Peer Review

UP in Arms by Colin WoodardTufts Magazine / fall 2013

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Reviewed:: Jun 29, 2024 by Sociology

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: Often students have difficulty understanding how earlier generations influence our attitudes and behaviors through socialization. Woodard separates the USA into ten American Nations and identifies their predominant values. He uses these nations to demonstrate how early mmigrant groups influence current debates in the USA on gun control, stand your ground, and capital punshiment.
Type of Material:: Case Study (online)
Recommended Uses:: This is a good article to use as a homework or small group assignment. Have students identify each American Nation, immigrant groups, prevailing values and the implications for stand your ground, gun control, and the death penalty policies. It may also be use for self-pace individual reading.
Technical Requirements:: Firefox Browser 86 for Mac
Identify Major Learning Goals:: To understand how cultural patterns are passed from generation to generation through socialization. Students often question the origins of cultural patterns. This article helps students identify the immigrant groups that shaped the cultural patterns in the USA.
Target Student Population:: High School, College General Ed, College Lower Division, College Upper Division, Graduate School
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: None.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: This article is based on Woodard's book: American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North American. Here Woodward demonstrates how historical cultural patterns continue to shape public policies. He argues that these regional "nations" are more helpful in understanding the political climate than state or national borders. My students have been reading this article for years and it always has the intended outcome. It is an Aha momement for many.
Concerns:: The content needs to be more grounded explicitly in current theoretical debates. While it provides a description of the ten regions, it does not adequately present a convincing argument why these regions constitute distinct nations. There is a wide-ranging literature on the definition and social construction of nations and nation-states. It somewhat ignores the actual processes by which the US territorially, politically, and culturally came together, under conditions of strong disagreements and internal antagonisms as well as attempts to forge concrete tactical alliances among varying federal and state-level power elites at different periods of time.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: Although it would be nice if students could read the entire book, this article provides a great synopsis and applies the model to current public policies. Students can easily identify the immigrant groups, their dominant values, and how these values impacts policy decisions and conflict.
Concerns:: For a self-pace learning material, it is generally appropriate to provide direct feedback on reading and learning activities in order for student to access immediately their comprehension of their learning. More details are needed on the concept of “cultural nation” and the distinctive characteristics of the ten US regions identified for students the think more critically about these issues.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:

Strengths:

It requires the instructor to develop an assignment. I use this in both a cultural diversity course and Intro to Sociology. It is embedded in a module on the components of culture.

Concerns:

An important link to a graphic map is no longer available:

http://emerald.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/fall2013/images/features/upinarms-map-large.jpg

The two maps may have problems due to not following accessibility standards (color contrast, alternative texts, and so on).

Other Issues and Comments:: This article is a little dated. However, the issues are still relevant and the model still applicable to understanding how public policies are negotiated and the influence of cultural values in these negotiations.
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