|
 A
Perspective on Carnegie Corporation's Program 1983-1997
President's
Essay - Reprinted from the 1996 Annual Report
David
A. Hamburg
In
establishing Carnegie Corporation in November 1911, Andrew Carnegie
wrote in his first letter of gift: "To the trustees of Carnegie
Corporation of New York we set out the purpose of this foundation
to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding
among the people of the United States. To this he added, "Conditions
upon the earth inevitably change. Hence no wise man will bind trustees
forever to certain paths, causes, or institutions. I disclaim any
intention of doing so. On the contrary I give my trustees full authority
to change policy or causes hitherto aided from time to time, when
this in their opinion has become necessary or desirable; they shall
best conform to my wishes by using their own judgment."
Here
Carnegie was clearly indicating his faith in the board, giving it
a fundamental role in guiding the institution and in using its own
judgment to make adjustments in light of new circumstances and especially
new opportunities. It was my privilege to serve on this board before
I became president, and I believe its members have made substantive
contributions to an extent that is unusual among foundations. Throughout
the fourteen years I have served as the Corporation's president,
the trustees have been highly collegial, constructive, and forward
looking. They have been deeply engaged in the work of the foundation
while providing important oversight and policy direction. Many have
participated actively on Carnegie task forces, commissions, and
councils and in special meetings on critical issues.
By
the same token, no significant accomplishment could have been made
without the hard work of a professional staff. The staff has been
highly effective in program development, finance, and administration
receptive to good ideas and innovations while applying high standards
of appraisal and fair procedures in decision making.
So
much has changed in these fourteen years! For example, annually
the number of proposals received has grown from approximately 2,000
to about 5,100; the number of grants has increased from 85 to 343,
and the grants budget has swelled from about $13 million to $59
million. Indeed, 51 percent of all the dollars awarded in the Corporation's
history since 1911 were granted during this period. The Corporation's
assets, currently valued at about $1.3 billion, are 3.25 times the
value they were at the end of 1982. Accounting and record keeping,
once done manually, are now being managed on an advanced computer
network, and audiovisual and computer-based materials have joined
the growing list of published works, reflecting ever more widely
Andrew Carnegie's precept that "only in popular education can
man erect the structure of an enduring civilization."
While
Carnegie gave maximum latitude in the charter, when I assumed the
presidency in 1983 I felt we should pay serious attention to his
great themes and adapt them to current circumstances. The preoccupations
of Carnegie's personal philanthropy were peace and education, and
they have been ours over these past fourteen years.
The
following is my attempt at an overview of Carnegie Corporation's
experience during this extraordinary time. The wealth of that experience
is such that I have had to be selective and indeed idiosyncratic.
It is simply not possible to capture the richness of the tapestry
in all its detail. The best I can do is provide some highlights
and seek a few governing principles and lessons for the future.
These should convey the flavor of some of the problems we have tackled
and the approaches we have found useful.
From
the 1980s through the mid-1990s, two crucially formative and comparatively
neglected phases of the life span constituted a major focus of the
foundation's work. These are the first three years of life, beginning
with the prenatal period, and early adolescence, covering ages ten
to fifteen. A second focus was the potential threats to world peace
posed by weapons of mass destruction and the relationship between
the two superpowers and, most recently, by interethnic violence.
A third was the challenge of strengthening democratic institutions
and processes in several parts of the world, including the United
States. Finally, the foundation pursued a number of special projects
that fall outside the main program areas, in order to maintain flexibility
and openness to new possibilities.
A
recurrent theme linking the Corporation's programs is the prevention
of rotten outcomes. From child and adolescent development to international
relations, the underlying logic is essentially the same. Prevention
begins with anticipation, even long-range foresight. In this effort,
research can clarify the main paths to a particular kind of rotten
outcome; it can identify the major risk factors that enhance the
likelihood of a highly undesirable situation and point to steps
that can be taken to counteract or avoid the risk factors. Attention
can be given not only to desired changes in individual behavior
but to pivotal institutions that can shape behavior away from risk
factors and dangerous directions. Thus, in our grant program on
children and youth, the focus on the prevention of rotten outcomes
led us to explore the positive conditions under which it is possible
to meet the essential requirements for healthy development mainly
through the cooperative efforts of pivotal institutions that have
the salience and the capacity to do the job. So, too, in seeking
to avoid the deadly conflicts leading to mass violence, we sought
ways in which governments, intergovernmental organizations, and
the institutions of civil society could help to build favorable
conditions in which different human groups can learn to live together
amicably.
An
Educational and Developmental Strategy for Children and Youth
In
the past fourteen years, the Corporation has made a concerted effort
to advance the nation's understanding of child and adolescent development
and foster positive outcomes for children and youth in the face
of drastic changes in the American family and society. This program
has been ably chaired by Vivien Stewart.
During
the 1980s, an important consensus began to emerge within the scientific
and professional communities on ways that parents and others could
cooperate in meeting the developmental needs of children and adolescents.
Our aim at Carnegie Corporation has been to clarify this scientific
and professional consensus and make it widely understood throughout
the country. We have done this through grants for research and innovation
and the sponsorship of special study groups that have made practical
recommendations for the improved treatment of children and youth.
In these activities, the Corporation has tried to clarify the essential
requirements for healthy child and early adolescent development
and their implications for lifelong learning, health, and decency.
We have linked each phase to the next, constructing a developmental
sequence of experiences, opportunities, and interventions that can
foster constructive, long-term development. That effort has led
us to explore in depth a set of pivotal institutions that have a
daily opportunity to meet these essential requirements and to seek
ways of strengthening their capacity to do so in the powerful context
of a transforming global economy. Beyond this, we have examined
the help that might come from the powerful institutions of government,
business, science, and associated professions.
In
its focus on meeting the developmental needs of children andadolescents,
we utilized the wonderful, century-long history of the Corporation's
involvement in education to stimulate and foster a national education
reform movement that could be sustained over decades. An early decision
of ours was to focus primarily on public education at the elementary
and secondary school level and on the preschool years. As a practical
matter, it was essential to examine all the main factors that influence
learning, in and out of school. One of my earliest slogans was "education
does not begin with kindergarten but with prenatal care.
At
the elementary and secondary level, we used education in mathematics,
science, and technology as our entering wedge both for the intrinsic
value of such education in promoting curiosity and problem solving
and for the practical significance of such education in the emerging
technical world of the global economy. We paid serious attention
to the quality of child care and preschool education as a fundamental
underpinning of subsequent learning and concluded that the nation
badly needs a public commitment to preschool education comparable
to that already made to elementary, secondary, and higher education.
Our
approach evolved in distinctive ways. We built our efforts on a
strong knowledge base to the extent possible, drawing on the biological
and behavioral sciences. We supported research to fill in the knowledge
gaps and sought to relate this knowledge base to real-world problems.
We fostered communication between scientists and practitioners in
education and health and encouraged excellent working models that
applied the new knowledge in communities. We supported systematic
assessment of these creative innovations with a view toward scaling
up across the nation. Lastly, we funded efforts to translate this
experience into broader social action as opportunities could be
envisioned.
In
all of this, we addressed the inextricable linkage of education
and health and the effect of the social environment on both. Children
impaired by physical or mental health problems tend to do poorly
in school; yet education is a powerful vehicle for shaping health
promotion and disease prevention over the entire life span. We also
recognized the centrality of teaching in education and therefore
in the great tradition of Andrew Carnegie's commitment to professionalism
sought through various means to upgrade teaching as a profession
and, especially in the sciences and mathematics, to improve instruction
and learning.
Comprehensive
Studies of Children and Youth
Throughout
the 1980s and during the 1990s, there has been a dynamic interplay
between the grantmaking process and the special study groups formed
by the Corporation to undertake a close examination of problems
addressed in the programs. The grant programs have stimulated, informed,
and guided the preparation of the major Corporation reports; the
reports, in turn, have highlighted the work of the grantees and
further enlarged the pool of ideas brought to public attention.
Between
1986 and 1996, various study groups of experts and opinion leaders
addressed the needs of children during specific developmental periods.
The Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, which I led with
executive director Ruby Takanishi, focused on early adolescence,
ages ten to fifteen. From its work there emerged a number of reports,
including Turning Points (1989), Fateful Choices,
by Fred M. Hechinger (1992), A Matter of Time (1992), and
Great Transitions (1995). Of special significance were two
books assessing the research evidence on healthy adolescent development
and on health promotion in adolescence, At the Threshold
(1990) and Promoting the Health of Adolescents (1993).
The
Carnegie Task Force on Meeting the Needs of Young Children, first
chaired by Richard W. Riley, then by Eleanor E. Maccoby and Julius
B. Richmond, next examined the first three years of life. Its final
report, Starting Points, was published in 1994.
Finally,
the Corporation established the Carnegie Task Force on Learning
in the Primary Grades, cochaired by Shirley M. Malcom and Admiral
James D. Watkins, which linked early childhood and early adolescence
with an investigation of middle childhood. Its report, Years
of Promise, was released in 1996. Together, these reports cover
the entire spectrum of early life, from the prenatal period to age
fifteen, and form the basis of a coherent developmental strategy
for all the nation's children and youth. All have been widely disseminated
to the public and are having an effect on policies and programs
throughout the nation. This work has been greatly facilitated by
the publications office under the leadership of Avery Russell.
Most
of the recommendations urge a realignment of priorities and better
use of existing resources eliminating activities that do not significantly
improve care, development, teaching, and learning and redeploying
resources to programs that are demonstrably effective. Can we do
better than we are doing now? These reports answer yes, emphatically!
They show the way to prevent much of the damage now occurring to
children and young people.
The
Earliest Years. The first few years of life provide the critical
opportunity for a decent start. Such a beginning greatly increases
the odds for lifelong learning, good health, the acquisition of
constructive skills, and the development of prosocial behavior.
It is a period when children form the initial human attachments
that powerfully shape their possibilities for having decent and
fulfilling relationships with others. During these years of growth
and development, children need dependable caregivers who will nurture,
protect, and guide them and foster their inherent curiosity and
enjoyment of discovery. So this initial phase, beginning at the
moment of conception, has a strong bearing on a child's entire life.
Starting Points addressed these needs and formulated four main recommendations
for action:
Preparation
for Responsible and Competent Parenthood: Such preparation ideally
begins within the family, but it also encompasses education in the
life sciences during early adolescence and widely available parent
education opportunities in conjunction with prenatal care, primary
health care, child care, and Head Start.
Health
Care: Starting Points calls for comprehensive prenatal and primary
health care with concomitant educational and social services, including
early home visits. Of special importance is vigorous public health
outreach for early prenatal care augmented by opportunities for
young parents to learn how to care for the pregnancy, the baby,
and themselves and their future.
Child
Care: The report recommends expanded child care opportunities,
improved training of caregivers to strengthen the quality of child
care services, and wider use of the Head Start model combining parental
involvement with disease prevention and stimulation of prosocial
as well as cognitive skills.
Community Mobilization: Community supports for young children
include family child resource centers; federal, state, and local
councils to promote intersectoral cooperation to assess specific
needs and formulate ways of meeting them; integration of services
in community schools; and local involvement of business, media organizations,
and key health and educational institutions.
To
follow up on the task force report, the Corporation in 1996 launched
the Starting Points State and Community Partnerships, a competitive
grants program enabling states and cities to adopt and implement
the reforms called for in the report. Ten states and six major cities
are currently participating in this effort, led by program officer
Michael H. Levine. The cause has been vigorously pursued by the
President and also the First Lady, the National Governors' Association,
and members of Congress on a broad bipartisan basis. Two and a half
years after its publication, the report reverberates in national
news magazines, a network television prime-time documentary, and
a White House conference.
Middle Childhood. For most children, the long-term success of
their learning and development depends to a great extent on what
happens to them during the years of promise, from age three to ten.
Children fortunate enough to attend a high-quality preschool or
child care program and who enter the primary grades with adequate
preparation have a better chance of achieving to high levels than
those who do not. Children who attend an elementary school that
sets high standards and does whatever it takes to see that students
meet those standards have a better chance of leaving fourth grade
proficient in reading, writing, mathematics, and science. Children
whose parents create a home environment that encourages learning
and who remain involved in their children's education throughout
the years from three to ten earn higher grades than those whose
parents are uninvolved. Children from communities that provide parents
with supportive programs aimed at enhancing young people's healthy
development and achievement and that offer out-of school opportunities
emphasizing learning do better academically than those who have
not had such opportunities.
These
are the essential findings of Years of Promise, which asserts
that all children can learn to a higher level when they are adequately
prepared for school and are challenged as well as supported by families,
schools, the health sector, community organizations, and the media.
The report calls for expanded public and private financing to improve
the quality and availability of early care and educational opportunities
for three-, four-, and five-year-olds. Finally, Years of Promise
suggests how powerful sectors of society -- government, business,
universities, and the major professions -- can help the frontline
institutions do a better job of meeting the vital needs of child
development and education.
Like
the other Corporation reports, the work of this task force was enriched
by the results of pioneering innovations in elementary education
-- especially the School Development Program spearheaded by James
P. Comer, professor of child psychiatry at Yale University, and
the model elementary school program, Success for All, developed
by Robert E. Slavin of Johns Hopkins University. Their pioneering
work has illuminated the path to major improvements in the earliest
years of formal education for all children, shaping crucial attitudes
and basic skills of lifelong significance.
Early
Adolescence. Early adolescence, between the ages of ten and fifteen,
is a time of profound biological transformation and social transition
characterized by exploratory behavior. Much of this behavior is
adaptive and expected for this age group, but carried to extremes,
and especially if it becomes habitual, it can have lifelong adverse
consequences. Many dangerous patterns, in fact, commonly emerge
during these years: substance abuse, premature and unprotected sex,
the use of weapons, alienation from school. The Carnegie Council
on Adolescent Development sounded a powerful alarm about this sadly
neglected but fateful phase in its concluding report, Great Transitions.
Young
adults on an effective developmental path must find a valued place
in a constructive group; learn how to form close, durable human
relationships; earn a sense of worth as a person; achieve a reliable
basis for making informed choices; express constructive curiosity
and exploratory behavior; find ways of being useful to others; believe
in a promising future with real opportunities; cultivate the inquiring
and problem-solving habits of mind necessary for lifelong learning
and adaptability; learn to respect democratic values and the elements
of responsible citizenship; and altogether build a healthy lifestyle.
The
work of the council consistently addressed ways in which these requirements
can be met by a conjunction of frontline institutions that powerfully
shape adolescent development, for better or worse -- families, and
also schools, community-based organizations, and health care organizations.
Working models of supportive programs for young adolescents can
be observed in some communities, a few of which have been scrutinized
by evaluative research. The council highlighted these and other
social support strategies that show promise of setting young people
on the path toward healthy, problem-solving adulthood. Three that
recognize the link between education and health can be built into
the curriculum of middle schools or after-school programs:
Life
Sciences Curriculum: The life sciences, particularly human biology,
can tap into the natural curiosity of students who are already intensely
interested in the changes taking place in their own bodies. The
study of human biology can illuminate ways that high-risk behavior,
especially during adolescence, bears on health throughout the life
span. A curriculum developed at Stanford University offers much
promise for this purpose.
Life-Skills
Training: The vital knowledge obtained from the life sciences
curriculum is crucial, but, to be effective in shaping behavior,
it should be combined with training in interpersonal and decision-making
skills. These skills can be useful in resisting pressure from peers
or from the media to engage in high-risk behavior; they can increase
self-control, reduce stress, and help to overcome feelings of isolation.
Research shows that such skills can be taught through systematic
instruction with practice through role playing.
Adult
Mentoring and Peer Mediation: Mentoring can be a powerful way
to involve caring, supportive adults with adolescents who tend to
be isolated, preparing them for social roles that earn respect and
encouraging them to persist in education. It is important that a
mentoring program be integrated with other resources in the community,
particularly for high-risk youth who sometimes have multiple problems.
Programs led by trained students, such as one-on-one tutoring, peer
counseling, and other forms of mutual aid, can benefit students
who are having academic problems. Research shows that when these
programs are firmly established they are also good for teachers,
and the classroom climate is likely to improve.
The
council's unique functions in clarifying this crucial, neglected
phase will be followed up by the National Research Council of the
National Academy of Sciences, Stanford University, and the Center
for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.
The
Centrality of Teaching
Success
in upgrading our education system for the long term depends on a
profession of well-educated and highly respected teachers prepared
to assume new authority and responsibility. Any serious inquiry
into education reform, therefore, must recognize the centrality
of teaching. If we are serious about a fundamental and enduring
upgrading of American education, we must find ways to strengthen
the capability and accomplishment of teachers. In practice, this
implies the need for a broad, multifaceted effort to enhance teaching
as a profession. Such an effort will involve attracting very able
people and providing them with a substantial education in subject
matter as well as the principles of human learning and their applications.
It means asking them to demonstrate their competence and maintain
it in ways that manifestly help students and thereby earn public
respect. At the same time, it requires offering clear social and
economic rewards consistent with a highly valued profession; opportunities
for professional development throughout the entire span of a career;
a working environment that is conducive to active learning; and
a structure of opportunity that makes it possible for the profession
to reflect the full diversity of our nation. This approach was addressed
in the 1996 report of the National Commission on Teaching &
America's Future, What Matters Most, jointly supported by
the Rockefeller Foundation and Carnegie Corporation.
In
1987 the Corporation took the initiative in creating a National
Board for Professional Teaching Standards to implement the recommendations
of A Nation Prepared, a major report of the Carnegie Forum
on Education and the Economy. Organized with extensive participation
from teachers and other leaders, the board aims to establish high
standards for what teachers need to know and be able to do and to
certify those who meet the standards. Under the leadership of Governor
James B. Hunt, Jr., of North Carolina, the board is thriving after
a decade of dedicated efforts. Plans are to offer certificates to
lead teachers in approximately thirty fields, covering about 40
percent of the teaching work force. In his 1997 State of the Union
message, President Clinton singled out this board for special mention
and urged strong support for its efforts.
Collaboration
in the Service of Education
In
the early 1980s, the Corporation set out to connect the scientific
talent of universities, colleges, corporate laboratories, scientific
organizations, and national laboratories with the needs of elementary
and secondary schools, thereby strengthening national capability
for broad education in the sciences -- physical, biological, and
behavioral. We particularly sought ways of linking science educators
with the science-rich sectors of our society. A nationwide assessment
after several years of experience made encouraging observations,
and these efforts have spread.
The
linkage of science-rich to science-poor sectors has been aimed at
both teacher education and curriculum development. Improvements
in education can flow from the collaboration of frontline teachers
with subject matter experts in physics, chemistry, or biology and
also with psychologists and other scholars in the field of human
learning. Such collaborations, moreover, can be an important step
in the general direction of incorporating teachers of science into
the scientific community. Examples of linkages are summer institutes
for teachers, Saturday activities for teachers throughout the school
year, summer jobs in science for teachers, and the preparation of
curricular materials including advanced audiovisual materials by
collaborative groups.
The
groundbreaking reports of Project 2061, a program of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science led by the noted science
educator F. James Rutherford, have received Corporation support
since 1985. More than a decade ago, the framers of Project 2061
(named for the year Halley's comet returns) recognized that the
science taught in the nation's schools does not adequately prepare
future citizens for life in a science-based, high-technology world.
The project is an ambitious effort to recast precollegiate education
in science, mathematics, and technology from kindergarten through
the twelfth grade. Particularly with its reports, Science for
All Americans (1989) and Benchmarks (1989), this effort
has had a very stimulating effect on the creation of national standards
as well as directly improving the teaching of science. More recently,
under the leadership of Bruce M. Alberts, the National Academy of
Sciences has emerged as a major focal point for the upgrading of
science education with its publication of national science education
standards.
The
Corporation has also fostered functional links between higher educational
institutions and elementary and secondary schools -- and even with
preschool education programs. In short, we have supported a continuum
of education, from prenatal care to the highest levels -- with cooperative
efforts along the way.
In
the long run, the vitality of any society and its prospects for
the future will depend on the quality of its people on their knowledge
and skill, health and vigor, and the decency of their human relations.
Preventing much of the damage now occurring will have powerfully
beneficial social and economic impacts, resulting in a more effective
work force, higher productivity, lowered health costs, lowered prison
costs, and so much relief of human suffering! We can fulfill the
promise of these precious early years if we have the vision and
the decency to invest responsibly in all our children and
thereby in the future of humanity.
Human
Conflict:
Preventing Disaster
In
1983 the Corporation returned to one of the most fundamental of
all Andrew Carnegie's interests, his passion for peace. In his determined,
persistent, even zealous quest -- a kind of desperate search --
he explored many avenues. He created four foundations1
and three peace palaces2 and made
proposals for the arbitration of international disputes and courts
of various kinds, including the World Court, as well as an international
police force. His personal philanthropy reflected a unique combination
of ideas, institution building, and social action, the spirit of
which the Corporation has tried to uphold during the years 1983
to 1997.
Avoiding
Nuclear War
In
my first annual report essay of 1983 laying out a framework for
the Corporation's new grant program, I asked, "Given the immense
risks and costs of the nuclear arms race, is it at least conceivable
that the basic relations between the [United States and the Soviet
Union] might change for the better in the decades ahead? If so,
should somebody be thinking about ways to get from here to there,
and on what basis? I reported then that the Corporation would "make
a few grants to explore and delineate long-term possibilities for
improving the basic U.S.-Soviet relationship, taking into account
their view of us as well as our view of them. I also cautioned that
"to do this in a truly thoughtful and realistic way without
romantic illusions will be very difficult. Yet the subject is so
important for the human future that it can scarcely be ignored.
At
that time, the world was in great danger -- from a severe exacerbation
of the cold war precipitated by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
It was our desire to mobilize the strongest possible talent, drawing
upon the deepest knowledge and the most systematic research, to
understand the sources of danger and ways out of this predicament
-- and to do this by novel conjunctions of talent across disciplines
and national boundaries.
The
first set of large-scale grants under the new Avoiding Nuclear War
program, chaired by Frederic A. Mosher, was aimed at strengthening
centers of research, especially to prepare wide-ranging analyses
of the possible paths to nuclear war. How could a nuclear war actually
happen? Then came similarly wide-ranging analyses of possible preventive
interventions with respect to each of the paths, giving special
attention to the problem of accidental and inadvertent nuclear war,
the slipperiest of all slopes. We also made grants to assess the
potential consequences of nuclear war -- the basic, unprecedented
facts of destruction that are at the center of the problem. We sponsored
studies on understanding the adversary -- how could one intelligently
monitor developments in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe? And
we invested in a line of inquiry and innovation that had been considerably
neglected: crisis prevention.
From
Crisis Management to Crisis Prevention
The
Corporation's focus on crisis management and prevention during the
cold war has useful implications. Recall the Cuban Missile Crisis
of 1963, the most dramatic and dangerous event of the cold war.
How lucky we were to get out of it without an unimaginable catastrophe!
In a crisis, there is a virtually irresistible temptation to subject
the opponent to strong forms of coercive diplomacy, much like an
awesome game of "chicken. The likelihood of catastrophic error
is great under conditions where there is terrible stress on decision
making and where there is the difficulty of controlling far-flung,
high-tension operations. Facing this harsh fact, the superpowers
gradually came to recognize that it was profoundly in their national
interest to move back a respectful distance from the brink of ultimate
shared disaster. In short, they developed a regimen for crisis prevention
rather than crisis management.
The
Corporation's emphasis in crisis prevention was on finding ways
to decrease the likelihood that nuclear weapons would be used. Our
approach did not assume a great improvement in the relationship
between the United States and the Soviet Union; nor did it assume
a great decline in the stockpile of nuclear weapons. It simply assumed
that each nation could recognize that a nuclear confrontation like
the Cuban Missile Crisis is too difficult to manage safely time
after time.
The
main principles in the crisis prevention approach can be stated
concisely: Avoid subjecting each other to nasty, unpleasant surprises;
reach agreements to deal with predictably sensitive and potentially
explosive situations; clarify vital interests in touchy situations;
strengthen institutional mechanisms that provide for the professional
exchange of information and ideas on a regular basis regarding issues
that could readily become highly dangerous.
The
crisis prevention approach has led to broad international interest
in confidence-building measures that can be applied to each region
of the world. This is one of the valuable lessons we have learned
from the immense dangers of the cold war. More generally, it has
turned our attention to the mission of preventing mass violence
altogether.
During
the perilous years of the cold war, the West and the Soviet Union
gradually and painfully evolved some mutual accommodation rules,
both explicit and implicit. Some of these rules were: Avoid direct
superpower confrontation; avoid nuclear threats; respect vital interests
of the adversary; take care in defining interests that are not grandiose;
avoid dehumanization; help the adversary off a dangerous limb if
necessary; don't humiliate; keep in mind the common humanity of
the adversary, especially in time of stress; widen contacts across
adversarial boundaries under favorable conditions to the extent
possible. These are useful guidelines to remember in handling future
conflicts in the world indeed, in human relations of every kind.
The
superpower leaders, President Ronald Reagan and Secretary-General
Mikhail Gorbachev, took a great step forward by making explicit
the fundamental concept that nuclear war could never be won and
must never be fought. The incredible destructive power of nuclear
weapons remains a dreadful part of human reality. Many nations will
be sorely tempted to go nuclear in the next century. The facts of
nuclear devastation must be widely understood and their meaning
profoundly grasped by populations throughout the world. Linking
Independent Experts with the Policy Community One of the great privileges
of a foundation like Carnegie Corporation is the opportunity to
stimulate, support, and facilitate the work of scientists, scholars,
and other experts of the first rank. This, in turn, opens up the
possibility of the foundation's playing a kind of brokerage function,
fostering mutually beneficial contact between policymakers in various
sectors -- government, business, the media -- with independent experts
in major problem areas.
The
Corporation's concept was that it could be mutually beneficial for
the scientific and scholarly community on the one hand, and the
policymaking, policy-advising community on the other, to have dependable
and convenient ways to interact with each other over an extended
period of time with respect to a shared set of interests and concerns.
Our grants have consistently tried to bring to policymakers the
most highly respected, objective, independent, nonpartisan information
available. The intent has been to strengthen the informational underpinnings
for decision making over the long term, beyond any current policy
question.
During
the cold war and since then, we convened independent experts at
the request of government leaders in the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton
administrations on such topics as arms control; nuclear crisis prevention;
scientific and scholarly exchanges with the Soviet Union; emerging
opportunities in the Soviet Union in Gorbachev's early years and,
concomitantly, opportunities to loosen the Soviet yoke in eastern
Europe; the role of nongovernmental organizations in conflict resolution;
reform of the United Nations; prospects for Russia and other states
of the former Soviet Union; and new approaches to preventing deadly
conflict.
With
respect to Congress, Corporation grantees, especially the Aspen
Institute's Congressional Program under former senator Dick Clark,
have brought independent experts on international problems together
with members from both parties and the Senate and House on a continuing
basis over the years. The most remarkably successful format has
been a carefully prepared retreat extending over several days, focusing
on an important problem in international relations. These meetings
have consistently been highly substantive and essentially free of
partisan rancor. Such linkage efforts have reached beyond our shores
to include parliamentarians of western and eastern Europe as well
as Russia and Ukraine.
Unforgettably,
we had the privilege of linking Mikhail Gorbachev with Western experts
during his crucially formative early years in office. In 1985 a
remarkable new generation of leadership took control in the Soviet
Union. Building on my contacts with leaders of the Soviet scientific
community that led to an enduring relationship with Gorbachev, the
Corporation launched a vigorous attempt to expand cooperative projects
between its U.S. grantees and their Soviet counterparts. The Soviet
scholars and analysts who were involved in these contacts included
several who were key advisors to Gorbachev in the early years of
his reform efforts.
As
the Gorbachev era began to take shape, we encouraged special studies
to take account of the new developments and especially to consider
the possibilities for major worldwide changes in U.S.-Soviet relations.
We were able to facilitate communication across adversarial boundaries
by supporting U.S.-Soviet study groups on improved relations between
the two countries, arms control, crisis prevention, third-world
flash points, eastern Europe, and building democratic institutions.
There is reason to believe that these joint explorations of vital
issues by specialized experts on both sides contributed to the Soviet
"new thinking and to the momentous changes in international
relations that ensued.
Our
experience makes clear that there is a useful role for the scientific
and scholarly communities in international conflict resolution,
usually acting through nongovernmental organizations yet maintaining
open lines of communication with governments. The singular advantage
is the ability of these communities to:
- Draw
on the science base for accurate information, sound principles,
and techniques.
- Act
flexibly in exploring novel or neglected paths toward violence
prevention and conflict resolution in an open-minded spirit.
- Build
relationships among well-informed people who can make a difference
in attitudes and in problem solving across adversarial boundaries.
In
the years ahead, there is good reason to expand the role of scientists
and scholars, generating deeper understanding of human conflict,
expanding education on these critical issues, and putting the knowledge
to use in conflict situations.
Preventing
Proliferation
A
major grant in early 1992, organized by senior program officer Jane
Wales, brought specialists on cooperative security and conflict
resolution together with experts on nonproliferation regimes, enforcement,
and verification as they apply to nuclear, chemical, biological,
and high-technology systems. Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar
participated actively as members of the steering committee for this
enterprise, together with John Steinbruner, then head of the Foreign
Policy Program of the Brookings Institution, and William Perry,
codirector of Stanford University's Center for International Security
and Arms Control, who in 1994 was appointed U.S. Secretary of Defense.
The
work of this Prevention of Proliferation (POP) committee contributed
substantially to the Nunn-Lugar Amendment of 1992 to the Soviet
Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 1991, providing for the joint dismantling
of Soviet nuclear weapons and otherwise for the reduction of proliferation
risks in and around the former Soviet Union. The amendment was a
remarkable example of legislative leadership by Senators Nunn and
Lugar in translating research into policy and practice. In 1992
key research findings presented in a report on new nuclear dangers
posed by the breakup of the Soviet Union were reported to the pop
committee by its principal author, Ashton Carter, at that time director
of the Corporation-supported Center for Science and International
Affairs (CSIA) at Harvard University. Stimulated by the report,
Soviet Nuclear Fission, the two senators forged a bipartisan
initiative to provide U.S. assistance in mitigating the dangers
highlighted in the csia study. When Carter became assistant secretary
of defense and Perry assumed leadership of the Department of Defense,
they worked with Nunn, Lugar, and others in implementing this landmark
legislation. Over the years, they built the Nunn Lugar legislation
of today: $2 billion going into many large engineering projects,
military-to-military contacts, defense conversion efforts, officer
housing and retraining, weapons and fissile material safeguards,
and anti-brain drain grants. Thousands of Americans are at work
with their counterparts in the former Soviet Union on these projects
every day. They will leave a legacy of cooperation long after their
tangible efforts -- including the complete denuclearization of Ukraine,
Kazakstan, and Belarus -- have been felt.
Preventing
Deadly Conflict
In
1994 the Corporation changed the name of its program on international
security to Preventing Deadly Conflict, chaired by David C. Speedie
III. The program puts a sharp focus on explicit, systematic ways
to prevent disasters rather than patching up the damage after the
fact. There are now four areas of emphasis involving:
- An
examination of the causes of deadly ethnic, nationalist, and religious
conflicts between or within states and the circumstances that
foster or deter their outbreak.
- Support
of nongovernmental organizations in preventing violence: through
analysis; convening and directly fostering mutual accommodation;
and training emerging leaders and community groups in concepts
and techniques of conflict resolution.
- A
continuing effort to strengthen democratic institutions as nonviolent
mechanisms for coping with conflicts in the former Soviet Union
and eastern and central Europe, which have immense explosive potential.
-
An exploration of prospects for more robust efforts by the United
States, Russia, and other major weapons suppliers to curb the
proliferation of advanced weaponry that threatens to raise the
stakes dangerously in ethnonationalist conflicts.
Carnegie
Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict
The
grantmaking activities in the Preventing Deadly Conflict program
are closely related to the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly
Conflict, which was formed in 1994 with a membership of sixteen
international leaders and scholars long experienced in conflict
prevention and conflict resolution. The commission is cochaired
by Cyrus R. Vance and myself, with Jane E. Holl as executive director.
It has a distinguished advisory council consisting of thirty-six
scholars and practitioners from a variety of countries.\
Because
the commission is an international, not an American, resource, there
are burgeoning relationships with international partners, especially
reflected in a series of regional forums in different parts of the
world with regional partner institutions. These meetings have several
purposes: to stimulate thinking worldwide about the prevention approach;
to examine regional conflicts and regional solutions that may be
widely applicable elsewhere; and to illuminate the agenda of the
commission for a broad international audience.
We
are taking a long-term view of violent conflicts likely to emerge
in the world, assessing the functional requirements of a system
for preventing mass violence and considering ways in which such
a system could be implemented. A body of knowledge that is put into
action by trained and experienced practitioners striving to prevent
mass violence could improve the lives of millions in the same way
that medical knowledge and public health practice prevent diseases
that have previously caused terrible epidemics.
Prevention
is best thought of not only as avoiding undesirable circumstances,
but also as creating preferred alternatives. In the long run, we
can be most successful in preventing ethnic, religious, and international
wars by not only focusing on ways to avert direct confrontation
between hostile groups but also by promoting democracy, market reform,
and the creation of civil institutions that protect human rights.
The
commission is producing a series of reports, background papers,
and other materials, culminating in a final report to be disseminated
worldwide in November 1997. The report will serve as a guide to
preventive policies and actions at national and international levels.
Afterwards there will be a two-year follow-up period for further
dissemination and implementation. The recommendations will consider
many elements of the international community, among them the democracies,
the United Nations, regional organizations, the business community,
the global scientific community, educational and religious organizations,
the media, and nongovernmental organizations concerned with conflict.
Only with the active participation of all these groups can we approach
the vision of an international system for preventing deadly conflict.
All must come to see that an ounce of prevention is worth a megaton
of palliation later.
Strengthening
Democracy in the Former Soviet Union and Elsewhere
In
a world full of ethnocentrism, prejudice, and violent conflict,
there is a vital need for core democratic values to resolve ethnic
and religious conflicts and to prevent their escalation to violence.
Although the history of each region has left a distinctive legacy
of cultures, languages, and religions, fundamental democratic principles
applied in ways that fit indigenous circumstances can be useful
to all.
The
Corporation has supported efforts that have assisted in the development
of effective democratic institutions in the former communist world,
not only for their own sake, but because a society that is open
and responsible to its own citizens is more likely to be a trustworthy
partner in cooperative security efforts, since that openness makes
its intentions more discernible and any dangerous recidivist tendencies
more detectable.
The
Strengthening Democratic Institutions project, based at Harvard
University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and led by Graham
T. Allison, has been a dynamic and valuable source of practical
advice for those concerned with building democratic institutions
in Russia, both in the central government and in some of the more
progressive regions. Its origins go back to the early Gorbachev
era and its relationships then with emerging democratic reformers
who are today among the most respected leaders of Russian society.
There
is little precedent for well-organized international efforts to
help substantially with this process of democratization, yet experience
suggests that it is not impossible. If democracy is perceived as
an optional preoccupation of self-righteous democratizers or even
as an intrusive activity of sugar-coated neoimperialists then all
this is much ado about nothing. But if democracy is viewed as a
powerful and constructive mechanism for resolving the ubiquitous
ongoing conflicts of our highly contentious human species, then
the challenge becomes vital and the opportunity precious.
Strengthening
American Democracy
American
democracy began not only with a revolutionary war, but with the
adoption of some revolutionary concepts such as inalienable rights
and the consent of the governed. For more than two centuries, this
very large and complicated democracy has been evolving. It is now
in the midst of adapting to drastic technological, economic, and
social changes. Fundamental to its success historically has been
the capacity of American institutions to preserve and implement
a set of core democratic values.
Carnegie
Corporation's grantmaking over the past fourteen years has sought
to strengthen these values and institutions in a variety of ways.
There have been manifestations of this in virtually every program,
such as our efforts to strengthen the public education system. Most
of this work, however, has gone on in the Special Projects program
chaired by Barbara D. Finberg, which has largely focused on efforts
to enhance participation in elections; campaign finance reform;
congressional reform; the role of universities in tackling serious
social problems; and the relationship between democracy and the
media.
Carnegie
Commission on Science, Technology, and Government
One
major thrust of the Special Projects program between 1988 and 1993
was the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government,
cochaired by Joshua Lederberg and William T. Golden, with David
Z. Robinson as executive director and commission member. Its main
purpose was to seek ways in which government in the United States
can encourage and use the contributions of the national scientific
community. The nation needs effective mechanisms, both governmental
and nongovernmental, for analyzing thoroughly and objectively what
science can do for society and how society can make sure that scientific
and technological capabilities are humanely used.
In
approving the commission, the Corporation's board recognized that
our future depends heavily on science and technology and that the
government must systematically take into account science and technology
in its decision-making processes. Therefore, the commission scrutinized
fundamental patterns of organization and institutional arrangements
of both federal and state governments, asking whether they were
adequate to this task and, if not, how they might be strengthened.
Its work has had continuing reverberations in the executive branch,
the Congress, and the judiciary as well as state governments. The
recommendations of one of its reports led directly to a fundamental
reconstruction of the White House science and technology apparatus
under President Bush.
Adapting
American Democracy to World Transformation
The
power of technological advance and global economic integration to
change social conditions is a critical issue for the democracy agenda.
The economic and social changes fostered by the global spread of
information and telecommunications -- combined with advances in
research and development on space, energy, materials, and biotechnology
-- are likely to be profound and pervasive. These problems have
been studied by the National Academy of Engineering under the leadership
of its former president, Robert M. White.
Historically,
adjustments to technological advances over long periods have resulted
in social and economic transformations on a vast scale. This is
especially likely when fundamental new technologies are unfolding
across the entire frontier of scientific and engineering research
and are undergoing rapid dissemination throughout the world. The
impacts over the long term have generally been positive. Along the
way, however, there have been massive dislocations. In this context,
it is worth recalling the severe disruptions of the industrial revolution
that had much to do with the emergence of communism, fascism, and
the Nazi catastrophe.
New
worldwide opportunities have brought with them profound stresses
that will affect human development in ways hard to foresee. This
is an urgent subject for monitoring, assessment, research, and public
education and one that is highly relevant to the democracy agenda
of the early twenty-first century. An important question is how
to understand the relationship of personal economic insecurity and
the public's increasing distrust of government as well as declining
civic participation.
Ray
Marshall, former U.S. secretary of labor, now a professor of economics
and public affairs at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs,
University of Texas, is leading a multifaceted examination of the
factual and analytical bases for policies that can adapt to transforming
changes. A question being addressed is whether serious social problems
are caused or exacerbated by some fundamental economic trends: dislocations
associated with technology, especially information technology; demographic
and labor market shifts; and the intensification of competition
facilitated by information and transportation technology that makes
markets more global in scope.
In
our time, the effectiveness of the policies, institutions, and economic
arrangements that helped the United States have the longest span
of broadly shared prosperity in history from the late 1930s until
the early 1970s has eroded. During this period, Americans with limited
levels of formal education who were willing to work hard could earn
middle-class incomes and acquire the financial means to provide
more education and the promise of a better future for their children.
Especially during the 1950s and 1960s, families could be supported
by only one wage earner, and most mothers could stay home with their
children if they wished.
Enumerating
the achievements of this century, President Clinton in his 1997
inaugural address said, "Along the way, Americans produced
the great middle class and security in old age, built unrivaled
centers of learning and opened public schools to all, split the
atom and explored the heavens, invented the computer and the microchip,
and deepened the wellspring of justice by making a revolution in
civil rights for African Americans and all minorities and extending
the circle of citizenship, opportunity, and dignity to women.
But
the frustrations and uncertainties of a complex, rapidly changing
world can trigger scapegoating of highly visible groups like minorities,
immigrants, and government officials, who have become targets of
irrational, hateful, or extremist responses. These challenges have
serious implications for democratic societies throughout the world.
It is crucial to seek factual and analytical bases for policies
and practices that could help us to cope with such problems and
take advantage of the immense, emerging opportunities in an equitable
way.
The
concepts of governance appropriate to the mid-twentieth century
have not been easily adapted to the information economy of the late
twentieth. On topic after topic, old notions of governance are challenged.
Political orientations are evolving, often in ways that transcend
the traditional boundaries of the nation-state. The internationalization
of information, capital, and labor creates new questions about public
action.
A
popular perception today holds that government is somewhere between
inept and evil. Are there some minimal, essential functions that
government must perform -- functions about which there is broad
agreement? On the one hand, pragmatism identifies and takes for
granted minimum essential functions of government and provides a
basis for action when people feel specific pains. On the other hand,
a historically ingrained skepticism about concentrations of power
lead people to view government as a threat, perhaps a necessary
evil. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., dean of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy
School of Government, with a group of colleagues is rethinking democratic
governance in light of the public's apparent loss of confidence
in government in many countries.
The
Harvard project is addressing hard questions: What is necessary
and appropriate for governments now? What will citizenship mean
in the twenty-first century? How should a government try to balance
social and economic power in an age in which private labor is less
organized and corporate power reaches new heights? What can governments
do, or not do, better than for-profit and nonprofit private organizations?
Where government does have a crucial role in providing public goods
or protecting individual rights, what kind of involvement is most
appropriate? How should power be distributed among the levels of
government as federalism is reevaluated?
The
drastic changes under way also raise educational questions that
we have addressed in other contexts: Given the rapidity of sociotechnical
change, how can lifelong learning become a reality so that people
can adjust their knowledge and skills to new circumstances? As educational
institutions more than ever try to hit a moving target as they prepare
people for unpredictable circumstances, how can they prepare others
for change itself? How can the talent pool be enlarged so that promising
people can pursue technically challenging careers, regardless of
their socioeconomic background? How does one achieve an informed
worldwide perspective in an era of profound interdependence?
The
building of democratic institutions is certainly a crucial, albeit
complicated and frustratingly slow, component of helping people
live together peacefully over the long term.
Strengthening
Human Resources in Developing Countries
A
very large and important part of the world has received a good deal
of attention in Carnegie Corporation's work: developing countries,
primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. This program is chaired by Patricia
L. Rosenfield. The plight of some African nations illustrates the
astonishing paradox of the times, in which truly unprecedented opportunities
exist side by side with massive suffering and widespread jeopardy
to survival. If developing countries were to slide down a slope
of degradation, they could become an incubator for infectious diseases
and for hatred, violence, and terrorism as well as a source of accelerating
environmental damage and massive refugee flows. So, creative intervention
to foster constructive development of poor countries is a matter
not only of decent humanitarian values but of enlightened self-interest
for the entire world.
Human
resources are central to the task of upgrading development opportunities
everywhere. To strengthen human resources in poor nations, children
and families must have a decent start. This means preventive health
care, basic education, families of affordable size, and adequate
nutrition. It is essential that the sciences and technological innovation
be brought to bear on ways to meet these fundamental requirements.
Altogether, the essential ingredients for development center around
knowledge, skill, and freedom. Knowledge is mainly generated by
research and development; skills are mainly generated by education
and training; freedom is mainly generated by democratic institutions.
Recognizing
the immense power of science and technology to foster social and
economic development, the Corporation has sought to strengthen national
capacity for formulating science, technology, and health policies
linked with economic policies. Early on, we recognized that a major
impediment to reaching this goal was the isolation of African scientists.
We focused first on building networks of African scientists and
scholars with their peers in the United States and elsewhere. Working
with U.S.-based institutions such as the American Association for
the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences,
along with African universities and regional organizations, the
Corporation has fostered the use of electronic communications to
stimulate the flow of information and a mutual-aid ethic within
the scientific community.
Rapid
political change is another force transforming the continent. Spurred
on by South Africa as well as by events in eastern Europe and the
former Soviet Union, the demand for democratic governance and participatory
societies has permeated Africa. In the early 1980s, the Corporation
sought to build the field of public interest law in South Africa,
a key element in the political transformation there. More recently,
we have tried to clarify the requisite conditions for sustaining
Africa's emerging democracies and to encourage democratic reformers.
In the United States, we have aimed to enhance public understanding
of progressive changes in Africa and the importance of constructive
policies toward the continent.
Much
of this approach to developing countries was embodied in a report
of an international task force of the Carnegie Commission on Science,
Technology, and Government, led by President Jimmy Carter, called
Partnerships for Global Development (1992). Similarly, the
work of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences,
has been valuable in international health.
The
Second Inquiry into Poverty and Development in Southern Africa
Let
me now turn to the extraordinary experience of the Second Carnegie
Inquiry into Poverty and Development in Southern Africa, a comprehensive
study initiated by the Corporation in 1981. Based at the University
of Cape Town, it was directed by Francis Wilson, a distinguished
labor economist. He was later joined by Mamphela Ramphele when the
government lifted her banishment to a remote area. In 1996 she became
the vice chancellor of the University of Cape Town -- certainly
a dramatic turn of events.
The
inquiry drew upon the knowledge and research of a network of scholars
and professional persons in law, medicine, economics, religion,
and other fields throughout the country, as well as community leaders,
teachers, and social workers with firsthand knowledge of poverty
and the process of impoverishment at the local level. The operation
sought the widest possible participation from all sectors and races
in southern African life. Twenty universities in the region participated
in the study. It was a rare opportunity for research training and
leadership development among black Africans. Its practical recommendations
were widely disseminated and influential in South Africa and the
United States.
The
Second Inquiry was the most exhaustive survey of the causes, consequences,
and remedies for poverty in southern Africa since the Carnegie study
of poverty among whites carried out fifty years earlier. The earlier
study, popularly known as the Carnegie Poor White Study, succeeded
in stimulating actions that helped the Afrikaner poor overcome their
conditions and become part of mainstream South African society.
Ironically, by the time of the Second Carnegie Inquiry, the Afrikaners,
no longer a marginalized group, had become affluent, dominant and
repressive.
The
inquiry was not confined to the study of the people of any one race
classification in South Africa, although poverty in the 1980s was
endured almost entirely by nonwhite Africans. Poverty was studied
in relationship to land use, law, food and nutrition, health care,
education and training, transport, housing, social welfare, and
other quality-of-life indicators. It was also studied for its effects
upon families, migrant workers, women, children, and the elderly.
Overshadowing all else was the impact of apartheid.
In
my view, poverty is partly a matter of income and partly a matter
of human dignity. It is one thing to have a very low income but
to be treated with respect by your compatriots; it is quite another
matter to have a very low income and to be harshly depreciated by
more powerful compatriots. Let us speak, then, of human impoverishment:
low income plus harsh disrespect. This condition jeopardizes survival
in the most fundamental terms. It drastically increases infant mortality,
increases the burden of illness in many ways, and shortens life
expectancy. But it does even more. It gravely jeopardizes fundamental
human attachments to family, friends, home, and community; it undermines
self-respect and a sense of belonging; it makes life profoundly
unpredictable and insecure; it erodes hope for future improvement
and the sense of worth as a human being. This was the impact of
apartheid.
South
Africa remains important because it carries to the nth power a set
of issues that resonate with similar issues elsewhere: prejudice
and ethnocentrism, emotionally charged but relatively nonviolent
efforts at democratic reform, and a valiant experiment in political
and racial reconciliation. It is just possible that the world will
learn a lot from South Africa in the next few decades about ways
of dealing with the most intense human predicaments.
Promoting
Women's Health, Education, and Leadership in Africa
The
release of Nelson Mandela on February 2, 1990, and the dissolution
of apartheid laws set South Africa on its course toward nonracial
democracy and roughly corresponded with the closing of the Carnegie
Inquiry. The Corporation then turned its attention to the equally
pervasive issue of the unequal status of women throughout South
African society, seeking to improve women's rights, health, and
organizational capacity. Working jointly with local and external
donors, the foundation has helped to build a community of scholars,
practitioners, and organizations dedicated to women's issues and
create a cadre of effective women leaders, many of whom were elected
to parliament in April 1994. Currently, 25 percent of the representatives
in South Africa's parliament are women -- the second highest level
of women's parliamentary representation in the world.
These
grants have led to intensified support for activities enhancing
women's participation in the economic, social, and political life
of other African countries. Upgrading the status of women in these
countries can have powerful benefits for economic development, public
health, and the restraint of population growth as well as social
equity.
Over
nearly a decade, the Corporation also supported an excellent collaborative
network of West African and American universities using operational
research to address the grave problem of maternal mortality and
promote collaboration among physicians, nurses, and health workers
at the local level in providing emergency obstetric care so necessary
for saving lives -- often those of both the mother and the child.
This international university cooperation is a useful model for
other problems.
Learning
to Live Together
The
human species seems to have a virtuoso capacity for making harsh
distinctions between groups and for justifying violence on whatever
scale the technology of the time permits. Moreover, fanatical behavior
has a dangerous way of recurring across time and locations. Such
behavior is old. What is historically new and very threatening is
the destructive power of our weaponry and its ongoing worldwide
spread. Also new is the technology that permits rapid, vivid, widely
broadcast justifications for violence. This is what will make the
world of the next century so dangerous. In such a world, human conflict
is a subject that deserves the most careful and searching inquiry.
It is a subject par excellence for scientific and public understanding.
Fostering
Intergroup Understanding
During
the past few decades, valuable insights about these matters have
emerged from research on intergroup behavior. Behavioral scientists
have illuminated the truly pervasive human propensity to distinguish
between in-groups and out-groups. The flow of evidence is impressive
in both field studies and in experimental research. Overall, human
beings find it exceedingly easy to learn and stimulate a strong
sense of "my people. This easily learned response may well
have had adaptive functions in human evolution over a very long
period, but now it is very dangerous.
Can
human groups achieve internal cohesion, self-respect, and adaptive
efficacy without promoting hatred and violence? The answer is not
obvious. Even though in-group/out-group distinctions are ubiquitous
in human societies, including our own, and even though they are
deeply ingrained as a part of our ancient legacy, the immense adaptive
capacities of the human species should make it possible for us to
learn to minimize harsh and hateful distinctions in the future.
Much of the Corporation's work addresses ways to fulfill this potential.
This brings me to a point of linkage between Andrew Carnegie's two
great agendas: peace and education.
There
is an extensive body of research on intergroup contact that bears
on this linkage. Much depends on whether contact between strange
or adversarial groups occurs under favorable conditions. If there
is an aura of mutual suspicion, if the parties are highly competitive,
if they are not supported by relevant authorities, or if contact
occurs on the basis of very unequal status, then it is not likely
to be helpful, whatever the amount of exposure. Contact under unfavorable
conditions can stir up old tensions and reinforce stereotypes. On
the other hand, if there is friendly contact in the context of equal
status, especially if such contact is supported by relevant authorities,
and if the contact is embedded in cooperative activity and fostered
by a mutual-aid ethic, then there is likely to be a strong positive
outcome. Under these conditions, the more contact the better --
leading to improved attitudes and constructive patters of interaction
between groups that were previously hostile.
Some
experiments have demonstrated the power of shared, highly valued,
superordinate goals that can only be achieved by cooperative
effort. Such goals can override the differences that people bring
to a situation and often have a powerful, unifying effect. The effects
are particularly strong when there are tangibly successful outcomes
of cooperation for example, clear rewards for cooperative learning.
These findings have important implications for childrearing and
education.
Pivotal
institutions such as the family, schools, community-based organizations,
and the media have the power to shape attitudes and skills toward
decent human relations or toward hatred and violence. They can make
constructive use of findings from research on intergroup relations
and conflict resolution. Education everywhere can convey an accurate
concept of a single highly interdependent, worldwide species --
a vast extended family that shares fundamental human similarities
and a fragile planet. The give-and-take fostered within groups can
be extended far beyond childhood toward relations between adults
and into larger units of organization, even including international
relations.
Ethnic
prejudice and hatred exist all over the world and are an ancient
part of the human legacy. But there are also stunning examples of
tolerance, cooperation, and friendship between different groups.
What are the conditions under which the outcome can go one way or
another? If we could understand such questions better, perhaps we
could learn to tilt the balance toward cultures of peace.
Efforts
by schools, community organizations, religious institutions, and
others to improve relations among diverse youth in the United States
require a solid knowledge base from research. In 1996 the Corporation
undertook a research initiative on intergroup relations among young
people. Grants were made to sixteen institutions for studies to
deepen knowledge of the sources and dynamics of racial and ethnic
prejudice and to identify approaches that foster intergroup understanding.
Mainly school based, these studies are using different methods to
obtain information on existing intergroup relations among elementary,
middle, and high school students. They will shed light on ways in
which young people seek to reduce intergroup tensions and otherwise
cope with overt expressions of ethnic, cultural, or religious intolerance
among their peers. Some research will try new kinds of experimental
interventions to improve the school climate for group interaction.
Other studies are attempting to find out which practices within
schools can create an atmosphere of mutual respect and positive
relations among peers as well as between students and teachers,
in which all children can learn well.
In
the twenty-first century, it will be necessary in child development
to put deliberate, explicit emphasis on developing prosocial orientations
and a sense of worth based not on depreciation of others but rather
on the constructive attributes of oneself and others. In counteracting
our ancient tendencies toward ethnocentrism and prejudice, we will
need to foster reliable human attachment, positive reciprocity,
friendly intergroup relations, a mutual-aid ethic, and an awareness
of superordinate goals. The unfulfilled potential of the media could
be helpful in improving intergroup relations, as the Corporation-funded
children's television program, Sesame Street, has shown.
On
the international level, we must seek ways to expand favorable contact
between people from different groups and nations. Some measure of
comprehension of a strange culture is vital. Educational, cultural,
and scientific exchanges can be helpful. At a deeper level, joint
projects involving sustained cooperation can provide, if only on
a small scale, an experience of working together toward a superordinate
goal. There are many ways to break down antagonisms between groups
or, preferably, prevent them from arising in the first place. But
human societies have been remarkably inattentive to these possibilities.
Those
of us who have a deep sense of belonging in groups that cut across
ethnic or national lines may serve to bridge different groups and
help us move toward a wider sense of social identity. Building such
bridges will need many people interacting across traditional barriers
on a basis of mutual respect. Nothing in our history as a species
has built into the human organism a readiness for such a wider sense
of personal identity beyond the primary group. Yet it is possible
to engender it, and it will be necessary in the next century to
do so on a broader scale than ever before.
As
our children and their children learn about the horrifying mass
violence that human beings have committed against each other throughout
the ages, it is my fervent hope that, at the beginning of the second
millennium, the communities of the world will have planted seeds
of cooperation and reconciliation that will grow into a system in
which mass violence becomes increasingly rare, or even -- dare I
say it -- Some day nonexistent. Perhaps Carnegie Corporation, however
dimly, through its programs will have contributed in some small
way to such a precious legacy for future generations.
Concluding
Comment
There
is no way I can adequately express my gratitude for the opportunity
to lead Carnegie Corporation's efforts during these fourteen years
and the depth of my respect for this institution. By the same token,
I relish the opportunity of passing the baton to my distinguished
successor, Vartan Gregorian, and pursuing my substantive work with
enthusiasm. It has been our privilege to witness and take part in
events that offer an extraordinary basis for hope: the end of the
cold war; the transition from apartheid to democracy; the worldwide
emergence of democracy; the enhancement of opportunities for women;
and the most far-reaching advances in science and technology in
the history of humanity. There are massive problems to be faced:
hatred and violence; poverty and despair; abuse and neglect of children;
the plight of developing countries; environmental degradation; and
more. Yet the dramatic advances of the past decade give us reason
to believe that these problems are not beyond human ingenuity to
solve. I fervently hope that the creative work of Carnegie Corporation's
"extended family has contributed to a better human future --
and will contribute even more in the next century.
David
A. Hamburg
President
NOTE:
The president's annual essay is a personal statement representing
his own views. It does not necessarily reflect the foundation's
policies.
1
The foundations dedicated to peace are the Simplified Spelling Board
(1903), the Hero Fund (1904), the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace (1910), and the Church Peace Union (1914).
2
The peace palaces are the Palace of Peace at the Hague, the Pan
American Union Building, and the Central American Court of Justice
(Cartago, Costa Rica).
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