the
same.
45 Martha C. Nussbaum, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs
the Humanities
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010).
46 Young, Politics of Difference, 237; see also Monroe, “When
Elite Parents Dominate.”
47 For more on ritualization and gender and school uniforms
see: Allison Happel,
“Ritualized Girl: School Uniforms and the Compulsory
Performance of Gender,”
Journal of Gender Studies 22, no. 1(2013): 92–95.
Persuasive -2020
Persuasive Essay: This assignment requires you to argue
whether or not the author was successful in his writing of the
article you summarized. This is also referred to as a rhetorical
analysis.
See Chapter 13 and 17 in Evergreen for more information on
writing persuasively.
Basic Expectations: 1. Essay – Minimum 2 pages double-
spaced, maximum 3 pages, 11pt. Times New Roman
Topic: How well did Christopher Bacorn accomplish his
purpose in the article in Evergreen page 599-602 “Dear Dads:
Save Your Sons”? What was his purpose? Where and how was

he successful or not? Remember, you are not arguing about his
topic, but how well he convinced you, his audience, of his main
idea.
Audience: Your instructor and your class peers, others of your
choosing
Genre: Persuasive Essay – specifically a rhetorical
analysis
Format: MLA or APA format --whichever one you are most
familiar. See page 314 in Evergreen for a quick reference to
both styles.
(ex. APA/MLA) Example in-text MLA: (Bacorn 601).
Example in-text APA: (Bacorn, 2014)
Action: You are NOT doing additional research. Use the list
of questions* below the essay description to help you decide
and design your arguments. What can you argue?
- You can argue that he was successful in certain places and
why
- You can argue that he was not successful in certain places and
why
- You can argue that he was successful in some places and not
others and why
Just for fun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s84EDd8jFgw This
video talks about writing a rhetorical analysis which is another
name for this writing assignment.
1. Essay description and details: For this essay, you will write
to your audience using a formal tone about the article assigned.
Be careful not to add your opinions about the topic, but argue
where the author’s argument and purpose was successful or not
in his writing of the article. In other words, you are critiquing

the author’s writing -- your reader will know what you thought
was or was not well argued in the article and why.
1. Your writing style:
a. Write with a formal style and tone. No contractions, no slang,
few pronouns (I, you). Be sure your arguments are organized
and easy for the reader to follow. Read it aloud to test this out!
Better yet, read it aloud to someone else and get a peer review.
2. Include all the things we have learned so far:
a. Thesis
b. Intro, Conclusion, Title
c. Summary, Quotations, Plagiarism
d. Subject/Verb agreement, Sentence Structure, Commas,
Colons and Semi-colons
e. Paragraph Writing
3. Be sure to state a claim (thesis) and prove it by including
your arguments.
4. Be sure to reference the article when posing your arguments.
That’s what you are arguing, after all.
5. MLA or APA Format
a. Include in-text citations for every reference to information
from the article
b. Include a works cited (MLA) or reference page (APA)
*Questions to help you decide your argument.
1. What is the purpose of this argument, the article? What does
the author hope to achieve?
2. Who is the audience for this argument?
3. What appeals or techniques does the author use – emotional,
logical, ethical?
4. How does the argument try to make the writer seem

trustworthy?
5. What authorities does the author use? Are they credible?
6. What facts are used in the argument? What logic? What
evidence? How is the evidence arranged?
7. What claims are made? What issues are raised, and which
ones are ignored?
8. Whose interest does this writing serve? Who gains or loses
by it?
9. How does the language or style of the argument work to
persuade an audience? Or not?
10. Overall, does the argument succeed or fail? Quote language
from the piece – where does it makes sense and where does it
fall apart?
11. Has your persuasive essay become an argument? It should!
Persuasive Essay Rubric
Summary Essay
Criteria
20-15 points
14-9 points
8-1
Self-grade pts
Instructor grade pts
Does the essay meet the basic expectations for pages, line-
spacing, and font including a formal style, tone, an
organization, and is it self-graded and totaled?
Meets the basic expectations of length, format, style, tone, and
organization
Meets some of the basic expectations of length, format, style,
tone, and organization
Doesn’t meet the basic expectations of length, format, style,
tone, and organization

Does this essay include the following components meeting the
requirements outlined in the modules?
- thesis sentence
- intro
- conclusion
-title
-summary
-quoting
-avoiding plagiarism
- paragraphs
This essay successfully includes all the listed components from
our modules
This essay includes many of the listed components outlined in
our modules
This essay uses very few of the listed components outlined in
our modules.
Does this essay have clearly defined and supported arguments
using persuasive strategies as outlined in our textbook and help
videos?
This essay has clearly defined and supported arguments using
persuasive strategies
This essay has some defined and supported arguments using
persuasive strategies
Does this essay does not have clearly defined and supported
arguments using persuasive strategies
Does the essay have correct
- subject/verb agreement
- strong sentence structure
- comma usage

- colons/semi-colons
as detailed in our lectures?
0-4 errors that do not impede the readability and flow of the
essay
5-8 errors that begin to impede the readability and flow of essay
More than 9 errors which interrupt the flow and readability
Does the essay use proper MLA or APA in-text citations and
works cited/reference pages?
The essay uses proper MLA or APA in-text citations and works
cited/reference pages.
The essay somewhat uses proper MLA or APA in-text citations
and works cited/reference pages.
The essay does not use proper MLA or APA in-text citations
and works cited/reference pages.
Totals
/100
/100

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