Education choices and personal futures

Why do people pursue education -- whether through secondary school or through post-secondary school?

It seems like a very simple question with an obvious answer: education adds to one's skills and productivity; these enhanced skills make one more attractive in the employment market; and therefore, pursuing education is a rational investment in future lifetime earnings. (The economic impact of post-secondary education has been estimated to be at least one million dollars in additional earnings for the baccalaureate graduate over the high school graduate in the United States.) In other words, the simple answer appears to be that people make rational decisions about their investments in training and education, and they see the financial advantage that can be expected by having completed a degree program. More education is a valuable investment in future income, security, and status.

Caption: % of high school graduates aged 25-29 who have received bachelor's degree

Source: National Center for Educational Statistics (link)

However, this answer stimulates quite a few difficult questions. Most fundamentally -- how are we to make sense of the behavior of the people who do not make this choice? The chart posted above indicates that in the United States, less than 30% of 25-29 year-olds have completed a four-year college or university degree -- and this percentage has only risen from 22% to 26% from 1971 to 1995. Moreover, this statistic does not include high school dropouts. So if more education is so plainly a rational investment, why is there such a low participation rate in the United States? Why do so many teenagers drop out of high school? (A recent study estimates that the drop-out rate in the Detroit public schools exceeds 50%, with some estimates going as high as 78%.) Why do many high school graduates choose not to apply to colleges or universities? (Only 36% of adults between 18-24 in the United States are enrolled in college or graduate school; Institute for Higher Education Policy report.) And why do under-educated but qualified young adults choose not to return to colleges or universities to complete their degrees? (In southeast Michigan, for example, there are more than 150,000 young adults between 25-34 who have completed some college courses but have not earned a degree.) So what are we to make of this evidence of dropping out, non-attending, and non-continuing?

Here are a few answers that have been proposed: some people lack the ability (or believe so) to complete their educations; some people lack the discipline to work hard today for a benefit that will only materialize in the distant future; some people lack the confidence that the normal opportunities that await university graduates will be available for them (because of racial discrimination or recession, for example); some people simply don't think clearly about their current choices -- they don't plan well for the future; and, perhaps, some people are not strongly motivated by material incentives (income, career advancement).

Most of these explanations make sense of the behavior by re-describing the terms of the choice -- thereby making the observed behavior "rational in the circumstances"; or they explain the behavior by referring to "failures of rationality" -- weakness of the will, miscalculation, indifference to future benefits. (Jon Elster's work has often focused on these sorts of failures; Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality.) But these explanations don't seem sufficient; they appear to dissolve the problem rather than explain it.

A second type of explanation of these social behaviors is one based on analysis of structural barriers to educational completion: poor schooling at earlier levels, racial or ethnic discrimination in the provision of educational opportunities, or economic obstacles to continuing education (tuition and the need to work fulltime), for example. To these structural barriers some social psychologists have added the factor of discouragement created in young people by ethnic, racial, or gendered stereotypes about performance. An important example here is found in Claude Steele's important work on "stereotype threat" and the major effects on performance that can be documented as deriving from stereotyped expectations. (Steele describes some of his hypotheses and findings in this Frontline interview.)

To these rational and structural factors, though, it seems relevant to ask whether there are also cultural expectations and community values that underlie the choices made by young people in various communities concerning education. There is the idea, for example, that midwestern manufacturing regions had developed a culture of complacency about education created by the availability of well-paid manufacturing jobs in the 1950s-70s. The easy availability of manufacturing work that required only a high school education led families to believe that their children didn't need good educations in order to succeed in the world of work they would be entering. This set of expectations, it is argued, led to a familial attitude that guided young people towards choices that gave little importance to advanced education -- and, for that matter, little attention to the importance of strong performance in K-12 schooling -- a kind of "Beach Boys" mentality (cars, parties, fun). It would be interesting to know what attitudes towards higher education are found in Appalachian mining communities -- is a college education valued by most families as a key ingredient of a good future, or is college education regarded as something foreign and unnecessary? And it seems that there is an opportunity for some good anthropological research on the Latino communities of the United States to help explain why high school completion rates and college attendance are lower than in other struggling communities in the United States.

So the question here is an important one: are there cultural values that work against placing a high value on educational attainment? What steps can be taken to mitigate these forces? And how do cultural, structural, and familial factors interact to give rise to low educational aspirations for a sizable percentage of the American youth cohort?

(I would like to see comparable statistics for Germany, France, and Australia. Any good sources out there?)

Logistics as a historical force

The constraint of what people can do often plays a large role in what they actually do. The study of logistics is the study of constraints. Logistics has to do with the intersection of resource, activity, space, and time. A plan is an orchestrated sequence of activities over space and time, provisioned by appropriate resources as needed. Historical actors orchestrate their actions in terms of extended plans -- which means that they pay extensive and detailed attention to logistics. And historians need to do so as well.

One common species of historical question is, "Why did the agent do such-and-so?" Why did Napoleon's invasion of Russia fail so formidably? Why did Charles Martel infeudate his central power? Why did Napoleon III fail to respond with effective military action to the Prussian invasion of France in 1870? Why did Alexander the Great avoid the direct route through the Thar Desert? Analysis of constraints is often critical to being able to answer these questions.

In each case logistics comes into the explanation at a more or less evident level. The historian's first impulse is to ask the question of purpose and plan: what was the agent intending to accomplish? How was the observed course of action an intelligent solution? When there is no apparent rational explanation, the historian may then retreat to "miscalculation" or error. But choice always involves an assessment of constraints, and this is where logistics come in. What looks like error may actually be a rational adjustment to constraint. The point here is that logistical obstacles or difficulties are often a hidden factor on the agent's choice -- and these factors may ultimately dictate a strategy or plan that looks otherwise irrational. And historians sometimes give these constraints too little attention.

Logistics is relevant to a wide range of complex social action. Take, for example, the difficult chess match involving two NBA coaches during a forty-eight minute basketball game. Each coach makes a series of substitutions throughout the game. Some are dictated by "match-up" -- getting the right defensive players on the floor given the current offensive set of the opponent. But some of the choices may appear dumb in the eyes of the duffer fan -- "why did he take Iverson out now exactly when he's on a run?" And often, I think, the answer is logistics. Each player has a finite amount of energy and spring in his legs. And each has a finite allotment of personal fouls to give. So the coach's task, in part, is to manage substitutions in such a way as to make maximum use of his star players over the full forty-eight minutes. It doesn't help much to have built up a 10 point lead with four minutes to go if the top scorer and rebounder are out of gas. And this is a logistics problem.

A more serious example -- what about Alexander the Great in his celebrated and brilliant conquest of the world? Why did Alexander make the sometimes puzzling strategic and tactical decisions he made through his campaigns? The answer, according to Donald Engels, is logistics (Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army). As Engels puts the point, "When the climate, human geography, physical geography, available methods of transport, and agricultural calendar of a given region are known, one can often determine what Alexander’s next move will be." Engels provides careful calculations of fodder, the number of horses needed to provision and feed the Macedonian army, and the rate of speed attainable by such an army -- and finds that Alexander's choices were generally well suited to the logistical constraints and his larger strategic goals.

The study of transportation technology as a historical factor certainly falls within the general topic of "logistics as a historical cause." (See Transportation for more extensive treatment of this topic.) Transport systems like rail networks provide specific opportunities and constraints on choice, and intelligent strategists make every effort to understand these well. So, correspondingly, the historian needs to do so as well if he/she is to explain the choices taken. (If you want to invade Burgundy from Frankfurt in 1860, don't plan to move your army by train. And if you plan to invade Russia by rail in 1910, be prepared for the change of gauge at the frontier.)

Military historians generally pay careful attention to logistical factors as they attempt to understand military choices and strategies. But analysis of resource-time-space-activity factors probably receive less attention in other parts of historical and social research than they should.

Where does the concept of logistics fit into the concepts we use to analyze historical processes and actions? Some historians might say that it is a minor and peripheral analytical tool. But seen properly, I would say that the notion of logistics is actually a key concept that ties together the complex and extended historical actions that we want to be able to explain. It is thus a central concept within an adequate historical ontology.

This point is relevant to historical research at two levels. First, it emphasizes the importance of incorporating a careful analysis of the agent's beliefs about the constraints he/she faces into the analysis of the eventual plans and choices. And second, at a more systemic level, it suggests that study of major logistical systems --transport, water management, urban infrastructure, the food system -- may have substantial value as a source of hypotheses about large historical causes. These systems structure the opportunities and constraints that face rulers and ordinary people alike, and they have the capacity of pushing development in one direction or another in a particular historical conjuncture. They therefore function as historical causes.

Agency and deliberation

People act as a result of a great variety of mental influences: instincts, emotions, impulses, loyalties, norms, as well as reasons, intentions, and plans. A subset of this cacophony is "rational-intentional action": actions that are the result of deliberation about ends and means, and choice among the set of available options for action. How does this sub-system of action fit into the larger swirl of psychological causes within the actor's mental system? The photo to the right is relevant; it is an image of a demonstration at Berkeley in the 1960s, in which the motives of the participants were surely a mix of rational, ethical, emotional, and collective impulses.

One picture that philosophers of action have used is the idea of "higher" and "lower" faculties of motivation and choice. This is an Aristotelian model of practical reason. The higher system is the rational process of deliberation; the lower system is the range of emotions and impulses; and the point of the picture is that the rational component should govern the workings of the lower faculties.

How does this construction work as an empirical theory of human behavior (even if an idealized and simplified one)? It could prove faulty in several different ways: The emotions could turn out to be the more important cause, with rational deliberation a weak and tardy late arrival. Or it could turn out that the system of action is a more integrated process in which "emotion" and "deliberation" play a more equal and interactive role. Or it could turn out that these two realms really can't be separated at all, and reason and emotion are comingled. We might find that it is possible to deliberate and reason about emotions, and it is possible for some emotions to push the deliberative process one way rather than another. And, most radically, it could be argued that these categories of introspection and folk psychology don't explain behavior at all; instead, we need a more scientific and non-mentalistic foundation for explanation of behavior.

There are a few basic facts about action that constrain any proposed theory:

(a) actions are influenced by the goals that people have, so deliberation must be a part of the story. Whatever else we observe, it is certainly true that people are sometimes goal-directed and calculating.

(b) We can provide clear and important examples of actions provoked by emotion or passion, so means-end rationality isn't the whole story.

(c) People often give reasons for actions that do serve to motivate their actions, but that are not framed as "means-end" reasoning. (For example, acting out of fairness.) So there are instances of action that are reasoned but not utility-maximizing.

What these points seem to demonstrate is that the mental system underlying behavior and choice is complex. No simple theory -- Markov mechanisms, operant conditioning, maximization, or rule-following--captures the full range of behavior.

These questions are important for several reasons. First, we need some indication of an answer to the question if we are to have confidence in rational choice theory at any level. Second, our ability to explain a wide range of human behavior depends on our having better ideas about how reasons, emotions, and norms play out to create behaviors such as extreme altruism, hate crimes, suicide attacks, or indifference to the suffering of others. So social science needs to have a credible theory of human agency and choice.

Who has the right kind of expertise to attempt to theorize in this area? Philosophers, to start; this discipline has devoted a lot of rigorous effort towards creating a framework for talking about the mind, intentionality, and action. Second, psychologists have some powerful theoretical tools for conceptualizing and investigating behavior. Here I think of the example of cognitive psychology and its paradigm of trying to devise theories that would represent a psychological process that possesses a given set of cognitive capacities (memory, pattern recognition, speech). And, conceivably, it might be that the discipline and methods of neurophysiology and brain science can shed light on action and mentation as well.

Agency, action, and norms

How do norms influence behavior? More fundamentally, what is a norm?

The question arises for two separate reasons. First, we are interested in knowing why people behave as they do (agency). And second, we are interested in knowing how large social factors (moral and cognitive frameworks, for example) exert influence over individuals (social causation).

The agency question is the more fundamental. Philosophers typically want to answer the question in terms of a model of practical rationality and deliberation. One philosophical answer derives from Aristotle and represents action as the result of rational deliberation. Individuals have a set of goals and values; they have a set of beliefs about the world; and they deliberate about the choices they confront with the aim of achieving their goals consistent with their values, given their beliefs about the world. But philosophers and thinkers as diverse as Nietzsche, Skinner, or Adorno would take issue with this reason-centered theory of action. Other sources of behavior might include unconscious habits or prejudices, instincts, impulses, emotions, and role-playing. A model that incorporates these diverse possible influences on action is unavoidably complex -- but human behavior is likewise complex.

Now let's try to locate the role of norms within a theory of agency. Norms have to do with the reasons and motives that people have for their actions. A norm is a particular kind of influence on action: it is a rule of behavior that leads someone to do something that is otherwise contrary to immediate impulse or interest. Norms get us to do things we don't want to do.

We might say, then, that a norm is a rule of behavior -- for example, "Don't wear shorts to a business meeting," "Don't take coins from the blind man's cup," "Give up your seat on the bus to a disabled person." And a rule can either be internally or externally represented; this means that the the rule may be internalized into the agent's process of decision-making, or it may influence the agent's behavior through punishments and rewards.

Even this simple discussion raises questions, however. Do norms have to be consciously accessible to the agent? Is a moral principle such as "Always keep your promises" a norm, or do ethical principles fall in a different category? Do norms have rational justification, or are they simply an accidental social product like tastes or styles?

As for the ways in which norms influence behavior --

It would seem that there are only a few mechanisms through which norms could possibly influence individual and collective behavior, largely distinguished by being external and internal.

First, it may be that there is an effective mechanism of social education through which each individual develops or activates an internally regulative system of norms or rules. This process can be described as "moral education." The most superficial observation of social behavior indicates that this is so, and social psychologists and sociologists have some ideas about how these systems work. But the bottom line appears fairly clear: individuals who are reared in normal human settings eventually possess action-behavior systems that embody a set of personal norms that influence their conduct. We might draw the analogy to the example of language learning: a normal human child is exposed to the linguistic behavior of others, and arrives at a psychologically realized grammar that guides his/her own language production.

Second, a norm might be embodied in the attitudes, judgment, and behavior of others in such a way that their actions and reactions create incentives and disincentives for the actor. For example, others may possess a set of norms concerning civility in public discourse, and they may punish or reward others according to whether their words are consistent with these norms. In this case the agent conforms to the requirements of the norm out of a calculation of costs and benefits of performance. (It would appear that there is a possibility of circularity here: the externally imposed norm depends upon the internally embodied norm of enforcement of the content of the rule on the part of others.)

Third, it might be the case that there are some norms of inter-personal behavior that are hard-wired. Some norms might have a biological, evolutionary basis. This is the line of thought that sociobiologists have explored with varying levels of success. The emotional responses that adults have to infants and children probably fall in this category -- though it is a conceptually interesting question to consider whether these emotional responses are "norms" or simply features of the affective system. This is relevant to the work that Allan Gibbard does in Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment. Gibbard's fundamental insight seems to be that there must be an evolutionary basis for the "norm-acquisition system" -- the features of human psychology that permit them to acquire certain kinds of moral motives (altruism, friendship, fairness).

So -- what can we say about norms? Human beings act on the basis of deliberation, norm, impulse, and emotion. So our theory of practical rationality and action must make a place for the workings of norms. Second, norms are transmitted to individuals through concrete social processes -- family experiences, schooling, religious institutions, etc. Our theories of social life must incorporate an account of the processes of normative education through which individuals come to possess a particular normative structure. These experiences are the counterpart to the exposure to language on the part of the infant. And third, norms are socially enforced through the actions of others. So norms are socially embodied -- in the institutions of enforcement, the institutions and practices of moral education, and in the practical cognition of the individuals who make up the society.

Politics and science

In the idealized version of science, the enterprise of scientific knowledge discovery follows its own logic without extraneous non-cognitive or non-rational influences. But this is unrealistic. Science is a social activity, conditioned by institutions, governments, and other social forces. So it is worth considering how politics influences the course of science and how these influences affect the rationality or veridicality of the enterprise. Does the fact of political influence on science make science either less rational or less true?

There are at least two ways in which science can be affected by social or political factors: in terms of the formulation of research questions and priorities, and in terms of the content of the findings of scientific research. Pernicious examples of the second kind of influence are easy to find in the history of science. For example, Stalin's insistence on the correctness of Lysenko's adaptationist theory of species led Soviet biology into a biological science that was profoundly untrue: organisms do not evolve according to the processes or mechanisms attributed to them by Lysenkoism. So the political imperative from Stalin to the adoption of a particular scientific hypothesis led to erroneous science. It was also irrational science (because it depended on criteria of acceptance that were political rather than empirical).

This form of influence of politics on science is clearly anti-scientific and anti-rational. And, regrettably, we appear to have clear instances of this kind of substitution of political expediency for rational scientific judgment in the behavior of the current US administration, in the form of its efforts to control the content of scientific judgments about climate change (article).

So one form of political influence on science is clearly anti-scientific. When politicians substitute their wishes for the judgment of capable scientific researchers, it is inevitable that the result will be bad science. And, of course, bad science is a bad basis for future problem-solving.

But consider the other form of influence mentioned here: the setting of priorities for scientific research, especially through funding strategies. Is this kind of influence inherently inconsistent with the empirical and rational claims of science?

It is obvious that science is subject to this kind of influence. When the National Institutes of Health decides to give higher priority to one kind of cancer rather than another, or to diabetes research over Alzheimer's research, this national institution is setting the agenda for university researchers throughout the country. When the US government gave priority to space exploration research over atmospheric or oceanic research in the 1960s, it likewise gave encouragement to certain scientific disciplines and inhibition to others. And, predictably, there was more progress in the scope and depth of scientific knowledge in some disciplines than others, following the spending priorities. Science requires resources, and one of the duties of a democratic government is to decide about priorities in the expenditure of public moneys.

What this kind of influence does not do, is to dictate the content of the findings. Once the resources are committed, it is essential that the normal processes of science -- empirical study, peer review, experimentation, theory development -- should take place without interference from political or social pressure.

So we might say that the "priority-setting" influence of politics on science is benign from the point of view of scientific rationality. The political decision-makers decide what scientific problems are most important from the public's point of view; and the scientists, following the funding sources, then do their best to understand and solve those problems. But this means that one of our crucial political goals ought to be to create and defend institutions that assure the political independence of scientists, so their research findings are the result of empirical investigation and theory formation rather than pressured conformance to the state's expectations.

Now let's bring these ideas back to the social sciences. Social science research has been subject to both kinds of political influence in American history. There have sometimes been intense pressures on social scientists and historians about the content of their research -- for example, the field of China studies during the period of McCarthyism. When social scientists arrive at unpalatable truths, they are sometimes subjected to shameful political pressures. But second, the social sciences have certainly been shaped in the past forty years by the spending priorities of federal and non-profit funding agencies. This influence isn't necessarily bad, or anti-scientific. In fact, it is unavoidable. But, in the social sciences especially, it may have the insidious effect of pushing social science research away from some difficult or controversial topics; and this may be so, even when those topics turn out to be particularly important for arriving at a better understanding of where our society is going.