Shields on Jane Addams - What would this change look like?

The Patricia Shields article on Jane Addams (Shields, Patricia M.  "Democracy and the Social Feminist Ethics of Jane Addams: A Vision for Public Administration." Administrative Theory & Praxis. Vol 28, No. 3, 2006:418-443.) is very compelling. It is easy to see how this philosophy of public administration and participatory democracy would have its roots in someone who was disenfranchised from participation and equality in so many ways, and so choose to explore alternative models for social administration. As Shields raises the challenge to think about this formulation as an alternative to current practice of public administration, it is challenging to consider what that would mean - would it mean different kinds of programs? or instituting different "cultures" for these institutions? how would one train these individuals? In other words, how would we get there from here in practical terms.

I may have more thoughts about this and will update this post if so.

One final note: I find Shields's prose incredibly easy to read and understand. These are complex topics to explain and yet she makes them easy to follow. In part, I think this follows from her preference for simple sentence structure. She sparingly uses verbose formulations, compound sentences or other grammatical structures that often make academic work difficult to follow.