Gary McDonogh. Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture

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hard work, poverty and nativism little better than what they had left behind did not color

this vision.

In the late twentieth century there has been a resurgence of interest in the cultural

identities of many of these groups. In the wake of the success of the

Black Power

movement, many groups such as the Poles and Ukrainians began espousing a more

heightened sense of identity. In this they are also following the example of the Eastern-

European Jews, who, from their arrival, had a history of involvement in political

movements, including socialism and Zionism.

MORGEN WITZEL

Eastman Kodak

Film and imaging company founded by George Eastman (1854–1932) in Rochester, New

York. Eastman produced rollable film on transparent cellulose that made the camera an

everyday

family

experience and fostered the growth of motion pictures and x-rays. The

company which became Eastman Kodak in 1892, pioneered color film, safety film and a

range of home products from Brownie cameras to smaller instamatics in the 1960s, as

well as home movie cameras and slide projectors. In the 1990s, Kodak remained a global

corporation with sales of $13.4 billion in 1998 (down $1 billion from 1997), facing

competition from innovative film and camera technologies abroad and digital media,

where it has struggled to stay abreast.

GARY McDONOGH

Eastwood, Clint

b. 1930

Actor and director who has come to embody the lank, brooding, taciturn loner in the

old

West

and contemporary

police

drama. Eastwood’s career began with the long-

running television

western

Rawhide

(CBS, 1959–65), but took off after his 1960s trilogy

of “Spaghetti westerns” with Sergio Leone (e.g.

A Fistful of Dollars,

1964). In the 1970s,

he alternated this

cowboy

persona with that of an edgy violent policeman in

Dirty Harry

(1971), whose tag line “Make my Day” was even taken up by President

Reagan

Eastwood has subsequently established himself as a more serious actor and

director,

gaining dual Oscar

Awards

for his reinterpretation of the western in

Unforgiven

(1992).

Off-screen, he has served as mayor of Carmel,

California

and has been the subject of a

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 366

famous “palimony” suit.

ee also:

actors

GARY McDONOGH

Ebonics

language

ecofeminism

Ecofeminism is a variant of social ecology, combining the goals of the environmental

movement with those of the women’s movement. Ecofeminism posits a close connection

between

nature

and women as categories and experiences. In post-structural critiques o

dominant Western culture, eco-feminists such as Vandana Shiva and Carolyn Merchant

suggest that women and nature have suffered equally from patriarchal oppression.

Ecofeminism simultaneously acknowledges this twin oppression and embraces the

ositive connotations shared between women and nature. While ecofeminism is

vulnerable to accusations of essentialism and biological reduction, the affinity between

women and nature is said to be a model for environmental care.

Further reading

Merchant, C. (1992)

Radical Ecology: The Search for a Livable World,

New York:

Routledge.

Mies, M. and Shiva, V. (1993)

Ecofeminism,

Atlantic Highlands: Zed Books.

JANICE NEWBERRY

economics

The theoretical foundation for how people and firms make decisions about consumption

and production of goods and services. Alfred Marshall, a noted economist, referred to

Entries A-Z 367

economics as the “study of mankind in the ordinary business of life (Buchholz 1996:4)”.

The concept of scarcity that one can’t have everything, underlies economic thought.

Scarcity combined with choice leads to the primary economic problem: the determination

and interaction of supply and demand. All of these questions, in turn, are central to

American business, government and thought. Hence economics has been a popular

discipline for students and policy-makers, and Americans have dominated Nobel Prizes

in the field since 1970, especially through strong departments at the

University o

Chicago,

Harvard, MIT, Yale, Princeton and the University of

California

(economists

are also found at major business schools like Harvard,

Stanford

and Wharton).

Within the field, microeconomics deals with the behavior of individual consumers and

firms. Macroeconomics focuses on the larger picture; the total level of economic activity

such as employment, national income and inflation. The primary value of both is in their

redictive power in the real world. Unfortunately most economic theory requires

assumptions that cannot be replicated in life. The violation of

“ceteris paribus”

—the

notion of “all other things constant”—makes extracting the effects of a single policy from

all other noise factors nearly impossible. While economists have developed rigorous

models through Econometrics and Chaos Theory they rarely tell the entire story For

example, economics may be able to prove an association between interest rates and

inflation, but it often cannot indicate which causes the other. The conservative nature o

its proponents and the failure of economics to reflect reality accurately led Thomas

Carlyle to refer to economics as “the dismal science.” Economic theory is often better at

explaining what has happened than what will happen.

At the same time, data mining—the concept that if you look at enough data, you’ll

eventually find something that proves your point—has supported some dubious economic

arguments. For example, economics is often used to support political rhetoric. In the early

1980s, Ronald

Reagan

promoted a plan to cut

taxes

in order to increase tax revenue. The

plan, now referred to as supply side economics, argued that reducing

taxes

can increase

revenue by increasing general economic activity Then

presidential

candidate (and future

supply sider himself) George

Bush

referred to this plan as “

Voudou

economics.”

Politicians of every background use economic theories to justify their preferred policies.

The blending of disciplines has created new avenues for growth in economics. Urban

economics,

gender

economics, environmental economics and many others have found

their way into the curriculums of American universities. The subdisciplines often seek to

quantify that which is not easily observed or explained using more traditional methods.

Increasing globalization also presents challenges for economics because assumptions

may not be consistent across cultures and data are difficult to compare across borders.

The definitions of utility happiness and wealth, to name a few variables, are far from

universally accepted, despite what economics may have one believe.

Further reading

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 368

Buchholz, T. (1996)

From Here to Economy,

New York: Plume.

MARC BALCER

Ecstasy

addiction

Eddie Bauer/L.L.Bean

Long-established companies from opposite ends of rugged America that define an

outdoor “look” and

nature

as a fashion kingdom. Eddie Bauer founded his sport’s store

in Seattle, Washington, in 1920, later adding casual gear and women’s apparel to the

expedition resources it featured. Sold to General Mills in 1968 (and retailer Spiegel in

1988), the store has expanded globally to $1.7 billion in sales, with 600 stores and active

catalog and e-commerce trade backed by unconditional guarantees. Its rival was founded

in 1912 by Leon Leonwood Bean in Freeport, Maine, whose waterproof boots for hunting

launched a line of 16,000 guaranteed products and $1 billion in sales, primarily

catalog

and online. The main retail store in Freeport, open all day everyday has become a tourist

attraction in itself. Their clothing and lifestyle items have been copied by other brands

and successfully exported as an American style.

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

edge cities

suburbs and edge cities

editorial cartoons

Editorial cartoons, evolving from the art of caricature, normally appear on the editorial or

Op-Ed pages of American

newspapers

. Generally single-

anel drawings with some text,

Entries A-Z 369

they provide entertainment along with political commentary since the central characters

usually caricature actual people and issues. Prominent modern editorial cartoonists

include Patrick Oliphant, Signe Wilkinson and Garry Trudeau (famous for

Doonesbury,

“political cartoon” in comic-strip format). The

Pulitzer Prize

for editorial cartooning has

existed since 1922.

ee also:

comics

Further reading

Edwards, J.L. (1997)

Political Cartoons in the 1988 Presidential Campaign,

New York:

Garland (studies the meaning and impact of editorial cartoons).

NICOLE MARIE KEATING

education and society

Educational models and opportunities in the United States reflect and embody national

issues of socio-economic power and mobility and are influenced as well by how the

United States perceives itself in the international arena. When internal discord related to

the diversity in American society comes to the forefront of national attention, the focus in

education is on how best to manage that diversity When the United States perceives itsel

in or on the verge of international threat or weakness, the focus in education shifts to how

best to reposition the United States to reestablish its power.

While both these national and international frames of reference lead to the construction

of educational models which facilitate and restrict educational opportunities, both

responses to international threat and to national issues of socioeconomic power and

mobility are played out in relation to a fairly consistent socio-political hierarchy o

ower, privilege and access within which people are positioned. Where individuals are

located in the hierarchy depends on who they are (defined by

race, class, gender,

etc.),

what role they are playing (professor, parent, teacher, student, etc.) and in what context

(university

public school,

alternative school, etc.). Those at the top of the hierarchy those

who generally hold most of the positions of power in schools and constitute the

hegemonic culture in society tend to be professional,

white,

upper-middle class and male.

As the group in power, those at the top of this hierarchy tend to embrace a model o

education whose aim is the maintenance of the status quo through the standardization, de-

culturalization, acculturation and stratification of a diverse population. Based on a

conservative, deterministic, right-wing perspective held by current educational theorists

such as E.D.Hirsch, the goal of this model is the maintenance of schooling in the United

States in the image constructed by the culture of power, and Social Darwinism is its

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 370

extreme. Most public schools and many mainstream

private schools

tend towards this

model in more or less subtle attempts to keep the existing socio-political hierarchy intact.

In opposition to and in ongoing tension with the conservative model is a model o

education committed to challenging the status quo through critical analysis of society and

the striving for equity social justice and the empowerment of all US citizens. Based on

constructivism, which assumes that knowledge and understanding must be built between

and among people and ideas in context and thus vary across people, times and places, this

progressive,

left

-wing model has been advocated by educational theorists such as John

Dewey and cultural relativism is its extreme. Some public schools, some private schools

and most alternative educational programs tend towards this model in an attempt to

challenge the status quo and facilitate educational access and opportunity to a wider

range of people in the socio-

olitical hierarchy Furthermore, measures such as

affirmative action

and the educational projects of special interest groups (see

education:

values and beliefs

) are also attempts to work against socio-economic inequities which

have become institutionalized.

At the height of the

Cold War,

education in the United States focused on

standardization and the production of students who could compete in the global economy

The most significant world event following the Second World War that had a profound

and lasting effect on education in the United States was the launching of Sputnik in 1957.

This event prompted fears that the Soviet Union was surpassing the United States socially

economically and militarily partially through better preparation of students in the

sciences and

mathematics

. In response, education was catapulted onto the national

agenda, and there was an increase in spending of federal monies on education. The

National Defense Education Act loans (1958) were created to support pre-college

curriculum revision and

college

attendance for a broadening

middle class

. The aim was

to produce a more highly educated citizenry as a bulwark against

communism,

a residual

from the

McCarthy

era in the early 1950s, and other international threats. Education

during this time focused on traditional subjects and conservative approaches to teaching

them, thus reflecting an educational model focused on developing a uniform and unified,

goal-directed curriculum which would better prepare students in math and the sciences.

At times of greater internal conflict, issues of diversity and access within the country

ecome foregrounded. So, for instance, with some of the social and political resistance

and fragmentation of the 1960s—the

civil rights

and antiwar movements, widespread

challenges to institutional authority the free speech and

women’s liberation

movements—calls for a more inclusive curriculum and a more critical perspective

influenced the schools. At the same time, legislation such as the Elementary and

Secondary Education Act (1965) provided money to school districts for curriculum

materials and resources and buildings—money allocated based on enrollment levels and

degree of need (towards urban and rural areas), with increasing support for poorer

districts. Efforts to educate a wider band of the population also included open enrollment

(1968–70) at

community colleges

The 1970s saw the rise of what was known as a back-to-

asics movement. In 1983

Entries A-Z 371

publication of a report called

A Nation At Risk

again raised fears that the United States

wasn’t competing well enough with

Japan

and West Germany and its world standing and

standard of living were in jeopardy. Concerns for educational reform became an

increasing focus and national agenda item. In the mid-1980s, John Goodlad (

A Place

Called School,

1984) offered system-wide and structural critiques of schools and

suggestions for reform, whereas Theodore Sizer (

Horace’s School,

1984) created a

fictional character who epitomized what schooling should be and argued for more

authentic, progressive, teacher-supported, participatory active critical thinking, and the

empowerment of teachers and students.

The tension between conservative models of education to maintain the status quo and

rogressive, critical models aimed at addressing diverse needs and offering greater access

continued to inform the debates about education and society in the 1980s and 1990s. In

these decades it became more explicit that educational models and opportunities reflect

and embody national issues of socioeconomic power and mobility. Although location o

individuals in the socio-

olitical hierarchy of power and access in the United States

depends in part on who they are and their positions, the United States is a meritocracy

and there is a rhetorical commitment to educational access and opportunity which

suggests that anyone who has the will and tenacity can improve his or her position in

society. Like other versions of the American dream, public education is free and available

to all, and therefore, according to the rhetoric, what one achieves is directly proportional

to how hard one works.

Generally ascension of the socio-

olitical hierarchy requires the successful completion

of time and coursework in, degrees conferred by and performances defined by legitimate

educational institutions and the accompanying acquisition and appropriation of the

values, knowledge, language and behaviors of the dominant culture. If one successfully

negotiates this set of hurdles one may earn the right either to reinforce or to criticize and

attempt to change existing educational structures and practices and, by extension, the

socio-

olitical status quo. However, critics suggest that there is only a surface

commitment to equal opportunity democracy and social justice, and they raise questions

about whether this is really the American educational agenda. They ask who actually gets

access and opportunity and support, and at what cost. These are questions most relevant

to those who do not belong to the culture of power, who argue that there are costs

associated both with remaining in their positions and with attempts to reposition

themselves. Some, such as Richard

Rodriguez,

argue that to succeed in school and

society one has to conform to the status quo and adopt the values of the dominant culture

and, in doing so, abandon one’s

home

culture. Others such as Lisa Delpit (

Othe

eople’s Children,

1985) suggest that one can maintain one’s own cultural identity and

appropriate the discourses and practices necessary for success in school and society.

In the 1990s, there have been, on the one hand, national attempts at standardization,

such as the

Bush

administration’s call for national standards

(Goals 2000)

—standards by

which all students would be measured—and the

Clinton

administration’s argument that

all

children

have a right to quality education, but that education should look like and be

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 372

tested according to conservative and

standardized testing

. On the other hand, there has

been a proliferation of educational options both within and outside the public-school

system, reflecting a growing dissatisfaction with any single, standardized model.

The various educational models and opportunities which exist in the United States,

then, are emphasized or ignored in response to attitudes towards diverse peoples and their

educational needs, particular interests within national boundaries and by perceptions o

waxing and waning international threats. Individuals and groups must strive with greater

or lesser degrees of support to negotiate the American educational system.

ee also:

elementary school

Further reading

Spring, J. (1994)

The American School: 1642–1993,

New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.

ALISON COOK-SATHER

education: values and beliefs

Reflective of the diversity of values and beliefs about education, the wide range of formal

and informal educational opportunities in the United States includes: mainstream

educational models, such as most

public schools

and some

private schools; religious

colleges;

ethnic school programs; schools set up by different special interest groups; and

continuing post-secondary education.

Systems of public education are government-controlled and therefore must reflect and

teach government-sanctioned materials and interests. As the mainstream educational

institutions, public schools are premised on and dedicated to the transmission of the

values and beliefs of the dominant culture—generally white, upper-middle class,

Protestant males—and traditional school subjects, such as English,

history, mathematics

and science, are most often taught through the perspectives of that group. National, state,

and local curricular standards to which public schools must adhere tend to reinforce these

choices, unless a local governing body such as a

school board

or teachers on their own

initiative within the walls of their individual classrooms, elects to supplement the

rescribed curriculum. There are some exceptions to the dominant model of public

schools—including

Afro-centric

schools,

gay/lesbian/ bisexual

schools (such as the

Harvey

Milk

School) and charter schools with different foci, such as students with

special learning needs—which make explicit their support of and focuses on these under-

represented groups.

Premised on the claim that public education offers equal opportunity to all, there is a

rhetoric of public education for democracy which says that all children have the right to

Entries A-Z 373

free education and, in turn, have the responsibility to contribute to the welfare of the

country—the majority from support, not leadership, positions. Efforts such as the 1960s

War on Poverty,

supported by passage of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 and

the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, and programs such as

Head Start,

Upward Bound and The Job Corps were attempts to ensure the education of low-income

children

and

teenagers,

but, critics argue, preparing them primarily for vocational

positions.

Unrestricted by national and state standards, and created by and for the elite or

articular interest groups, some private schools embrace and pursue the same values and

goals as public schools. However, they bring to the endeavor from the institutional side

greater resources, smaller class sizes and a greater variety of teachers (since teachers need

not be state-certified to teach in a private school), and they draw on and cater to a

population of students which more often than not belongs or aspires to the cultural elite.

Some private schools strive against the main-stream, however. Dissatisfied with some

of the ways that mainstream schools address (or avoid) issues, such as evolution, sex

education and nontraditional interpretations of historical events, some groups have

established alternative forums within which to preserve and transmit their culture and

values. One such educational option, religious colleges, emerged for a variety of reasons:

Roman Catholic

schools formed in reaction to Protestant evangelism and Protestant

ethics and values, which insisted on a narrowly defined Americanism; white Christian

academies were created as a reaction against racial integration and teachings they believe

are not Christian, such as evolution;

Quaker

schools were created to pursue an ideal o

education based on principles of non-violence, equity and social justice; and

Jewish

day

schools proliferated as a result of a swelling of religious sentiment after the Holocaust

and the establishment of Israel.

Other private schools based on a pedagogical approach also offer alternatives:

Montessori schools, generally for preschool and kindergartenaged children, emphasize

roviding a stimulating environment for children in which they can learn, at their own

ace, the elementary aspects of what will later be emphasized in school; Waldorf schools,

ased on the work of Rudolf Steiner, are built on the principle that the child as a whole

must be nurtured and developed—emotionally physically spiritually academically—to

roduce a wellrounded and happy human being. Finally military schools, particularly

after the Second World War and the increased mechanization resulting from

war,

focus

on discipline, obedience, literacy comprehension of the need for a particular war and

special technical skills as they embody the values of

patriotism

and national service.

Alternative models of education have also coexisted with public- and previously

mentioned private-school options, created to serve constituencies outside the social and

educational mainstream, such as religious, socio-economic and ethnic minority groups.

After-school—afternoon, evening and weekend—

rograms supplement regular public or

rivate school education and strive to maintain and pass on particular values and

traditions; community centers, camps,

Sunday schools

and health organizations (such as

the

YMCA

and

YWCA

) all see high enrollment and participation. Ethnic educational

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 374

opportunities generally run more on the after-school, supplementary model and, like the

various forms of part-time religious education, ethnic schools saw a proliferation with the

influx of

immigrants

in the wake of the Second World War. Corporate education also

lossomed after the Second World War and has continued to grow, as have proprietary

schools.

A desire for self-improvement—ongoing or continuing education after or in addition to

compulsory schooling and higher education—is also valued by some. Of those who wish

to ascend the socio-economic hierarchy (see

education and society

), there are, in

addition to public schools, adult-literacy classes for both native and non-native speakers.

These classes are generally run by nonprofit organizations, community organizations

(such as churches), or through nationally and locally sponsored programs such as the

Adult Literacy Project in

Philadelphia, PA

. Some members of the upper socio-economic

classes see self-improvement as a virtue and either return to traditional school contexts to

further their education or pursue alternative forms of education.

All of the educational options addressed here reflect the possibilities for education to

preserve, transmit and/or challenge the values and beliefs both of groups—including

religious, cultural, or social values—and of the United States as an entity—including

democracy

freedom

and meritocracy

Further reading

Cremin, L. (1988)

American Education: The Metropo litan Experience, 1876–1980,

New

York: Harper & Row

ALISON COOK-SATHER

Ehrlich, Paul

b. 1930

One of the great popularizers of

environmental

concerns during the 1960s and 1970s.

His book,

The Population Bomb

(1968), co-authored by his wife, Anne, brought

Malthusian concerns over population growth and the inevitability of resource scarcity

into the political realm. This book also became the most widely read and discussed

environmental book of the era, surpassing even Rachel

Carson’s

Silent Spring

(1962) in

sales. Although many of Ehrlich’s dire predictions have not come true, they were

responsible for bringing to light the notion that there may be genuine ecological limits to

human growth.

ee also:

deep ecology/Earth First!

BRAD ROGERS

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