The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays

The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal

The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

Dedicated to the Memory of Terence H. McLaughlin 1949–2006

The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays

Edited by

Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon

A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication

This edition first published 2008 Chapters r 2008 the Authors Editorial organization r 2008 Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell. Registered Office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell. The right of Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon to be identified as the authors of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The common school and the comprehensive ideal : a defence by Richard Pring with complementary essays / edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon. p. cm.—(Journal of philosophy of education) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4051-8738-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Public schools—United States. 2. Education–Aims and objectives. I. Pring, Richard. II. Halstead, Mark. III. Haydon, Graham. LA217.2.C663 2008 370.973–dc22 2008027411 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Set in 9 on 11 pt Times by Macmillan India Ltd. Printed in Singapore by Fabulous Printers Pte Ltd 01 2008

Contents

Notes on Contributors

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Preface

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The Common School Richard Pring

Part I: Defending and Questioning the Comprehensive Ideal 2 In Search of the Comprehensive Ideal: By Way of an Introduction Graham Haydon 3 On the Necessity of Radical State Education: Democracy and the Common School Michael Fielding 4 Common Schooling and the Need for Distinction Robin Barrow 5 Educational Justice and Socio-Economic Segregation in Schools Harry Brighouse Part II: Common Schools in Multicultural Societies 6 Culture and the Common School Walter Feinberg 7 What is Common about Common Schooling? Rational Autonomy and Moral Agency in Liberal Democratic Education Hanan Alexander 8 Common Schools and Multicultural Education Meira Levinson 9 What Not To Wear: Dress Codes and Uniform Policies in the Common School Dianne Gereluk Part III: Common Schools and Religion 10 Religious Education, Religious Literacy and Common Schooling: A Philosophy and History of Skewed Reflection David Carr 11 Religious Worldviews and the Common School: The French Dilemma Kevin Williams 12 Common Schools and Uncommon Conversations: Education, Religious Speech and Public Spaces Kenneth A. Strike

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38 57 72

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Part IV: School Choice and the Comprehensive Ideal 13 How and Why to Support Common Schooling and Educational Choice at the Same Time Rob Reich 14 From Adam Swift to Adam Smith: How the ‘Invisible Hand’ Overcomes Middle Class Hypocrisy James Tooley 15 School Choice, Brand Loyalty and Civic Loyalty Mary Healy Part V: Common Schools and Inclusion 16 Capability and Educational Equality: The Just Distribution of Resources to Students with Disabilities and Special Educational Needs Lorella Terzi 17 A Question of Universality: Inclusive Education and the Principle of Respect Ruth Cigman 18 The ‘Futures’ of Queer Children and the Common School Ideal Kevin McDonough 19 ‘Lookism’, Common Schools, Respect and Democracy Andrew Davis 20 In Place of a Conclusion: The Common School and the Melting Pot J. Mark Halstead Index

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272 291 306 322 335

Notes on Contributors Hanan Alexander is Professor and Chair of the Department of Education at the University of Haifa, where he teaches philosophy of education and heads the Center for Jewish Education. He is also a Sr. Fellow of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Philosophy, Politics, and Religion of Jerusalem’s Shalem Center, and a Visiting Fellow of St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge. Robin Barrow is Professor of Philosophy of Education at Simon Fraser University, Canada, where for ten years he was also Dean of Education. Previously Reader in Philosophy of Education at the University of Leicester, UK, and Vice-President of Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, Dr Barrow was educated at Westminster School and the Universities of Oxford (BA/MA) and London (PhD). His many books include The Philosophy of Schooling, Happiness, Giving Teaching back to Teachers, Utilitarianism: a Contemporary Statement, Radical Education, Understanding Skills: Thinking, Feeling and Caring, and, most recently, An Introduction to Moral Philosophy and Moral Education (Routledge) and Plato (Continuum). In 1996 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Harry Brighouse is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is author of On Education (Routledge 2006) and is currently writing a book with Adam Swift on the place of the family in liberal and egalitarian theory. David Carr is Professor of Philosophy of Education in the University of Edinburgh. He is author of Educating the Virtues (1991), Professionalism and Ethics in Teaching (2000) and Making Sense of Education (2003), as well as many philosophical and educational papers. He is also editor of Education, Knowledge and Truth (1998) and co-editor (with Jan Steutel) of Virtue Ethics and Moral Education (1999) and (with John Haldane) of Spirituality, Philosophy and Education (2003). Ruth Cigman is Senior Research Fellow in the Philosophy Section at the Institute of Education, University of London, and also teaches medical ethics and law at University College London. Her special interests are: special education and the conceptualisation of disability; the concepts of respect and esteem; and the teaching of ethics to future doctors. She commissioned and edited Mary Warnock’s 2005 Impact pamphlet on special educational needs, and published an edited collection called Included or Excluded? in the following year. She has published many articles on philosophy of education and ethics.

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Andrew Davis is a Research Fellow in the School of Education, Durham University. After teaching in primary schools for several years he lectured in Philosophy of Education at Cambridge University before moving to Durham University. He is the author of The Limits of Educational Assessment and co-author of the best selling ‘Mathematical Knowledge for Primary Teachers’. He works in the analytical philosophy tradition and believes in the importance of applying the fruits of this tradition to education policy. Walter Feinberg retired from the University of Illinois as the C. D. Hardie Professor of Philosophy of Education and is now serving as a Faculty Fellow at The Spencer Foundation. He has served as President of the American Educational Studies Association, and of the North American Philosophy of Education Society. His latest book, For Goodness Sake (2006, Routledge) examines the relationship between religious instruction and moral education. Michael Fielding is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, London University, where he is setting up a Centre for Radical State Education. His first publication for the forerunner of the Journal of Philosophy of Education, ‘Against Competition: in praise of a malleable analysis and the subversiveness of philosophy’ (1976), and his most recent in this journal, ‘OfSTED, Inspection and the Betrayal of Democracy’ (2001), say something about his values as well as his age. Dianne Gereluk is Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at Roehampton University, London. Her primary areas of interest are examining notions of community for schooling and defining the parameters of symbolic clothing in schools. She is the author of Education and Community (2006) and has a forthcoming book entitled Symbolic Clothing in Schools (2008). J. Mark Halstead is Professor of Education and Head of the Department of Community and International Education at the University of Huddersfield. He has written widely on moral education, multicultural education and Islamic education. He is currently co-editing a collection of essays by Terence H. McLaughlin for St Andrew’s University Press. Graham Haydon is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. Much of his work has been on moral and citizenship education in plural societies. His most recent publications include Values in Education (2006, Continuum) and Education, Philosophy and the Ethical Environment (2006, Routledge). Mary Healy is a PhD student at the Institute of Education, University of London, where she is engaged in a philosophical investigation of fraternity and its implications for education. She is also a teacher at the Leys Primary School, Stevenage, Hertfordshire.

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Meira Levinson is Assistant Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Following her completion of a DPhil in political theory at Oxford University, she taught English, history, humanities and civics for eight years in urban public schools in Atlanta and Boston. She is currently finishing a book on the civic achievement gap, focusing on de facto segregated urban schools. Kevin McDonough is Associate Professor in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University. He is the author of several articles on the topics of moral education, and group rights and multicultural education. He is co-editor (with Walter Feinberg) of Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies: Teaching for Collective Identities and Cosmopolitan Values (2003, Oxford). Richard Pring is presently Lead Director, Nuffield Review 14–19 Education and Training, previously Director of Educational Studies, University of Oxford. His most recent book is John Dewey: A Philosopher of Education For Our Time? (2007, Continuum). Rob Reich is Associate Professor of Political Science, Ethics in Society, and, by courtesy, Education, at Stanford University. His main interests are in contemporary liberal theory, and he is working on two projects, the first on the ideals of equality and adequacy as applied to education policy and reform, the second about topics in ethics, public policy and philanthropy. He is the author of Bridging Liberalism and Multiculturalism in American Education (2002, University of Chicago Press) and co-author of Democracy at Risk: How Political Choices Undermine Citizen Participation and What We Can Do About It (2005, Brookings Institution Press). Kenneth A. Strike is Professor of Cultural Foundations of Education at Syracuse University and Professor Emeritus at Cornell. He is a member of the National Academy of Education and Past President of the Philosophy of Education Society. He is currently at work on a book on community and small schools. Lorella Terzi is Senior Lecturer at Roehampton University, London. Her research interests are in liberal theory, with particular emphasis on egalitarian justice. She is the author of Justice and Equality in Education: A Capability Perspective on Disability and Special Educational Needs (forthcoming, Continuum). James Tooley is President, The Education Fund, Orient Global, and Professor of Education Policy, University of Newcastle. He is the author of numerous publications, especially concerning the privatisation of education. He has previously taught and researched at: the Universities of Oxford and Manchester, England; Simon Fraser University, Canada; and University of the Western Cape, South Africa.

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Kevin Williams is Senior Lecturer in Mater Dei Institute, Dublin City University, and a former president of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland. His most recent book is Education and the Voice of Michael Oakeshott (2007, Imprint Academic).

Preface Forty yeas ago in England and Wales, at a time when the Plowden Report was ushering in the new progressive thinking in primary schools, at secondary level change was inspired by the comprehensive ideal. Manifested most fully in large, purpose-built, co-educational, destreamed, well-resourced schools, this ideal was taken to provide the guiding principles for dismantling the divisive settlement of the otherwise much revered 1944 Act. In some respects the new schools that were created brought educational provision more fully into line with practice in many other similarly developed countries. And in spite of the resistance that they continued to receive from some sections of society, they seemed to many to be a crucial extension of the idea of the common school and to represent the way of the future. Forty years on from that time, the comprehensive ideal and the idea of the common school, in countries around the world, have been brought under strain in ways never fully anticipated, by advocates or by critics. Reverberating through the political sphere, these pressures reflect change in the fabric of society: they newly condition our democratic aspirations and commitments; and they call into question the purpose of our schools and what we do in them. There is no doubt then that the fate of the common school and the comprehensive ideal is a matter of pressing concern, not only for educators but for conscientious citizens at large. It is to this matter that this book is addressed. Surely no-one is currently better placed to provide the keynote essay in this endeavour than Richard Pring. Over these four decades, he has been actively involved in the comprehensive movement, as a teacher, as an educational theorist and as an unflagging, highly influential supporter, and the common school has been a guiding idea throughout his philosophical writings. His pursuit of Deweyan themes in the present text coincides with the publication of his major study of that philosopher John Dewey: A Philosopher of Education For Our Time? (2008, Continuum). His measured assessment of the current scene combines here with a perspective on change that is at once insightful and provocative. Pring’s defence of the common school serves as the stimulus and departure point for the nineteen further essays presented here, which were specially commissioned by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon, the editors. The essays are presented under five themes: defending and questioning the comprehensive ideal; common schools in multicultural societies; common schools and religion; school choice and the comprehensive ideal; and common schools and inclusion. Haydon’s and Halstead’s essays, apart from advancing distinctive arguments in their

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own right, provide a frame for the papers provoked by Pring’s account, respectively introducing their principal topics of concern and drawing together their most salient lines of thought. The body of work that they have collected in the essays published here constitutes a major contribution to this book series, and they are thanked for their unfailing conscientiousness and fine judgement in bringing this project to fruition. Christopher Martin and Jade Nguyen are thanked also for help in the corrections of proofs. The remarkable quality of the essays collected here, as well as the commitment that all the contributors have shown to the project, has also been motivated by a further factor. Questions concerning the common school were close to the heart of Terence H. McLaughlin, and they were a signature feature of his work. Terry died in 2006 at the age of 56. He was Assistant Editor of the Journal of Philosophy of Education, President of the International Network of Philosophers of Education and a former Chair of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain. His tireless dedication, over some three decades, to the philosophy of education was legendary. He was a much loved member of our academic community, and his presence amongst us is sorely missed. Thanks to the generosity of Wiley-Blackwell and the support, in particular, of our Commissioning and Production Editors, Stephen Raywood and Sarah Worrall, this is a specially expanded volume in this book series. It is dedicated to his memory. Paul Standish

1 The Common School RICHARD PRING

INTRODUCTION

The idea of the common school was most clearly articulated by John Dewey, throughout his extensive writings. It was seen to be crucial if the formal education of young people were to achieve its fundamental purpose of preparing the next generation to live harmoniously together, despite the important differences in culture that the students bring to that community. More positively, the intermingling of those differences in the community of the school would be seen as an enrichment of those very differences. However, such a rationale for the common school is not so clearly evident in the historically very different climate of Britain where schools have substantially been provided by voluntary associations (mainly faith communities), though maintained by the state. These very different circumstances, specific to Britain though they are, challenge the rationale for the common school. This chapter, therefore, starts with the English and Welsh context, but the philosophical issues raised are of wider significance. Following the Department of Education Circular 10/65, almost 80% of the maintained secondary school population in England and Wales were being educated within the comprehensive system by January 1977. That had required, in the majority of local education authorities, the abolition of selection at the age of 11 in most areas and a common educational experience for all young people across the ability range and social classes. That, at least, was the ideal. However, although the comprehensive school aimed to be a ‘common school’, that was still seen to be compatible with a segregation of schools along religious lines; the 1944 Education Act had permitted and supported voluntary aided and voluntary controlled schools within the maintained educational system. Furthermore, the ‘common school’ was, and continues to be, in fact if not in intention, diluted not only on religious grounds, but also, in many areas, on those of social class and ethnicity. There is in England an increasing segregation of young people by class and neighbourhood, so that there is little or no interrelationship between the ‘exclusive wealthy’, often educated privately, and others (Dorling et al., 2007). The neighbourhood school, intended as the ‘common school’, would instead seem sometimes to exacerbate the division of society into class or religiousbased communities. The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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The principles that lie behind this dilution of the ‘common school’ (maintaining religious identity, parental choice, restriction of the authority and powers of the state) need to be considered later, but first it is necessary to set out the arguments for the ‘common school’. Reconciling the different educational and ethical principles is not easy—and possibly it is impossible—but it is first necessary to see what these principles are. THE COMMON SCHOOL

The reasons for seeking a common school experience in Britain were various and indeed were argued about over a long period—as far back as the 1930s (Simon, 1994, p. 13)—even though the post-war Labour Government was at first unsympathetic. The negative reason for moving to a common school system was that the basis of selection at the age of 11 was flawed. The basis of that selection had been the tests whereby a minority only was regarded as suitable for a ‘grammar school education’, the others not so and to be placed in either ‘secondary modern’ or ‘technical’ schools. This belief, supposedly empirically founded, reflected the more ideological belief of the Norwood Report that there were three types of child—those who are good with abstract ideas, those that are good with their hands, and those who are simply good (Norwood Report, 1943). Intellectual ability was deemed to be genetically determined, a fixed trait that could be accurately measured at the age of 11. Once this belief had been undermined, partly as a result of the research of Philip Vernon and others in the 1950s, which showed how the so-called fixed intelligence could be unfixed by preparation for the tests, then the postponement of selection was surely inevitable. The positive slant on this was given by the Conservative Minister of Education, Edward Boyle, in 1963 in the preface to the Newsom Report, 1963, where he talked of the need for the opportunity for all young people ‘to acquire intelligence’. However, the politically and morally stronger driving force had to do with the connection between schooling, creation of a common culture and the contribution therefore to the development of community. The fight for the common school was essentially a moral one in terms of achieving greater social justice and equality, respect for persons and preparation for citizenship within a democratic order. R. H. Tawney, in his book, Equality, highly influential on Labour Party thinking, argued thus: . . . inspite of their varying character and capacities, men possess in their common humanity a quality which is worth cultivating and . . . a community is most likely to make the most of that quality if it takes it into account in planning its economic organisation and social institutions—if it stresses lightly differences of wealth and birth and social position, and establishes on firm foundations institutions [schools] which meet common needs, and are a source of common enlightenment and common enjoyment (Tawney, 1938, pp. 55–6).

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And these words were echoed in the 1978 Reith Lectures given by A. H. Halsey, who had been a powerful influence in the development of the comprehensive system of education: ‘We have still to provide a common experience of citizenship in childhood and old age, in work and play, and in health and sickness. We have still in short, to develop a common culture to replace the divided culture of class and status’ (Halsey, 1978). In understanding, therefore, the arguments for the common school, one needs to address the principles of equality, including equal respect for persons, and the preparation for living in a community that requires a common culture to overcome divisions arising from ‘wealth and birth and social position’—and, one might add, religion. Britain, in comparison with the USA, had woken up relatively late to these principles—at least to their significance to educational provision. The United States had supported from its earliest days the common school to serve the local community, whatever the ethnic and religious background of the members of that community. Indeed, the greater the diversity, the more important was the common school seen to be. One of the most significant advocates of the common school, precisely because of that diversity, was John Dewey—not in order to eliminate diversity (to homogenise the community) but to enrich the community through its acquaintance with diversity. This was essential, not simply as a matter of cultural enrichment, but as a condition of growth. One’s personal growth required a community that was culturally rich and diverse enough for the person to benefit from the interaction within it—testing one’s own ideas against those of others, being challenged by and coming to see a new perspective on matters of human importance and learning to live in a community as a prelude to the life of a citizen. In Democracy and Education, therefore, Dewey refers to ‘education’ as a ‘social function, securing direction and development in the immature through their participation in the life of the group to which they belong’ (Dewey, 1916, p. 81). The school is an extension of the group to which they belong, enabling the kind of growth that the family and the village are too limited to provide. It anticipates the wider community into which they are growing up, and enables the young person to contribute to, to enrich and to shape that community: Roughly speaking, [schools] come into existence when social traditions are so complex that a considerable part of the social store is committed to writing and transmitted through written symbols . . . As soon as a community depends to any considerable extent upon what lies beyond its own territory and its own immediate generation, it must rely upon the set agency of schools to insure adequate transmission of all its resources . . . Hence, a special mode of intercourse is instituted, the school, to care for such matters (p. 19).

School, therefore, is the agent of the community in order to make available what it, or the larger society and culture of which it is part, has accomplished. Part of that accomplishment lies in being able to live

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together and, despite differences, to have shared understandings, aims and interests, so that each can find support and sustenance in the other. But that relies upon the maintenance and enhancement of a common culture, compatible paradoxically with the coexistence of diverse cultures, arrived at through the meaningful interactions of the members.

COMMUNITY

The importance of ‘community’, both as the life of the group through which learning takes place and as that for which the school is a preparation, would seem central to the arguments for the common school. But what is meant by community? ‘Community’ is more than an aggregate of individuals. It is the social context in which individuals are able to relate, interact and cooperate with each other in a particular way. That interaction is possible because of certain shared beliefs, values, purposes, and understandings, which do not need to be made explicit. Indeed, they may rarely be articulated, but they are embedded in a range of practices that bring people together and are significant in their lives—economic activities, for example, or family or religious ones. Because of this, individuals do not feel totally alone, their sense of identity lying partly in the sense of belonging to a wider group of people. A person might belong as well to other communities with which he shares other, possibly complementary values and aims—perhaps, for example, membership of a political community, or again of a religious community, which meets and shares understandings and mutual support. Moreover, communities are often, but need not be, located in a particular physical space. We speak now of ‘on-line communities’. Academics belong to communities of scholars across different universities and have a sense of belonging to their distinctive professional discipline. Such communities can be more or less strong, more or less large. They may well be constituents of wider communities, to which they contribute as a community. For example, a religious community or a village community might shape its activities to benefit the wider political community of which it is part. Indeed, it would be the claim of religious communities (in defending the faith-based, and therefore not ‘common’, school) that, in the initiation into their distinctive form of life, they are better able to make a more valuable and effective contribution to the wider community from which, educationally, they have kept apart. The strengths of their distinctive traditions have not been diluted or impoverished at a vital stage of growth. Belonging to a community would bring its own discipline because such membership is partly defined by recognition of the rules, whereby the individual members see each other as fellow members of the group, and of the norms of appropriate conduct. By contrast, as Dewey argued, people may live closely together (let us say, in a neighbourhood—or indeed in a school) but without any real communication or reciprocity and thus without any sense of community. There may be forms of interaction, for example, in the provision of

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services for payment, without there being shared aims, values and beliefs. Indeed, because of social and economic arrangements, the machinery of public and private services might be orchestrated to serve efficiently some common goal, without the individuals providing and receiving such services constituting a ‘community’. For it to be a community, there would need to be shared perceptions of the purposes that those different activities serve and through which communication between the members of the social group is made possible. Again, as Dewey pointed out, ‘Men live in a community in virtue of the things which they have in common. What they must have in common in order to form a community or society are aims, beliefs, aspirations, knowledge—a common understanding—likemindedness as the sociologists say’ (p. 4). Education could, therefore, be different for different communities with different economic bases—for example, a rural farming community in contrast with an urban one—or indeed with different religious and moral beliefs. But if such communities are to cooperate together and to live in harmony, then there would seem to be a need to educate their members to see what is common between them and to foster a sense of community that bridged the different ones to which they belong. However, what members of a community have in common would change as the wider social, economic and cultural climate changes. And such change, without due care taken, could lead to a denial of community, with the breakdown in relationships and the reciprocal lack of understanding that would follow. Religious communities, once united, sometimes fragment into separate, and occasionally hostile communities with little basis for communicating across the divide, exacerbated by different histories. Indeed, a community might disintegrate where the economic gap between rich and poor becomes so great as to create very different ways in which self-interest is pursued, and in which values are created and embedded in practices. There is no ‘likemindedness’. But two factors need to be considered. On the one hand, the communication and responsiveness associated with community do not and should not entail consensus. The benefits and strengths of community lie in the communication of differences, and thereby in the growth of that community through the seriousness with which those differences are addressed, reflected upon and modified. But even that serious sharing and addressing of differences requires a sense of community at a different level—an understanding that, beyond the differences, there lie commonalities of value and aim, which bring them together. On the other hand, such commonalities of value and aim might be so thin that communication on matters of human importance becomes very difficult. Cultural differences might be such as undermine any sense of community. For example, what could conceivably be meant by a notion ‘Britishness’, which would both transcend cultural differences within Britain and yet help create a community in which consideration of difference would be seen as an enrichment? Even within an academic discipline there may be rival communities, separated by different philosophical understandings of that discipline and

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‘at war’, through their rival journals, with each other. This sociological aspect of intellectual disciplines is recorded by Stephen Toulmin in Chapter 4 of Human Understanding (1972)—the professional advancement of a field of knowledge, the emerging dominance of key ideas, the articulation of the provisional state of the field through books and journals, the gradual challenging of those ideas, the application of the accepted tools of criticism to the provisional state of knowledge, the critical examination of those very tools of criticism, and hence the evolving nature of the discipline. This professional protection, and yet evolving nature, of an intellectual discipline does itself constitute a community of like-minded people into which a new generation is initiated. Indeed, it is the function of the school in part to introduce young people in the school community to the culture inherited from the professional cultures, thereby to extend their understandings and possibilities of growth beyond what would be possible had they remained simply within their local or family community.

CULTURE

Logically linked, therefore, to the notion of community is that of culture, and the prime importance of schools to initiate young people into a cultural inheritance—whether that be the specific cultures cherished by particular groups or a common culture that transcends the particular ones and creates unity amidst diversity. Talcott Parsons defined ‘culture’ as a ‘heritage or a social tradition’. As such it is, first, something transmitted or handed on from a community; second, it is something learnt (not ‘a manifestation of man’s genetic constitution’); third, it is shared: ‘Culture . . . is on the one hand the product of, on the other hand a determinant of, systems of human social interaction’ (Parsons, 1952, p. 15). People belong to different cultures that are the bases of identity within different communities and through which they interact with each other. A Muslim will think and act in a particular way because he has had handed down and has learnt, even if semi-consciously, a way of understanding the social and moral worlds he inhabits, which ways will be shared by others with whom he is able to interrelate in a manner permitted, or encouraged, by that tradition. It is necessary to distinguish here the meaning of culture in its descriptive and evaluative senses (see Williams, 1965, pp. 57 ff.). Descriptively, culture embraces those shared practices, and the understandings and values embedded within those practices, through which groups of people make sense of experience, value certain things and activities, are able to anticipate how others see things and attribute particular significance or meaning to them. One might well talk, for example, of ‘craft cultures’— the shared practical understanding of problems and their solutions, the learnt skills for addressing the problems, the standards of workmanship expected, the loyalty to those others working in that craft. And indeed, in the past such craftsmen have formed guilds to maintain those skills and values and to transmit them to the next generation.

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Such shared practices and understandings, therefore, are embodied within traditions that are transmitted through common activities, language, symbols, example and instruction. Richard Hoggart, in The Uses of Literacy, claimed that ‘to live in the working classes is even now to belong to an all-pervading culture, in some ways as formalised and stylised as any that is attributed to, say, the upper classes’ (Hoggart, 1957, p. 276). To identify a culture in this descriptive sense does not indicate approval or recognition of those practices as valuable. It makes sense to talk of ‘gang culture’ or of ‘slum culture’ or of ‘teenage culture’ without any implicit approval of the values picked out by it. But it would be equally wrong for educators to treat such cultures with disrespect, for to do so would be to disrespect those young people whose identities and self respect are acquired, at least partly, through those cultures. Indeed, it would be important for the educator to seek what is valuable within them—the sense of solidarity provided, the implicit response to social injustice, the search for respect in a hostile world. For although the outsider may not value the shared beliefs of a particular culture, those internal to it do so. Culture shares these logical features with the concept of education, namely, a descriptive sense of education, referring to the learning that has taken place, and an evaluative sense, in which such learning receives the seal of approval—it is a worthwhile learning, it meets certain standards. Just as we talk of the cultured person in this evaluative sense, so we talk of the educated person. Hence, culture in the evaluative sense refers to those values and understandings, embedded in certain practices, which are seen to enhance the distinctively human capacity for understanding, feeling, relating and adapting. From such a vantage point, one would be able to see the inadequacy of other cultures, not least those that are brought into the school from the diverse communities in which the young people live. That is not to disdain such cultures; rather is it to recognise that, given the changed economic and social conditions in which we live, there is a need to expose children from a rather limited and limiting cultural framework to one that broadens their horizons. The literary culture—of books and poetry, of history and science—should be seen as empowering those within a purely ‘folk culture’, putting them in touch with the fruit of others’ work and achievements. However, such an evaluative sense of culture—picking out certain ways of knowing, understanding and feeling as somehow illuminating and lifeenhancing—is constantly in danger of being ‘frozen in time’, disconnected from the daily lives of young people, thereby creating an ‘educational elite’, a people set apart, with a contempt for those not within the cultural circle. Certain kinds of cultural manifestations (in art, music and literature, say) are picked out as objectively superior—the high culture to which only a few are admitted. And indeed that position is picked out by such phrases as ‘the cultured person’. Furthermore (to anticipate what is to be developed below), such a view of ‘high culture’ can so often militate against the notion of a common school, for its exponents will argue for ‘a place set apart’ (a sort of monastery, to use Michael Oakeshott’s metaphor [1972, p. 69]), into whose treasures only a few can be initiated.

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But for Dewey and his followers that was unacceptable. He was scathing of the division of people into culturally different types, as he thus interpreted Plato, whose influence seemed to lie behind the continuing tripartite division of young people (with their respective tripartite division of provider institutions): In some individuals, appetites naturally dominate; they are assigned to the labouring or trading class, which expresses and supplies human wants. Others reveal, upon education, that over and above appetites, they have a generous, outgoing, assertively courageous disposition. They become the citizen-subjects of the state, its defenders in war, its internal guardians in peace. But their limit is fixed by their lack of reason, which is a capacity to grasp the universal. Those who possess this are capable of the highest kind of education—and become in time the legislators of the state— for laws are the universal which control the particulars of experience (Dewey, 1916, p. 90).

In the promotion of the common school, such cultural manifestations had to justify themselves in terms of the illumination that they could give to all young people, and the art of the teacher lay in being able to make the connections between such cultures, on the one hand, and, on the other, the frame of mind, the interests and aspirations, the problems and concerns of the diverse human beings brought together in the school. THE COMMON SCHOOL REVISITED

The common school, therefore, would seek to do three things: first, to understand and respect the different cultural traditions that the young people bring with them into the school; second, to reconcile those cultural differences, which, if ignored, fragment the wider community so that it is no community at all; third, to connect those with the more universal cultural traditions and achievements of the arts, crafts, sciences and humanities—what Dewey refers to as the ‘accumulated wisdom of the race’—through which their own ways of thinking and doing might be illuminated. But for this to happen, there has to be a connection between these more universally held cultural traditions and those that shape the present understandings, interests and aspirations of the school students. This, of course, generates the paradox of the culture of the common school. On the one hand, the common school, as Dewey argued, seeks to create a common culture whereby people are able to live within the same community, able to communicate fruitfully with other members of the community. Indeed, as Tawney argued, ‘What a community requires, as the word itself suggests, is a common culture, because, without it, it is not a community at all’ (Tawney, 1938, p. 17). Such a school would foster those shared aims and values, and those academic, aesthetic and craft traditions that have been inherited and that enrich the broader community, of which the school is part and for which it is a preparation. On the other hand, the common school brings together people from different

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communities, maintained through different cultural traditions that are central to their sense of identity and that embody distinctive visions of the life worth living. How is it possible to reconcile these two—creating a common culture whilst respecting and supporting the distinctive cultures within the school community? The reconciliation requires not only a valuing of the different beliefs on matters of human importance but also the disposition to sustain them with a view to reciprocal benefit. Diversity, of different kinds, is welcomed, not because it makes life more interesting, but because it is an inevitable consequence of the inherited social traditions, reflecting different histories, economic circumstances, social positions, and life experiences, and because this diversity provides different insights that make possible yet further growth. It is an assumption that no one (and no one culture) is in possession of the whole truth and that each will benefit from the insights of the other. This ‘democratisation’ of knowledge needs to be explained further, lest it be interpreted as the adoption of a purely relativist position (although it should not appear alien to those who are familiar with the ways in which knowledge grows within the ever evolving professional and academic disciplines) and lest also it be seen to militate against the creation of a ‘common culture’. Jonathan Sacks, in The Dignity of Difference (2002), explains how someone living consciously within a religious tradition, must thereby believe in the truth of those propositions that articulate that tradition. The extreme version of this is that such a tradition contains the whole truth and anyone else outside it is in error—a heretic, say. The antithesis of such a position is one of simple relativism; each tradition, though important for the person concerned, is a subjective state of mind, no better or worse than any other such tradition, to be tolerated if doing no harm to others, but not meriting public support. The synthesis of the two is that the subscriber to any such tradition, though a fortiori believing in the tenets of that tradition, might well recognise its evolving nature—its traditions may give yet greater insight through its interactions with other traditions and through taking seriously the criticisms arising from them. Critical discussion, in the light of alternative viewpoints and traditions, should be seen as a source of, not a barrier to, growth within community. It is within such a context that Denis Lawton (1975) and others (e.g., Holt, 1978) argued for a common curriculum. What Dewey referred to as the accumulated wisdom of the race, embodied in the different ways we have come to understand the physical, social and moral worlds we inhabit, should be made available to everyone irrespective of social class or ethnic background, although no doubt tailored to meet the specific contexts and experiences that the learners bring with them to school. It is the right of everyone to be enabled to enter into what Oakeshott referred to as ‘the conversation between the generations of mankind’ in which each might be introduced to the voices of poetry and history, science and religion. In such a common curriculum the humanities and arts in particular would be the vehicle through which young people would be able to address matters of deep human and personal concern, and indeed the

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differences that, on the one hand, give a sense of identity to the individuals whilst, on the other hand, dividing them. That common curriculum would have a central place for those matters of personal concern, over which, however, there is no consensus in society. This is not to say that beliefs that are held as a matter of consensus are necessarily good: to be sure, their value is a further question. But a measure of consensus is necessary for the achievement of a cohesive society. Such matters—the use of violence, poverty and injustice, the exercise of authority, relations between the sexes, racism, consequences of environmental change, diversity of moral foundations—would be explored in the light of evidence from literature, history, religious traditions, social and physical sciences. In such an exploration, as Dewey argued, the understanding would be enriched by the diversity of beliefs within the school community. For that to happen, however, the school would not only welcome diversity of moral tradition but also actively support it—nurturing the beliefs within the different traditions. If Muslim or Christian or Jewish or atheist students are to contribute intelligently to the exploration of matters of human importance, then they need to be helped to understand the richness of their respective tradition—the literature and poetry, the art and customs, the theology and historical evolution of its institutions and beliefs. The common curriculum requires also the support of diversity. It requires, too, the procedural values whereby the interaction of such diversity might be fruitful—a point developed very thoroughly by Lawrence Stenhouse in the Humanities Curriculum Project that he led (see Stenhouse, 1975).

EDUCATIONAL AIMS REVISITED

The political drive for the common school was that all young people should be educated, not just a privileged few who were able to access a minority—but apparently superior—cultural tradition. To understand this, one needs to reflect upon competing concepts of education to see how different concepts shape the idea of a common school, or indeed the idea that there should be no such thing. ‘Education’ has both a descriptive and an evaluative meaning. It is descriptive when it refers to whatever packages of learning are presented to the students—a grammar school education, the educational system of Sparta or the education of diplomats. But, in many respects, that descriptive sense is parasitic upon the evaluative sense where we talk approvingly of an ‘educated person’ or when we contrast ‘education’ with ‘indoctrination’ or mere ‘training’. ‘Education’ is attributed to those activities and attainments that are judged to lead to an improvement of the person in terms of knowledge acquired, understanding achieved, skills mastered, values developed. In other words, education (as opposed to training for specific skills or jobs) lies in the introduction to a form of life that is judged to be worthwhile—which is consonant with the dignity of being a person, howsoever that is conceived.

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However, because of the evaluative meaning of ‘education’, there are inevitably differences of opinion on its precise application. People differ in their views about what learning is valuable, or indeed about the authority of those who are in positions of power to decide what learning is most valuable (what constitutes the ‘high culture’, against which people’s interests, tastes and beliefs might be assessed). It is important, therefore, to recognise three different ways in which educational values are supported and justified because the kind of justification given (the ethical basis of education, if you like) affects the significance attached to the common school. In the first place, ‘Intellectual excellence’ is, for some, what constitutes an educated person. In John Henry Newman’s words, ‘Liberal education, viewed in itself, is simply the cultivation of the intellect, as such, and its object is nothing more or less than intellectual excellence’ (Newman, 1852, p. 121). That intellectual excellence lies in the mastery of those distinctive forms of knowledge and experience whereby people are able to think more effectively about the physical and social worlds they inhabit. The school experience, therefore, becomes the initiation into those forms of knowledge through the subjects that, at their best, distil the logical structure of those different forms in the most economic way for the organisation of learning. The ideal has been to introduce the young learner to the key concepts and ideas embodied in subjects in an ever more disciplined and theoretical way. However, the tendency, at its worst, has been the mere ‘transmission of knowledge’, which Dewey condemned so roundly—formulae to be memorised, disconnected from the cultural experiences that young people bring with them to school and with which they need to be logically connected. Newman’s words have been echoed many times in the shaping of educational provision and judgements (see, for example, O’Hear, 1987). Anthony O’Hear wrote strongly in defence of ‘traditional learning’ in the following terms: ‘Education . . . is irretrievably authoritarian and paternalistic . . . imparting to a pupil something which he has yet to acquire . . . The transmission is . . . inevitably between unequals’ (O’Hear, 1991, p. 5). And he further condemned the ‘egalitarianism’ that lay behind the pursuit of the common school (in place of the grammar school and a separate education for some) as the malign influence of Dewey: ‘It is highly plausible to see the egalitarianism which stems from the writings of John Dewey as the proximate cause of our educational decline’ (ibid., p. 28), for that rather distinctive pursuit of intellectual excellence has to be in a very special kind of community, separate from that of everyday life in which the rest of the community lives and pursues its livelihood. According to Oakeshott, in his defence of liberal education, ‘In short, ‘‘school’’ is ‘‘monastic’’ in respect of being a place apart where excellence may be heard because the din of worldly laxities and partialities is silenced or abated’ (Oakeshott, 1972, p. 69). Or, again, schools and universities ‘are, then, sheltered places where excellences may be heard because the din of local partialities is no more than a distant rumble. They are places where a learner is initiated into what

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there is to be learnt’ (p. 24). The conception of education we see here is one in which a relatively small number will be in a place set apart, which is removed from the community, and where they can ‘be initiated’ into a very different cultural community (esoteric by ‘common standards’), one that is specialist and that is disconnected from the ‘busyness of everyday life’. Indeed, the metaphor of ‘initiation’ (the inaugural lecture of Richard Peters [1963] was entitled ‘Education as Initiation’) is significant, indicating an entry into a very different form of life, into mysteries that are not obviously connected with the form of life left behind. Since many young persons are unable to shine intellectually, there are limits to how far they might acquire ‘intellectual excellence’ and thus be part of a culture that, though superior, is by no means common. Such young people are, therefore, rejected as ineducable in this sense and directed to places and courses where they can learn to be useful, falling on the wrong side of the unexamined distinction between ‘academic’ and ‘vocational’. Second, however, there is a broader understanding of the educated person, one that is concerned with nurturing the whole person, the intellect and capacity to reason being but part, and that therefore not only respects but starts with the significant experiences and the diverse cultures that the young people bring with them to school. The experiences that are significant to them in the formation of their beliefs, values and tastes, and the consequent form of life that they bring with them to school, are what need to be ‘educated’, thereby being transformed in such a way as to enable the young people to grow in understanding of everyday matters that affect them and to be more intelligent in the management of their lives. (The idea of ‘educating interests’ was, in the light of Dewey’s work, well developed by Pat Wilson, 1974.) Education here lies in the introduction of the young person to a form of life that recognises the essentially social and moral nature of the person, not just the purely intellectual, and thus their connection with the community (or indeed, several communities) of which they are physically and culturally part. For Dewey ‘education’ concerned the ‘more intelligent management of life’—a life that was already being lived, shaped by experience, connected with family and community, but a life that needed to be made sense of by the young people themselves and to benefit from new experiences. The culture of the local community was insufficient to prepare young people for the world as it was evolving economically and socially. Third, therefore, the aims of education should be to enable young people to live actively within and to contribute to the community—a condition of which would be a common culture that Tawney and Halsey spoke of. Today that is no doubt embraced by the relatively recent curriculum development of ‘citizenship’. But certainly the educational aim of ‘social solidarity’, by contrast with the emphasis upon individual autonomy and intellectual excellence, was part of the moral and political drive to create the common school in Britain. Schools might be limited in their capacity to create a more equal society (in terms of the distribution of wealth or power), but they might be able to create a more ‘fraternal society’.

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Just as in the USA secondary education was to be directed towards a system of common schools based on the principle of social solidarity, so too was there a growing movement towards such a system in Britain. So Godfrey Thomson, in 1929—possibly the first writer to introduce ‘comprehensive’ to the description of educational possibilities for Britain—argued as a result of his American experience, that ‘the social solidarity of the whole nation is more important than any of the defects to which comprehensive high schools may be subject’ (Thomson, 1929, p. 274). Therefore, far from taking place away from the community (as was advocated by those who singled out intellectual excellence as the primary aim, undisturbed by the ‘busyness of everyday life’ or the world of work), education should enable the young person to be more intelligent within the community, to extend his or her understanding of the community’s activities, aspirations and problems, and to enable that community to provide a richer environment for personal growth. The common school is where that was supposed to happen. This is not always palatable. There have been spectacular examples of the demise of those who took seriously such a view of education. Eric Midwinter, working in inner city Liverpool in the 1970s, questioned the prevailing benchmark of a successful school as that which enabled young people to escape from their deprived communities. Indeed, a constant refrain of those who argue for the return of the grammar school is that it gives the opportunity for the most able young people in the community to move out of that community to a ‘place set apart’ for the kind of learning that supports greater social mobility. Midwinter pointed out the oddness of a criterion of educational success that required a small minority to reject their very family and community background. Rather should success be measured in terms of how that education provided the consciousness whereby that community might be transformed into something better— education was essentially political. He argued: ‘as a theoretical goal we had defined the community school as one which ventured out into and welcomed the community until a visionary time arrived when it was difficult to distinguish school from community’ (Midwinter, 1972, p. 160). This, however, creates a dilemma. The common school is the neighbourhood school, and as such it reflects a particular kind of community, unlike and cut off from other communities that, in simple social and economic opportunity terms, might be much more liberating. The common school might be common solely to those within the deprived neighbourhood, reflecting the depressed hopes and lack of aspiration of that community. And the Midwinter solution, which would have gladdened the heart of John Dewey, namely, to centre the organisation of learning around the intelligent response to that deprivation—helping them ‘to manage their lives more intelligently’—was seen to lead to the neglect of that understanding of education that was concerned with the pursuit of ‘intellectual excellence’ conceived more liberally. Such deprived communities, so it was argued, needed the ‘uncommon school’—the grammar school—to enable the more able few to achieve their intellectual potential. It would seem that the notion of ‘the common

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school’, conceived in quite different social and economic circumstances, has never quite solved that dilemma. However, in not solving it, then such a school or school system has failed to achieve a fundamental aim of education, namely, to enrich young people from diverse cultural settings through the active acquaintance with each other and with the understandings they severally bring to the wider community. Perhaps in addressing issues of poverty in society, it might not go amiss for those who are well off to work and converse with people who are poor and who have to cope with the consequences of that poverty. In failing to achieve that communication, the school does not create a common culture that transcends differences—a common culture within which all can learn to live together in community and to recognise the basis on which respect can be afforded everyone equally, whatever their background.

FOSTERING DIFFERENCE—AGAINST THE COMMON SCHOOL

There are several reasons, however, why people may remain unconvinced by the argument for the common school based on a common culture. First, the common school, unless there be established an intricate arrangement of bussing, is the neighbourhood school, and the neighbourhood school in inner cities fails to attract the diversity of cultures that, for Dewey certainly, was one of the major educational benefits of the common school. Second, so long as there is parental choice as well as well endowed private schools, schools will, in many areas, remain culturally selective. Third, the values that underpin the common school, in order to accommodate people from very different religious and moral traditions, inevitably remain at too abstract, even vacuous a level. Fourth, the common school would require central regulation through financial means (for example, a condition for government grant) or legal enforcement, both of which would militate against the principle of subsidiarity in educational provision. The first objection I shall deal with briefly in the conclusion where I consider a possible way forward. The second, the right to parental choice in a quasi-market of educational provision, raises issues that this chapter cannot deal with. I shall focus on the third and fourth from the point of view of faith schools—or indeed of any other that asks for separate education on the grounds of ideological difference. A major difficulty in seeing the common school as the purveyor of a common culture, through which all might live in respectful understanding of each other whilst maintaining separate cultural traditions, lies in the abstract nature, indeed seeming vacuity, of the aims and values and understandings that would underpin the wider community. Can there be a common culture in any meaningful sense? The basis for the faith-based school (the antithesis of the common school) is that the maintenance and enrichment of different cultural traditions requires a place set apart. The moral and educational values that shape our lives are embodied in

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concrete situations, in specific institutions, in particular practices, which have been handed down through the generations. The Chief Rabbi of the UK, Jonathan Sacks, speaks of any complex society (for that is what we live in) as ‘A confusing mixture of reasons and associations which emerge, like a great river from its countless streams and tributaries, out of a vast range of histories and traditions’ (Sacks, 1997, p. 55). Each of these histories and traditions might well make a contribution to the overall good of the larger community. However, each major tradition is preserved and developed within its own narrative or story, and it will continue to enrich the wider community only where that story is preserved, enriched and passed on to subsequent generations, within which the individual finds his or her identity. The story that Sacks gives is of a society that is constituted, not by Hobbes’ social contract between otherwise self-seeking individuals, but by ‘families, friendships, voluntary associations, charities, congregations, and moral traditions’. It is a rich mosaic of these different associations. Within the Jewish tradition, the idea of contract gives way to that of covenant, and thus to a very different account of relationships and obligations, of responsibilities and loyalties—and indeed of the common good. Furthermore, this very different account is embedded in practices and rituals that have to be understood from the inside, as it were. It cannot be grasped simply from a theoretical account. He argues: This is a morality received not made. It is embedded in and reinforced by a total way of life, articulated in texts, transmitted across the generations, enacted in rituals, exemplified by members of the community, and underwritten by revelation and tradition. It has not pretensions to universality. It represents what a Jew must do, in the full knowledge that his Christian neighbours in Mainz are bounded by a different code (p. 89).

Are we seeing here a powerful argument against the common school— against the belief in a wider community that, despite the diverse cultures and communities within it, is based upon common social aims and moral values? If values are embodied within particular cultural traditions, what sort of tradition could conceivably transcend the ‘confusing mixture of reasons and associations which emerge . . . out of a vast range of histories and traditions’? Indeed, it would be the argument of those who wish to preserve those traditions that such a preservation takes precedence over the attempt to base social cohesion upon values that transcend those traditions. Such ‘transcendent traditions’ partake of another tradition (let us for the moment call it a secular tradition), in which the significance of religion is sidelined in the form of life to be nurtured. This concern is expressed well by Jacob Neusner in his book, Conservative, American and Jewish, Civilisation hangs suspended, from generation to generation, by the gossamer thread of memory. If only one cohort of mothers and fathers fails to convey to its children what it has learned from its parents, then

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the great chain of learning and wisdom snaps. If the guardians of human knowledge stumble only one time, in their fall collapses the whole edifice of knowledge and understanding (Neusner, 1993, quoted in Sacks, 1997, p. 173).

Would the common school enable Neusner to remain both American and Jewish—or, more importantly, would it be more effective in helping him to convey to his children the ‘great chain of learning’ of which he felt himself to be the guardian? It is the argument of the separate faith traditions, first, that each embodies a particular view of what it is to be human and to be so more abundantly, second, that such a view of what it is to be human should permeate the educational enterprise, and third, that from such a developed understanding of what it means to be human the student is able to make a more significant contribution to the wider, pluralist community. This was made clear in the Vatican Council documents on education, which point to the responsibility of the Catholic parishes to retain control of education: ‘It is necessary that all teaching and the whole organisation of the school, and its teachers, syllabus and textbooks in every branch be regulated by the Christian spirit . . . so that Religion may be in very truth the foundation and crown of youth’s entire training’ (Vatican Council, 1965, para. 80). That ‘Christian spirit’ required the school to have special regard to the needs of the poor, to the promotion of justice and to the welfare of the wider community that the Church should serve. In its later publication, the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education argues that the Catholic School ‘has its place in any national school system’ (Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, 1977), particularly since the values that it upholds could be undermined by the very different values within the wider, more materialist and secular society in which, as Charles Taylor argues in his recent book, A Secular Age (2007), religion has gradually been expelled from the public realm. What is being expressed here is the possibility that the values that are promoted by the common school themselves partake of a particular ‘faith’—a faith in a secular society, which embodies a particular (and disputed) understanding of human nature and of the consequent aims of education. The argument against the common school, therefore, is one that recognises the pluralistic nature of society, such pluralism lying in fundamental differences within constituent communities about the nature of persons and the consequent educational aims that reflect those differences. It argues that there is a need to recognise this in the provision of education. Furthermore, it sees the role of the state to be not one of arbitrating between these different understandings and consequent educational aims, but one of providing support for them within the national system. It should not support, to the exclusion of others, the institutionally embodied aims of any one position, whether that be of a religious faith or of a secular one. This raises quite fundamental questions about the role of the state in educational provision. Certainly, until recently, the government distanced itself from the details of what was taught and how it was taught. Indeed,

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when Marjorie Reeves was invited to join the Central Advisory Council for Education in 1947, she was told by the then Permanent Secretary, Redcliffe Maude, that the main duty of members of the Council was ‘to be prepared to die at the first ditch as soon as politicians try to get their hands on education’.1 The detailed organisation of education—its aims and its content—by central government is comparatively recent in the UK, in particular with the creation of a national curriculum in England and Wales in 1988. Prior to that, there was in effect what the political philosopher, Paul Hirst, refers to as ‘associationism’ (Hirst, 1993). By this is meant the recognition of what Sacks referred to as the ‘confusing mixture of reasons and associations which emerge, like a great river from its countless streams and tributaries, out of a vast range of histories and tradition’, in which society is seen as constituted of such ‘associations’, each pursuing its own aims and activities, albeit compatible with, and hopefully contributing to, the general good. The recognition of such voluntary associations (the churches, the social clubs, schools and universities) should limit rather than enhance the power of the state, whose function would be to support such associations and curb the excesses through which harm is done to others, to the general good and indeed to benefit of their own members.

COMMON SCHOOL OR COMMON SCHOOL SYSTEM?

The arguments for the common school are based on a particular understanding of the aim of education, namely, that education aims to create a more cohesive and enriching community, shaped by a common culture, from which all benefit, whatsoever the cultural background from which the learners come. That common culture lies not in the elimination of the cultural differences, but in the sharing of values and ideals that emphasise our ‘common humanity’ and that see the interaction of cultures as something enriching. It is enriching because there is always something to be learnt from the attempt to understand how others have made sense of the social and moral world they inhabit. And it is enriching because it enables young people to learn how to work respectfully with others, even where there are differences of view about matters of profound human importance. To repeat the reference to Dewey: ‘Men live in a community in virtue of the things which they have in common. What they must have in common in order to form a community or society are aims, beliefs, aspirations, knowledge—a common understanding—likemindedness as the sociologists say’ (Dewey, 1916, p. 4). Furthermore, such a common school, far from neglecting such cultural differences, would respect and support them, because only then would the diversity of traditions enrich the lives of others within the community. The common school must teach the Muslim members to understand the humane depth of their religious beliefs, expressed in art and architecture, poetry and philosophy, technology and medicine—the contribution that Islam has made to civilisation. It must value ‘the great chain of learning and wisdom’, which,

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in Neusner’s words, constitutes the rich Jewish narrative. But what the common school also does is to bring these narratives together for the benefit of the whole. On the other hand, the defenders of those traditions argue that such an ideal is rarely attained: the religious spirit gets submerged under a secular ethos inimical to the traditions they wish to uphold; and morality (and thereby the educational enterprise) is, as we saw, ‘embedded in and reinforced by a total way of life, articulated in texts, transmitted across the generations, enacted in rituals, exemplified by members of the community, and underwritten by revelation and tradition’ (Sacks, 1997, p. 89). The maintenance of a tradition requires more than a small space set apart for the study of one’s culture; it requires a ‘way of life’ that permeates all that one does, and the school should embody that way of life. Furthermore, it is argued that traditionally the state has had the more limited function of supporting the various associations that make up society and that, in their various ways, contribute to society’s good. The overall community is made up of smaller communities, each with its own distinctive cultural narrative or tradition. To enforce a common schooling with a distinctive ethos, perhaps inimical to that of the contributing cultures, is a form of centralisation that is indefensible. It is indefensible, first, because it assumes a central or government wisdom about the aims of education (for example, the current concern for economic growth and efficiency) that is unfounded, and, second, because that wisdom necessarily is to be found in complex traditions that embody a distinctive view of what it means to be human and to be so more fully. How then might one escape from this impasse? To some extent it is already rather dated at least at the secondary level. It has been stated many times by government that, as the education and training leaving age is being raised to 18, no one school or college can deliver to all young people the education and training they are entitled to. Partnerships or strongly collaborative learning centres are required (see the Nuffield Review, 2007), in which schools of all kinds, colleges of further education, universities, employers and voluntary bodies will work in cooperation to provide the range of experiences that enable young people to ‘manage their lives more intelligently’. In such a context, the faith-based school would not be isolated but would be within a wider partnership, drawing upon, and contributing to, the resources and the expertise of the other partners and of the whole. But how that might be done has not yet entered into the public debate. NOTE 1. Conversation with Dr. Reeves before she died in 2003.

REFERENCES Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and Education (New York, The Freedom Press). Dorling, D., Rigby, J., Wheeler, B., Ballas, D. and Thomas, B. (2007) Poverty, Wealth and Place, Joseph Rowntree Report (Bristol, The Policy Press).

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Halsey, A. H. (1978) Change in British Society, Reith Lecture 6 (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Hirst, P. (1993) Associative Democracy, in: D. Held (ed) Prospects for Democracy (Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press). Hoggart, R. (1957) The Uses of Literacy (London, Chatto and Windus). Holt, M. (1978) The Common Curriculum (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul). Lawton, D. (1975) Class, Culture and the Curriculum (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul). Midwinter, E. (1972) Priority Education: An Account of the Liverpool Project (Harmondsworth, Penguin). Newman, J. H. (1852) [1959] Idea of the University (New York, Doubleday). Newsom Report (1963) Half Our Future (London, HMSO). Norwood Report (1943) Curriculum and Examinations in Secondary Schools (London, HMSO). Nuffield Review (2007) Issues Paper, Strongly Collaborative Learning Centres (Oxford, Oxford University, Department of Education). Oakeshott, M. (1972)[1989] Education: The Engagement and Its Frustration, reprinted, in: T. Fuller (ed) The Voice of Liberal Learning: Michael Oakeshott and Education (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press). O’Hear, A. (1987) The Importance of Traditional Learning, British Journal of Educational Studies, 35.2, pp. 102–114. O’Hear, A. (1991) Education and Democracy: the Posturing of the Left Establishment (London, The Claridge Press). Parsons, T. (1952) The Social System (London, Tavistock Publications). Peters, R. S. (1963) [1965] Education as Initiation, in: R. S. Archambault (ed.) Philosophical Analysis and Education (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul). Sacks, J. (1997) The Politics of Hope (London, Jonathan Cape). Sacks, J. (2002) The Dignity of Difference (London, Continuum). Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education (1977) The Catholic School (London, Catholic Truth Society). Simon, B. (1994) The State and Educational Change (London, Lawrence and Wishart, Ltd.). Stenhouse, L. (1975) Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development (London, Heinemann). Storr, C. J., unpublished PhD thesis (Institute of Education, 2007). Tawney, R. H. (1938) Equality (London, George Allen and Unwin). Taylor, C. (2007) A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). Thomson, G. (1929) A Modern Philosophy of Education, quoted in D. Rubinstein and B. Simon (1969) The Evolution of the Comprehensive School (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul). Toulmin, S. (1972) Human Understanding (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Vatican Council (1965) Gravissimum Educationis (London, Catholic Truth Society). Williams, R. (1965) The Long Revolution (Harmondsworth, Penguin). Wilson, P. S. (1974) Interests and Discipline in Education (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul).

Part I Defending and Questioning the Comprehensive Ideal

The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

2 In Search of the Comprehensive Ideal: By Way of an Introduction GRAHAM HAYDON

The ‘comprehensive ideal’ is somewhat elusive. The notion of the common school runs through this volume, and even the contributors who do not explicitly discuss arguments for and against the common school are discussing principles directly relevant to our evaluation of the common school in comparison to alternative arrangements. But most of the contributors do not explicitly discuss the nature of the comprehensive ideal. My purpose in this chapter is, first, in an editorial role, to give a brief overview of the structure of the volume and the topics addressed, and then to consider what we can learn about the comprehensive ideal, and what questions still remain about it, from the treatment it receives, directly or indirectly, here. In the process some relevant points of contact and differences between the authors will emerge; I shall give particular attention to the range of underlying values to which both advocates and critics of common schooling appeal.1 It is in this present part that the comprehensive ideal is most clearly in focus. Michael Fielding follows up Richard Pring’s lead chapter by wanting to take Pring’s own commitment to the good of community rather further, stressing the democratic nature of the community in question and the radical implications of taking the ideals of the common school seriously. Robin Barrow in contrast is more cautious. While he recognises the importance of goods associated with a flourishing community, such as mutual respect and understanding, and social harmony, when it comes to arguments for or against the common school, the comprehensive ideal is outweighed, in Barrow’s eyes, by specifically educational concerns. For Harry Brighouse too the comprehensive ideal, understood as involving the integration of students across their diversity, can be outweighed by another value, in this case the demands of social justice. For Pring the comprehensive ideal engages importantly with culture, in that it both seeks to nurture and promote a common culture, and also has to respect diversity of culture. The contributors to the part on ‘Common Schools in Multicultural Societies’ pursue questions raised by this dual commitment within a context of pluralism. Walter Feinberg examines in more depth the relationship between (in Pring’s terms) the descriptive and The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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evaluative senses of ‘culture’, arguing that there has been a flattening out of former evaluative hierarchies that is educationally unproductive; he proposes a conception of ‘culture-for-educational-purpose’. Hanan Alexander examines and finds wanting the conception of rational autonomy that for many liberals is central to the capacity of individuals to evaluate the cultural possibilities open to them in a plural society. Arguing that evaluation must be rooted in specific traditions, he concludes that schools affiliated with such traditions can offer as good a preparation for liberal democracy as common schools. Next, Meira Levinson tackles head-on the question of whether common schools and multicultural education are, as one would expect, mutually reinforcing. She concludes that, while they express similar ideals, their link in practice is in the confusions and challenges they face. Dianne Gereluk takes up a specific and currently controversial challenge for both common schools and multicultural education: what restrictions, if any, should common schools put on the clothing that students wear as an expression of their cultural identity? The following part continues the theme of common schools in plural societies by focusing on the role of religion. Chapters in this volume do not for the most part discuss arguments for and against the existence of, or state support of, separate faith schools (though an argument for these is implicit in Alexander’s chapter).2 The concern of the contributors in the part on ‘Common Schools and Religion’ is what kind of presence, if any, religion should have within common schools. David Carr, Kevin Williams and Kenneth Strike, exploring many aspects of this question in their respective chapters, converge on the conclusion that, contrary to the traditions of France (discussed by Williams) and the United States (discussed by Strike), religious discourse should not be excluded from the common school but has an important role within the education it offers. The next part takes up a practical and political issue that to many advocates of the comprehensive ideal will seem an obstacle to the realisation of that ideal: the demand for parental choice between schools. Rob Reich argues that both common schooling and educational choice are legitimate responses to pluralism, and that democratic societies can find ways of accommodating both. James Tooley, well known as an advocate of school choice, tackles Pring’s claim that such choice stands in the way of the social justice and equality that common schools hope to achieve. Responding to recent arguments from Adam Swift, Tooley makes a moral case for school choice. Mary Healy, favouring common schools, argues that the commodification of schooling threatens the achievement of the aspirations of common schools, through its tendency to subvert the form of loyalty that is important in a flourishing community. One central commitment of the comprehensive ideal is clearly to the inclusion of students regardless of their specific differentiating characteristics. As the debate on school choice shows, it does not directly follow from a commitment to inclusion that all must be included in common schools regardless of their own or their parents’ wishes on the matter. It does follow that both in access to common schooling and in the education

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offered by common schools there should be no discrimination against particular students because they do not fit the ‘norm’. The final part of this volume takes up issues of inclusion and non-discrimination in respect of three categories of differentiation: disability and special needs; sexuality; and physical appearance. Lorella Terzi, like Brighouse, concentrates on the demands of justice, and works out a conception of these demands, drawing on Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, for the specific case of students with disabilities and special educational needs. Ruth Cigman is concerned with the needs of the same class of students but concentrates on arguments from respect: do we, on grounds of respect, have to insist that all students with special needs must be educated in common schools? Kevin McDonough asks whether liberal philosophy of education can adequately address the challenges posed to it by and on behalf of queer students; he finds resources for answering the challenge in the liberal commitment to autonomy. Finally, Andrew Davis takes up a form of discrimination that is more rarely examined: ‘lookism’, or discrimination on the basis of physical appearance. In part drawing, like Cigman, on the value of respect, he concludes that the common school should take lookism into account in the education it offers and that doing so can be a route to tackling other forms of discrimination too. It should not be surprising if no obvious consensus emerges from these chapters about the nature of the comprehensive ideal, whether it should be supported, and if so why. It is in the nature of ideals that they resist precise articulation. The notion of the common school gives something concrete to work with; we can identify particular institutions as common schools, look at how they are functioning, compare one common school with another, or compare common schools with ones that are in one way or another separate or segregated. The notion of the comprehensive ideal is much harder to pin down. Nevertheless, if the term ‘the comprehensive ideal’ had never been invented, it would still be useful to have some shorthand way of referring to those values and aspirations that have led so many educational practitioners and theorists to support common schools, or at least to think that the burden of proof lies with those who do not support them. For if it were possible at all to give a neutral descriptive definition of a common school, it is clear that such a definition would not rationally compel anyone to favour such a school. The purpose of the remainder of this chapter is, first and briefly, to illustrate that (perhaps obvious) point, and then at greater length to seek to understand what may be meant by ‘the comprehensive ideal’, referring in the process to the various positions that the contributors to this volume appear to take in relation to that notion. I shall argue that what we refer to loosely as the comprehensive ideal must inevitably involve a number of values and aspirations that will not necessarily fit neatly together; that there are various dimensions along which understandings of the comprehensive ideal can vary. While I shall continue for convenience to use the phrase ‘the comprehensive ideal’, the argument will suggest that there can be many interpretations of such an ideal; perhaps, indeed, competing comprehensive ideals.

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WHAT IS ONE COMMITTED TO WHEN ONE SUPPORTS THE COMMON SCHOOL?

For many supporters of common schools, the comprehensive ideal is something that, even if it is barely articulated, provides their justification for favouring such schools, and sometimes too the motivation for working actively to promote such schools. So one way to pursue an enquiry into the nature of the comprehensive ideal is to look into the reasons that people have for favouring and supporting common schools. It is clear, first, that people may support particular common schools for a variety of reasons. Parents, for instance, may have a variety of reasons for wishing their child to attend a particular common school. But what should we expect of theorists, including philosophers of education, who in that role may be expected to pay more attention than parents to overarching principles and ideals? If a philosopher is committed to the comprehensive ideal, can we say more precisely what he or she is committed to? Often a good way of understanding a practical commitment or moral position is to know what it is taken to exclude. In the case of common schools, it might at first sight seem obvious that someone who is committed to the comprehensive ideal, and therefore is a supporter of common schools, must be opposed to separate schools. But such a view would be too hasty, because it deals too simplistically with what it is to support or favour common schools, on the one hand, and certain sorts of distinctive schools, on the other. As the dedicatee of this volume, Terence McLaughlin, might have said, a more nuanced response is needed. While it may be part of the comprehensive ideal as it is held by some writers (including probably Fielding in this volume) that there should be no separate or segregated schools, this is not true of all supporters of the common school. Richard Pring is one such; his lead chapter here shows that he is very much an advocate of the comprehensive ideal,3 but at the end of the chapter he indicates that there could be a not incompatible role for faith-based schools. McLaughlin too was a prime example of a thinker and practitioner who was committed to the goods of education and wished to see those goods realised whether in common schools or faith schools. He was able to take such a view because he had a consistent understanding of what a good education in a liberal-democratic society would be, and was, therefore, able to evaluate both common schools and separate schools in terms of their capacity to promote such an education. Thus his support for common schools took the form not of backing any common school, come what may, but of understanding the strong arguments for common schools and, in the light of these arguments, taking very seriously the problems faced by such schools if they were to fulfil their promise (see especially McLaughlin, 2003). Likewise his support for separate schools took the form not of, say, backing parental choice whatever the educational outcome for the students might be, but of carefully arguing the proposition that a certain kind of faith school could contribute positively to the development of students’ autonomy (McLaughlin, 1992b).

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Nevertheless, without calling into question at all the sincerity of the belief of McLaughlin and of many others that both common schools (of a certain kind) and separate schools (of a certain kind) can be thoroughly good things, some would still want to ask whether there is not some inconsistency in seeking to support both kinds of school. For whatever accommodations we may need to make in practice, might it not still be said that the comprehensive ideal rules out separate schooling? One cannot answer such a question without a better understanding of what the comprehensive ideal involves and, also, an understanding of what the common school is taken to involve (since it is this that is being contrasted with a notion of a separate school). I shall look first, though not at length, at our understanding of the common school.

WHAT IS THE COMMON SCHOOL?

We can take a minimal definition of a common school from the paper in which McLaughlin drew together and systematised many of his distinctions, insights and arguments on common schooling. ‘At the most basic level, a ‘‘common school’’ can be regarded as a school that is open to, and intended for, all students within a given society regardless of their specific differentiating characteristics’ (McLaughlin, 2003, p. 122). This is a minimal definition in at least two ways: first, that from the fact that a school is ‘open to, and intended for, all students . . .’ nothing directly follows about the actual mix of students within such a school; and second, that such a definition says nothing about the nature of the education that students within the school will receive. I will say a little more about each point in turn. First, when a school is nominally common according to the minimal definition (which refers to intention), there may still be empirical factors operating with the actual consequence that various ‘differentiating characteristics’ will make a difference to the actual composition of the student body. One kind of example could be drawn from the experience of the provision of comprehensive schools in certain parts of England during the rapid expansion of comprehensive schooling to which Pring refers, when the primary policy concern was to move away from selection according to measured ability. In some urban areas schools were set up that were nominally comprehensive in that they would admit any students from a given geographical area up to the limit of their capacity (and some of those schools were very large). Each such school was, then, a common school by the minimal definition so far. But often there continued to be schools selecting by ability that were accessible to students within the same geographical area, both private schools and even in some cases publicly funded schools. The complaint was often heard in that era that the common schools were only nominally comprehensive since the top few percent of the ability range was being ‘creamed off’. Another kind of example of the school that is only nominally common comes more to the fore where there are relatively sharp demographic

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differences between the areas served by different schools. In England one should perhaps not be surprised (though from the perspective of a more maximal understanding of the common school one might regret it) that there are many schools whose student body is entirely white; what has, rightly or wrongly, caused more comment and concern in recent years is the fact that there are schools whose student population is, say, almost entirely Asian and Muslim, even though the schools in question make no such distinctions in their admissions policy. It just happens that the schools are in areas where the local population is predominantly Asian and Muslim; and parental choice does the rest. There are, of course, comparable examples in many parts of the world, as Meira Levinson points out in her chapter in this volume. It may well be thought that such de facto segregated schools fall well short of the comprehensive ideal. The second way in which the minimal definition of the common school is too minimal is that it says nothing about the education promoted within the school. As McLaughlin goes on to point out in the same chapter, the common school is usually held to incorporate a conception of a common education for the students.4 A common education can in turn be given more or less minimal interpretations, as was pointed out by Eamonn Callan (1997, Chapter 7). At the minimal end, the common education might comprise no more than a list of subjects that are widely and almost uncontroversially accepted as educationally relevant: numeracy, literacy and some scientific basics (though even the supposed scientific basics are not uncontroversial, as shown by the disputes over ‘intelligent design’ to which Strike refers). Indeed this most minimal conception of a common education is too minimal to be at all distinctive of the common school, since a common curriculum can (as in the National Curriculum in England and Wales) be enforced in schools that are not common in other senses. As regards curriculum, we can move further away from the minimal definition of a common school by specifying that the task of the curriculum is to build or maintain a common culture (which, as Pring points out, was a prime concern of many of the early advocates of common schooling), or to promote a shared sense of citizenship, and then attempting to work out the curricular implications of these commitments. There are issues raised here that I shall come back to below in discussing interpretations of the comprehensive ideal. There is a further important element to be added to the minimal definition of the common school before we even arrive at anything like the more or less shared conception with which the contributors to this volume are working. This is, in effect, a rough specification of the nature of the ‘given society’. For as McLaughlin points out (2003; see also Fielding in this volume) very different societies can promote a common education through common schools: the common education promoted through common schools in a theocratic society may in some respects be more like the separate education promoted through certain religious schools in a liberal-democratic society. But it is in the context of the latter sort of society that the arguments in this volume are played out.

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There are, too, aspects of common schooling on which its advocates may differ. Is it implicit in the idea of common schools that one common school is—or ideally would be—rather similar to another? (One reason for including in the comprehensive ideal an idea of an essential similarity between one school and another may be derived from the thought that all students in common schools are to have a common education.) In 2001, a spokesperson for the New Labour government in England said that ‘the day of the bog-standard comprehensive school is over’.5 Even native speakers of British English are hard put to say where the phrase ‘bog-standard’ comes from, but its connotations are well understood. They are connotations both of a standard model (nothing special or exceptional) and of standards that are relatively basic or no more than adequate. So the phrase has a clearly pejorative tone, suggesting, above all, mediocrity; understandably, there were angry reactions from many teachers and teacher union leaders to the implication that the schools in which they were teaching were merely ‘bog-standard’. But while the choice of language may have been, at best, ill-advised, the remark did issue a challenge to existing common schools on two fronts: that standards should be raised, and that there should not be one standard model of common school: in other words, there should be diversity among common schools. While it is obvious that schools that are not intended to be common schools (that is, ‘separate schools’) may differ widely from one another, it is not so clear how far the comprehensive ideal, or any specific version of it, allows diversity between one common school and another. Nor is that issue resolved in this volume. Up to this point, by examining the idea of the common school, we have raised some issues about what is or is not included in the comprehensive ideal. Any resolution of those issues will require closer attention to the values underlying or involved in that ideal. I shall look at these values in the final section of this chapter. Before that, I want to look further at the variety of interpretations to which the notion of the comprehensive ideal is subject. In the case of the common school, as we have seen, there is the possibility of a spectrum from minimal to maximal interpretations (an interpretative tactic often used by McLaughlin—see, for example, 1992a, 1996). Is it possible in a similar way to distinguish minimal from maximal interpretations of the comprehensive ideal?

MINIMAL AND MAXIMAL INTERPRETATIONS OF THE COMPREHENSIVE IDEAL

One striking difference between different articulations of ‘the comprehensive ideal’ is that some are far more fully specified than others. At one end of the scale there are expressions that give no indication as to what it would be for the ideal to be realised: such expressions might be considered pious platitudes or vague aspirations. Take, for instance, the idea put forward by P. E. Daunt in 1975 in a book called Comprehensive Values6

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(not explicitly as equivalent to ‘the comprehensive ideal’ but as ‘the guiding defining principle of comprehensive education’): ‘that the education of all children is held to be intrinsically of equal value’ (Daunt, 1975, p. 16). It is not that such an expression is meaningless. If it is possible to disagree with it, it must have some meaning, and we can be sure that in certain times and places there were people who would have disagreed with it without any compunction. Perhaps they rated the education of white people as more valuable than that of black people; or the education of boys as more valuable than that of girls; the education of people with high IQs as more valuable than that of people with lower IQs, or the education of people of the dominant religion as more important than that of people of a different faith or none. Today one is much less likely to find anyone willing to deny the proposition that the education of every child is intrinsically of equal value.7 If that proposition is part of the comprehensive ideal, then the comprehensive ideal contains at least one element of major importance. If this proposition were the whole of the comprehensive ideal, we might conclude that nearly everyone now subscribes to (or, at least, pays lip service to) the comprehensive ideal. But that shows what is wrong with such an expression of the ideal: because it says very little by way of any practical consequences, it says nothing that will differentiate between proponents of some radically different educational policies. It is, in that sense, minimal. Ideals that are less minimal, in this sense, are ones that have more content—ideals filled out in such a way that someone subscribing to them could know more concretely to what it is that he or she is subscribing. An ideal that, say, every child should attend a school that has a mix of students in terms of parental occupation and income has greater specificity (and is correspondingly more open to dispute). It may not be possible to say what would, in this sense, be a maximal interpretation of the comprehensive ideal (since whatever specification is given, further specification will still be possible). But what is important is that any specification above the minimal can go in a variety of directions: for instance, where one expression of the ideal puts weight on a mix of students in terms of parental occupation and income (in shorthand, in terms of socioeconomic class, as is emphasised by Brighouse in his chapter here), another will put more weight on mix in terms of religion (schools that are not committed to a particular religion versus separate faith schools), or on some, not always clearly defined—see Feinberg in this volume—notion of culture, where that is not itself meant as a shorthand for ‘religion and ethnicity’. At the origins of the comprehensive movement in England, as Pring shows, mix in terms of ability was the factor most emphasised. Discussions in this volume and elsewhere amply illustrate that different theorists of the comprehensive ideal put weight on different factors. It is, besides, not clear that if mixing in one respect is good, mixing in as many respects as possible is better. Suppose for one educationalist the comprehensive ideal is a school system not divided along class lines; for another it is a school system not divided in terms of the intellectual ability

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of students; for another it a system not divided in terms of religion; and so on. It does not follow that all these educationalists will be satisfied by a system that mixes everyone up as much as possible. This is only partly because of practical issues—such as the inconveniences and potential restrictions on freedom involved in bussing, mentioned by Pring and Brighouse here; it is also because, as Levinson notes, there may be such a thing as too great a mix of educational influences on a child, making it difficult to achieve coherence in the education provided. A similar point concerning the interpretation of the comprehensive ideal applies if we say that the comprehensive ideal involves the same curriculum for all. With no further specification, we may be left with a minimal notion of a common curriculum, as mentioned above. As Callan (1997) has noted, echoed here by Reich, such a curriculum would satisfy no-one and, hence, would not for anyone be constitutive of the comprehensive ideal. As we add more specification to the content of a common curriculum—building in, say, particular understandings of moral education and citizenship education, or a particular account of an intellectual and cultural inheritance to which all are entitled—we get more fleshed-out ideals, but are also likely to get a proliferation of different ideals as different thinkers develop their particular specifications of content. Perhaps part of the solution is that the comprehensive ideal must include room for diversity within the curriculum, but this too allows for multiple interpretations in terms of how much diversity and in which curriculum areas. For the most part the chapters in this volume do not go into any detail about the likely content of a common curriculum, with one important exception: the place of religion within a common curriculum. The movement for common schooling in the United States and in France— though less so in Britain—has had a strong secular tendency, where secularism is understood not in terms of neutral inclusion of religious and non-religious perspectives, but rather in terms of the exclusion of religious perspectives. Pring towards the end of his chapter is uneasy about the extent to which common schools can do justice to religious perspectives (a point on which Fielding begs to differ). Carr, Williams and Strike in their different ways argue that contact with religious perspectives and religious discourse is an important element in the education of all children and, hence, in the curriculum of the common school. Perhaps the one thing that all the interpretations of the comprehensive ideal so far mentioned have in common is that they refer explicitly or implicitly to the education of ‘everyone’. Yet this term itself is open to interpretation. Does ‘everyone’ really mean everyone? I shall call this the question of the scope of the comprehensive ideal, and it gives us another way in which interpretations of that ideal can vary from minimal to maximal. In fact, verbal articulations of ‘the comprehensive ideal’ tend to be ambiguous as regards their scope. Take as representative an earlier articulation from Pring: ‘the comprehensive ideal is that all young people—irrespective of social class, economic circumstance, ethnic origin, intellectual power, geographic location—should be ‘‘emancipated’’

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by the enhancement of their own powers’ (Pring and Walford, 1997, p. 83). The final clause, of course, invokes an interpretation of the aims of the curriculum. What comes before that clause adds to the discriminations that are to be avoided yet another category of differentiation: geography. Pring’s allusion, no doubt, was to the very reasonable point that children’s access to educational opportunities should not be determined by whether they live—say, in inner cities or in leafy suburbs, or in industrial areas of Northern England or affluent areas of Greater London. But if we are to put weight on geographic location, a wider range of issues opens up. There is a sense in which one can apply a comprehensive ideal to a single school, asking whether this school affords a good education to all in its surrounding area regardless of such categorisations as those above. But as the earlier example of ‘creaming off’ illustrates, and as is amply borne out by Fielding’s chapter, advocates of the comprehensive ideal have aspirations beyond a single instance. Besides, if we are concerned with the quality of education within a common school, the nature of the surrounding community is not irrelevant. ‘The common school is the neighbourhood school, and as such it reflects a particular kind of community’, says Pring (Chapter 1, p. 13), who goes on to point out that a more liberating education may require exposure to and involvement in a wider community. But just how wide? Barrow too says: ‘we should be thinking in terms not of local or parochial communities but of the community writ large . . . For the community we are ultimately concerned with is presumably the community of the whole . . .’ (Barrow, Chapter 4, p. 60). But Barrow is not explicit about the size of the whole. References to ‘a’ or ‘the’ whole society are quite common within expressions of the comprehensive ideal. But would the relevant whole society be—say, a state within the USA, or the United States? England or Wales or Scotland or Northern Ireland (each of which has differences in educational policy and administration), or the United Kingdom? We could go further, and perhaps we should. Levinson asks whether, in determining how ‘common’ a school is, or in asking to whom the common school is responsible, we should take as our reference group the population, not just of the locality or the nation, but of the world. If it is, as mentioned above, a part of the comprehensive ideal that ‘the education of all children is held to be intrinsically of equal value’, then what ethical reason can there be for restricting the scope of this claim to one nation, and denying that it applies to children in any other part of the world?8 Yet while it may be an ideal that every child in the world should have an equally good education, there are limits to the extent to which, even in articulating an ideal, one can fill in its content without some reference to what is more local. One does not have to be a card-carrying communitarian to recognise that circumstances differ and that what may be appropriate in one place may be less so in another. There is something of an inverse relationship between the scope of an educational ideal and the specificity with which it can be filled out; there would be something rather bizarre about trying to set out a single detailed model of education for all children everywhere. Besides, there is a more practical reason for

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refraining from seeking to specify a comprehensive ideal in any detail at a global level. This is that if an expression of the ideal is to have any force in educational policy it must be applicable at the level at which policy is formulated and can be influenced. This level is usually that of the nation state or of some more local unit. Yet it remains true that many of the people who advocate the comprehensive ideal for their own society will also be people who wish students to be educated for a sense of global citizenship, recognising with Feinberg that ‘absolute national sovereignty is an idea whose time has come and whose time is swiftly passing away’ (Feinberg, Chapter 6, p. 105). Many of the same values that lead to advocacy of the comprehensive ideal for the students of one nation (so that the students will come to some sense of a shared culture and perhaps solidarity) also hold the seeds for the eventual breaking down of barriers between one nation and another. It is time to look further into what those values are.

VALUES UNDERLYING THE COMPREHENSIVE IDEAL

Many of the chapters in this volume recognise that the common school is, as Reich argues, a response to pluralism. What is mostly understood by ‘pluralism’ is plurality of cultures within one society, as discussed explicitly by Levinson, Feinberg and others. But the term can also refer to the value-pluralism discussed by Isaiah Berlin and others. This, at its simplest, is just the recognition that there are many values, not just one supreme value (or value system) under which everything else that matters can be subsumed. Arguably value-pluralism offers a partial explanation of cultural diversity, in that cultures—in so far as we can identify them at all without the false reifying or essentialism that Feinberg and Levinson criticise—differ from one another partly in the different ways that they weigh and combine a variety of values. Value-pluralism underlies the position of several writers—Berlin himself, John Gray and William Galston—whom Alexander cites in support of a modus vivendi form of liberalism. As Alexander argues, it is often liberals of a different kind— ones with a strong commitment to one specific value, namely autonomy— who are among the strongest supporters of the common school rather than a diversity of schools. Yet we can see value-pluralism at work in arguments over the common school as well. Probably no advocate and no critic of common schools rests their case on one single value. Both advocates and critics are likely to appeal to a plurality of values, and these may indeed be the same values—subject to different interpretations and different estimates of consequences—in each case. On my reading of the chapters in this volume the values in question mostly fall into five, or perhaps six, main categories. The first category (a rather diverse one in itself) is that of educational values. Most of the contributors to this volume do not make a systematic distinction between educational and ethical values. Pring, for instance, mentions the importance of educational values, or evaluative conceptions

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of the nature of education, as important in arguments for the common school, and clearly sees these values as having an ethical underpinning. Nevertheless, a category of educational values is worth mentioning so as to allow for a position such as Barrow’s, in which general ethical values are recognised but outweighed (in this context) by specifically educational considerations. It is also educational concerns that are uppermost in Carr’s argument for including religious literacy within a liberal education, and such arguments are important too in Williams’ arguments for a similar conclusion. Williams also, like Strike, considers wider political issues of the extent to which religious perspectives should have a voice in the public discourse of a liberal society. The remaining categories mentioned here all clearly comprise ethical or moral values. The second category is that of community (when treated as a positive value in its own right rather than a descriptive notion) and other values associated with community, such as fraternity, solidarity and loyalty. The third category comprises justice and equality. The fourth category comprises respect, both for individuals and for cultures. The fifth category is freedom or liberty as a positive value, including both personal autonomy and social freedom. The sixth category I have in mind comprises principles of non-discrimination and non-oppression. It is not clear logically that this should be treated as a distinct category, since principles of non-discrimination and non-oppression can themselves be given further justification by appeal to justice and equality, to liberty or to respect. Nevertheless, the importance of non-discrimination in some of the arguments in this volume justifies naming it here as a distinct category. I shall say a little more about each of these categories of value in turn as they figure in this collection. It is the category of community that is most prominent in Pring’s chapter. In what could be taken in itself as a succinct articulation of the (or a) comprehensive ideal, he writes: ‘education aims to create a more cohesive and enriching community, shaped by a common culture, from which all benefit, whatsoever the cultural background from which the learners come’ (Pring, Chapter 1, p. 17). As the discussion above has shown, when community is treated as a positive good we cannot avoid difficult questions of the scope of that community and of how far a sense of community is possible across a larger society. But supporters of the comprehensive ideal can still be sufficiently optimistic to put weight on fraternity (Fielding) and loyalty (Healy). Democracy is highlighted particularly by Fielding and Davis. Social justice is mentioned by Pring as one of the values that was being pursued by the early advocates of common schools. Clearly one important connection in the thinking of those pioneers was that non-discrimination could be better achieved through a system that, indeed, did not discriminate at the point of entry to secondary schools. Nevertheless, Brighouse argues that in the weight it puts on integration across differences the comprehensive ideal does not always or necessarily serve the cause of justice. Conceivably, in a context of value-pluralism, justice could be outweighed by other values; but Brighouse is writing within that

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liberal tradition, following Rawls, in which justice is the first virtue of societies. For Brighouse, as for Terzi, we need a sound understanding of the demands of justice before we can adjudicate whether common schooling is necessarily the most just form of provision of schooling for particular individuals. Both Brighouse and Terzi interpret social justice— which in this tradition is justice to individuals—in terms of equality, and Brighouse explains why in an educational context it is equality, rather than the benefit to the least advantaged, that is important. It is not only, of course, liberals of a Rawlsian stripe who can frame their argument in terms of justice and equality; Tooley, for instance, appeals to the same values in his defence of private schooling. In Pring’s discussion, after community, it is respect that figures most strongly among the values to be realised through common schooling. This includes both respect for individuals and respect for cultures.9 Respect enters into the arguments of a number of the chapters here. Both Barrow and Alexander, for instance, refer to respect in the Kantian sense of the recognition of the inherent worth of all persons, while mutual respect figures in Levinson’s discussion of the aspirations of both common schools and multicultural education, and in Strike’s arguments about the role of religion in public discourse. Respect for persons is a value distinct from the values of community, since in a Kantian understanding of respect one can respect persons without any particular sense of solidarity or harmony with them as members of the same concrete community. Respect (whether or not accompanied by a sense of solidarity) is important among the reasons for inclusion and non-discrimination. Davis grounds his argument against lookism largely in respect, while Cigman argues that it is not necessarily disrespectful to educate students with special needs in separate establishments. In the pantheon of liberal values one would expect to find liberty as well as justice having an important place. Pring says rather little here explicitly about liberty, though he clearly works with a conception of liberal education that he sees—as in his account of the comprehensive ideal, quoted above from an earlier work—as emancipatory. Liberal and emancipatory conceptions of education give an important place to autonomy and in that sense are committed to individual liberty; the nature and value of autonomy, however, needs careful handling, as shown by Alexander. Direct appeals to the importance of autonomy are perhaps less prominent in the arguments for common schooling in this volume than they are in many of the writings of liberal theorists of education (including some of the same authors writing in other places). Notably, it is the strand of liberal thinking that gives central place to autonomy to which McDonough appeals in his critique of current educational attitudes and practices towards queer sexuality. As regards more social conceptions of liberty, Pring claims that the enforcement of common schooling with a distinctive ethos could be indefensible, presumably as an undue restriction of liberty, though Fielding disputes this. Probably all contributors would endorse the central freedoms of the liberal-democratic tradition (among which freedom of religion is important in Strike’s arguments), but acknowledgment of these freedoms leaves room for debate over the role of parents’ freedom to determine the

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nature of their child’s education. Brighouse acknowledges that an argument can be made from parental liberty against the promotion of common schooling for the sake of equality, but his own conclusion is that ‘the parental liberty argument has more power than advocates of educational equality usually think, and less than those who press it against educational equality usually think’ (Brighouse, Chapter 5, p. 80). Later in the volume, Rob Reich, as well as arguing that school choice is itself a response to pluralism, gives weight to the argument for school choice from liberty. Tooley too puts weight on liberty in his argument for school choice, including the availability to parents of the choice of private schooling. Non-discrimination and non-oppression figure largely, if not always explicitly, in the final part of this volume concerning inclusion, and also in Gereluk’s discussion of school dress codes. While Gereluk, McDonough and Davis come at issues of non-discrimination from different angles, all three mention clothing, which may be used either in an attempt to change a person’s appearance towards the norm or in an assertion of an identity different from the norm (which may be an identity of religion, ethnicity or sexuality). Though admitting a student to a school while constraining her choice of clothing is not the same as excluding the student altogether, it may still be seen as a form of discrimination or oppression, especially if the clothing to which the school objects is central to the student’s identity. CONCLUSION

Since this chapter is introductory to all that follows, any attempt at an overall conclusion would be premature. I shall confine my final remarks to two, which seem to me to emerge from the preceding discussion. First, the comprehensive ideal cannot reasonably be pursued as an ideal for a single school, however well that school may seem to exemplify all that is considered best in the common school. To adapt John Donne, no school is an island. The comprehensive ideal is a social ideal, and to pursue it fully involves pursuing it as an ideal for society, with a sense of what sort of society it is that we want to see. This leaves open questions of how widely we interpret the scope of the relevant society. Second, the comprehensive ideal exists as an ideal within a context of plurality, where that means not only plurality of cultures, but also more fundamentally plurality of values. Putting weight on different values within this plurality may lead to different versions of the comprehensive ideal. There is no one canonical interpretation of the comprehensive ideal. In a plural society, that is what we should expect. The ‘best’ interpretation of the comprehensive ideal for a given time and place is a question to be settled not through philosophical argument, but in the fora of a democracy. NOTES 1. Except where otherwise specified, references are to authors’ chapters in this volume. 2. The present editor is preparing a collection of essays, based on lectures delivered in memory of Terence McLaughlin at the Institute of Education, University of London, which will go further into issues concerning faith schools.

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3. Pring is also joint editor of a volume entitled Affirming the Comprehensive Ideal (Pring and Walford, 1997). 4. McLaughlin cites Eamonn Callan’s (1997) important discussion of common schooling as his source for the distinction between ‘common school’ and ‘common education’. 5. Attributed to Alastair Campbell in press reports of the time. 6. That this work had some influence in England is suggested by the fact that in 1997 it was still cited by several contributors to Pring and Walford’s (1997) book on the comprehensive ideal. 7. This proposition is related to, though of course not logically equivalent to, the idea that the fundamental aims of education are the same for every child. Not so long ago that proposition too would often have been denied. 8. While probably few would actually dispute this proposition about the equal value of the education of a child whatever nation the child lives in, it is by no means necessarily respected in the foreign policy of nations. 9. I have discussed the relationship between respect for persons and respect for cultures in Haydon, 2006.

REFERENCES Callan, E. (1997) Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Daunt, P. E. (1975) Comprehensive Values (London, Heinemann). Haydon, G. (2006) Respect for Persons and for Cultures as a Basis for National and Global Citizenship, Journal of Moral Education, 35.4, pp. 457–471. McLaughlin, T. H. (1992a) Citizenship, Diversity and Education: A Philosophical Perspective, Journal of Moral Education, 21.3, pp. 235–250. McLaughlin, T. H. (1992b) The Ethics of Separate Schools, in: M. Leicester and M. Taylor (eds) Ethics, Ethnicity and Education (London, Kogan Page). McLaughlin, T. H. (1996) Educating Responsible Citizens, in: Henry Tam (ed.) Punishment, Excuses and Moral Development (Aldershot, Avebury). McLaughlin, T. H. (2003) The Burdens and Dilemmas of Common Schooling, in: K. McDonough and W. Feinberg (eds) Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Pring, R. and Walford, G. (eds) (1997) Affirming the Comprehensive Ideal (London, The Falmer Press).

3 On the Necessity of Radical State Education: Democracy and the Common School MICHAEL FIELDING

Richard Pring’s essay on ‘The Common School’ (Chapter 1) not only helps us to understand some of its origins as a driving force in the English education system over the last six decades, but also foregrounds some of the key issues its advocates are currently wrestling with in a political context dominated by neo-liberal policy frameworks that have only the most tenuous of grips on commonalities, other than those of central prescription, incessant audit, compulsory choice and an increasingly sophisticated populism. The first, historical, undertaking is important, both because it implies we need to take history seriously and because in doing so its manner of philosophising demonstrates not only that, as H. D. Lewis would have it, ‘clarity is not enough’, but that clarity never could be. To attempt a philosophically engaging exploration of the challenges of ‘The Common School’ without a rich understanding of its cultural and historical placement would be inevitably and persistently disappointing. The second, more overtly philosophical, undertaking is important too and of a piece with Pring’s earlier championing and more recent defence of the comprehensive school. His brisk insistence that we go beyond the emergence of the common school from the dissatisfactions, manifest inadequacies and multiple injustices of the tripartite system of schooling in order to embrace political and moral arguments for ‘greater social justice and equality, respect of persons and preparation for citizenship within the democratic order’ is very much in tune with his work as a public intellectual in a society that has traditionally been wary of intellectuals and increasingly confused about any notion of the public in terms more complex than those of the shifting aggregation of consumers or the surrogacy of multiple focus groups. There is, as one would expect, much to applaud in Pring’s approach— eclectic yet robustly coherent, circumspect yet insistently principled. There is, too, much to applaud in the substance of his argument—the clear and complex exploration of community and culture that sets things up so well for our re-engagement with ‘The Common School’ and with ‘Aims of Education’, and the even-handed articulation of the case against the The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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common school before the final passages on the desirability of reconciliation within a common system, rather than a common school. There is, however, reason to identify sets of concerns on two fronts: first, there are parts of the argument that fall short of their intentions; and second, and more importantly, there are serious silences that significantly undermine the quest for a diverse, inclusive commonality that lies at the heart of the essay’s intellectual aspirations. With regard to the first set of concerns, the details of different parts of the essay’s argument will inevitably affect readers in different ways, according to their standpoint, and they merit only a passing, albeit insistent, mention. For me these include, first, an insufficiently situated recognition of the moral and spiritual corruption that inevitably gains legitimacy within an increasingly complacent neo-liberal hegemony—e.g. the widespread failure of faith communities to restrain the spiritual usury of the middle class and the resultant denial of social justice and much else besides.1 Second, there is no acknowledgment of some of the key internal difficulties that persist within whatever remnant of the common comprehensive school movement we still have—for example, the daily denial of the principles of equality and freedom through internal practices of so-called ‘ability’ grouping, which rightly preoccupied pioneers like Brian Simon and, more recently, the late Donald McIntyre and the ‘Learning Without Limits’ group (see Hart et al., 2004). Third, and perhaps most surprisingly, given Pring’s admirable championing of schooling’s obligations to the education of persons, not just to the imperatives of the national economy, there is no engagement with philosophical elements of democratic theory that take us beyond respect for persons to the third principle of the French Revolution’s trinome, namely fraternity. Neither is there any excursion into the related hinterland of care theory, or to the teleological basis, not just of democracy, but of politics itself.

DEMOCRACY AND THE COMMON SCHOOL

The second set of concerns, the silences and absences that merit more substantial attention, cluster round the surprisingly uneven presence of democratic theory within the intellectual narrative of the essay. There is, of course, reference to John Dewey and to more recent writers like David Held and Paul Hirst, and there are important contributions from key figures like R. H. Tawney. But, all the more surprising given Pring’s championing of Dewey’s work, there is no systematic engagement with the interface between democratic theory and the common school. The common school can, after all, have a substantial appeal to societies other than those with democratic aspirations—e.g. theocracies—though the basis of their commonality would, of course, be decidedly different from those discussed in Pring’s chapter. For these kinds of reasons, and for others more strongly attached to the history of democratic struggle in the UK and the contemporary place of the common school within that wider

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project, it is important to draw attention to approaches and practices that openly proclaim and convincingly substantiate their commitment to education in, not just education for, democracy. If I am right in pressing for a tighter connection between democracy and debates about the viability and desirability of the common school, it seems sensible to engage briefly with aspects of democratic theory that open up issues of particular relevance to the multiple challenges of diversity currently pre-occupying us. As a way into this, it is worth reminding ourselves that democracy is a hugely contested—some would say essentially contested—concept and that fruitful discussion about its nature and its connection with practices such as education needs to acknowledge very different traditions and allegiances. One of the best philosophical engagements with these matters is by Wilfred Carr and Anthony Hartnett (1996), its philosophical strengths and wider resonances being in large measure due to the authors’ twin commitment both to in-depth historical analysis and to serious engagement with contemporary contextual frameworks shaping social, political and educational developments in England today. Not only do Carr and Hartnett delineate the familiar distinction between, on the one hand, classical or participatory traditions of democracy and, on the other hand, their modern, proceduralist counterparts, which incorporate elitist, pluralist, realist and neo-liberal theories, they also take us through an account of the historical migration of democracy that illuminates its colonisation and rearticulation in line with dominant class and economic interests. This is important not only because it helps us to understand the different traditions of political thought, but also because it helps us to make sense of current debates and dilemmas, both about the kind of society we wish to create and about the educational consequences of aligning ourselves with one tradition rather than another. Talk about the common school cannot begin to make headway unless it connects to wider questions of democracy. Those wider political questions in turn require us to engage in serious debate about the nature of democracy and the quite different educational consequences that flow from the inevitability of positioning oneself within a highly contested terrain. Carr and Hartnett situate themselves clearly within the participatory tradition, and their spirited engagement with Dewey’s work raises key issues pertinent to debate on the common school, exemplified in their claim that ‘For Dewey, the revitalization of democratically organised public life was the most important requirement for the future development of democracy’ (Carr and Hartnett, 1996, p. 57). One of the educational consequences of this overarching political project is that schools themselves should become educational sites of democratic living—i.e. democratic learning communities: For Dewey, individuals can only learn to understand themselves as democratic individuals by becoming members of a community in which the problems of communal life are resolved through collective deliberation and a shared concern for the common good. For this reason,

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a democratic school is a common school providing a broad social community to which children of different race, class, gender and religion can belong (p. 63).

A democratic school cannot be an authoritarian school, controlling or directing what pupils think: Rather, [Dewey’s advocacy of the growth of social intelligence] requires schools to provide a democratic culture in which pupils are encouraged to resolve practical, moral and social problems through joint activities and collective decision-making . . . [S]chools must become embryonic societies providing all pupils with opportunities to develop the social attitudes, skills and dispositions that allow then to formulate and achieve their collective ends by confronting shared problems and common concerns (ibid.).

It seems to me that any debate about the place of the common school in English society must grapple with that society’s self-understanding as a democracy and its aspirations to further a way of life that takes those political intentions seriously. If, as David Held has argued, we should embrace a ‘double democratisation’ (Held, 1987, pp. 283–289)—that is to say, a reciprocal, simultaneous process in which both education and society develop the conditions of each other’s mutual growth—then a common school worthy of the name must overtly, not just implicitly, address its foundational democratic obligations. How it understands those obligations and how it does address them will, of course, differ according to ideology and circumstance. But the requirement to provide a convincingly articulated and demonstrably enacted approach, both to the development of the school as a democratic community and to its relations with the immediate and extended communities to which it owes its residual allegiances, must remain insistently and permanently present. RADICAL TRADITIONS OF STATE EDUCATION

By and large, the kind of desiderata I am arguing for are not met with any degree of sophistication or conviction within our current education system, which is largely predicated on a weakly articulated proceduralist position in whose most recent neo-liberal manifestation the umbilical cord of democracy is so distended that the life-blood of political and communal engagement becomes increasingly thin: [A]ny vision of education that takes democracy seriously cannot but be at odds with educational reforms which espouse the language and values of market forces and treat education as a commodity to be purchased and consumed . . . [E]ducation is a public good rather than a private utility . . . [I]n a democracy individuals do not only express personal preferences; they also make public and collective choices related to the common good of their society (Carr and Hartnett, 1996, p. 192).

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The hegemony of proceduralism is not, however, absolute. There are still individual teachers and staff, clusters of like-minded people within and between schools, whole schools, and, ephemerally but recurringly, networks and alliances of schools, learning centres, professional and political pressure groups, and individuals whose daily practice is inspired by the values and aspirations of the participatory democratic tradition. Admittedly, there are not many, and even in more propitious times their numbers were never in the majority. Nonetheless, within the context of deliberations about the nature of education in and for democracy, and about the place of the common school within that wider project, the significance of the radical traditions of state education is substantial. Indeed, I wish to argue that, both actually and potentially, it is iconic and, as such, deserves greater recognition within the wider democratic movement. It is iconic for those from within the participatory tradition because the bravery and the creativity of its prefigurative practice exemplify the fact that, even in largely hostile contexts, radical democratic approaches are possible, both now and in the future. It is also potentially iconic for those within proceduralist traditions because it challenges, if only for a moment, some of the fundamental presumptions of their position, in particular the belief that the highly complex, volatile contexts of 21st century society render the possibility of meaningful participation by more than a small elite unrealistic and undesirable. What, then, do I mean by the radical traditions of state education and what kinds of argument underpin my insistence that their values and practices have an especially strong claim to a privileged position in the iconography of the common school within a democratic society? However brief an excursion one makes into such matters, the process of definition here must acknowledge the historically situated nature of any such enquiry and the inevitable contestability of anything other than the thinnest of accounts of radicalism itself. Interestingly, one of the best known engagements with radical education in modern philosophy of education (Barrow, 1978) sees no need to go beyond the minimalist characterisation of a radical as someone ‘who wants change that involves going to the root of the matter, as opposed to one who wants no change at all or one who wants superficial change’ (p. 1). However, most literature on the subject finds this minimally helpful, asking, as Nigel Wright does, ‘how much change is required for it not to be superficial, and just what are the roots of the matter?’ (Wright, 1989, p. 15), prior to raising important historical, national and cultural distinctions. Having said this, versions of minimalism do have wide-ranging support, albeit for very different reasons. Thus, Ali Rattansi and David Reeder deliberately avoid setting out a formal definition of radicalism because ‘there is no essence of radicalism in education . . . no single radical tradition in education’ (Rattansi and Reeder, 1992, pp. 10–11). Wright echoes this position. Whilst making important distinctions between, for example, ‘radical’ and ‘progressive’ traditions, he acknowledges that ‘the words describe different stretches of the same continuum . . . [with] considerable overlap’ (Wright, 1989, p. 16), though, as with Brian Simon, his basic position,

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and, indeed, my own, is that ‘The radical tradition in education is . . . [one] which sees educational change as a key aspect (or component) of radical social change’ (Simon, 1972, p. 9).

PREFIGURATIVE PRACTICE

One interpretation of how the nexus between radical social change and radical educational change is most appropriately realised in the context of the existing system of schooling valorises the notion of prefigurative practice— that is to say, practice that is, in Carl Boggs’ words, ‘the embodiment within the ongoing political practice of a movement, of those forms of social relations, decision-making, culture and human experience that are the ultimate goal’ (Boggs, 1977/78, p. 100). This anticipation of future modes of being through processes and relations, not just structures, that exemplify and embody the viability and desirability of radical alternatives is one of the most important past and continuing contributions of the radical traditions of state education to the furtherance of democracy in this country. At times in the relatively recent past these contributions have been more prominent than they are at present. Thus, Roger Dale, writing in April 1988, argues that: The more radical, recent and professionally initiated concepts of comprehensive education . . . contain . . . a view of education’s role in social change which sees it as prefigurative. That is to say, rather than waiting until all the necessary social engineering has been done, and the planned widespread social change brought about, this approach to social change suggests that education through its processes, the experiences it offers, and the expectations it makes, should prefigure, in microcosm, the more equal, just and fulfilling society that the originations of comprehensivism aimed to bring about. Schools should not merely reflect the world of which they are a part, but be critical of it, and show in their own processes that its shortcomings are not inevitable, but can be changed. They aim to show that society can be characterized by communal as well as individual values, that all people merit equal treatment and equal dignity, that academic ability is not the only measure of a person, that racism and sexism are neither inevitable not acceptable (Dale, 1988, p. 17).

Whilst there is significant evidence that earlier periods within the last couple of generations have been more sympathetic and responsive to the inspiration and energy of prefigurative approaches, the key point is that there are continuities and synergies within and between the history of education and wider social and political movements that comprise the radical traditions to which I am drawing attention. These traditions and continuities not only sustain the hope of a more socially just and creative society, but also confront the more timid realities of contemporary policy and practice with a deeper, more enduring, more democratic accountability than, in Fred Inglis’s inimitable words, ‘the preposterous edifice of

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auditing, the mad route of acronyms . . . that blinds vision and stifles thought’ (Inglis, 2000, p. 428).

PREFIGURATIVE PRACTICE AND THE COMMON SCHOOL

My current thinking suggests there are at least seven key strands2 of prefigurative practice within radical state traditions that contribute individually and collectively to their intellectual and practical significance and to my claim that they have something compelling to say to us about the viability and desirability of the common school. These have to do (a) with their overt democratic coherence; (b) with their endorsement of a vibrant, inclusive public realm; (c) with their interpersonal and structural integrity; (d) with their radical approaches to curriculum and assessment; (e) with their insistent affirmation of possibility; (f) with their delight and belief in intergenerational reciprocity; and, lastly, (g) with their interrogative, dialogic openness. In each of the strands I will sketch brief illustrations of prefigurative practice and radical approaches to democratic schooling so that they connect in an intelligible way with approaches to schooling that most of us are more familiar with. Also, in order to underscore the viability and synergy of all seven strands operating successfully within a single institution, I include examples from the pioneering work of Alex Bloom between 1945 and 1955 at St. George-inthe East Secondary School in Stepney, London (see Fielding, 2005), arguably the most compelling example of prefigurative democratic practice within the secondary sector in England since the watershed of the 1944 Education Act.3

A. An Intended and Proclaimed Democratic Coherence

One of the strongest claims the radical tradition has for its significance in debates about the common school lies in its commitment not just to having aspects or strands of school practice dedicated to nurturing education as a democratic way of life, but also to an intended and proclaimed democratic coherence. In our current school system too little attention has been paid to these matters, with the result that engagement with the concept and the practice of democracy is often thin and unconvincing, and talk of democracy often seen as embarrassingly inappropriate, unnecessary or vaguely threatening. And yet, at St. George-in-the-East, it was not any of these things. On 1 October 1945, Alex Bloom set out to build ‘A consciously democratic community . . . without regimentation, without corporal punishment, without competition’ (Bloom, 1948, p. 121), and in order to address staff concerns about its novelty and its presumed impracticability, substantial time was devoted to discussing and getting a feeling for what was known as ‘The School Pattern’ and the principles underlying it. Two of the most important driving forces of the ‘School Pattern’ were

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1. the child must feel that . . . he does count, that he is wanted, that he has a contribution to make to the common good; 2. the child must feel that the school community is worthwhile (Bloom, n.d.). Individuality and community are thus integrally related, and the young person’s ‘two loyalties—one to himself, the other to his community’ (Bloom, 1948, p. 120) condition each other reciprocally and underscore the key notion of recognition, which I return to later in the chapter. In our current contexts, perhaps the most important point, borne out by our reluctance to welcome the discourse of democracy into our practice of an education intended to support its development, is the ease with which the deeply principled and absolutely necessary animating rationale of the system becomes distorted or eroded by an atomised focus on particulars. In England, this is amply illustrated by the waywardness of the current regime of target setting (see Fielding, 2001, for a depressingly prescient critique), in which myopic insistence on the measurable at the expense of the meaningful has severed the connection between purpose and process. As a result, this has inevitably led, on the one hand, to delusions of success on the part of what one might call ‘performance champions’ and, on the other hand, increasing disillusionment on the part of those for whom the juxtaposition of daily realities and past hopes reveals a chasm of credibility and conscience. In the United States, this is ironically and iconically mirrored in the pervasiveness of a testing regime illustrated in Martha Nussbaum’s recent account of the University of Chicago Laboratory School. Here, ‘where John Dewey conducted his path-breaking experiments in democratic soulmaking’, she discovered that ‘teachers who still take pride in stimulating children to question, to criticize, and imagine are an embattled minority, increasingly suppressed by other teachers, and especially by wealthy parents, intent on testable results of a technical nature that will help produce financial success’ (Nussbaum, 2006, pp. 301–302). B. A Vibrant, Inclusive Public Realm

Whilst educating the capacity ‘to question, to criticize, and imagine’ is central to all accounts of democracy, the necessity of ordinary people being able to enact these capacities and dispositions as public, not just as private, virtues is particularly apparent within the participatory tradition. If, in line with this tradition, we read Dewey’s often quoted but thinly interpreted insistence that ‘democracy is more than a form of government: it is primarily a mode of associated living, a conjoint communicated experience’ (Dewey, 1916, p. 87) through a participatory lens, then within-school practices that foreground communal arrangements providing and celebrating dialogic spaces are of paramount importance. And yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the least developed aspects of democratic practice, radical or otherwise, concerns the encouragement of a vibrant, inclusive public realm in which adults and young people not only exchange views about matters of particular concern or delight to

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either or both of the parties involved, but also make meaning of their lives together and reflect on how and to what degree the public good has been served. Such practice is, however, possible, as the remarkable developments at St. George-in-the-East showed. In Bloom’s estimation, there were ‘three facets of our life at St. George-in-the-East that evoke living experiences which tend towards progress in just human relations: our School Council, our School Study and our Elective Activities’ (Bloom, 1953, p. 174). Of these, it was the (whole) School Council that most fittingly exemplified a Deweyan commitment to ‘collective deliberation and a shared concern for the common good’ (Carr and Hartnett, 1996, p. 63), and it offers us an important model for future development. In these meetings, attended by the whole staff (about 10) and the whole student body (about 260 boys and girls), there was a communal celebration of and reflection on the detail and meaning of the learning that had taken place in the preceding months. Far from being a platitudinous or tokenistic occasion, according to the account offered by E. R. Braithwaite in Chapter 17 of his autobiographical To Sir With Love (Braithwaite, 1969) and subsequently confirmed to me in a telephone interview, it was one in which students moved from reportage and appreciation to a reciprocally demanding dialogue with three randomly chosen members of staff who, with varying degrees of skill and conviction, sought to justify and in some cases defend the basis of the school curriculum on which the student body had just reflected in such detail (see Fielding, 2005, p. 129). None of this is to minimise the difficulties, difficulties that should not be underestimated within adult society, let alone within communities in which adults and young people work together in traditionally asymmetric ways. It is, however, to explain why the radical tradition’s readiness to tackle these demanding democratic imperatives contributes to my advocacy of its pre-eminent significance within the social and political project of the common school. Certainly, the philosophical work of Seyla Benhabib (1998) and Nancy Fraser (1997), both problematising and reconstructing the notion of the public, the engagement of educational philosophers such as Maxine Greene (2000) and Morwenna Griffiths (Griffiths et al., 2006) strongly influenced by the work of Hannah Arendt, and the development of richly theorised empirical work in the UK (PercySmith, 2006) and the USA (Kelly, 2003) suggest this is an important site of future praxis.

C. Interpersonal and Structural Integrity

This discussion about the nature and development of public spaces within a democratic community is also illustrative of a wider, generic point about the philosophical and experiential nature of organisational life and the degree to which it is expressive of synergies and reciprocities that strongly unite means and ends. This is something that resonates significantly with the earlier citation (Boggs, 1977/78) of work on prefigurative practice

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valorised by, amongst others, the anarchist, New Left and feminist traditions, and it is something I have argued strongly for in my own work, drawing in particular on the Scottish philosopher, John Macmurray (Fielding, 2006). There are two main points to foreground here. First, within the radical tradition there is heavy emphasis on the importance of organisational structures expressing the axiological and existential underpinnings of the way of life being advocated. Hence, my own emphasis on particular approaches to, for example, schools-within-schools in secondary education, the development of narrative and dialogic forms of professional development, and the centrality of relationships within an emergent, coconstructed approach to curriculum. Second, there is substantial recognition of the inadequacy of democratic structures to support the entire weight of democratic aspiration and practice. This is not just a case, as Nussbaum rightly reminds us, of the importance of developing values such as ‘the capacity for Socratic self-criticism and critical thought about one’s own traditions, . . . [and] the ability to see oneself as a member of a heterogeneous nation, and world, understanding something of the history and character of the diverse groups that inhabit it’ (Nussbaum, 2007, p. 309). It is also, and pre-eminently, about a third ability, which she calls ‘the narrative imagination’ or ‘the cultivation of imaginative sympathy’ (ibid.). This is basically a matter of ‘the ability to think what it might be like to be in the shoes of a person very different from oneself, indeed a whole range of such persons’ (ibid.), for which we need literature and the arts. This beautifully echoes a point made by one of the English pioneers of radical education, Tony Weaver, who, in his historical perspective on democratic practice in education, elegantly reminds us that: . . . insight, fairness and tolerance will be promoted through the practice of participation so long as it is complemented by the fostering of powers of expression through dance, design, writing (including dramatic performances) and crafts. Without a discovery of the means of spontaneous expression, a community or society runs the danger of being tyrannical or coercive. Without a supporting community in which to participate, an individual tends to become selfish, brutal and aggressive . . . The sharing of responsibilities has as much to do with caring and respect for persons (i.e. the wish to re-see them) as with politics and efficiency (Weaver, 1989, p. 83).

St. George-in-the East had the most sophisticated formal democratic structure I have ever encountered in a secondary school, with multiple, organically related democratic constituencies operating on a weekly and monthly basis in the three arenas of staff, students and school (see Figure 3.1). It also placed substantial emphasis on the arts, and what I have called existential frameworks for democratic living (see Figure 3.2), which included the school’s central values and principles alluded to earlier in the

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M. Fielding Democratic Constituencies Students Pupil Panel Head Boy / Girl Deputy HB / HG Secretary Form Reps Headteacher

Staff Staff Panel All staff (about 10)

School Joint Panel Staff Panel Member Head Boy / Girl Chairs of Pupil Committees Headteacher

Weekly Meeting Schedule Pupil Committees

Form Meeting Monday Morning

Ongoing

Staff Panel Monday lunchtime

dance meals sports tidy social

* * * * * Pupil Panel Friday Morning

Monthly Meeting Schedule Pupil Panel

Staff Panel

Joint Panel Last Friday of the month

(Whole) School Council [whole school: students + staff] Monday following Joint Panel Meeting

Figure 3.1 Democratic structure of St. George-in-the East Secondary Modern School, Stepney, London E1 (1953)

‘Our Pattern’ document, and a strong commitment to student agency through an emergent curriculum. Weaving its way through all these arrangements and through the formal structures of democratic living was a pervasive commitment to dialogic engagement, to reciprocal listening and learning. This was typified by the Weekly Reviews that each young person completed on their formal and informal learning within the school and that often included comments, both supportive and otherwise, on the work of their teachers. One of the reasons this worked well was the foundational importance attached to

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Values and principles underpinning the work of the school ‘Our Pattern’ Replace the debilitating influence of fear - fear of authority, fear of failure, fear of punishment - with ‘Friendship, security and the recognition of each child’s worth’ No streaming / setting heterogeneous, sometimes mixed-age grouping No punishment restorative response No competition emulation No marks or prizes communal recognition ‘1. the child must feel that … he does count, that he is wanted, that he has a contribution to make to the common good 2. the child must feel the school community is worthwhile.’ (Bloom, nd) ‘We have never preached - or practised - laissez-faire at St. George’s. Rather we have set out to achieve a balance between personal growth and social needs. In the establishment of such harmony lies the integration of the personality.’ (Bloom, 1953, p. 174) ‘He is educated who is able to recognise relationships between things and to experience just relations with persons’ (Bloom, 1952, p. 136)

Radical collegiality Emergent curriculum School study The community as a resource Electives Residential camps

Dialogic engagement Animating dynamic of mutual learning between students and staff Weekly reviews Continuity of relationships Form meetings, pupil panels, pupil committees, joint panel, and whole school council (see Figure3.1)

Figure 3.2 Existential frameworks for democratic living at St. George-in-the East Secondary Modern School, Stepney, London E1 (1953)

continuity of relationships with class teachers, who they saw regularly for extended periods of time during the week. D. Radical Collegiality, Radical Curriculum and the Challenge of Assessment

Within the radical tradition, the kind of openness and commitment to the form of dialogic, reciprocal learning just alluded to goes deeper than a

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humane, mutually respectful approach to teaching. My phrase ‘radical collegiality’ is intended to pick out a more thorough-going engagement between students and staff, whose aspirations to deeper reciprocity extend to the understanding of knowledge as intentionally emergent and coconstructed. Radical education inevitably concerns itself with radical approaches to curriculum. At St. George-in-the-East these imperatives expressed themselves through (a) the School Study—school-wide thematic work interpreted differently by different groups and individuals within different classes but communally interrogated and appreciated in a variety of often mixed-age settings; (b) widespread use of the community, of London, not just of the local district, as a learning resource; (c) daily electives in which the afternoon curriculum was chosen by pupils themselves; and (d) residential camps in which intergenerational, exploratory learning was much in evidence. A generation later, the emergence at Countesthorpe Community College, Leicestershire, of ‘team’—arguably the most remarkable example of co-constructed curriculum we have ever had in secondary schools in England—put co-constructed knowledge, an appropriate assessment system (Mode 3 examinations)4 and a radical, person-centred approach to school organisation (schools-within-schools) at the heart of the democratic project (see Armstrong and King, 1977). Today’s radical vanguard—e.g. Bishops Park College, Clacton (see Davies, 2005)— courageously pursue similar approaches, but under the much less conducive circumstances of a heavily prescribed, anachronistic national curriculum and a public assessment system seriously at odds with most of what we know about learning. E. Insistent Affirmation of Possibility

In the last chapter of their Education and the Struggle for Democracy Wilfred Carr and Michael Hartnett affirm that: . . . despite its portrayal as an institution of democratic education, all the evidence suggests that the comprehensive school has reinforced rather than challenged those non-democratic aspects of the English education tradition—exclusiveness, separation, segregation—that have always frustrated democratic educational advance (Carr and Hartnett, 1996, p. 194).

This is an important challenge and one I alluded to earlier when I suggested that in Pring’s chapter there is too little acknowledgment of some of the persistent internal difficulties that continue to compromise many schools within the common, comprehensive school movement. Within the radical tradition, addressing these matters of ‘exclusiveness, separation, segregation’ is of paramount importance; so too is the insistence on keeping options open, on resisting closure, on a generosity of presumption that assumes the best rather than the worst of young people. At St. George-in-the-East, as in many other schools within the radical

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democratic tradition, there was a substantial attempt to replace the debilitating influence of fear as the prime incentive to ‘progress’. Thus for Alex Bloom, ‘Fear of authority [. . . imposed for disciplinary purposes]; fear of failure [. . . by means of marks, prizes and competition, for obtaining results]; and the fear of punishment [for all these purposes]’ must be replaced by ‘friendship, security and the recognition of each child’s worth’ (Bloom, 1952, pp. 135–136). Of the impediments mentioned, Bloom had a particular distaste for competition, arguing not only that it was unethical, but that it tended to destroy a communal spirit. Indeed, a communally oriented school does not need the artificial stimulus of ‘carrots and goads’: in such a school the children will ‘come to realize the self that is theirs and respect the self that is their neighbour’s. And because there are neither carrots nor goads, there will be no donkeys, for when children are treated as we would have them be, they tend to reach out accordingly’ (Bloom, 1949, p. 171). Finally—as was seen to be of paramount importance by many of the radical pioneers like Brian Simon—at St. George-in-the-East there was no streaming or setting. For Simon, as for many others subsequently, not only were the presumptions of this kind of labelling false, its administration was more often than not crudely wayward, and its consequences deeply damaging (see Hart et al., 2004, Chapter 2). It was and is a denial of the core radical belief in the affirmation of possibility. F. Delight and Belief in Intergenerational Reciprocity

There are, of course, strong resonances between what I have called ‘the insistent affirmation of possibility’ and radicals’ deeply seated belief and delight in the encounter between adults and young people as a potential source of mutual learning, not just in an instrumental, technical sense, but also in the wider existential sense. And not just for individuals, but also for the learning community. The whole School Council at St.George-in-theEast and the various dialogic encounters alluded to earlier have their roots in long-standing radical traditions of education. There are, too, small signs, sometimes difficult to interpret, that suggest aspects of the newly burgeoning ‘student voice’ movement may be opening up occasional spaces that allow a more imaginative, radical form of development that moves hesitantly away from the dutiful student articulation of dominant presumptions (Fielding, 2004). G. Interrogative, Dialogic Openness

The seventh and last point in my advocacy of the radical tradition’s claim to a special place at the table of the common school emerges as an educational and political consequence of its six prior claims to democratic significance: in other words, the very distinctiveness and vibrancy of its various strands of radical development mark it out as worthy not just of attention but of engaged dialogue, of actual encounter. Radical schools attract visitors and thereby both stimulate and require conversation and

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wider engagement, and these encounters have within them the potential for mutual learning and the enrichment of the public realm on which democracy depends, both for its legitimacy and for its creativity.

´, E ´ GALITE ´ , FRATERNITE´—OU LA MORT LIBERTE

Despite some of the reservations mentioned earlier in this chapter, it seems to me that the bulk of Pring’s defence of the common school is admirable, richly reflecting his earlier writing and his hugely important championing of the comprehensive movement, a movement in which he is one of the most important figures of his generation. However, at the final hurdle, he falters. First, he concedes too much to ‘ways of life’ arguments, which can in any case be honoured in the diversity of the common school and robustly pursued in other contexts such as the home or community. Second, his readiness to equate a ‘distinct ethos’ with an ethos pernicious to religious ways of life is as surprising as it is mistaken, especially in the light of his earlier advocacy of the common school as a place in which ‘young people . . . learn how to work respectfully with others, even where there are differences of view about matters of profound human importance’ (Pring, 2007, p. 519). Given the sensitivity and profundity of his earlier elucidation of the virtues of the common school, talk of ‘enforc[ing] a common schooling with a distinctive ethos’ is not something about which one should be apologetic. Indeed, as I have argued earlier in this chapter, we should be more, not less, confident and proactive in our dialogic engagements with our communities about what the common comprehensive school actually stands for in a democracy. If anything, our system of state education suffers from schools’ unwillingness or incapacity to articulate anything about what they are actually for that transcends the brochured mantra of neo-liberal fulfilment. Third, in his attempts to escape from the impasse he describes, he resorts too swiftly to what appears to be a managerial solution of ‘strongly collaborative learning centres’: the impasse thus evaporates with the marginalisation of values and the centripetal pull of the market, neither of which I would have thought Pring would be happy with. The dilemmas of the common school with which we are currently wrestling mirror uncertainties and doubts about the kind of society we live in, the kind of society we wish to become and the kind of contribution we wish to make to the development of a world that is able to celebrate diversity within the context of an inclusive, open humanity. How we respond, the kinds of answers we begin to offer in what is becoming the most important conversation of our generation will depend in large part, first, on our view of the neo-liberal hegemony under whose influence we currently conduct our political, social and personal lives, and, second, on our view of alternatives that have quite different means of imagining and co-creating a future based on ties that transcend the atomistic instrumentalism of the market. In contrast to the temporary coalescence of the commonalities of neo-liberalism in acquisitive

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self-interest, the radical democratic traditions propose a less fearful interdependence in which a communally situated individuality emerges from and contributes to an inclusive, dialogic notion of the common good. In a beautifully written, elegantly conceived essay heading up his recent book, After Identity, Jonathan Rutherford argues, via Norbert Elias, Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger and Paul Ricoeur, for a return to the neglected notion of fraternity as ‘the catalyst which brings together liberty and equality . . . [implying] that self-fulfilment of each is indivisible from the equal worth of all’ (Rutherford, 2007, p. 33). He sees in Ricoeur’s suggestion that the good life is expressive of ‘the wish for personal accomplishment with and for others, through the virtue of friendship and, in relation to a third party, through the virtue of justice’ (Ricoeur, 1998, p. 92), a helpful way of re-engaging the notion of fraternity ‘as the ethical framing of political and economic relations and principles. From its old incarceration as a limited and gender-biased expression of solidarity, it becomes a reparative ethic of the common life’ (Rutherford, 2007, p. 35). My own position is very similar (see Fielding, 1987, 2007), though my philosophical roots lie in the ontological, not just the ethical, basis of fraternity, explored so clearly and succinctly by John Macmurray in his Conditions of Freedom (Macmurray, 1950) and later, in more depth, in the second of his seminal Gifford Lectures, Persons in Relation (Macmurray, 1961). The radical traditions of state education have made and continue to make a particularly valuable contribution to the furtherance of our democratic way of life, in large part animated by the ‘fraternal’ understanding that ‘We need one another to be ourselves. This complete and unlimited dependence of each of us upon the others is the central and crucial fact of personal existence’ (Macmurray, 1961, p. 211). For Rutherford, too, this ‘giving of recognition and the need to be recognised by others is fundamental to our existence. Recognition confirms our interdependency. It allows for the development of a dialectic between the self and other in which difference can be acknowledged’ (Rutherford, 2007, p. 36). My hope would be that the exemplar of the common school within a democracy would be a radical democratic school. Certainly, it should be. Reflecting on the work of Countesthorpe Community College, Leicestershire, one of the most important 20th century examples of prefigurative practice within the radical democratic tradition, Brian Simon appears to concede that ‘It would not be possible to introduce innovations [like Countesthorpe] on so wide a scale throughout the school system in this way.’ However, he goes on to qualify this by saying: ‘I would contend, the school is of value as a prototype of the school of the future. Embodying, as it does, a variety of contemporary trends in educational thinking and practice, it provides a means by which these can be tested out in practice. This, surely, is to render an important service to education’ (Simon, 1977, p. 25). In the journey towards that realisation of the radical democratic school those brave staff, students and communities that support such work not

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only serve themselves well: they also provide grounded evidence of possibility, of a world based on quite different values to those that preoccupy present policy and practice. Whilst, as Simon and others suggest, it is inevitably rare, the prefigurative practice of the kind illustrated in this chapter is not isolated; it is part of a radical democratic tradition that has a long, hard history. It exemplifies, albeit imperfectly, fitfully, joyfully and irreverently, the indomitability and creativity of the human spirit. We need, perhaps now more than we have done for a long time, to develop counter-narratives that reconnect and contribute to our radical heritage. We need, with the narrator of William Morris’s Dream of John Ball, to reflect on ‘How men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name’ (Morris, 1968 [1886/87], p. 53) Whether we continue to call it the common school, as I think we should, or whether we fight for commonality under another name, the need for an inclusive unity of recognition based on the mutually conditioning principles of the French Revolution remains the best hope we have for the future of democracy and of humanity: liberte´, e´galite´, fraternite´—ou la mort. NOTES 1. See Forum, 49.3, 2007, for a powerful collection of papers on faith schools. 2. I offer these seven strands not as a complete account, but as a preliminary analysis of a cumulative body of thought reflecting the identity and significance of the radical state tradition of education. 3. There are, of course, many other prime candidates like Countesthorpe Community College, Leicestershire, and Bishops Park College, Clacton, both of which I refer to later in the chapter. I have opted for St. George-in-the-East, Stepney, partly because, in my view, it provides some of the most compelling examples of radical state education and partly because it is currently the least well known. 4. Mode 1 exams were externally set by Examination Boards. In contrast, whilst being validated by the Examination Boards, Mode 3 exams were (a) tailored to courses the schools themselves devised, and (b) written by the teachers themselves. They thus provided a much more relevant, responsive and flexible form of public examination.

REFERENCES Armstrong, M. and King, L. (1977) Schools Within Schools: The Countesthorpe ‘Team’ System, in: J. Watts (ed.) The Countesthorpe Experience (London, Allen & Unwin), pp. 53–62. Barrow, R. (1978) Radical Education A Critique Of Freeschooling and Deschooling (London, Martin Robertson). Benhabib, S. (1998) Models of Public Space: Hannah Arendt, the Liberal Tradition, and Jurgen Habermas, in: J. B. Landes (ed.) Feminism, the Public and the Private (Oxford, Oxford University Press), pp. 65–99. Bloom, A. A. (n.d.) Our Pattern, unpublished. Bloom, A. A. (1948) Notes on a School Community, New Era, 29.6, pp. 120–121. Bloom, A. A. (1949) Compete or Co-operate, New Era, 30.8, pp. 170–172.

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Bloom, A. A. (1952) Learning Through Living, in: M. Alderton Pink (ed) Moral Foundations of Citizenship (London, London University Press), pp. 135–143. Bloom, A. A. (1953) Self-Government, Study & Choice at a Secondary Modern School, New Era, 34.9, pp. 174–177. Boggs, C. (1977/78) Marxism, Prefigurative Communism, and the Problem of Workers’ Control, Radical America, 11.6–12.1, pp. 99–122 (see also www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/boggs.html). Braithwaite, E. R. (1969)[1959] To Sir With Love (London, New English Library). Carr, W. and Hartnett, A. (1996) Education and the Struggle for Democracy: The Politics of Educational Ideas (Buckingham, Open University Press). Dale, R. (1988) Comprehensive Education, Talk given to Madrid Conference, April, Unpublished, 28 pp. Davies, M. (2005) Less is More: The Move to Person-Centred, Human Scale Education, Forum, 47.2 & 3, pp. 97–118. Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and Education (New York, The Freedom Press). Fielding, M. (1987) ‘Liberte´, e´galite´, fraternite´—ou la mort’: Towards a New Paradigm for the Comprehensive School, in: C. Chitty (ed.) Redefining the Comprehensive Experience (Bedford Way Papers No. 32 (London, London University Institute of Education/Heinemann), pp. 50–64. Fielding, M. (2001) Target Setting, Policy Pathology & Student Perspectives: Learning to Labour in New Times, in: M. Fielding (ed.) Taking Education Really Seriously: Four Years Hard Labour (London, RoutledgeFalmer), pp. 143–154. Fielding, M. (2004) ‘New Wave’ Student Voice & the Renewal of Civic Society, London Review of Education, 2.3 November, pp. 197–217. Fielding, M. (2005) Alex Bloom: Pioneer of Radical State Education, Forum, 47.2 & 3, pp. 119– 134. Fielding, M. (2006) Leadership, Personalisation & High Performance Schooling: Naming the New Totalitarianism, School Leadership & Management, 26.4, pp. 347–369. Fielding, M. (2007) The Human Cost and Intellectual Poverty of High Performance Schooling: Radical Philosophy, John Macmurray and the Remaking of Person-Centred Education, Journal of Education Policy, 22.4, pp. 383–409. Fraser, N. (1997) Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the ‘Postsocialist’ Condition (London, Routledge). Greene, M. (2000) Lived Spaces, Shared Spaces, Public Spaces, in: L. Weiss and M. Fine (eds) Construction Sites: Excavating Race, Class & Gender Among Urban Youth (New York, Teachers College Press), pp. 293–303. Griffiths, M., Berry, J., Holt, A., Naylor, R. and Weekes, P. (2006) Learning to Be in Public Spaces: In from the Margins with Dancers, Sculptors, Painters And Musicians, British Journal of Educational Studies, 54.3, pp. 352–371. Hart, S., Dixon, A., Drummond, M. J. and McIntyre, D. (2004) Learning Without Limits (Buckingham, Open University Press). Held, D. (1987) Models of Democracy (Cambridge, Polity Press). Inglis, F. (2000) A Malediction upon Management, Journal of Education Policy, 15.4, pp. 417– 428. Kelly, D. (2003) Practising Democracy in the Margins of the School: The Teenage Parents Program as Feminist Counterpublic, American Educational Research Journal, 40.1, pp. 123– 146. Lewis, H. D. (ed.) (1963) Clarity is not Enough, Essays in Criticism of Linguistic Philosophy (London, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd). Macmurray, J. (1950) Conditions of Freedom (London, Faber). Macmurray, J. (1961) Persons in Relations (London, Faber). Morris, W. (1968) [1886/87] Three Works by William Morris (London, Lawrence & Wishart). Nussbaum, M. (2006) Political Soul-Making and the Imminent Demise of Liberal Education, Journal of Social Philosophy, 37.2, pp. 301–313. Percy-Smith, B. (2006) From Consultation to Social Learning in Community Participation with Young People, Children, Youth and Environments, 16.2, pp. 153–179. Rattansi, A. and Reeder, D. (eds) (1992) Rethinking Radical Education: Essays in Honour of Brian Simon (London, Lawrence & Wishart). Ricoeur, P. (1998) Critique and Contradiction (London, Polity Press).

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Rutherford, J. (2007) After Identity (London, Lawrence & Wishart). Simon, B. (ed) (1972) The Radical Tradition in Education in Britain (London, Lawrence & Wishart). Simon, B. (1977) Countesthorpe in the Context of Comprehensive Development, in: J. Watts (ed.) The Countesthorpe Experience (London, George Allen & Unwin), pp. 17–26. Weaver, A. (1989) Democratic Practice in Education: An Historical Perspective, in: C. Harber and R. Meighan (eds) The Democratic School: Educational Management and the Practice of Democracy (Ticknall, Education Now), pp. 83–91. Wright, N. (1989) Assessing Radical Education: A Critical Review of the Radical Movement in English Schooling 1960–1980 (Milton Keynes, Open University Press).

4 Common Schooling and the Need for Distinction ROBIN BARROW

I

My title is deliberately equivocal. It is designed to highlight both the importance of quality (or distinction) in the context of education and the need to make distinctions in our deliberations about education, when they are there to be made. Notwithstanding widespread commitment to the idea of common schooling, every jurisdiction with which I am familiar recognises some exceptions. That is to say, all school systems and most if not all individual practitioners and theorists acknowledge that some individual students do not belong in the regular school, let alone the regular classroom. In general terms, the decision to exclude a student is made for one of three reasons: the student in question is judged to be too disruptive, or to be incapable of gaining anything from being there, or to be possessed of some exceptional and specific talent requiring specialised nurture. But, if the school’s primary function is to provide education, as I would maintain, then the question becomes whether a given individual is disruptive of the education of others, whether he or she is unable to gain educationally in this context, and whether the talent in question is of educational significance. My argument overall is that the drive for common schools is too often at the expense of education. Education, we are told, is an ‘essentially contested’ concept. And so it is. But what is not to be contested is that humans appear to have a unique kind of linguistic capacity among animals and that this gives rise to their unique minds: a mind that consists in a developed understanding of certain types of inquiry appropriate to distinct particular domains. Neither academic arguments amongst philosophers on detailed epistemological points and theories nor ideological disputes or competing values can alter the fact that we have, for example, developed a body of scientific understanding, and that it is to be distinguished from a historical, a mathematical, or an artistic body of understanding. Whether we should call access to such understanding ‘education’ may be debatable, but it is not debatable that such understanding is a necessary condition of the developed mind, that to develop the mind is distinct from, e.g. training, socialising, or developing confidence in people, and that to develop the The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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mind is to develop something distinctively human. This is our perfection. And, notwithstanding the commonplace observation that knowledge can be used for evil purposes, it is surely on balance better both for the human race as a whole and for individual comfort that misunderstanding, misconception, and misplaced ideas should be replaced by understanding, plausible conceptions, and well-ordered ideas. Understanding, then, also has extrinsic value. There are certainly arguments for a degree of some kind of common schooling, but the degree and the nature of the common schooling should be determined by reference to the demands of education in the sense that I am using the term.

II

An unseasonable politically inspired passion has often marked the debate over the common school and the comprehensive ideal. Advocates of the ideal have often been roundly condemned by critics as partisan social engineers and ideologues, while opponents have often been smeared as right-wing, traditional and class-bound.1 Yet many advocates of the comprehensive system have surely been motivated primarily by sincere educational concerns, and many who are critical of the idea of common schooling are concerned about social justice, and equally compassionate and respectful of diversity. Speaking for myself, I was not a supporter of the rapid rush to comprehensive schools in 1960s Britain, and I continue to believe that, in the current state of affairs, the remaining selective secondary schools are something to be grateful for. However, I do not believe that the current state of affairs is overall anything to be proud of, and I share the presumption that bringing people together in a common institutional setting is likely to enhance mutual understanding and respect, and that that is in itself desirable. Schooling serves many purposes, some inevitably, some avoidably, some wittingly, some unwittingly, and some that it should serve, but some that it should not. For example, schools do broadly categorise people (as, e.g. ‘sporty’, ‘academic’ or ‘class clown’) and this, though perhaps sometimes unfortunate, is unavoidable and well known. By contrast, what we are doing to individual psyches for good or ill is often unknown and sometimes unknowable. Then again, we all know, and by and large we approve of the fact, that the school also socialises, trains, and develops character in children. So there are a number of good reasons for having a system of schooling—a number of benefits that it may confer on both individuals and society. But the primary function of schooling should nonetheless be to provide education, as distinct from socialisation, training, etc. The grounds for making this claim are simply that education is of crucial value both to individuals and to society as a whole (because understanding empowers, opens up opportunities, and represents the embodiment of human flourishing), and that, though schools are neither

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necessary nor sufficient to ensure education, they are in practice the most likely guarantee of a degree of educational success, particularly where the relatively poor and disadvantaged are concerned.2 Thus education in the sense of developing understanding of our world, being the prime goal of schooling, should take precedence over concern for such things as social harmony, should they come into conflict. There is of course no reason that the two should need to be in conflict, but, were the situation to arise where we had to choose between harmonious contentment based on ignorance and falsehood, or discontent combined with realistic understanding, schools should aim for the latter. I would suggest that quite often concern for the comprehensive ideal, from the theory of a John Dewey to the practice of many particular teachers and schools, has in fact involved a relative lack of concern and respect for education. But this is purely contingent: there is no necessary connection between pursuing the goal of social harmony and a lack of education. On the contrary, concern for equality, diversity and respect for persons might well lead to a stress on education rather than on socialisation, on the grounds that broad and diverse understanding provides the most solid base for living with difference and change. In these opening remarks, I have presented much as simple assertion or suggestion. I will elaborate and to some extent seek to explain and justify various claims below, but it should be acknowledged at the outset that I am here attempting a synthesis of a number of claims and arguments that have been fully elaborated (by myself or others) elsewhere; the hope is that this chapter presents a coherent argument on the basis of certain premises that have themselves been argued for previously.3 I should also note that I am primarily concerned about the degree and nature of the commonality that is desirable in the later years of schooling—in secondary rather than primary schooling. I shall ignore details in respect of such things as age or particular subject matter. This is not an argument about whether, e.g. all 15 year olds should study quadratic equations, but about whether, e.g. all secondary students should study the same maths syllabus, study maths at all, or even attend the same institution.

III

There are some basic assumptions made by advocates of comprehensive schooling that I fully endorse. Ideally, we want a society that, for all its diversity and difference of opinion, lives in harmony and mutual respect and that provides a sense of identity and belonging to all. We therefore want to ensure some basic shared values, an ability to cope with the strange, unusual or different, and respect for persons in an impersonal Kantian sense (not necessarily anything to do with, e.g., ‘caring’ in an emotional sense). I also accept that a system of common schooling will probably contribute to that end.

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However, most importantly for my argument, I do not believe that we are in a position to assert that this empirical claim has in fact been clearly substantiated one way or the other. There is no indisputable proof that those who have experienced a common schooling are likely to be, let alone inevitably will be, better community members than those who have not, still less any demonstration that, when they are, it is due to their experience of common schooling. I have argued on many occasions that there could be no such ‘proof’ one way or the other, because of various difficulties, logical and practical, in mounting plausible scientific research into human engagements of this kind. It is important to recognise this point, because much of the argument around common schooling, common curriculum and ‘inclusive’ classrooms is implausibly conducted around unproven conflicting empirical claims about what ‘works’ best. But on this occasion, I need only observe that nobody believes that such a causal link has been established.4 On the other hand, common sense (fallible, of course, but not therefore to be ignored) suggests that practice at living in a diverse community from an early age will in many, perhaps most, cases lead to ease at so living, while experience suggests that unfamiliarity very often contributes to fear or resentment of the unknown. So there is prima facie reason to approve the idea of a system of common schooling. But three qualifications need to be added. First, given the nature of the overall argument, we should be thinking in terms not of local or parochial communities but of the community writ large. Ideally we want the country boy to mix with the city girl, the Methodist child with the Muslim child, the physically handicapped with the physically able, and the poor to mingle with the rich.5 For the community we are ultimately concerned with is presumably the community of the whole, and schools that merely induct children into a particular local community actually militate against the ideal, since the culture of, say, a Cotswold village is very different from the culture of a poor district in Manchester or an ethnically select district of Bradford. We no more want individuals to only be at ease with and respectful of a group defined by geographical locality than one defined by class or wealth. Secondly, the basic argument that a common schooling is desirable still leaves open the crucial questions of how long it should last and to what extent it should be common. For example, the view that everybody should attend a similar University or even that all should attend a tertiary institution is neither logically implied, nor, in my view, in practice sensible; while the tendency to call every tertiary institution a University and to subsume all qualifications under the title of ‘degree’ is both regrettable and again in no way justified by broad agreement on the desirability of a policy of common schooling. In the school system itself, the case for an extreme form of common schooling is far stronger at the primary than the secondary level. Thirdly, since we cannot conceivably provide experiences of all kinds of difference in a given school, it follows that it is the idea of experiencing difference as such that is at issue rather than introducing all children to all varieties of person, value, and culture. The regrettable thing, it is implicitly conceded, would be to bring up an individual with his own kind alone; the mere fact that a given individual

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leaves school without ever having encountered, say, a black person, a Catholic or a Jew cannot be said to be a deficiency that must be put right, if only because, in general terms, it cannot be put right. The notion of common schooling clearly precludes the idea of generic selection at any age. And I am, in any case, also in agreement with advocates of comprehensive schools in a rejection of selection at the age of 11. The 11 plus examination is to be criticised both at the level of theory and practice.6 In practice the examination was not suited to the specific distinction it was trying to make between the more and less academic, it was (wrongly but dangerously) treated as a mechanism that assessed one’s intelligence, and the system was woefully inadequate in allowing for transition back and forth between different types of schooling as circumstances changed. It is also undoubtedly the case that the theoretical assumption that there is an innate intelligence that can be measured by such means is unsupportable (see Barrow, 1995). However, here a caveat is needed. Those who criticise such things as IQ tests and parts of the 11 plus examination as culturally biased are correct. But we should not therefore accept the contrary thesis that intelligence is entirely a social construct. The current state of our knowledge in genetics clearly suggests that we are born with different and to a degree determinate capacities. However, what is made of our genetic inheritance is crucially dependant on our environmental experience, including most particularly schooling and education (see Ridley, 2003). In recognition of this, we must both initially assume little or nothing about intellectual difference and seek to develop capacity equally in all, and yet, as time goes by, acknowledge that clear differences in respect of interest and aptitude do emerge and need to be recognised. Whether advocates of common schooling would generally agree, I don’t know, but I would argue that, under the heading of the ‘shared values’ with which the common school is concerned, explicit note should be made of the broad types of understanding that constitute the developed mind. Whether agreed or not in principle, this is often forgotten or ignored in practice. But surely we are not only concerned to develop, e.g. tolerance and truth-telling in members of our community, not only concerned that the Catholic should respect the Protestant, not only determined to bring an end to knife culture, etc.; we are also concerned that all should have a chance to acquire and appreciate scientific understanding of the natural world, to appreciate literary and artistic achievement, to know something of the history of humankind (not just of ‘our town’), to operate mathematically, and to distinguish philosophy from empirical inquiry. These types of inquiry and bodies of understanding are basic to our way of life and, as such, far more significant than customs, rituals and values, all of which may be, and may need to be, modified from time to time in the light of the former. Shared values and a community outlook are ultimately parasitic on certain types of inquiry and received sets of understanding. If and when the drive for common schooling carries on without regard for, or at the expense of, shared understanding in this sense it becomes something to be resisted rather than celebrated.

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IV

The first source of disagreement with advocates of common schooling has already been hinted at. We should perhaps provide a common schooling initially, but not necessarily forever; to be more specific, there is no obvious reason to pursue it to the end of formal schooling or throughout the secondary school years. There is nothing inconsistent in advocating a measure of common schooling followed by selective schools in the later years of secondary education, for example.7 Rather more important, perhaps, is the point that our concern for equality and indeed a common schooling does not lead to the conclusion that all should pursue a common curriculum throughout their schooling. The argument for common schools obviously overlaps with, but it is not the same as, an argument for a common curriculum; further, a common curriculum does not in itself imply a comprehensive classroom; and thirdly, a comprehensive classroom does not rule out the idea of setting in particular subjects by reference to current competence (see next paragraph). Given those points, I would argue, quite consistently with a commitment to a general principle of common schooling, that one should at some stage begin to divide students, not by reference to age, class, or any other criterion that has no obvious educational relevance, but by reference to the state of their current historical, scientific, etc., understanding. (We should add, though it is difficult to do in practice, that ideally distinctions should also be made with reference to individuals’ preferred style of learning and teachers’ preferred style of teaching.) That is to say, while we value a common system of schooling, this does not in any way preclude either a system of setting or difference in schooling during the later secondary years. A word on terminology is necessary at this point, since different jurisdictions sometimes use different names for the same thing or the same term to mean different things. In North America, for example, ‘tracking’ is a term generally used to refer to a distinctive program for a select group, such as a program for the gifted, or, perhaps less commonly, to refer to ability based classrooms. For present purposes the important distinctions are between distinctive schools for students with a distinctive bent (e.g. academic, vocational), such as the tripartite system in England and Wales; distinctive programming for, e.g. gifted students; streaming; and setting. Of these the latter two are of most immediate concern. What I term ‘setting’ is to be distinguished from what I term ‘streaming’. The latter places individuals in a general category such as ‘an ‘‘A’’ student’ or ‘poor student’ and places them with their supposed peers for all (or most, in practice) subjects and activities. For such categorisation, however, there is little or no warrant: only the odd genius such as Leonardo Da Vinci might reasonably be considered an ‘A’ student all round. Most of us are good at this, poor at that, and indifferent at the other. Whatever something like a high IQ signifies, it manifestly does not indicate an ability to do everything from rowing to playing chess to being a good historian equally well. But what I call ‘setting’ is quite different from ‘streaming’; it merely

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involves acknowledging that at a given point in time an individual is more or less suited to the study of a particular subject given their current level of understanding, knowledge and interest. It is true that there is a degree of self-fulfilling prophecy here: at the end of one year I am judged to be in the second tier of science students and accordingly placed in set 2 for the next year, which allocation may in itself have a bearing on my further development. This it seems to me is an unavoidable and acceptable risk, because the argument for teaching students who are at the same place in respect of current ability and prior knowledge is so strong.8 Since, as I have already suggested we do not have and are not likely to have any clear and indisputable empirical proof about what is most effective in terms of teaching in particular situations, we must rely on common sense understanding. Common sense understanding tells us that, in terms of promoting historical, scientific, literary, etc., understanding, the most economic and effective use of the teacher’s time is to provide a class of students of similar ability, and that a group of students of comparable ability, defined specifically in terms of current understanding, preparedness and interest, is likely to progress better than a mixed ability class. And while it might be thought invidious to describe one person as ‘bright’ without qualification and another as ‘less bright’, it is hard to see why acknowledging at any given time that one is less of an historian or a mathematician than another should be regarded as a stigma. My concern is that both in theory and practice the educational mission of the school is being eroded or ignored as a result of a disproportionate emphasis on socialisation. The pursuit of social harmony and a commitment to social engineering in the schools are taking precedence over a concern to educate each individual as fully and effectively as possible. But in fact a common schooling does not imply a common curriculum and nothing should take precedence over the educational imperatives of the school. The goals of socialisation and social engineering cannot be achieved through schooling alone, whereas they can be and indeed generally are achieved without any direct input from schools. Education, by contrast, in most cases is dependent on schooling and is of unquestionable value in terms of individual human fulfilment and in terms of the public good. Of even more concern than the idea of a common curriculum is the idea of the inclusive classroom. Here it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the rhetoric and the actuality. In British Columbia, for example, official policy sometimes seems to be presented by both government and the Teachers’ Union as a kind of zero tolerance policy, as if there could be no grounds for excluding any child from the regular classroom, whereas in fact there are of course exceptions. Nonetheless, classrooms do retain a number of fairly extreme cases of social, mental and physical disadvantage. Up to this point, the argument has been focused on whether it is educationally more effective to teach children of different educational attainment and proclivity in the same class, and whether it is morally or socially desirable to do so. My answer has been that there is no evidence to answer the first question in the affirmative and it is counter-intuitive to do so, and that there is no case for answering the second question in the

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affirmative, but that there is a case for arguing for the primacy of the educational imperative. But the view that students who are, for example, blind, suffering from Down syndrome, psychopathically disruptive, quadriplegic, or unable to speak the language of instruction should as a matter of course be in the ‘regular’ classroom seems to me quite untenable, as in a different way does the objection to separate classes (or sometimes schooling) for supremely talented musicians or mathematicians. There is no need to repeat the acknowledgement that, probably, if we go to school with people who have such disabilities, our familiarity will to some extent temper potential antagonism (though anybody who imagines that such a policy alone will solve the problem of social disharmony is plainly dreaming). But how, in the absence of any empirical proof, can anybody seriously suppose that such a situation will in general allow the teacher to give of her best, and allow students most easily and effectively to benefit from that best in terms of education? In so far as the answer is that one cannot so suppose, it is clear that we face a straight clash between the ideal of providing the most effective education we can and the somewhat forlorn objective of creating a more ‘caring’ community than could otherwise be achieved. ‘Forlorn’ because it is not particularly convincing to claim that such inclusive classrooms have made any practical difference, and because the concept of the ‘caring’ community, being very unclear, is ipso facto of questionable worth. As mentioned above, the case for ‘respect for persons’ in something like the important sense of recognising the intrinsic worth of others as ends in themselves, regardless of physical, social and mental particularities, is fairly clear, and does not a priori seem to imply a need for actual personal contact with these others. But there is not any clear or convincing argument that I know of to establish that we should all, so to speak, ‘hug a hoodie’,9 meaning that we should actually feel an emotional bond with all manner and types of individual, perhaps even actually ‘care’ for them. There is no obvious argument for such a social goal, still less for the view that promoting this goal should be a priority of schooling. I should add that I am aware that extra resources are generally made available to the teacher of an inclusive classroom in the form of, e.g. teaching assistants, support teachers, carers and technology, that many individual teachers will say that with such support their task is no more difficult than that facing the teacher of a non-inclusive classroom, and that in their experience such an arrangement leads to gain for all students. Nor do I directly challenge the judgment of such teachers. But there are also individual teachers who say the opposite: that in practice there is very often not enough appropriate support, that even with support the task is extremely onerous, and that there is plenty of evidence that despite an inclusive policy a province such as British Columbia manifestly has at least as much social disharmony as anywhere else. So—anecdotal evidence can be produced to support both sides of the argument, by my account empirical research has not settled the argument (and probably cannot), which leaves us with reasoning to the effect that the policy to be adopted should be one that is to the educational advantage of the greatest

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number, education being defined in terms of understanding rather than social criteria. (One might add that, whatever the arguments for and against inclusion, some teachers, at least in British Columbia, firmly believe that the Government’s motive in advancing such a policy was cynically political: it allowed the Government to appear ‘caring’ and ‘compassionate’ in respect of the most vulnerable among the young, while offloading direct responsibility onto the schools and saving a great deal of money.)

V

While I have implicitly concurred in rejection of a system that divides children at the beginning of secondary education into different schools according to their measured ability, that does not imply rejection of drawing a distinction between certain broad types of inclination and proclivity. The terms ‘academic’, ‘professional’, and ‘vocational’ are all somewhat equivocal, and of course I have implicitly rejected any such notion as that some are born to be plumbers, others professors. But, that having been said, it is surely implausible to deny that as the years of secondary school go by it gradually becomes apparent that some are more interested in and adept at historical study, some show more aptitude for other so-called academic subjects, and some for various performative or practical arts and trades. I would certainly argue against the school taking on the role of apprenticing people to individual trades or preparing them directly for specific professions, and against removing anybody too early from academic pursuits;10 and I think it absurd to use the expensive apparatus of formal schooling to provide such things as driving lessons or lectures on alcohol abuse. But that is not immediately germane. The point here is that, when the notion of a common schooling is wrongly taken to imply a common curriculum, we are led to the paradoxical conclusion that everybody is equally suited to and should be equally engaged in the same set of activities from the ages of eight to eighteen, which simply flies in the face of our experience. We surely should recognise, as the years of schooling pass, that some students are emerging as hi-tech wizards, others as practical hands-on people, others as more theoretically inclined, and so on. Furthermore, not to formally recognise and open up the possibility of a variety of different kinds of knowledge, life, and career is by omission implicitly to disvalue some of them: a paradoxical conclusion, when we are trying to teach people to value and respect difference. Advocates of so-called High Culture have sometimes been accused of imposing alien values on others.11 But all too often it is advocates of common schooling who are the cultural totalitarians, refusing in practice to acknowledge a variety of cultural values and a divergent range of individual interests and abilities. High Culture should indeed be one of the things purveyed by a common schooling; by introducing students to such Culture we provide them with an opportunity to appreciate something valued by many that they might

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otherwise lack, which, by definition, is not the case with popular culture. But we must also respect those who, led to the water, do not choose to jump in; if during the years of secondary schooling some become more fascinated by and gain a greater sense of identity and fulfilment by engaging in mechanical matters or practical pursuits, then let us help them to do so, provided that the pursuits in question are of social and personal value. The claim that education, defined in terms of certain types of understanding, should be available to all and should be the prime function of schooling overall, does not lead to the conclusion that we should insist on attempting to impose that education on all students throughout the years of schooling.

VI

I am not minded to make a song and dance about the need for distinct educational institutions, so much as to argue that it may sometimes be appropriate and acceptable to have them. For example, if it seems in practice more simple and effective to bring up children with marked musical talent in a separate school from an early age, or students who in their final years of schooling are clearly focused on further academic study or certain more vocational or professional studies, in specialist schools, then I see no a priori moral argument against so doing. My argument is that educational considerations must come first (and that, if there is a conflict—which I do not believe there need be—the educational interests of the majority should prevail). It is therefore acceptable to discriminate on educationally relevant grounds, which could certainly include certain extreme forms of mental, social or physical handicap. If such relevant distinctions can be ‘played out’ by ‘setting’ in the context of a common school, so be it, but there may be occasions when it is educationally preferable for some to pursue their studies in a separate institution, perhaps because of an extreme specialist talent, perhaps because of an extreme disability. The empirical evidence is not adequate to justify objecting to such a practice on educational or social grounds. And there are no obvious grounds for regarding it as unjust or immoral, or, more specifically, uncaring. The issue of private schools is entirely distinct. In the first place, the argument that we should provide a common schooling, whatever its precise meaning and force, is not the same as an argument that everybody should be compelled to attend a common school. To be convinced that it is desirable for students to mix with different kinds of people is not necessarily to be convinced that people should be compelled so to mix. Secondly, some private schools may be criticised in themselves for providing a separate schooling on irrelevant grounds (e.g. the stereotypical image of the private school that selects on the basis of class and offers little but the snob value of being a private school). But in principle a private school may be as comprehensive as a state school, and historically many of the more famous schools in England have as a matter of fact

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included all manner of social, mental and physical variety in their student bodies, not to mention class and financial differences (bearing in mind the many scholarships and other forms of assisted place available). The issue is whether people should be allowed to buy education. There are of course arguments about whether the existence of fee-paying schools benefits or weakens the state system: some say that a private system creams off some of the best students and removes parents who might otherwise use their influence to improve the state system from the fray; others respond that a private system that is acknowledged to have educational distinction sets a standard for all and that overall it increases the sum of good education. But, once again, we must acknowledge that the empirical evidence is simply not conclusive (or even persuasive) one way or the other. We are therefore left with the question of whether an option should be allowed to remain available to some because they have wealth and denied to others because they are poor. Clearly, this is not in itself an educational issue at all; it is a social or political issue. But, if we accept a society in which there are differences of wealth and in which people are allowed to purchase such things as holidays abroad, books and computers, private tutors, tickets to concerts and theatres, ballet and drama classes, all of which may have great educational significance, it is difficult to see why schooling should be any different. Certainly, while I personally deplore the increasing gap between the very rich and the very poor and the increasingly materialistic nature of our society, since I nonetheless somewhat reluctantly accept the notion of our so-called free economy, I do not see that I can consistently object to the idea of fee-paying schools. Faith schools are different again. They happen very often to be independent, but they are not always and do not have to be. (Indeed the British Government is reported, as I write, to be intent on greatly extending faith schools within the state system.)12 But the issue here is whether there should be faith schools at all. A full discussion of this topic would obviously involve immersion in the philosophy of religion for which there is no scope here. But if one holds, as I do, that there is no plausible argument to establish the existence of God, still less any particular God and particular ‘church’, or that religion, though a form of discourse that has to be understood on its own terms, is nonetheless not a distinctive type of understanding or inquiry, then it has no obvious place in education other than as an object of historical, sociological or suchlike inquiry. Certainly, in a country that avowedly distinguishes Church and State it is unclear why it should be any business of the state system to involve itself with religion other than as an object of intellectual inquiry, though there is perhaps no particular reason to object to schools allowing pupils to engage in their various religious rituals provided that the overall provision of education is not adversely affected. Indoctrination, meaning the deliberate inculcation of a religious ideology with intention that belief should psychologically survive any and all rational questioning of its truth, is of course anathema to education, and there is the concern that some faith schools are intent, consciously or otherwise, on indoctrination. But even assuming that indoctrination does not take place, and that faith

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schools are merely concerned within a bona fide educational context to explain a religion and to develop and maintain faith, one may query whether such faith-maintenance is either educational or desirable. It is not educational, even if it is not indoctrination, unless it is truly critical; but biblical exegesis, even when conducted in a detached manner, is by its nature a matter of working within a theoretical framework rather than appraising it from without. In this respect the argument for a common schooling is strong: there are social as well as educational reasons for supporting the idea that all members of the community should critically examine religion as a whole (i.e. religions) as part of their education, while upholding particular beliefs and practices should be a matter for private life.

VII

To summarise: schools do and should do many things besides educate. But education, in the specific sense of the development of types of understanding that give meaning to our world, is both enriching and useful for the individual and good for the community. When we think of social harmony we perhaps underestimate the threat to it posed by ignorance and, even more, by misunderstanding. Schools are in practice necessary to provide education, particularly for the least advantaged. As time passes, not least as a consequence of how their school experiences go, people develop differently in terms of interest, preparedness and capacity. Therefore the school needs gradually to open up different possible paths of development involving different types of activity, different subject matter, and, ideally, different ways of learning and styles of teaching. Differential experience should therefore be built into the school system. The majority of pupils may well attend common schools, but there are good grounds (in practice acknowledged by all) for placing a few particularly disadvantaged individuals and a few exceptionally talented (in particular and relatively unusual ways) individuals in specialised institutions. Once that is admitted, of course, the argument about how disadvantaged or how exceptional the individual has to be has to be conducted by reference to particular cases; but it should be an argument about what is most conducive to the educational advantage of all concerned; by this point claims about the desirability of common schooling per se are neither here nor there, while consideration of such things as how particular teachers may conduct themselves most effectively, and how particular students will learn most efficaciously, are. The common school for the majority will in the early years provide a common curriculum. But once differences in progress and ability become apparent, there is good reason to organise the curriculum in terms of ‘setting’, provided that it is indeed ‘setting’ in relation to particular subjects or activities rather than ‘streaming’ in terms of purported general ability. Setting, unlike streaming and still more a differential school system, allows individuals to move backwards and forwards fairly easily

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should they improve or fall behind, or in the case of poor judgments being made in the first place. During the years of secondary schooling broad differences of aptitude and interest are bound to develop in students, and again there seems no reason not to acknowledge as much formally by some form of differential curriculum. Thus, one might well posit an arrangement that involved a predominantly academic curriculum for some and various more professional, practical or vocational curricula for others. Nor does there seem to be any a priori reason to object to separate institutions for specialised purposes in the later years of schooling; the justification (or lack of it) for such separation should depend on arguments about the most appropriate setting in terms of teacher comfort (often ignored), and hence to some extent proficiency, and appropriateness in terms of the learning of the students directly involved. Arguments to the effect that disadvantaged students gain from mixed ability groupings have not been empirically demonstrated in any convincing manner, and, even if they had, it is far from self-evident that the majority interest should give way to the minority interest. That the majority will be better served by some form of ability grouping has, by my own argument, not been empirically demonstrated in any conclusive manner either. In my view, it never will be. We therefore have to rely on common sense reasoning and extrapolation from the experience and judgment of individual teachers. A confused and opaque methodology to be sure, but one that seems to me to clearly suggest that ability groupings of one kind or another are more conducive than mixed-ability groupings to more people learning more. The issue of independent schools is quite distinct from the issue of common or comprehensive schooling, as is the issue of faith schools, though the latter are potentially more of a threat to both education and social harmony than the former. My main concern has been to argue that, since schools should primarily be there to provide an education, it is when education is disrupted or ignored that we should be concerned. The goal of social harmony or the hope that we are promoting it should never trump the claims of education. But even accepting that, one can be an advocate of a common schooling provided it is understood that there are exceptions, that it is not necessary for it to continue throughout the years of secondary schooling, that within the comprehensive school we can and should have setting and a degree of differentiated curriculum offerings, and provided we recognise that believing a common schooling to be desirable and hence built in to our public system is quite distinct from the question of whether everybody should be compelled to attend a school in the public system.13

NOTES 1. For many years, I worked at the University of Leicester with both Brian Simon, the noted Marxist historian of education and leading advocate of comprehensive schools, and Geoffrey Bantock, the equally eminent educationalist and champion of grammar schools and High Culture (see below in main text). The tension was at times palpable, the mutual respect not always particularly evident. But some of the attacks from outsiders, on Bantock in particular—whether in print or, more disturbingly, in anonymous and obscene phone calls and missives—were frighteningly ugly.

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2. Clearly, I have not ‘demonstrated’ the truth of this claim. And unfortunately we live in a time and place where many people equate truth with empirical demonstration. On more than one occasion in this chapter I make reference to the broad point that empirical research into teaching has not delivered, and probably cannot deliver, any convincing and significant or substantial conclusions relating to such issues as what style of teaching is most effective, whether ‘city academies’ have proved their worth, or whether mixed ability grouping is or is not beneficial in terms of student learning. I have presented arguments for my view many times, most recently in Barrow, 2006 and Barrow and Woods, 2006. See also Barrow, 1984. 3. In regard to the concept of education, I draw implicitly on Peters, 1966, Barrow, 1981, and Barrow and Woods, 2006; in regard to knowledge, on Hirst, 1974, Barrow, 1976 and Barrow and Woods, 2006; in regard to mind, Ridley, 2003, Barrow, 2007 and Barrow and Woods, 2006. 4. See note 2 above. 5. I refuse to use emollient politically correct phrases such as ‘physically challenged’ or ‘differently sighted’. First, there is nothing inherently offensive about, e.g. ‘blind’ or ‘physically handicapped’; they, and indeed ‘differently sighted’, become offensive as and when we either are taught or choose to take offence or society’s attitude to the individuals in question becomes contemptuous. Secondly, there is to me at any rate something extremely offensive, not to say obscene, about the patronising and blatant falsehood in maintaining that a blind person merely sees ‘differently’. Were I to lose my limbs, my hearing or my sight, I would expect to be treated with no less respect and concern, but I would regard my situation as a great misfortune, and I would want to shout from the rooftops that I now face a severe ‘handicap’. I would be infuriated by those who condescendingly tried to pretend otherwise, particularly if they did so by a puerile playing with words. See on this topic, Barrow, 1982 and Barrow, 2005. 6. The 11 plus examination, widespread in England in the 1950s and 1960s and still extant in some local education authority areas, was a means of dividing children between schools of three different types within the state school system (the ‘tripartite system’): grammar schools for the academically most able; technical schools for those with strengths in practical and vocational activities, and secondary modern schools for those with no particular educational aptitudes. 7. Cf. the ‘City Academies’ and ‘Specialist Schools’ introduced in England under the New Labour government during the premiership of Tony Blair. 8. I take this as self-evident in the lack of plausible evidence to the contrary. See above, note 2. 9. ‘Hoodies’ are youths wearing hooded tops that conceal their faces (perhaps when engaging in anti-social behaviour). The phrase quoted came into British political rhetoric to denote a more caring approach towards disaffected young people. 10. How early is too early? There is of course no answer to this question. But, as I go on to note in the main text, education is something that we should continue to provide for all, so long as they are capable of benefiting from it. 11. ‘High Culture’ is here used in the sense that is common to a tradition of thought that includes Matthew Arnold, T. S. Eliot and G. H. Bantock. 12. See Weekly Telegraph, Issue 842, September 12–18, 2007. 13. Due to unusual circumstances, particularly to do with timing, I have not been able to make direct reference in this chapter to the work of Terence McLaughlin as I should like to have done in this Volume dedicated to his memory. Terry would by no means have agreed with all that I have to say, but he would have taken it in good part, I am sure, and I am proud to be associated with his name on this occasion. I am particularly grateful to Dr Patrick Keeney, Adjunct Professor at Simon Fraser University, for his comments on the first draft of this chapter.

REFERENCES Barrow, R. (1976) Common Sense and the Curriculum (London, Allen and Unwin). Barrow, R. (1981) The Philosophy of Schooling (Sussex, Harvester). Barrow, R. (1982) Injustice, Inequality and Ethics (Sussex, Harvester). Barrow, R. (1984) Giving Teaching Back to Teachers (Sussex, Harvester). Barrow, R. (1995) Keep Them Bells A-tolling: Normal Distribution and Intelligence, Alberta Journal of Educational Research, Special Issue, 41.3, pp. 289–96.

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Barrow, R. (2005) On the Duty of not Taking Offence, Journal of Moral Education, 34.3, pp. 265– 275. Barrow, R. (2006) Empirical Research into Teaching, Interchange, 37.4, pp. 287–307. Barrow, R. (2007) An Introduction to Moral Philosophy and Moral Education (London, Routledge). Barrow, R. and Woods, R. G. (2006) An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education, 4th edn. (London, Routledge). Hirst, P. H. (1974) Knowledge and the Curriculum (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul). Peters, R. S. (1966) Ethics and Education (London, Allen and Unwin). Ridley, M. (2003) Nature via Nurture (London, HarperCollins).

5 Educational Justice and Socio-Economic Segregation in Schools HARRY BRIGHOUSE

Jonathan Kozol’s The Shame of the Nation contains an appendix demonstrating the unequal levels of funding in five metropolitan areas of the United States and, also, the socio-economic segregation between school districts (and therefore among schools) in those areas. The results are stark. School districts with very high levels of child poverty have relatively low funding. Districts with low levels of child poverty have high per-student funding. Take the Chicago area: per-pupil spending is $17,291 in Highland Park and Deerfield that have 8% of their pupils on free and reduced school lunch. It is $14,909 in New Trier, in which only 1% of pupils are low income. In the urban Chicago district, with 85% on free and reduced school lunch, spending is just $8,482 (2002–3 figures). Similar figures are presented for Philadelphia, Milwaukee, New York City, Detroit and Boston (Kozol, 2005, pp. 321–326). Teachers’ salaries are considerably higher in the higher spending districts but, because metropolitan areas are considered, the schools compete with each other in the same regional labour markets. In the UK socioeconomic segregation between schools is also serious, although it is not compounded by, but compensated for, by funding inequalities (funding targets disadvantage, rather than advantage).1 Not only political activists like Kozol, but sociologists and economists of education too focus a good deal on the degree to which schools are segregated by socio-economic class. Think of studies of school choice in the UK: one of the central debates around choice is the extent to which it causes segregation among schools. Sharon Gewirtz, Stephen Ball and Richard Bowe, in their extensive study of the ways in which different parents choose among schools, suggest that the introduction of choice should trigger further segregation, because different modes of choice are utilised by parents from different social classes (Gewirtz, Ball and Bowe, 1995). They say: ‘Furthermore, the exercise of choice as a process of maintaining social distinctions and educational differentiations, as related to social class and the class composition of schools, is likely to exaggerate social segregation’ (Ball, Bowe and Gewirtz, 1996, p. 91). Stephen Gorard, Chris Taylor and John Fitz (2003) contest the conjecture, showing The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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that, in fact, the introduction of the choice reforms in 1988 reduced, rather than increasing, the degree of socio-economic segregation. The empirical scholars look at the mechanisms that produce segregation, the extent of segregation and its consequences. Although they typically refrain from overt normative commentary on segregation they frequently evince the sense that it is a prima facie bad: something to be avoided if it can be without doing damage to other important values. My argument in this chapter is that socio-economic segregation of schools is not fundamentally normatively interesting. By this I mean that it is only interesting in so far as it points us to violations of social justice in education, where social justice is understood solely in terms that are independent of whether there is socio-economic segregation. I do not mean to dampen the interest of empirical researchers in socio-economic segregation, and its causes. But I do mean to encourage them to look, in addition, for its effects in particular contexts. Finding socio-economic segregation of schools tips us off to the possibility of social injustice, but it does not constitute social injustice. More importantly, while socio-economic integration of schools is usually one useful, if partial, instrument for ameliorating social injustice in education I will argue that it is not always part of the most efficient strategy for attacking educational injustice. Because different mechanisms produce socio-economic segregation in different countries, and because the degree of segregation varies, there is no reason to expect a single policy or set of policies will deal with segregation in all contexts. But we can give an account of why segregation is wrong that applies across contexts. In section I, I shall give an account of the goals and principles that constitute social justice in education (in my view). In section II I contrast this account of justice with the comprehensive ideal, which sees segregation as bad in itself, and suggest that the injustice account is better. I then, in section III, identify the central mechanisms by which segregation can be expected to produce educational injustice, in particular educational inequality. In section IV I elaborate and consider the best principled objection to integrating schools—that doing so violates the liberty of students or parents. I argue that integrationists should heed that objection, but that it will not, when understood properly, stand in the way of most of the policies integrationists would advocate. In section V I argue against the view that, in the UK and the US at least, educational injustice can fully be countered without structural change that includes efforts to integrate schools. But I argue in the conclusion that there may be circumstances in which the fact of segregation can be exploited better to target resources at the least advantaged, and thus to address educational inequality at least.

I JUSTICE IN EDUCATION

What are the right normative grounds for evaluating education policy? I want to propose, briefly, four proper goals of education, and one distributive principle. The goals are as follows:

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 Education should prepare children to become autonomous, selfgoverning individuals, capable of making good judgments about how to live their own lives, and to negotiate for themselves the complexity of modern life.  Education should equip children with the skills and knowledge necessary for them to be effective participants in the economy, so that they can have a good range of options in the labour market, and have access to the income necessary to flourish in a market economy  Education should play a role in preparing children to be flourishing adults independently of their participation in the economy (this is the justification for teaching such subjects as Personal Social and Health Education but also, in my (possibly eccentric) view much of the traditional academic curriculum).  Education should prepare children to be responsible and effective participants in political life—good citizens. It should do this both for their sakes, because a flourishing life is more secure if one is capable of making use of the rights of citizenship; and for the sake of others, because a flourishing life is more secure if others are capable of abiding by the duties of good citizenship.2 The distributive principle is the principle of educational equality: The simple version says that every child should have an equally good education. But what this means is obviously contested. When you compare children with similar talents, and similar levels of willingness to exert effort, it is pretty intuitive to say that educational equality is satisfied when they receive a similar level of educational resources. But consider Hattie, who is blind, and Sid, who is equally talented and hardworking, but sighted. In their case it seems intuitive that equality requires that more resources should be devoted to Hattie in particular, resources devoted to correcting fully for her disability. Consider an even more difficult case: Kenneth, who is highly talented, and Hugh, who has a serious cognitive disability. Again, it seems that Hugh should be granted more resources, but this time it is hard to see that they could correct for the disability, unless we were willing to disable Kenneth. I shall not resolve these difficulties here.3 The principle of educational equality has two straightforward implications. First, children with similar levels of ability and willingness to exert effort should face similar educational prospects, regardless of their social background, race, ethnicity, or sex. Second, that children with lower levels of ability should receive at least as many educational resources as those who are more able. Since most of the ensuing discussion focuses on the principle of educational equality rather than the goals of education, I want to emphasise the importance of equality rather than improving the prospects of the least advantaged. The egalitarian theory within which my own view of educational justice is nested in fact emphasises not equality, per se, but benefiting the least advantaged, and gives that principle priority over equality—so that when we have a choice between an equal distribution of a smaller pie and an unequal distribution of a larger pie in which all get

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more than under the equal distribution of the smaller pie, we choose inequality. If a tax proposal, for example, were to inhibit growth so that the worst off were even worse off, although more equally well off with others, that would be a bad thing for them, and for everyone else. But this general rule does not apply to all areas of life. The quality of someone’s education has a real influence on their expected lifetime income, but its influence is dependent on the quality of her competitors’ education. Getting Sharon from only 2 up to 3 grade C’s does not do much good for her if we simultaneously get her nearest competitor Linda up from 3 to 4 grade Cs. The employer will still prefer Linda to Sharon. So merely raising the floor of achievement in education does not help the less advantaged in the pursuit of earnings in the labour market unless we simultaneously diminish the achievement gap. The size of the gap matters because of the particular connection education has to other, unequally distributed, goods. When I refer to ‘benefiting the least (or less) advantaged’ in the context of education, then, I should be understood as being concerned with benefiting the least advantaged relative to others.4 II THE COMPREHENSIVE IDEAL

Many educational policy debates in Britain have focused only indirectly on the values and principles I outlined in the previous section. The central debates have been about something else—the practice and ideal of comprehensive schooling. Whereas the above values and principles are only indirectly concerned with socio-economic segregation, the comprehensive ideal seems to incorporate directly the idea that socio-economic segregation is condemnable and that integration should be pursued. The comprehensive ideal, as it is normally understood, demands that children attend common schools, in part so that they can forge a common culture. Richard Pring quotes first Tawney: . . . inspite of their varying character and capacities, men possess in their common humanity a quality which is worth cultivating and . . . a community is most likely to make the most of that quality if it takes it into account in planning its economic organisation and social institutions—if it stresses lightly differences of wealth and birth and social position, and establishes on firm foundations institutions [schools] which meet common needs, and are a source of common enlightenment and common enjoyment (Tawney, 1938, pp. 55–56).

Then Halsey: ‘We have still to provide a common experience of citizenship in childhood and old age, in work and play, and in health and sickness. We have still in short, to develop a common culture to replace the divided culture of class and status’ (Halsey, 1978). Pring himself continues: In understanding, therefore, the arguments for the common school, one needs to address the principles of equality, including equal respect for persons, and the preparation for living in a community which requires a

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common culture to overcome divisions arising from ‘wealth and birth and social position’—and, one might add, religion. Britain, in comparison with the USA, had woken up relatively late to these principles—at least to their significance to educational provision. The United States had supported from its earliest days the common school to serve the local community, whatever the ethnic and religious background of the members of that community (Pring, Chapter 1, p. 3).

Tim Brighouse, a life-long defender of the comprehensive ideal, characterises it as follows: For some—mainly in the suburbs, market towns and countryside—the motive has been the social desirability of all youngsters, whatever their background, in a local and settled community attending the same school. For others—especially in urban areas—the ideal can be realized only if schools have the full range of ability as measured by standardized intelligence tests taken at the age of 11 (T. Brighouse, 2004).

The comprehensive ideal calls for socio-economically mixed schools because it takes it to be valuable, for various reasons, that children from different social backgrounds mix in schools.5 Advocates of this principle typically do not reject the goals and principle I have outlined, and they sometimes, as in Pring’s case above, refer to ideals of equality in justifying the ideal. But the ideal itself is usually interpreted as consisting in the demand that children who come from different social locations and are bound for different social destinations to have a point of contact in their school years, and it is the ideal, rather than the principles that might be appealed to in its defence, that is the focus of public debate. The comprehensive ideal may appeal for other reasons, which have no direct point of contact with the goals and principle I’ve offered. For example cross-class contact during school might facilitate a sense of connection between the advantaged and disadvantaged, and thus a more cohesive social fabric, which might have no noticeable impact on the goals I’ve elaborated. It might even work against some of them; for example, by undermining class loyalties among the disadvantaged without undermining them amongst the more advantaged. It might be desirable because it interferes with the process of maintaining and renewing social networks that impede the meritocratic allocation of candidates to jobs: because those who control the jobs did not attend school exclusively with others from advantaged backgrounds, there will be fewer opportunities for children who are well born but academically unsuccessful to exploit these networks. I do not want to argue against the comprehensive ideal as an ideal. But I do want to claim that it is secondary in importance to the considerations I have elaborated in the first section. It is hard to argue for this in a way that would convince someone who did not already share my view. The best I can do is review a small number of situations in which there would be trade-offs between the comprehensive ideal and one or another of the goals and principle I have elaborated, and show that regarding the

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comprehensive ideal as more important has what seem to me to be counterintuitive consequences. 1. Suppose that full socio-economic integration can be achieved only at the cost of significantly lower achievement for the lowest-achieving 20% of children (comprehensive ideal versus equality). 2. Suppose that full socio-economic integration can be achieved only at the cost of a significant loss in terms of the quality of citizenship exhibited by pupils across the socio-economic range (comprehensive ideal versus citizenship goals). 3. Suppose that full socio-economic integration can be achieved only at the cost of a significant loss for the goal of achieving personal autonomy, again throughout the socio-economic spectrum (comprehensive ideal versus autonomy). The reader does not have to believe that these scenarios would ever arise in practice in order to be forced to make a judgment. What we are trying to establish is just which values are more important. My own view is that in each case the comprehensive ideal should yield, because the conflicting goals are fundamentally important, and the comprehensive ideal is not. I can only invite the reader to agree. For the reader to think that the judgment I am trying to force her to make matters in practice, she does have to be persuaded that these tradeoffs are, or might be, forced on us in some situations. So why might these trade-offs turn out to be unavoidable sometimes? Consider the first. Here’s a possible story: achieving full socio-economic integration in some particular situation results in advantaged children flooding into schools the cultures of which have to change radically to accommodate them and, perhaps more plausibly, their parents. Whereas those parents had previously sent their children to elite private schools, now, denied the freedom to do so, they set to work ensuring that the schools their children attend are maximally designed to benefit their children rather than others. Because they have a great deal of social capital and personal energy, they succeed, to the detriment of the least advantaged pupils. Consider the second case. Suppose that contact between more and less advantaged children actually decreases their willingness to respect one another across class lines; either because teachers do not know how to manage the new contact between them, or because, regardless of the teachers, the background culture promotes snobbery in the more advantaged and inverted snobbery in the less advantaged and contact between them actually feeds those tendencies. We can, in fact, tell a true story, in which the trade-offs look real. Consider the case of children or Moroccan and Turkish origin in contemporary Amsterdam. There is some evidence that children from those particular countries do better, academically, when concentrated into racially segregated schools (which, under the Dutch progressive funding system, have more resources than white schools) than when in racially mixed schools. Suppose this result were robust and that there were good

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reasons (as I think there are) for retaining the progressive funding formula. Again, my judgment is that in circumstances like this it would be appropriate to ditch the ambition for integration, at least as long as some threshold of social cohesion is secure. It is better to have less mutual understanding but fairer chances, than better mutual understanding and less fairness.6

III SOCIOECONOMIC SEGREGATION AND EDUCATIONAL INJUSTICE

Segregation can inhibit justice by undermining any of the goals and principles elaborated in section I. Very crudely, I suspect that religious, ethnic and cultural segregation are most relevant to the goals of autonomy and flourishing; whereas socio-economic segregation, which is my focus here, pertains most naturally to economic self reliance, citizenship and the principle of equality. As I said, different mechanisms work in different contexts: here are four commonly cited mechanisms. First, resourceful and well-educated parents provide resources to the schools in which their children are educated. They raise funds through parent associations and private donations: at the limit, in the US, these resources can pay for additional teachers. So the higher the concentration of advantaged children a school has, the more resources it has, other things being equal. If disadvantaged children are mixed with advantaged children in schools they are more likely to benefit from these additional resources. Wealthy parents are also more likely to vote, organise, and lobby for more public spending; which is a reason that fear of elite defection into private schooling (in the UK) and into separate funding-bases (in the US) acts as a constraint on progressive policymakers. Second, disadvantaged children are more difficult to teach or, more precisely, more input is needed from teachers to raise them to the same level of achievement as more advantaged children. So, at any fixed level of per-student resource allocation, a school with a high concentration of disadvantaged children will achieve at a lower level than one with a more mixed population. That is, the disadvantaged children in the more mixed school should do better, other things being equal, because they have fewer competitors for the limited resources. The problem here, note, is not with socio-economic segregation per se, but with segregation unmitigated by appropriate changes in resource allocation. Third, children are resources for each other. Peers affect each other’s aspirations and each other’s learning habits; and they learn from one another. Any given child has better prospects sharing a classroom with other children who are bright, well-behaved and hard-working than with other children who are ill-behaved, lazy and dull. This is true, even discounting for the effects of the other children on the teacher. So when advantaged children congregate they are resources for each other. They are not available as resources for the disadvantaged. Now, whether this effect kicks in depends on how the desegregated school is organised. In

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particular, a school with a good socio-economic mix in which children are either formally tracked by achievement-level or, as in many progressive US high schools, informally tracked by class (through a system of electives) will not be very different in this respect from two schools into which the advantaged and disadvantaged are segregated. The final mechanism concerns the magnetic effect of advantage on talented teachers. It is, ironically, highly rewarding to teach the student whom it is easy to teach. Presumably it is hard for the reflective person to award themselves a great deal of credit for the achievements of very high achievers, but it is rewarding to be in the presence of that achievement. High concentrations of advantaged students will attract talented teachers, and high concentrations of disadvantaged students will repel them (other things being equal). When a school is socio-economically mixed it can deploy the talents of those teachers attracted by the advantaged children to the benefit of the less advantaged children, and it can do so even if it practices some form of tracking. (It need not, of course—because teachers, like students, can be tracked—but it can.) This final mechanism depends for its effectiveness on particular kinds of motivation among teachers. If there were a large pool of talented teachers motivated (say for ideological or moral reasons) to teach the least advantaged, then segregation would not be a serious problem. If the pool of talented teachers were deeply elitist in their motivations, and would leave teaching (or leave the state sector) if they were not able to teach exclusively advantaged children, then de-segregation would not help with the problem. But if there is a substantial pool of talented teachers who would prefer to teach a good proportion of advantaged students, but will be willing to teach a significant proportion of disadvantaged children, then desegregation helps with this problem. If this pool can be motivated by financial incentives, or incentives regarding other aspects of their compensation package, note, desegregation is not the only solution to the problem—it should be possible to redistribute talented teachers into high concentration disadvantaged schools by providing them with large financial incentives; or perhaps by providing longer vacations, shorter working days, better professional development opportunities, or smaller class sizes. IV LIBERTY, FAMILY VALUES AND JUSTICE

Socioeconomic segregation within and across schools might cause educational inequality, and yet be entirely permissible and morally unproblematic. In fact, in the philosophical and popular literature on educational inequality this is a standard position. The argument goes as follows. Educational equality may indeed matter, and may matter for the reasons that I have given in section I. But other values matter more, and the measures needed to desegregate schools would violate these more important values. Here is Nathan Glazer, in a review of Kozol’s Shame of the Nation: To be sure, the case for both [racial] integration and equality of expenditure is powerful. But the chief obstacle to achieving these goals

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does not seem to be the indifference of white and the nonpoor to the education of white and the poor. . . . Rather, other values, which are not simply shields for racism, stand in the way: the value of the neighbourhood school; the value of local control of education and, above all, the value of freedom from state imposition when it affects matters so personal as the future of one’s children (Glazer, 2005, p. 13).

Prohibiting private schools, bussing, and enforcing neighbourhood diversity all limit parental freedom. This is the parental liberty argument against implementing educational equality.7 The parental liberty argument has more power than advocates of educational equality usually think, and less than those who press it against educational equality usually think. Consider the liberty argument against prohibiting elite private schools. It would, indeed, be a limitation on individual freedom to block people from spending their money the way they wanted to, and in particular to prevent them from spending their money on their children’s education. Blocking that kind of gift inhibits their freedom; and it does so in a very peculiar-seeming way, because it singles out the provision of something widely recognised to be intrinsically valuable to be blocked, but allows for the provision of more frivolous goods (expensive cars are fine, expensive educations are not). If freedom consists in being permitted to do what one wants then the wealthy parent has her freedom restricted by being prohibited from spending money on sending her child to a private school. The interesting question is whether she has a right to remain un-coerced. Many measures infringe freedom, and are none the worse for that. We are barred from bribing trial judges even on behalf of our own children; candidates for political office in most countries are restricted as to how much of their own money they can contribute to their own campaigns; taxation is, famously, a restriction of freedom. Simply observing that some measure restricts someone’s freedom does not show that it is wrong. To the question ‘Why shouldn’t I be allowed to spend my money on trying to save my child from being convicted of a crime she committed?’ the answer is that in order for it to be fair the criminal justice system must be insulated from background inequalities of wealth. In this arena, fairness trumps freedom. Similarly, the answer to the question ‘Why shouldn’t I be allowed to spend my money buying my child a superior education to that which others get?’ is that in order for it to be fair the competition for socially licensed benefits must be insulated. The burden of proof is on the opponent of the measure supporting equality. It may seem that I am being ungenerous to the opponent here. But I am just shifting the burden of proof. The objector must show that the measure violates some basic liberty: some freedom to which we are entitled as a matter of justice. To show that we are entitled to some freedom we need to show that it is necessary for facilitating the fulfilment of some basic human interest. This is what the best version of the liberty argument does. Before exploring this version, notice that this kind of argument cannot object to socio-economic desegregation or educational equality per se, but

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only to particular measures designed to enforce them. The liberty objection, even on the version of it that I have rejected, counts against prohibiting private schools but not against equalising state school funding, even though the latter might do as much to promote educational equality in the US as the former would do in the UK. Similarly, the freedom objection does not support allowing state schools discretion over the selection of students in a system of school choice. Admissions officials do not themselves have a freedom interest in connection with their role as a state agent. When they select one child over another they are granting one parent what she wants and denying it to another—so, whatever method of allocation is used the successful parent gets freedom and the unsuccessful parent has freedom denied. How does the liberty-invoking opponent of socio-economic desegregation to promote educational equality meet the burden of proof I have shifted onto her? The second strategy is to posit an interest in maintaining the value of the family, and claim that mechanisms designed to equalise, or desegregate, violate that interest. How powerful this move is depends on what we want to include in the value of the family. A plausible account will allow parents to spend a good deal of time with their children, and to express partiality toward their children in a range of ways. To use Adam Swift’s example, we surely think that reading bedtime stories to one’s own (and not, if one does not want to, to other people’s) children is something one must have a right to do, even at some cost to equality of opportunity (Swift, 2005). Why? If we were prevented from doing that sort of thing with our children we would be deprived of the opportunity to create and maintain a valuable familial and loving relationship with them. Similarly, it seems obvious that parents must have distinctive rights to share their values and enthusiasms with their children—they have the right to take their child to their church, and to serve them food that reflects their cultural background, as long as they are not thereby harming their children (e.g., by indoctrinating or poisoning them), and no-one else has that right. Both parent and child get something distinctively valuable from being able to share themselves with each other, and for this the parent needs a space of prerogatives with respect to her child. If measures to promote educational equality, or desegregation, violated this interest, they would be impermissible. It is easy to think of equalitypromoting measures that would violate this interest. It would be wrong to force all children into day-care centres for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, 50 weeks of the year; doing so would simply prevent the establishment of intimate parent-child relationships. Similarly requiring parents to live apart from their school-age children for 10 months of every school year would be wrong, even if it facilitated equality. Whatever we do to promote educational equality must leave sufficient space for the creation and maintenance of valuable familial relationships. This does indeed rule out some strategies. But it is possible to devise equalising and desegregating measures that are entirely consistent with leaving that space available. Abolishing elite private schools, for example, leaves parents with ample opportunity to

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create and maintain valuable relationships with their children; just as people who now cannot afford to send their children to elite private schools can have valuable family relationships, so would parents who were prevented from spending their wealth that way. Measures forcing schools, or giving them incentives, to find an intake with a socio-economic mix that reflected that of the society by which they were surrounded would similarly leave plenty of space. There is no reason to believe that desegregating classrooms to harness the peer effect to the benefit of the least advantaged would undermine valuable family relationships. Before moving on I want to deflect another possible objection to using the peer effect to the benefit of the least advantaged. The effects of ability and class mixing in the classroom are much disputed. Egalitarians like to believe that mixing benefits the least advantaged without harming the more advantaged much. The fiercest opponents of mixing like to claim that it harms the more advantaged without bringing any benefit to the least advantaged. Obviously, if either of them were proved right mixing need not be very controversial. But let us imagine the case most awkward for the egalitarian; that a desegregated classroom benefits the low achievers, bringing up their achievement; but harms high achievers, bringing their achievement down (relative to segregated classrooms). If this were so it would look as if a policy of mixing simply uses the more advantaged for the benefit of the least advantaged, without yielding any reciprocal benefits for them. Surely, the objection goes, this is unjust? In fact, it is not. Whoever the advantaged child is placed with, she will be used to their benefit. In the advantaged-only classroom all the children are being used to the benefit of each other, while in the disadvantagedonly classroom all children are being used to each other’s detriment. In a mixed classroom the advantaged children are being used to each others benefit and to the benefit of the least advantaged, while the damage the disadvantaged inflict on each other is being limited through dilution. Neither arrangement has a justice advantage.

V JUSTICE WITHOUT STRUCTURAL REFORM?

Recent government policy in the UK has assumed that it is possible to address educational inequality without desegregating schools or overhauling the school financing system. Some schools in disadvantaged circumstances succeed with their students, and do so with no extra financial resources, and with student populations relevantly like those of less successful schools. So we should be able to shift the performance of others without altering funding or admissions arrangements. The policy focus shifts to what is going on in the school and the classroom.8 This challenge to the significance of socio-economic segregation is strongly informed by the academic literature on school effectiveness and school improvement. This literature repeatedly emphasises two explanatory factors in successful schools—leadership and ethos—that are hard to operationalise and even harder to replicate. It may also be that

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appearances of similar disadvantage are deceiving. Two schools may be set in similarly deprived urban environments, have similar socio-economic compositions in their pupil mix with, say, high levels of free school lunches, and similar teaching staff, but face dissimilar circumstances. Why? Because if, as the school effectiveness and improvement literature often claims, ethos is a key to success, the feasibility of a ‘learning ethos’ may vary by the cultural outlooks of the communities from which the otherwise similarly deprived children are drawn. We know that equally poor urban and rural children perform differently, and some suspect that this may be attributable partly to background culture—if so, there may be unmeasured differences in the otherwise similar school populations. Free school lunch eligibility in particular is a crude measure.9 Suppose, now, that teacher-quality is crucial to a school’s achievement. At any given salary level there may be a fixed supply of high quality teachers willing to work in disadvantaged schools. Once a school has ‘turned the corner’ it may become very successful in retaining, and then attracting, more than its ‘fair’ share of those teachers. Schools in disadvantaged circumstances may be competing for a fixed supply of a vitally important input—high quality teachers. They may also be competing for a fixed number of charismatic high quality leaders, the kinds of people whose leadership is needed to steer a school in disadvantaged circumstances. Suppose, for a moment, that schools really can be improved without desegregation. Strangely enough, improvements in teaching and learning might have bad effects on educational equality. Geoff Whitty and Peter Mortimore: A large scale longitudinal study of primary schools carried out by one of us (Mortimore) found that no school reversed the usual ‘in school’ pattern of advantaged pupils performing better than the disadvantaged. However, some of the disadvantaged pupils in the most effective schools made more progress than their advantaged peers in the least effective schools and did even better in absolute terms. Yet . . . it would appear that, if all primary schools were to improve so that they performed at the level of the most effective, the difference between the overall achievement of the most advantaged social groups and that of the disadvantaged might increase (Whitty and Mortimore, 1997, p. 17).

For the principle of educational equality as I have elaborated it the gap is what matters. Maybe improved performance among the very most disadvantaged would help them enter more stable employment, but for those who would have that anyway it is their relative performance, and not their absolute performance, that matters. VI JUSTICE WITHOUT DE-SEGREGATION?

Let us suppose that some system of schooling suffers from serious socioeconomic segregation, and consequently from serious educational inequality. What should a government do? If we embraced the

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comprehensive ideal as I described it in section II we would find it urgent to desegregate. But desegregation can be politically extremely difficult. In both the countries on which I have focused the major mechanisms for maintaining segregation are very secure. In the UK private schooling is widely regarded as protected by the Human Rights Act, and the political pressure against it is minimal. Discretionary selection by state schools in the choice system is on the increase, at least in the sense that the government is encouraging the establishment of more schools that are permitted to select; though this mechanism is certainly less secure than private schooling. The current government, though, seems to regard selection within the state system as a bulwark against strengthening the private sector: if parents who can afford to go private believe their children can get good enough state schooling via selection they will be less likely to defect; and their presence in the state sector, even a segregated state sector, is highly valued. The government may well be right about this. Many US States have experienced some pressure against the highly unequal school funding, but movement has been slow. Wealthier school districts strongly oppose the shift to more equal funding and especially resist the local revenue and spending caps needed to enforce the measures. Teachers’ unions, which are, themselves, highly decentralised (as a rational response to the decentralised administration), and within which relatively highly-paid teachers in wealthy suburban districts have more power, strongly oppose measures that would lead to slower wage growth among their most well-paid members. Furthermore, the measures do nothing to challenge desegregation. One would expect the increased use of school choice to have led to a slight desegregation in the US, but it will be very slight and will have occurred only in those few places where more radical choice schemes have been adopted. Neighbourhood schooling and highly segregated school districting are politically quite secure. I am not proposing that desegregation efforts be abandoned in these contexts. But they are hard to achieve. In the UK context in particular, there may be more efficient ways than integration to make modest progress toward educational equality. Suppose policymakers want to ameliorate educational inequality, but have reasons to fear that the available integration measures will provoke middle class and wealthy parents into going private or moving to the suburbs; and have no levers for addressing residential segregation. In fact, because most direct integration measures are transparent policymakers will often have reason to worry about this; because wealthier parents can observe the operation of the policy they are better positioned to act strategically to avoid its intended consequences. Accepting the de facto segregation and using it to target resources to the least advantaged may be a feasible alternative, at least under some conditions. Because targeting can often be done via nonstatutory adjustments to funding formulae, or by devising innovative programs to be implemented via particular local authorities, it can be pursued more opaquely, and when it is done opaquely it is less likely to provoke political opposition. Here is the single benefit of segregation:

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egalitarians believe that more resources should be spent on the least advantaged than on the more advantaged; but governments can only efficiently give money to schools. Once the resources are in the school it is both difficult and costly to monitor how they are used. One of the difficulties that egalitarians face in desegregated schools is ensuring that the schools devote extra resources to the less advantaged students; and middle class parents can be pretty efficient at absorbing resources for their children. But if a school has almost exclusively low-income children one can simply give extra resources to that school and be moderately confident that many of those resources will go to the less advantaged. If advantaged parents recognise the availability of the extra resources and have some formal ability to select among schools, the additional resources give them an incentive to move their children into the school; thus diluting the effect of the resources, but simultaneously improving the school’s socioeconomic mix presumably to the benefit of the other children. In order to capture these resources middle class parents have to send their children to the disadvantaged schools, thus contributing their own children as resources for the disadvantaged children; if they do not, then the resources go directly to the disadvantaged. Earlier I described some mechanisms whereby integration might promote equality. The suggestion here replicates most but not all of those mechanisms: the idea is that additional resources can be used to give teachers incentives to teach in schools with high concentrations of disadvantaged children (say, by increasing their salaries, or by enabling them to work shorter hours for the same salary), and can compensate for the absence of more advantaged children. Schools with high concentrations of disadvantaged children can have longer opening hours, Saturday school, and more holiday school for those children, without triggering protests from middle class parents who want to be able to take their children on foreign holidays, or send them to Saturday music lessons; and can do so without stigmatising them relative to middle class children who do not participate in the lengthened school life. What this suggestion cannot do is harness the human capital of more advantaged parents to the benefit of the least advantaged children, at least not directly by having them in the same school. But even here there might be a small benefit, if allowing state schools to retain high concentrations of advantaged children helps stem the flow of such children into the private sector, and thus keeps their parents in the business of lobbying for resources to go to state schools, rather than abandoning that cause as they send their children into the private sector.

VII CONCLUDING COMMENT

Nothing I have said here is supposed to impugn the comprehensive ideal as an ideal. But socioeconomic segregation of schools matters for a number of reasons; how much it matters (and for which reasons) depends on the institutional context in which it is found, and researchers who are interested in how unjust segregation is in any particular context need to look at its effects,

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in that context, on educational equality and children’s prospects for autonomy. Policymakers should be guided primarily by a concern of justice; and their policies should aim to undermine segregation in those circumstances where doing so is the best feasible strategy for addressing injustice; but should also look to other devices for ameliorating injustice, especially when desegregation cannot be achieved in a manner that promotes equality. NOTES 1. Stephen Twigg MP, then of the Department for Education and Skills, said in evidence to the Select Committee on Public Administration investigation into Voice and Choice in Public Services, ‘Whilst there is certainly not a 300% uplift, there is a very significant difference between the per-pupil funding of Tower Hamlets, in the deprived East End of London, which has the highest per-pupil funding in the country, and per-pupil funding in some parts of the country. It is almost double . . .’ Response to Question 488, in the minutes available at http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmpubadm/49/5012705.htm (accessed 13/10/05). 2. I cannot argue for these aims in so short a chapter but have done so elsewhere; see my On Education (Brighouse, 2007). 3. I have addressed these complications in ‘The Moral and Political Aspects of Education’ (Brighouse, forthcoming). See also Terzi, 2005. 4. The obvious inspiration for a focus on benefiting the least advantaged is Rawls’s difference principle (Rawls, 1971). But it is not, in fact, Rawls’s focus. Rawls makes fair equality of opportunity to be lexically prior to the difference principle, suggesting a more strictly egalitarian approach to educational opportunities than I would endorse. 5. Pring is right, I think, to incorporate religious and cultural mingling as part of the comprehensive ideal, but those aspects of the ideal are orthogonal for my present purposes. 6. See Jan Van Damme, ‘Class and School Composition and its Effects on Achievement and Wellbeing: Illustration of the Effects and a Preliminary Explanation’, draft on file with author. 7. In the rest of this section I draw on ideas I have developed with Adam Swift in a number of papers. See especially Brighouse and Swift, 2006 as well as ‘Legitimate Parental Partiality’ (unpublished, on file with author). 8. This is a central theme of UK Education Secretary Charles Clarke’s recent speech to the Specialist Schools Trust, ‘Pupil-Centered Learning: Using Data to Improve Performance’; and also of Schools Minister David Miliband’s IPPR pamphlet ‘Opportunity for All: Are We Nearly There Yet?’. 9. For compelling documentation of some of these concerns see Martin Thrupp (2001a, 2001b).

REFERENCES Ball, S. J., Bowe, R. and Gewirtz, S. (1996) School Choice, Social Class and Distinction: The Realisation of Social Advantage in Education, Journal of Education Policy, 11.1, pp. 83–106. Brighouse, H. (2007) On Education (London, Routledge). Brighouse, H. (forthcoming) The Moral and Political Aspects of Education, in: H. Siegel (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Brighouse, H. and Swift, A. (2006) Parents’ Rights and the Value of the Family, Ethics, 117.1, pp. 80–108. Brighouse, H. and Swift, A. (unpublished) Legitimate Parental Partiality (on file with H. Brighouse). Brighouse, T. (2004) Can Comprehensives Really Work?, Times Educational Supplement, Aug 27th. Clarke, C. (2003) Pupil-Centered Learning: Using Data to Improve Performance; Speech to the Specialist Schools Trust. Gewirtz, S., Ball, S. J. and Bowe, R. (1995) Markets Choice and Equity in Education (Maidenhead, Open University Press). Glazer, N. (2005) Separate and Unequal, New York Times Book Review, Sept 25th, pp. 12–13.

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Gorard, S., Taylor, C. and Fitz, J. (2003) Schools Markets and Choice Policies (London, RoutledgeFalmer). Halsey, A. H. (1978) Change in British Society, Reith Lecture 6 (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Kozol, J. (2005) The Shame of the Nation (New York, Crown). Miliband, D. (2003) Opportunity for All: Are We Nearly There Yet? (London, Institute for Public Policy Research). Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). Swift, A. (2005) Justice Luck and the Family, in: S. Bowles, H. Gintis, and M. Osborne (eds) Unequal Chances (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press). Tawney, R. (1938) Equality (London, Unwin Books), Originally published 1931). Terzi, L. (2005) A Capability Perspective on Impairment, Disability And Special Needs: Towards Social Justice in Education, Theory and Research in Education, 3.2, pp. 197–223. Thrupp, M. (2001a) Sociological and Political Concerns about School Effectiveness Research: Time for a New Research Agenda, School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 12.1, pp. 7–40. Thrupp, M. (2001b) Recent School Effectiveness Counter-critiques: problems and possibilities, British Educational Research Journal, 27.4, pp. 442–457. Van Damme, J. (draft) Class and School Composition and its Effects on Achievement and Wellbeing: Illustration of the Effects and a Preliminary Explanation’, draft on file with H. Brighouse. Whitty, G. and Mortimore, P. (1997) Can School Improvement Overcome the Effects of Disadvantage? (London, Institute of Education 1997).

Part II Common Schools in Multicultural Societies

The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

6 Culture and the Common School WALTER FEINBERG INTRODUCTION

In this essay I want to join with Richard Pring in examining the role of the common school, and specifically I want to address the question: given the flattening out of the cultural hierarchy that was the vestige of colonialism and nation-building, is there anything that might be uniquely common about the common school in this postmodern age? By ‘uniquely common’ I do not mean those subjects that all schools might teach, such as reading or arithmetic. Nor do I mean just subjects that might serve a larger public purpose, but that might be taught in either publicly supported or privately supported schools. Rather I mean subjects that speak to the shaping of a child’s identity as a member of a common community in the way that the common school was intended to create when its commission was to develop and maintain a single national or colonial identity and loyalty. Thus I want to argue that there is a kind of connectivity that common schools should foster even as the nation-building and colonial past is rejected, and that this connectivity is what is common about the common schools. I also believe, but will not argue the case here, that the kind of commonality that I am arguing for requires a certain degree of ethnic, religious and class heterogeneity, and also that it requires high levels of public funding and public incentives. However, this chapter is restricted to arguing that even as the nation-building and colonial projects are rejected, the common school still has a future and can play a unique and important role in a post-colonial world. THE RANKING OF CULTURES

The question whether the common school has a future is relevant in the post-colonial context because of the radically different historical times in which it developed. The common school was invented to move people from a rural and agricultural economy to urban and industrial ones, while constructing a national culture out of local, linguistic, immigrant or colonial populations. Here the idea of culture brought with it a ranking system where groups were measured by their presumed capacity to model western or modern ways. In the United States immigrant cultures were evaluated in terms of their closeness to or distance from the ideal. Western and Northern European culture ranked high, requiring little assimilative The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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work. Southern and Eastern European culture ranked low, requiring a good deal. The capacity of non-Europeans, such as Asians, or Native Americans to assimilate was compromised by their cultural deficiencies, while Negroes (sic) were viewed as essentially incapable of true assimilation. The common school then had the task of assimilating those who could be assimilated and of socialising (at least as much as possible) those who could not. Those who could be assimilated would learn to internalise the norms, values and standards of the dominant culture. Those whose capacities were culturally compromised would at least learn to appreciate their superior status while those who were incapable of assimilation would be socialised to follow the rules laid down by their superiors. The educational abuses of this conception of culture are now commonly acknowledged. Native American and Australian Aboriginal children were torn from their families to linger in some middle ground—deprived of their own culture yet not quite cultured enough—rejecting one, rejected by the other, residing in a space of deprivation and alienation, and ‘Negroes’ were refused any but the most menial schooling. In addition, the natural resources of whole continents were exploited and the exploitation justified as serving the needs of a superior culture while all the time memories were destroyed and linguistic traditions fractured.

A FLATTENED CULTURAL HORIZON

Things seem different today. Colonialism, at least in its political form although not yet in its economic one, is in retreat, and postmodern sensitivities have encouraged us to abandon the view that cultures can be ranked from the highest to the lowest. In its place stands an understanding of culture that Geertz (2000, pp. 42–67) aptly labels and defends as antianti-relativism, and that Bourdieu, in less diplomatic terms, would call anti-symbolic violence (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977, pp. 1–68). This new understanding is the foundation for the postmodern celebration of irony where dispassion and distance are validated, where passion and commitment are outdated, possibly dangerous, and where the deconstruction of narratives is the intellectually safe course to take. While the history of the common school is somewhat different in England, continental Europe and the United States all shared a common understanding of its role in advancing culture and nation and of reflecting standards by which the civilising capacities of different groups of people could be judged. It is a carry-over from this conception that we still use the same word to indicate both membership in a certain form of life and to indicate as well those few of us with exquisite taste. To be filled with culture is to be filled with the right kind of Culture. Those who attend fine art museums and classical music concerts are Culture-full. They have taken the best that civilisation has to offer and made it their own. The socalled ‘savage’ was one devoid of any culture at all. Under the colonial regime, education was a value-filling enterprise and Culture provided the

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ultimate test of the worth of any individual and any educational programme. Education was thus seen as the process of taking the children of savages as well as those of the insufficiently cultured and providing them with as much Culture as their biology or psychology would allow.

THE PROBLEM OF WHAT TO TEACH WHEN CULTURE BECOMES ‘CULTURE’

Today, this conception of cultural hierarchy has been flattened out. One sign of this flattening is the popularity of scholarship where Culture is placed between quotation marks or some rhetorical equivalent, to indicate its function as an object of description for social science and its demotion as a sign indicating exquisite taste, discipline and ‘good breeding’—just the right combination of nature and nurture—to a now suspect instrument of legitimation and class domination. This theme of ‘Culture’ as power and domination informs educational theorists who see resistance as the major pedagogical task (Willis, 1978), or who describe the schooling of children from one cultural group into the forms of another as symbolic violence (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977). This rejection of the claims of ‘Culture’ as indicating good breeding and viewing it instead as a cloak for the legitimation of power and domination raises an important issue for philosophy of education: in the light of this flattening where a Culture of value is reduced to a culture of domination, what are we to teach and how can this teaching be justified? One popular response is to give up on the task of assimilation because it is seen as no more than the imposition of one cultural group on another, and instead to involve education in multiple socialising projects where students are taught the rules of the game of the dominant economic group and provided with the skills needed to play it, but where deep values and beliefs are left alone to be nurtured by family, religion and cultural communities. Here the image is not of a hierarchy of cultural values in which education involves learning to appreciate the values of the highest cultural group, but rather of a horizontal structure of cultures in which each is separate from the other, and the educational task is to ensure that the more powerful do not impose their values and norms on the other. In each of these schemes the school has an important cultural policing function to perform, but it is vastly different in the one than in the other. In the first the policing involves purifying the curriculum to see that it represents only the ‘best’ that ‘civilisation’ has to offer. Teachers are screened for any trace of an undesirable local accent, while textual representations are always of some cultural or national ideal. In the second, the policing is concerned with detecting instances of cultural imposition and hegemony where teachers and texts are screened for their inclusiveness. Yet the idea of inclusiveness that informs this policing is easily seen as one of cultural separation and reification where all norms, especially dominant ones, are simply artefacts of one cultural group or another,

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where each (and especially oppressed ones) has a right to reproduce its own meanings without interference by the school, and where the school has an obligation to respect any and all cultural meanings. Given that the utilitarian aspects of culture can be taught by almost any culturally separate school, the very idea of a common school system comes into question since the flattening out of culture challenges the idea that there is anything common for the common school to teach and that any attempt to do so can only be understood as exerting symbolic violence on children from outside some dominant cultural norm. This flattening of the normative aspects of culture while effective in challenging outdated hierarchies presents problems for any ideal of education as a culturally independent normative activity, leaving the discourse about the aims of education to the descriptions of social scientists or to rich but largely suggestive narratives of critical theorists. Some members of the latter group have even suggested abandoning the concept of culture because they fear it serves to open up the practices of the powerless to the powerful, or, even more disturbing, it allows the powerful to represent the powerless (Abu-Lughod, 1991, pp. 149–52) and thereby to increase their vulnerability. While this ‘remedy’ seems to me to be linguistically dogmatic, it nevertheless suggests a level of instability with the concept of culture that can be used to refine and address the educational dilemma that I have described. As a replacement for the concept of culture, some cultural theorists have introduced the idea of ‘positionality’, an idea designed to capture the power inequality entailed in the relationship between the observer and the observed or the researcher and her subject, and implicitly to coax cultural scholars to give voice to the oppressed, to undercut the assumption of cultural coherence and to emphasise contradictions and misrecognitions (p. 148), as well as the fact that the researcher herself always approaches the study of culture from a particular social position. The advantage of this move is that it serves to remind scholars and educators of their own privileged positions within a university and to provide an opening for those not so privileged to be heard on their own terms (p. 140). However, there is the danger that in its attempt to allow fluidity into the study of culture, ‘positionality’ is itself reified in the process as if each of us had but one and only one position from which we observe and interpret. Hence the categories of male/female, oppressed/oppressor, white/nonwhite, colonised/coloniser become as fixed as the hierarchy of cultures it was designed to overthrow. There is the added danger, especially for ethnographic researchers, that as they focus on the experience of one marginalised group, that group is allowed to interpret the experiences of other marginalised groups. Witness, for example the depiction of women, teachers and Pakistan immigrants in Willis’s classic study of working class students (see, for example, Dolby et al., 2004). For educators there is the added problem of subsuming the educational discourse within the new postmodern, normatively flattened understanding of the idea of culture. Unlike some forms of social science where participation is subordinate to observation and observation is subordinate

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to description, in education observation is subordinate to participation, participation is subordinate to intervention, and intervention is for the sake of the growth and development of the other. In other words, the descriptive categories of the social sciences take on a prescriptive role when it comes to the activity of educating. Educational theory must always supplement description with prescription for the sake of intervention and growth. (Even a decision to let the child move ahead on her own without active intervention is a prescription guided by an idea of growth if it is to be seen as an educational decision.) Thus, any concept of culture that merely flattens out the normative dimension of educating is deficient as an educational theory.1 While educational scholars may view such flattening as a healthy antidote to the normative pretensions of a dominant group, they need also to understand its limitations as a conception of culture-foreducational-purpose.

CULTURE-FOR-EDUCATIONAL-PURPOSE

Hence the conception of culture (as well as positionality) needs reworking as culture-for-educational-purpose. In doing this reworking two dangers need to be avoided. The first is the danger of re-establishing a strict hierarchy of cultural value, much in the way that Samuel Huntington does in his book, Who Are We? (2004), where he holds up the AngloProtestant, upper-class male as the model American. The second is the danger of so completely flattening out the worth of different human practices that all forms of intervention are viewed only as expressions of class hegemony or where an act as seemingly innocent as a field trip to a fine arts museum is taken as but another example of symbolic violence. Certainly educators must appropriate the discourse of culture and positionality, but they can only do so after reworking the basic categories so that they move from the passive to the active voice. The educational concern was summed up well by Edward Said (1978) in his critique of Orientalism and its practice of fixing differences between people so as to render them unbridgeable.2 All of this presents a major dilemma for the common school. For if the idea of a cultural hierarchy is suspect, and if the road map to growth is not to be found in adopting the ways of the dominant culture, but if the flattening out of cultures makes the notion of growth problematic, then what is the basis for educational intervention and for the prescriptive activity that education is? The dilemma requires that we interrogate the colonialist conception of culture further, a concept that developed as a result of the separation and apparent isolation of western countries from their new subjects. This separation created the idea of distinctness as a reality and culture as an ontological category that described, signified and ranked difference. We have now questioned the politically incorrect conception of cultural ranking, but we have maintained the idea of culture as an ontological category describing a reality that exists apart from the people that express

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it and that bind some together absolutely and separate them from others. This view of separateness is taken as a corollary of the rejection of the ranking of different cultural forms. Cultures cannot be ranked for the same reasons that any series of different kinds of things, apples, oranges and string beans, cannot be ranked against one another (except possibly on another dimension—say, nutritional value). Given this view of the distinctness of cultural forms, an even more radical view seems to follow—that communication cannot take place across cultures, and if this were really the case, the task of the common school would be virtually impossible. While not every one who accepts the view that cultures are distinct and cannot be ranked would accept this implication, the reason for its rejection requires a deep critique of the idea of culture as an ontological category depicting separate and uniquely distinct entities. Culture-for-educational-purpose suggests that the mistake is the assumption that culture has an ontological status that subsumes individuals. It raises questions about a basic image underlying this view: that is, while a person existing within one cultural formation can adopt as a tool the practices of another, she cannot truly exist as a member of both. She belongs to one while visiting the other. The ideas of symbolic violence and cultural penetration are both expressions of this image of the ontological status of culture and of the need to protect cultural formations. Yet underlying these images is a very conservative understanding of culture. While today expressions of concerns about symbolic violence and cultural penetration are concerns expressed by and for members of vulnerable groups, the conception of culture is a hang-over—turned upside down—from the colonial period where separation, physical, psychological and spiritual was critical to the purity of the dominant group and where at any moment its members could fall into the heart of darkness, seduced by temptations of women, wine and song. Today, the ethno-centred chauvinism of the colonialist conception of culture has been shed, at least by the dominant theories in cultural anthropology and cultural studies, but in the popular mind, and perhaps in the corners of many disciplines, the thingness of culture remains. Meaning and significance is said to separate members of one cultural group from those of another. Separation is seen by some as a good thing, one necessary to protect cultures, as if they were some kind of precious material that contact with others would dilute. Of course cultural intermingling cannot be denied as a factual matter and just as many seek separation, many others applaud this intermingling. To take care of the slack on a descriptive level, a new concept— ‘hybridity’—has been developed to indicate those at the margins of two cultural groups who come together to form a third and new culture. Yet this concept actually reinforces the thingness of the idea of culture. Granted it allows for some leakage, but it still suggests the affirmation of two or more pure cultural forms, out of which some third emerges. While people differ in what they think about separation and intermingling, this discourse reinforces a certain problematic conception of cultures as things, as distinct objects.

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Now I want to suggest that this thingness is inappropriate for educators and for the idea of culture-for-educational-purpose and it is time not only to break ranks with the colonialist past, but also with part of the postmodern present that continues to be informed by it. It is time for educators to strike out on their own, and to reshape the conception of culture as an educational concept by admitting that a central task of the educator is to facilitate the growth of meaning in children and the capacity for critical, reflective evaluation and by allowing that much of this can only happen if we enable children to move beyond what we loosely label ‘their culture’. In other words we need a conception of culture that can acknowledge that the function of education is one of development and growth into agency, where agency involves the capacity to form one’s own values, informed by, but not limited to, certain ideas drawn from a particular collective formation that we loosely term ‘a culture’. To address this task is to also begin to address the question of what can be distinctly common about the common school in this post colonial age. The philosopher Jonathan Glover suggests a response to this question when he writes: Just as a Species may flourish in a particular ecological niche, so the development of individual personality may depend on the support of a group. Like climbing plants searching for something to hook on to, we look for such support, as with the random allocation of the psychological experiments, the group has no shared basis. But as climbing plants flourish where there is support, so our sense of ourselves flourishes in groups with enough in common to take on a life of their own. This dependence on the shared understanding of a group is brought out by differences of language. When you speak a foreign language poorly, you have to say simpler things than you would like to; in doing so, you present a simplified version of yourself. (This does not only apply to talking about another language. It can also hold in another country where they speak a version of your own language. Turns of phrases, humour, and tone of voice are part of a ‘language’: which may be different. One way of drawing the boundaries of a culture is to take the region where such signals are understood) (Glover, 1991, pp. 197–98).

It should be added to Glover’s remarks that, since there is never a one-toone mapping of the signals of one person with those of another and since there is never a complete absence of common points, what we call a culture is never complete nor is it ever incomplete. The language that we use is an important component in this liberation of the concept of culture from its roots in colonialism. We speak about ‘his culture’ or ‘her parent’s culture’ as if culture were a thing that we possess. Or we say that such and such is an infringement of her ‘cultural rights’ as if culture were some kind of fortress that serves to protect us from an alien force. Or, we say things like ‘sexual equality is not recognised in that culture’ (as if culture were a space in which certain otherwise reasonable norms were legitimately relaxed). These ways of speaking about culture suggest that it is either personal property, or it is a bounded entity that

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protects and constrains individuals who share it. Culture, rather than individuals, is treated as having agency while the individual is defined completely by membership. In this understanding individuals exist only as members of singular and unique cultural formations. Here culture is the object of value serving to insulate otherwise vulnerable individuals from outside and foreign influences. The implication is that when educators impose another culture on children, they mislead children like the Pied Piper through false promises about the wonders of the larger society. The important concern behind this criticism is that children will grow up neither belonging to the world of their parents nor fully capable of navigating the larger social order. Now there is something obviously correct about this picture when we recall Native American children forcefully removed from their parents; aboriginal children brought up as white; fractured relationships between child, parent and community. The lesson is clear: children are harmed when their parents and their parents’ communities are not respected. Yet the important lesson should not be that culture defines us without remainder, or that we are of such pure and vulnerable material that we will crumble just by contact with the cultural other. The right lesson involves understanding the important role children’s initial encounter with meaning plays in their development. It is not that their identity is exhausted through this encounter. The wrong lesson leads to the wrong educational conclusion, that parents, as the carriers of culture, always know what is best for children, that they are the only legitimate agent of educational authority, and that their ‘culture’ (as if they were members of one and only one culture) contains everything that the child needs for growth and development. While few educators act on all of these assumptions all of the time, and while still many make the opposite mistake of dismissing the parent’s culture, they give rise to a kind of bad feeling, when it is pointed out that a certain teaching is inconsistent with the practices or beliefs of a parent’s culture. Yet this bad feeling arises out of a constricted notion of interaction based on the colonial image where connections are assumed to always be hierarchical and never horizontal—always from ‘upper’ to ‘lower’, ‘dominating’ to ‘dominated’, ‘oppressor’ to ‘oppressed’—and not across actors at the same level but within different ‘cultural’ formations. That this bad feeling is sometimes not educationally productive can be seen if we turn away from cultural to religious concerns. In the United States, for example, science teachers are allowed, indeed often required, to teach about Darwin’s theory of evolution, but they are often expected to do so without criticising intelligent design theory or creationism. And, fearful of reprisals, doubting their own legitimacy as cultural authorities, many teachers simply skirt the topic of evolution, allowing parents and ministers to serve as the final authority of scientific beliefs. This bad feeling is expressed also by those legal and political theorists who argue that parents should have exclusive control over their children’s education and that the state should provide the resources to achieve it. It is also expressed in Court decisions in the United States such as the Yoder

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case (Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972)) where the Court allowed Amish parents to excuse their children from an extended education because it might alienate them from their religion and their culture. Now, there may be justifiable reasons for some of these practices, but unless we get the reasons right, we are likely to see the exceptions as the rule, rather than what they are, at best, excusable exceptions. In order to get the answer right educators need a more serviceable conception of culture, one that allows us to take into account what we know about growth and development as it occurs in an age of increasing engagement across local and global boundaries.

CULTURE AS CULTURING

As a way to develop this more serviceable conception of culture-foreducational-purpose, I begin with a simplified example that is intended to suggest a more fluid conception of culture, culture as process rather than thing—culture as culturing. I explore the concept of culture from an educator’s standpoint, a standpoint where intentional intervention for the sake of growth comes with the role and where part of this intervention involves social continuity through the reproduction of symbolic forms and significations and another part involves social discontinuity through the introduction of new symbolic forms and significations. The first of these is summed up by the ideal of communal participation; the second, by the ideal of autonomy. The concept of culturing must thus aim for a middle ground somewhere between the smug self-certainty of the colonial conceptions of cultural hierarchy and the paralyzing self-doubt of the postmodern normatively flattened conceptions of cultural difference. Without this conceptual work there is no good argument against a utilitarian conception of schools where scores on standardised tests or parental preferences are the only standards of educational quality. I want to begin with a personal example, one that I consider an instance of cultural creation at its simplest level. A few years ago my wife, a friend and I took a car trip from the South of France to Barcelona. After securing our hotel room we found a small local delicatessen and, quite hungry, we stood in line to order food. I saw people in the booths eating some kind of fish and decided I wanted fish as well. When I got to the counter I realised that I had long forgotten the Spanish word for fish, along with most of the other words that my three or four years of high school and college Spanish had supposedly taught me, and whatever I did utter might have been French or German, or gobbledygook, but it was not Spanish, or, at least it baked no fish for me. As I tried to communicate with the person behind the counter, the line was growing longer and longer, and I eventually stepped aside to let others order. When the line diminished again, I returned, somewhat hungrier and somewhat more desperate. Attempting again with a few more possible utterances, I was about to give up, when I had a brilliant thought. I looked

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the clerk squarely in the eye and mimicked a swimmer’s crawl stroke. I could see the metaphorical light-bulb go off in his head, and, almost dancing, he cried out, ‘Ah, feesh!’ I see this example as a moment of cultural creation in the sense that a common meaning was established. Feigning the crawl stroke while standing in line in a delicatessen meant that I was hungry and wanted to satisfy that hunger with a serving of fish. This was a moment of cultural creation, of culturing, because meaning was produced, enabling coordinated action to take place. Granted, the meaning was quite thin, after all I really wanted baked fish and I got deep fried, but nevertheless it was a moment in which a shared meaning was established and a connection made. And, of course many meanings were already in place for both of us. We shared an understanding of the function of a delicatessen and how customers and counter people generally interacted. He could assume I was there because I was hungry, wanted to eat and was willing to pay for my food and I could assume that he was there to provide the food and collect the money. Teachers and students of course may have more complex tasks since meaning must be established on a thicker basis and, where there are larger differences between the meanings in the home and the meaning in the school, less can be taken for granted. What we call a ‘culture’, such as black culture or Jewish culture or Korean culture, involves all of those elements of meaning—in each of these cases, quite thick—that a group of people share, that they take for granted in acts of communication or appreciation and that they transfer, either through informal or formal education, to new generations. These include not only words strung together in sentences, but art work, music and religious practices, which join people together around shared meanings and sentiments. And they include what we call traditions or those practices that have developed deep historical meanings that when activated make visible an imagined connection to one another and to past and future generations. The Passover tradition is a story about people who lived long ago told to each new generation in the process of the construction and reconstruction of a Jewish identity. This way of thinking about culture is useful for avoiding the unproductive question of whether we can translate from one culture to another, and assuming that a negative answer means that we cannot render judgments across the so-called ‘cultural boundaries’. Translation is always possible, and translation is always partial. It is always partial because we never know all of the links to which a single utterance leads. My ‘fish’ conjured up the long car ride to get to Barcelona, a wish that I had stayed awake in Spanish class, a frustration that a clerk in a Barcelona delicatessen could not figure out what I was trying to say. The clerk’s ‘feesh’ might have conjured up ‘another long day and another linguistically inept American!’ But people, not cultures, translate and they do so with greater or lesser success as gestures, words and signs allow. When connections are made we are culturing. Sometimes coordination will require only a thin connection, like the gesture of swimming, to start to build up a thicker one. In my adventure in the delicatessen, I was able to take for granted the fact that the clerk was

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familiar with swimming and he could recognise a crawl stroke when he saw one. Thin as it was, it was a connection—a moment of cultural creation. When the connections are thick, your interlocutor and you can finish each other’s sentences because you share history and experiences, but even there static sometimes arises when, for example, one party, to the embarrassment of the other, says more than he should because he does not get what is at stake here, at this moment, in this situation. Clearly, the example is rather benign, but it allows us to think of culture in a more dynamic, open way and thus to begin to understand what might be at stake when we are concerned about what some call acts of cultural penetration or symbolic violence. Yet before getting too far ahead of myself, I want to add another dimension to this picture, one of appraisal, or significance. In the example of cultural formation evaluation was taking place. I would have preferred baked to fried, but frankly, I was happy to take what I could get at the moment. The clerk, frustrated by my inadequate attempt at Spanish, might have preferred me not to hold up his line any longer. For purposes of politeness, good business sense or political correctness, or just plain expediency we obviously did not even try to communicate these evaluations to each other, but it is likely they were there. Imagine what would have happened if I wanted lobster and ordered it in a kosher restaurant. No matter how otherwise thick the meaning that we shared (say we spoke the same language, etc.), this would have set us apart. The question then is not just one of translation—we always translate and we always fail in translating all there is to understand. Concern over cultural imposition may be less about translation and more about evaluation, or about the factors that make it difficult to enter into another person’s evaluative shoes. Since one of the features attributed to culture is the role it plays in centring people, providing a focal point for evaluation (an uncle of mine used to ask, ‘Is it good for the Jews?’), it is natural to think of culture as the foundation for evaluation. And then, if we think wrongly, that meaning cannot be translated across cultures, and then we are likely to think, incorrectly, that evaluation also cannot travel. While there are tragic moments when different groups may surely differ about the value of an event—what is good for the Jews may not be so great for the Palestinians—there is nothing about evaluation as such that would not allow people to come to agreements from different standpoints about many things. So to illustrate the limits and opportunities to bridge different evaluations, let’s take another road story and instead of highlighting culture let’s allow for a dense set of shared meanings and highlight class, or the way in which different evaluations arise from different material conditions. Some time before our trip to Barcelona, my wife and I were travelling with an old graduate school friend who had just recently been divorced. In college we had been quite close, sharing the same religious, economic and educational backgrounds and coming from the same community. We enjoyed many of the same things and, as students, had done many of them together. In common sense terms, we belonged to the ‘same’ cultural

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group. However, many years had passed since we had last seen each other. For my wife and myself this trip was a celebration of sorts, of a new position for my wife. For our friend it was a more painful journey, one where she hoped to heal some wounds and recover from a difficult divorce. After a couple of days travelling together my wife and I noticed that at lunch and dinner time our friend would excuse herself and return to her hotel room, meeting up with us at some later time. At first we thought she was just tired until we realised that she was very concerned about the cost of many things whereas before she had been more extravagant than we were. We concluded that restaurants that from our standpoint were affordable were from hers rather expensive. This explained why she often insisted on stopping off at a local bakery and grocer where she would buy bread and cheese to take to her hotel room. We began to realise that her divorce had placed her in a very different financial position from ours and while our prospects had risen, hers had fallen. In other words, we could take for granted certain material comforts and support that she could not. On the phenomenological level, this difference is what ‘economic class’ means—economic class is all of those material supports that are available or absent that one can depend on in living a life of a certain kind. As Marx noted long ago, economic class position influences evaluation and it creates or constrains certain discursive opportunities. In my example our different material situations led to different evaluations about what to count as an appropriate restaurant. Now on a large scale, and in different circumstances, envy or contempt along with other emotions create static when attempting to bridge the evaluative gap caused by class difference. Yet here there was, as far as we could tell, no such emotion, and still bridging the gap was certainly not easy. To be located in a certain economic class is to be embedded in a set of material conditions that allow certain possibilities to be considered or rejected as real enactments. My wife and I could decide between the comparatively high price bistro or the equally up-scale cafe´ a block from it. And, until we realised that this choice was not comfortably available to our friend, we took this range of possibilities for granted, even though a few months earlier we ourselves would have been more cautious. When we did realise our friend’s financial concerns, economic class location created problems of communication even though our educations were very similar. Nevertheless a kind of awkwardness set in that had never existed before. We knew that to insist that the meal be our treat would have been seen as paternalistic. We feared that if we were to suggest that she name the restaurant, she would then know that we knew more about her situation than she might have wished to reveal. To go ahead and continue to eat in up-scale restaurants would have been uncaringly callous. Granted this micro level example has many limitations. We not only shared a history with our friend, that history included a similar background and a shared education. My wife and I were highly motivated to understand what was going on and to do what we could to resolve it. And it helped that we could recall when we were in a similar situation in Norway, running out of money. We could recall skipping meals, eating all

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the meals we did take in university cafeterias, watching with envy as shoppers in the market-place would think nothing of buying expensive pastries or exotic meats. These memories helped ease the awkwardness of the moment and allowed us to discuss the situation with our friend. This option is often more complex in a school situation where power relations determine how a situation will be defined. Whatever its limitations, however, the example suggests the material, communicative and emotional gaps opened up by class position and some of the possible areas available for reconstruction. To function within a thick network of meanings (what we commonly call a culture) and within a thick set of material conditions that we take for granted (what we call economic class) provides high levels of understanding and predictability. To operate across what we commonly call culture and class increases possibilities for misunderstanding and unpredictability, but contrary to some theorists, misunderstanding and unpredictability are not destiny. As Hurricane Katrina showed us in the most dramatic way possible, the effects of class location can become visible to everyone. Even President Bush, who initially seemed more concerned about his friend Senator Trent Lott’s house, and losing his own youthful playground, eventually had to acknowledge the face and the fate of poverty. Yet first expressions are important indicators of what class and culture have allowed us to take for granted, and the example is a powerful corrective for those who believe that all that is required to foster mutual understanding is to bring children from different backgrounds together in a common school. Because each child stands in a different position with different assumptions, commonality is not given. It is a task to be achieved when the significance of background factors are accounted for in the task of shaping and extending meaning—of culturing. The conceptions of culture and class that I have presented have the advantage of avoiding reification, and rejecting the simplistic relativism of those who claim that translation or evaluation across culture or class is impossible. Culture is not a thing. It is neither a property that we own, as in the phrase ‘my culture’, nor is it a fortress that protects us from harm by sealing us off from alien influences. It is simply a network of meanings, meanings that enable coordinated action and appreciation, thick in some places, thin in others, connected more or less to shared personal or historical experiences. As nodes thicken and are sustained across generations, some people come to think of themselves as a ‘we’ and shape their identity through their participation in a multiple set of nodal configurations. Those who do not share this identity from the inside—and strictly speaking no-one completely shares the identity of another from the inside (it is always a matter of more or less)—can access features of it circuitously, indirectly and partially through other strands of meaning. When the distance is great, we are like a stroke victim whose brain is working to make new pathways in order to express and to comprehend. In short, we are never completely cut off from the other, but then again neither are we fully part of the other. Those who share a certain nodal position for one set of meanings will not share others

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to the same extent. For example, those who are part of the Macintosh culture at my university can take for granted a lot of operational procedures that those who are members of the DOS culture cannot, but then they may share very little beyond that. And two people sharing the ‘same’ religious nexus and who will respond in the same way to standardised religious symbols may not share the same racialised or gendered space. Historically one of the roles of nation states, what Benedict Anderson (1992) calls ‘imagined communities’, has been to fix meaning and evaluation, what is called loyalty, across classes and to bridge cultural differences at the points where networks of meaning thin out. In the past the common school served to stabilise a national identity by fixing meanings and significances through formalised systems of instruction that standardised language, and constructed a more or less shared canon of myths and stories. In other words, the common school served to shape the intersubjective meanings and significances required for coordinated action on a national scale, and in this creation of meaning and signification, new opportunities for shared experiences and thickening meanings above lines of culture and class differences were often created. While this process was rarely smooth, it contributed to a sense of the nation as some kind of imagined family where each of us, no matter how strong our personal grievance, believed that we owed something to other members that we did not owe to the outsider. To some extent this imagined community still informs much of what we do and constitutes much of who we are. Some of the time we think of ourselves as members of a national community sharing a common history and a common destiny. Sometimes this is a good thing as when we come together to help victims of a natural disaster and sometimes it is more troubling as when we commit aggression on another nation, but whether good or bad, the nation too gets reified as if it were a thing that we own, as when we speak of ‘my nation’, or as something that owns us as when we speak of ‘my obligation to my country’. In conservative theory, these three elements, culture, position and nation, are ideally neatly nested within one another where the nation is bound together by the shared norms of culture and where each position functions in a mutually supportive way to serve the larger national community. And where this community then serves God. When things get ‘out of order’, tempers flare and sometimes purges occur. In more radical theory, there is considerable tension between these different points with national identity hiding the exploitative qualities of social position. In the former, nation lends its reality to position and culture. In the latter, nation serves as a fiction to conceal the reality of a cultural identity based on position and inequality. The proper educational programme for the first is patriotism; for the second, resistance. The process of globalisation allows us to see the fluid nature of these meaning systems. The process whereby excess loyalty is directed toward the nation state is breaking down, as witnessed by the call for international aid for the city of New Orleans and the other parts of the country devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Not even the greatest power the world

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has ever known can now control its own destiny. In other words, the basic insight that globalisation theory begins with is that absolute national sovereignty is an idea whose time has come and whose time is swiftly passing away. It is to be no more. If globalisation is hard on national identity, it may be even harder on cultural identities as witnessed by the way people who have moved to other places reshape their informal relations over a few generations—witness the large number of marriages across religious or ethnic boundaries. And, finally, whatever position is salient in one context need not be so in another. There and then a doctor, here and now a medical technician; there and then a professor, here and now a parking attendant; there and then a proud land-owner, here and now a construction worker. For the conservative who wishes to reinstate the idea of nationhood and national identity, these changes are disturbing because they disturb the ideal of the all for one, one for all, single culture, unified religion, sense of national identity. But the changes should also give warning to the radical theorists who, seeking agency in cultural or positional identity, assume that any individual is totally defined by the role he or she may play in the drama of a human life.

THE TASK OF THE COMMON SCHOOL

To liberate meaning from the limitations of traditional conceptions of culture, position and nation should enable educators to avoid some of the reductionist tendencies of popular notions of culture, class or nation. In other words, when we are thinking of the education of children, and the shaping of their identity, it is important that we do not treat them just as an instance of cultural, class, gendered, or national formations. While it is important that children understand the ways in which these forms work, there is an irreducible element to the self that must be attended to, an element that is unique and that needs recognition. The philosopher Jonathan Glover again captures this when he writes: Out of all the people in the world, this particular one happens to be me. This (to me) important fact is visible only from my perspective. An objective description can indicate that each person, including Jonathan Glover, has a particular viewpoint from which they see the world. But it cannot mention something that I care about: That I am Jonathan Glover, and so that perspective is of particular interest to me (Glover, 1991, p. 65).

It is this irreducible element, this one time only, unique member of the human species, that educators cannot allow to be subsumed under culture or class, race or gender or nation alone. Certainly there are times when protecting the thick nexus of meaning into which a child is born is the most important thing to do for the child. As Glover puts it we do depend on the shared understanding of a group and in most cases children are done a great disservice if they are taught to discredit that understanding and those whose lives are constructed through it. Yet just as the growth of

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a plant depends on seeking out the air and light on which all of the plants in a certain ecological niche depend, so the growth of a child depends both on participating in a larger global context as a planetary animal, dependent on and responsible for the conditions of life on earth, and on being recognised by others as an irreducible, unique member of that planetary species known as the human race. The unique role for the common school then is no longer one of laying a national identity over local ones and creating a single imagined community. It must now serve to open up paths of communications across different local communities and across distinct national ones. Without this task, the common role of the ‘common’ school is merely a utilitarian one where all children must learn certain skills in order to live and work in their society as it is. But common skills do not a common school make. They can be taught in any school with a minimum level of accountability to a central authority. A common school has the task of opening up avenues of communications across different communities by teaching students how to engage in the enterprise of thickening meaning where co-coordinated action can serve growth by generating new interests and visions. In some way this idea is not too different from that of Dewey, who saw education as both a process of initiation and of growth where growth entailed new interests and extended associations. However, Dewey was still operating in the context in which the dominance of one cultural group was assumed and with a common insensitivity to the richness of the cultural heritage of others. I think that even for Dewey who had for his time a very generous sense of assimilation, and certainly for most of his contemporaries, who had a less generous one, thickening meaning was a task that local minorities had to do as they interacted with dominant social norms. It was not a task that children of the white Anglo majority were expected to perform. In this sense Dewey was as much a part of the nation-building process as was W. T. Harris, the Hegelian educator who served as the premier North American philosopher of education prior to Dewey (see Feinberg, 1974). Dewey’s advance over Harris was that he understood that much of this engagement needed to be undertaken with respect for the traditions of minority communities. Culturing is not just a matter of pure understanding or of interpretive empathy, but rather is a precondition of the increasing connectivity and coordination needed across local and global communities. Nevertheless, in teaching children to expand their imaginative capacity, we are also teaching them to enter into the framework and meanings of others and to consider their point of view in choosing how to act, both individually and collectively.3

NOTES 1. This is one reason why Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977 is innovative as social theory but insufficient as an educational theory. 2. It is an interesting aspect of this flattening that Said (1978) does not emphasise for balance the images of the West present in ‘oriental societies’.

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3. My appreciation to Mark Halstead for his helpful comments. A version of this chapter was delivered as the Butts Lecture before the American Educational Studies Association in 2005. Appreciation also to the Spencer Foundation for its support.

REFERENCES Abu-Lughod, L. (1991) Writing Against Culture, in: R. G. Fox (ed.) Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present (Santa Fe, NM, School of American Research Press). Anderson, B. (1992) Imagined Communities (London, Verso). Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J-C. (1977) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (London, Sage). Dolby, N. and Dimitriadis, G. with Willis, P. (2004) Learning to Labour in New Times (New York, RoutledgeFalmer). Feinberg, W. (1974) Reason and Rhetoric: The Intellectual Foundations of Twentieth Century Liberal Educational Reform (New York, John Wiley). Geertz, C. (2000) Available Light: Anthropological Reflections on Philosophical Topics (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press). Glover, J. (1991) I: The Philosophy and Psychology of Personal Identity (London, Penguin). Huntington, S. P. (2004) Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity (New York, Simon and Schuster). Said, E. (1978) Orientalism (New York, Pantheon). Willis, P. (1978) Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs (Farnborough, Saxon House).

7 What is Common about Common Schooling? Rational Autonomy and Moral Agency in Liberal Democratic Education HANAN ALEXANDER

Many liberal political theorists believe that democratic societies require rationally autonomous citizens. A primary aim of schooling in liberal democracies, in this view, is to promote the rational autonomy of students. It follows that liberal societies should sponsor common schools for the children of all citizens and that the curriculum of those schools should emphasise at least those rational traditions that will enhance autonomy and provide future citizens with the critical evaluation skills to make personal life choices and participate in public policy debates. In this view, some sort of rationality constitutes a neutral ground on which to base these choices and debates. However, hard questions have been raised in the philosophical literature concerning this neutral account of rationality. According to one critique, rationality cannot be neutral because it serves the interests of a particular class, culture, race, or gender. Teaching students to evaluate plans and policies on the basis of reasons does not enhance their independence, in this view; it enslaves them to power interests that they have not chosen or would not choose given the opportunity to do so. Another criticism of this position states that rational assessment cannot be justified without appeal to the rational standards in question, which means that those standards must rely on personal or communal preferences that cannot be counted as neutral. A rational approach to the curriculum can prejudice students against certain nonrational life paths such as those found within particular religious traditions, according to this position, or privilege the knowledge and skills associated with the human and natural sciences over those cultivated within the plastic and performing arts. Yet, according to most accounts, liberal values and institutions are based on the idea that citizens are free because they have the capacity to evaluate choices rationally and that differences among rival ways of life can be adjudicated by appeal to reason as a neutral court of appeal. To challenge the neutrality of rationality, it would appear, is to call into question the very moral and intellectual sustainability of open liberal The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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democracy, unless one can appeal to an alternative account of liberalism without neutrality. It is just such an alternative to which John Gray (2000) refers when he distinguishes between two faces of liberalism, one in pursuit of regimes that promote an ideal form of life based on universal principles and another seeking a modus vivendi for peaceful coexistence among different ways of living. The belief that liberal democracy depends upon the cultivation of rational autonomy through a common curriculum, I argue in this essay, is grounded in the liberal doctrine that promotes identification with an ideal form of life based on universal principles. After discussing the difficulties with view, I will outline an approach to schooling in open liberal democracies based on the pursuit of coexistence among different ways of living. This alternative challenges the tendency in large diverse democracies (such as the US and the UK) to prefer socalled common to particular or distinctive education, thereby placing many types of faith and secular schools on a more equal footing and providing moral justification for education in the national cultures of small liberal republics (such as Denmark, Israel and Lithuania) that maintain special relationships to particular groups while acknowledging the rights of all citizens. Rational autonomy is associated with schooling for both personal and public reasons. The first sort of reason has to do with the role of rational evaluation in making choices that will lead to a fulfilling life; the second with the function of autonomy in the justification of the liberal state. On the first line of reasoning, common schools should promote rational autonomy because it has a greater capacity than heteronomy to enable students to flourish; in the second account, schools should do so because the legitimisation of the liberal democratic state requires rationally autonomous citizens. Accordingly, this essay will be divided into four sections. Section I will consider personal arguments for autonomy as a basis for common schooling. The second section will discuss the role of autonomy in the justification of the liberal state. Section III will situate these arguments in what John Gray has called universal liberalism and sketch an alternative account of liberalism grounded in what has come to be called value-pluralism. Section IV will argue that a genuine commitment to liberal pluralism requires an education rooted in dynamic traditions, not neutral rationality or prevailing dogmas, which engages opposing perspectives, reinterprets current practice and acknowledges that all people are inherently equal and worthy of respect. I have called this sort of education the pedagogy of difference (Alexander, 2005, forthcoming a).1

I AUTONOMY AND HUMAN FLOURISHING

On the personal level, Harry Brighouse argues that education should aim at enabling people to lead flourishing lives, which are characterised by at least two criteria. First, flourishing lives are worth living which means that they contain a selection of ‘objective goods.’ Second, for a person

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to flourish within such a life they have to identify with it, to live it ‘from the inside’, as it were (Brighouse, 2006, pp. 15–16). What counts as an objective good is not a straightforward affair, but it is not very controversial that some practices and ideals are better for us than others, and that different people may be fulfilled by quite diverse combinations of goods. Nor is it a particularly contentious matter that for a life to be fulfilling one must identify with it. Brighouse uses the term autonomy— ‘the opportunity to make and act on well-informed and well thought out judgements’ (p. 14)—to denote how one comes to live inside a way of life and concludes not only that (1) ‘the basic methods of rational evaluation are reliable aids to uncovering how to live well’, but also that (2) ‘they are the only aids that can be identified and taught’ (p. 19). He offers the following reasons to support these conclusions: Rational reflection can help us to detect inconsistencies and fallacious argumentation, and to uncover misuse of evidence. It helps us to see whether a choice coheres with our given judgements, including our judgements about what kind of person we ought to be. It also helps us to evaluate the ways we are attached to other people, and to carry out our altruistic obligations and goals more effectively . . . It is important to notice that rational reflection can, and often does, lead us to affirm our existing traits, values, commitments, and attachments (p. 20).

This account is problematic for several reasons (Alexander, forthcoming a). First, rationality cannot itself withstand the test of rational evaluation without presupposing the very rational standards one would be evaluating (Alexander, 2001, pp. 156–162). Consider a person who has had no exposure to rational discourse, such as Rousseau’s Emile who was raised in the wild (Rousseau, 2003). How could one go about demonstrating to him that the canons of rational assessment are indeed valid other than by means of the very logical laws one has set out to defend? But to assume that those laws are valid is to presuppose the very point one has set out to demonstrate, which is to succumb to a form of circular reasoning that those very laws reject. Kant (2004, 2007) tried to ground the a priori principles of reason in the very make-up of human consciousness, and so, as a liberal follower of Kant, Brighouse might respond that in a sense Emile already understands these principles. An education in rational evaluation, in this view, is intended to draw out of him logical capacities that are already implicit within, not to demonstrate their truth or validity. However, few today believe in such universal cognitive structures; and it was his suspicion of such a belief that very likely led Rousseau to suggest that introducing Emile to the civilised discourse governed by rational evaluation is closer to coercion than persuasion. My second concern has been brought home by radical educational theorists—Marxists, neo-Marxists, poststructuralists—who argue that any standards one might employ to formulate judgements about the sort of person I should be, will be tied to economic, ideological, cultural, or other interests; and any attempt to liberate those judgements from such interests

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on rational grounds of one kind or another will itself entail the exercise of power. So while the appeal to rational evaluation may be intended to free youngsters from the undue power that their parents exercise over their lives in order to enable them to make their own autonomous choices, it may in fact merely subjugate them to other economic, ideological, cultural or other interests that may or may not be consistent with what is best for them (e.g. McLaren, 2006). Third, as I will argue at greater length below, it is entirely unclear how we could go about determining what is best for a person other than within the context of a tradition concerning what ought to count as better or worse, and although there are many rational traditions that address this concern in productive and interesting ways, not all ethical traditions will necessarily withstand the test of reason, including, as I have indicated, perhaps even those very rational traditions themselves. This is not to say, of course, that the radical perspectives mentioned fare any better in this paradoxical terrain, for on their own account they too must be tied to economic, ideological, cultural or other interests, the liberation from which will only land them in some new set of power relations. Richard Peters (1974) was right when he noted that in order to foster moral independence we have no choice but to restrict it, and once having done so it is notoriously difficult to sort out how we can free a child from the grip of those initial acts of coercion. My fourth difficulty with Brighouse’s account of the role of autonomy in education has to do with what might get left out as a candidate for the sort of life consistent with human flourishing. I have in mind those religious traditions that call upon the faithful to believe in God and obey divine commandments even when there is no apparent rational justification for doing so. There are of course reasons why a person might choose such a path other than on the basis of valid proofs for the existence of God or logical explanations of particular religious practices, such as the promise of eternity inherent in Pascal’s wager (Pascal, 2000) or of a meaningful life in James’ will to believe (James, 2006). Nor is a religious way of life for everyone; indeed, for divergent thinkers in some traditions or women in others, or when imposed through force or violence, such a life can be downright oppressive. But it cannot be denied that many people have come to lead very wholesome and worthwhile religious lives on nonrational grounds such as naı¨ve religious faith, the homes in which they were raised or an epiphany that led to conversion. It is hard to imagine that the standards of rational evaluation would not discourage youngsters from choosing such a non-rational path, which would deny them opportunities for existential purpose that have sustained people for centuries through the joys and trials of life. Of course, this difficulty may not be a consequence of all accounts of rational autonomy, and we will consider at least two views below that attempt to address the issue, but it does seem to be a problem for Brighouse’s view. My fifth problem with rational assessment as the best way to get inside a way of life is that it requires us to do just the opposite. To compare and contrast rival orientations we need to view them from without as a

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journalist or scientist might describe them, not from within as an insider might experience them. Indeed, the whole point of such an exercise is to gather and assess evidence objectively, without regard to the sorts of subjective attachments that characterise the life of an insider. Yet, it is the value of just such a particular set of attachments that we are expected to judge when we rationally assess the alternatives; and to make such a judgement would appear to require the very sort of immersion into one way of life at the expense of others that Brighouse is at pains to critique as ruinous to autonomy. One is at a loss to understand how decisions of this sort can properly be called rational when the most pertinent evidence required to make them is summarily ruled out of court. Consider the case that Brighouse discusses of ‘people who experience their sexuality as fixed and unadaptable’: A homosexual who experiences his homosexuality as unchangeable simply cannot live, from the inside, a way of life in which those who refrain from heterosexual marriage and childrearing are social outsiders. Trapped in such a way of life, he will be alienated from it. It may be a very good way of life, but it is not one that he can endorse from the inside, and is therefore not one that he can live well (Brighouse, 2006, p. 17).

But if he is old enough to experience his sexuality as unadaptable, he is already inside a life with real subjective attachments and experiences, some of which may have taught him that his sexuality is either fixed or flexible and others that it is either forbidden or permitted. The problem for him is not to choose impartially among an array of alternatives, but to determine—at least in part on the basis of his own subjective experience— whether he wants to remain in his current life or to opt for another, either by seeking to change the tradition that informs it or by abandoning that tradition altogether. Doing so, however, may put him at odds with a family or community or God that he holds most dear. I can hardly imagine a more deeply emotional choice. Reason may be helpful in sorting out some of the issues in this case (which is in fact one of the roles attributed to it by Brighouse in the passage quoted above), but it is highly unlikely that rational evaluation can on its own carry the burden of such a weighty decision. II AUTONOMY AND THE LIBERAL STATE

Meira Levinson (1999) grapples with a number of these issues in her ‘weak perfectionist’ account of rational autonomy as a source of legitimacy for the liberal state. Before outlining her own approach, she identifies some of the main difficulties within prevailing comprehensive and political liberal theories by distinguishing between three commitments of liberalism: (A) an acceptance of deep irremediable pluralism in modern society; (B) a concern for public legitimisation of the state based on principles of justice; and (C) a belief that this legitimisation project yields substantive liberal freedoms and institutions. Uniting all three

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commitments in one coherent theory of liberalism is difficult. Joseph Raz (1986), for example, rejects legitimisation as unattainable in light of the fact of pluralism and so argues for the value of autonomy—the capacity to form, revise and rationally pursue a worthwhile human life—in a way that bridges directly from pluralism to substantive liberal institutions. John Stuart Mill (1974), on the other hand, sacrifices (or misconstrues) the depth of modern pluralism in favour of linking legitimisation directly with substantive liberal institutions via an argument for the value of autonomy (or ‘individuality’). What links Raz and Mill ‘is a belief in the value of autonomy for both itself and as a means of justifying substantive liberal freedoms’ (Raz, 1986, p. 15). This strand of political thought, she explains, has come to be called ‘comprehensive’ or ‘perfectionist’ liberalism, since it promotes rationality as a substantive liberal value to guide personal value choices in addition to its neutral role in adjudicating between rival ways of life. As such this account of liberalism is subject to at least the first four objections raised above in connection with Brighouse’s view of autonomy, which is also a case of comprehensive liberalism: the absence of a non-circular justification of rationality, the possible connection between rationality and non-rational power interests, the role of context in determining sources of value and the tendency within rationalism to delegitimise non-rational sources of value such as naive religious faith.2 In contrast to comprehensive liberalism, John Rawls (1993) contends that all three of the commitments Levinson highlighted can be coherently unified in a more limited ‘political’ liberalism. He avoids autonomy as a substantive value in favour of the two moral powers of human beings: (1) the capacity for a sense of justice, and (2) the capacity for a conception of the good. In the first instance, Rawls reinterprets pluralism through what he calls the ‘burdens of judgment’, the acceptance of which is one element of the sense of justice required for citizens to reach agreement on the legitimate principles that should govern the state. Reasonable people differ over what is most important in life for at least six reasons: (i) conflicting evidence, (ii) disagreement over the relative weight of evidence, (iii) the indeterminacy of ‘hard cases’, (iv) the influence of past on present experience, (v) the incommensurability of values, and (vi) the circumscription of value within any particular society. To accept these so-called burdens of judgement as sources of reasonable disagreement, Rawls contends, is to accept a particular account of pluralism. This leads citizens to seek principles of justice compatible with every reasonable person’s conception of the good, rather than to convince others to adopt a view of the state grounded in a particular way of life. To accept the burdens of judgement, in other words, is ‘to accept their consequences for the use of public reason in directing the legitimate exercise of political power’ (Rawls, 1971, p. 86). The difficulty with this position, Levinson argues, is that by requiring citizens to alter their understanding of pluralism, as opposed to asking them merely to accept its existence, Rawls violates the boundaries of pluralism itself; and in so far as accepting this account requires people to realise that theirs is not the only reasonable way

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to live, it demands that, at least in their capacity as citizens, they exercise a rudimentary level of autonomy. This would appear to leave Rawls in much the same position as Raz and Mill vis-a`-vis the neutrality of rational autonomy (p. 17). If Rawls intended his account of the first moral power to tie pluralism to the legitimisation project via the burdens of judgement, he sought to link legitimisation to substantive liberal institutions by means of the second moral power, ‘the capacity to form, to revise, and rationally to pursue . . . a conception of what we regard for us as a worthwhile human life’ (Rawls, 1993, p. 302). Since the liberty to pursue a vision of the good is a primary freedom protected by liberal states, and one’s present way of life may require occasional if not regular revision, participants in the legitimisation process must assume that citizens can not only form but also revise their life paths. From this Rawls derives other substantive liberties, such as freedom of conscience, which is required to allow one to recognise and acknowledge mistakes, and freedom of association with like-minded citizens, which is needed for there to be meaningful freedom of conscience. But the capacity to form, revise and pursue a vision of the good, Levinson points out, is just what we mean by rational autonomy. Rawls’ justification of substantive liberal institutions, therefore, does not escape reliance on autonomy as a positive, and hence non-neutral, value any better than his reading of pluralism via the prism of the burdens of judgement (Callan, 1997; Macedo, 2000; Tomasi, 2001). To address these difficulties Levinson offers an account of liberalism that embraces a view ‘which values individual autonomy, but does not discriminate against those who do not exercise autonomy in their own lives’ (Levinson, 1999, pp. 21–22) provided they see themselves as what Rawls called ‘self-authenticating sources of valid claims’ (Rawls, 1993, p. 32) and as what Stanley Benn dubs ‘autarchic persons’ (Benn, 1988) who intentionally effect change in the world, take responsibility for their actions and are able to have a conception of the good (Levinson, 1999, pp. 22–24). Levinson contends that this requires more than a thin or formal account of autonomy, such as that advanced by Gerald Dworkin (1988). In his view, autonomous individuals are those who evaluate and revise first order desires, which are of the form ‘I want X’, by means of second order desires, which take the form ‘I want to want X’, in order to insure that the desires they act upon are those with which they identify or ‘adopt as their own’. Dworkin argues that formalism—the fact that an account does not distinguish between autonomous and heteronomous people based on the content of their desires—is an advantage since it allows that heteronomous lifestyles (such as those that follow divine commandments) can be freely chosen and should therefore be protected by liberal institutions. Levinson, on the other hand, thinks that it is strange to subsume heteronomous values under the rubric of autonomy, since among other reasons it allows people to enslave themselves and continue to be regarded as autonomous. Consequently, she opts for a more substantive account of the concept.

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According to Levinson, an autonomous person must be situated in a coherent cultural orientation, possess a well-developed personality— emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, aesthetically, morally—and embrace a plurality of constitutive desires and values. Cultural coherence enables an individual to identify with a source of value other than mere personal preference upon which to base second order evaluations of first order desires; possessing a well developed personality allows a person to base autonomous choices on complex interactions among wide variety of personal abilities and commitments; and embracing a plurality of constitutive desires and values drawn from distinct, even rival, sources provides a vantage point from which to critically assess one set of desires and actions on the basis of another. Levinson’s efforts to acknowledge the roles of culture, non-rational dimensions of personality, and human agency in making substantive life decisions is most welcome, but she may not have gone far enough. The difficulty with her account is that it falls prey to a version of the fifth objection raised above in connection with Brighouse’s view of autonomy; it requires a person to stand inside and outside of a way of life at the same time. On one hand, the autonomous person is to be situated inside a coherent cultural orientation and, on the other, she is to embrace a plurality of values including some that conflict with the culture in which she is situated. This is thought to allow critical assessment of all or part of that cultural orientation, from the outside, but seems more likely to leave a child confused. Additionally, as I have argued, it is not at all clear how an outside perspective enables one to understand what it means to experience a particular culture as an insider, which would appear to be the crucial sort of evidence required in order to decide whether this is the sort of life one wants to lead. It is the subjective experience of a tradition from the inside that is most important in deciding whether to adopt it, and it is the exposure to a different life path as an outsider that offers the opportunity to consider whether to take a closer look, from the inside.3 III THE OTHER FACE OF LIBERALISM

Brighouse’s flourishing and Levinson’s weak perfectionism both falter because each of them conceives liberalism as a universal form of life based on rational autonomy.4 John Gray clarifies what sort of liberal theory this is: Liberalism has always had two faces. From one side, toleration is the pursuit of an ideal form of life. From the other, it is the search for terms of peace among different ways of life. In the former view, liberal institutions are seen as applications of universal principles. In the latter, they are means to peaceful coexistence. In the first, liberalism is the prescription for a universal regime. In the second, it is a project of coexistence that can be pursued in many regimes. The philosophies of John Locke and Immanuel Kant exemplify the liberal project of a universal regime, while those of Thomas Hobbes and David Hume express the liberalism of

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peaceful coexistence. In more recent times, John Rawls and F. A. Hayek have defended the first liberal philosophy, while Isaiah Berlin and Michael Oakeshott are exemplars of the second (Gray, 2000, p. 2).

In terms made popular by Isaiah Berlin (1953), universal liberals such as Brighouse and Levinson tend to become hedgehogs who know one big thing (rational autonomy) instead of foxes who know many things (rival traditions). Despite their avowed commitment to pluralism, they interpret liberalism along the lines of Berlin’s (1990) positive concept of freedom— the idea of self-mastery, or self-determination, or control of one’s destiny—rather than in reference to negative liberty—the absence of constraints on, or interference with, a person’s desires and actions; and as is well-known, the difficulty with an over-enthusiasm for positive freedom is the tendency of those who endorse it to impose a way of life on people who might choose otherwise, because it is thought to be in their best interest. Put simply, by imposing rational neutrality (even in a weak form) on Levinson’s second and third liberal commitments, public legitimization and substantive freedoms, universal liberalism runs afoul of Levinson’s first liberal commitment: the irremediable fact of pluralism.5 Gray calls the alternative sort of liberalism exemplified by Berlin a theory of modus vivendi, which has no truck with ideal regimes, but seeks terms on which different ways of life can live together. Modus vivendi, he writes, ‘is liberal toleration adapted to the historical fact of pluralism’. The ethical theory associated with this historical turn in liberal thought has been called value-pluralism—the idea that ‘there are many conflicting kinds of human flourishing, some of which cannot be compared in value’ (Gray, 2000, p. 6). This is much more tentative and cacophonous liberalism than that associated with the foundational aspirations of rationalism.6 Michael Oakeshott, who was also a pluralist according to Gray, argued that the underlying problem with universal liberalism lies in its embrace of rational rules, procedures and techniques as the exclusive basis for political knowledge, when to be meaningful all such technical knowledge must be interpreted in the context of a political tradition grounded in practice (Oakeshott, 1962, pp. 1–36). Oakeshott’s mistake, contends Gray, ‘was to suppose that liberalism must be understood as a system of values, and to seek to replace reference to principle by the guidance of tradition— as if any late modern society . . . contained only one tradition. If contemporary societies contain several traditions, with many people belonging to more than one, politics cannot be conducted by following any one tradition. It must try to reconcile the intimations of rival traditions’ (Gray, 2000, pp. 32–33). However, the fact that Oakeshott considered the political tradition of a particular society in no way infringes on his commitment to diversity, which is evident in his view that education entails the cultivation of personal identity through engagement with the many modes of understanding that comprise cultures (Oakeshott, 1962, p. 135; Oakeshott, 1989). Indeed, toleration of the very range of orientations inherent in Gray’s pursuit of coexistence is possible only within the context

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of a political tradition of the sort Oakeshott endorses (Alexander, forthcoming b). Moreover, I find it difficult to comprehend what value-pluralism could possibly mean without appeal to some conception of tradition. Even if we assume that there are many rival traditions and that people might adhere to more than one of them, meaningful as opposed to merely personal choices must be grounded in strong values that are embedded in one or more of those traditions. To say that the renewal of liberalism entails a modus vivendi for coexistence among rival forms of life, a supposition that is itself situated in a particular historical perspective, presumes that people adhere to one or more of the rivals. But to assume that democratic societies are or ought to be indifferent with regard to the orientations citizens may consider is to entertain the very mistaken view from nowhere upon which universal liberalism rests (Nagel, 1989); and to assume that traditions are necessarily fixed, as critics often do, is to attribute to them a rigidity that belongs more to rationalism than to many communities (Oakeshott, 1962, p. 31). In the absence of rational neutrality, the liberal challenge is to discern how prevailing traditions can serve as a source of, rather than a hindrance to, moral independence to ensure that relevant rights and liberties are not denied to citizens affiliated with minority cultures, or those of the weak or powerless. The question is not whether pluralistic liberalism entails initiation into traditions, but rather what sort of traditions do societies that embrace value-pluralism require. Liberal societies that seek peaceful coexistence among rival ways of life should initiate students of both majority and minority cultures into ‘dynamic’ versions of the traditions to which they are heir. In addition to celebrating their own legacies, dynamic traditions are willing to engage opposing perspectives and reinterpret current practice. They are also committed to the idea that all people regardless of background or affiliation have the capacity for free agency and so are inherently equal and worthy of respect.7 What binds the majority of citizens together in most societies is not the presumption of a neutral public square, but a shared way of life. In small liberal republics such as Denmark, Israel, and Lithuania, for example, it is extraordinarily difficult for public functionaries, from schoolteachers to heads of state, to hide behind an illusion of neutrality; they are friends of your brother or related to your sister-in-law or neighbours down the block or sometimes, enemies across the fence. The issue, however, is one of principle, not merely size—large democracies also depend upon face-to-face associations (Bellah et al., 1986; de Tocqueville, 2007). Most people who acquire a commitment to the rule of law or a constitution or a system of checks and balances do so because of stories they tell about themselves and their families, about their history or destiny or mission, in their own language and through the media of their own culture (Covers, 1983).8 There is more than one way to live such a life, to recount such narratives or speak such languages or participate in such cultures or understand such histories or conceive such destinies or grasp such missions; and there will likely be citizens whose heritages, languages, or origins are different from those of the majority.

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To the extent that we deny citizens opportunities to participate in the process of interpretation, or restrict engagement with alternative or rival traditions, we render communal customs increasingly mechanical and limit their potential to bind people together through shared moral meanings and practices; and to the extent that we deny minority cultures, or those of the underprivileged or the oppressed, access to public expression and resources, we limit the likelihood that citizens so affiliated will choose to identify with the liberal state. Additionally, education in liberal societies should cultivate within students a proclivity for dialogue among conflicting orientations. To say that discussions within and among traditions lie beyond rational neutrality does not mean that they are devoid of intelligent discourse or critical assessment, but that such discourse and assessment may not always be readily accessible to all. Public deliberation will consequently demand communication among diverse, even incommensurable, goods without recourse to a common rationality that can serve as a neutral meeting ground. IV MORAL AGENCY AND LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION

The antidote to rampant rationalism and universal liberalism, then, is neither extreme separatism nor total anarchy, but recognition of what Jonathan Sacks calls the ‘dignity of difference’ which admits multiple compelling approximations of the truth and many acceptable visions of how to live (Sacks, 2003). One can acquire the capacity to make independent choices given that we can never stand outside of the lives we lead by learning to be different and to respect the difference of others. This requires coming to understand myself, both past and present, and being prepared to assume responsibility for my future. It also requires coming to understand others who are different from me, both past and present, and recognising that it is they, not I, who should assume responsibility for their future. Following Sacks, and in contrast to pedagogies of the oppressed which tend to place responsibility for one’s plight on social structures or power relations rather than on oneself (Freire, 2000), I call this the pedagogy of difference (Alexander, forthcoming a).9 The understanding that I have in mind here is not derived from the sort of evidence-based propositional or rule-based procedural knowledge discussed by Israel Scheffler (1958), although theoretical evidence and practical procedures are by no means irrelevant to it. Martin Buber (1996) would have referred to these as examples of objective knowledge, because they are intended to serve the instrumental objectives of subject-object or I-It relationships. The understanding that the pedagogy of difference requires, however, is closer to what Buber (1996) called subjective knowledge, which is acquired through personal encounters among human subjects—husbands and wives, parents and children, teachers and students, friends and lovers—and between those subjects and the data and ideals that inform and give direction to their lives. In this sort of encounter, one stands inside a way of life and receives it into oneself, rather than standing outside of it in order to compare it with

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others. Under these conditions, the distinction between autonomy and heteronomy is a bit misleading, since the boundaries between inside and outside the self are blurred. A way of life that on one account might have been perceived as external becomes the very content through which one achieves self-definition. The result is strong subjectivism, which supplies the values for what Charles Taylor (1985, pp. 15–44) calls strong evaluation of second order desires that govern decisions constituent of who I choose to be—should I tell the truth to help a friend even when it may bring me harm, or embrace my homosexuality even though my religious tradition teaches that I should not? On the other hand, without a foundation for the neutrality of reason, the objective comparison of one way of life to another from the outside inherent in Brighouse’s critical assessment or Levinson’s plurality of desires and values, too often ends up in a weak form of subjective evaluation based on a person’s momentary feelings—today I will try this way of life, tomorrow another. To make life choices intelligently, then, I need to stand firmly within a way of life that offers me guidance in doing so. Hence, when parents believe that their way of life is best for human flourishing given the alternatives, they have a solemn duty as loving guardians and teachers, not a right or a privilege, to pass it on as a legacy that will ultimately enable their children to make intelligent and independent decisions as adults (see Levinson, 1999, pp. 51–57). But what if this way of life seeks to dominate my independent judgement so completely that I will make only the narrow choices it prescribes, or in a way that precludes consideration of all other options? Brighouse asks us to consider such a case when he refers to the Amish, a quasi-separate religious community in the mid-Western US that challenged the law requiring youngsters to attend school until the age of 16 and won a reduction to the age of 14. In the famous US Supreme Court case Yoder v. Wisconsin the litigants argued that this requirement ‘violated their right to freedom of conscience, because during the early teen years, children are especially vulnerable to secular influences, so subjecting children of that age to formal education jeopardises their belief in God and, ultimately, their opportunity for salvation’ (p. 13). Brighouse worries that this decision unduly allows parents to restrict opportunities for their children to make well-informed life choices on their own, and that ‘autonomy is important enough to justify a requirement that all children be subject to an education designed to facilitate it’ (p. 14). But this would enable the state or some other agent to impose a comprehensive liberal view of the world on all children, even when their parents do not agree, which as we have seen cannot be sustained on rational grounds and so is no less an act of coercion than that of the parents themselves. The pedagogy of difference offers an alternative way of accounting for cases of this kind grounded in the recognition that education in identity is intended to initiate people into a life worth living. For such a life to be good in any normative sense of the term, we must suppose not that those who would live it are rationally autonomous beings, but rather that they are independent moral agents, free within limits to choose between several life paths and capable of distinguishing between them (Johnston, 1996).

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People who have the capacity to understand and interpret desires, beliefs and behaviours are at liberty to choose among them, and because of this liberty can be held accountable for the consequences of their choices (Alexander, 2001, pp. 44–48). If the Amish and communities like them want their children to assume eventual responsibility for their way of life, it is imperative that as they mature these children be encouraged to embrace this way of life, within limits, of their own free will. It is precisely for that reason that once they have reached maturity, the Amish send their young adults away for a time, to allow them to return to the community, or not, freely. Thus, the pedagogy of difference requires not only a deep immersion in the stories and practices of the tradition into which one is being initiated, but also opportunities to learn of other traditions and to experience them as well, though as something of an outsider considering whether or not to step inside. To understand myself I must encounter the other; but to genuinely encounter the other I must also understand myself. I can only freely choose a way of life, either the one offered by my parents or some other, if I have a thorough and loving grounding in one way of life, as well as an intense exposure to some of the alternatives. Exposure to traditions other than my own accomplishes the sort of critical assessment to which both Brighouse and Levinson aspire, but grounded in an initiation into the strong values of a particular tradition that does not require the embrace of two or more opposing perspectives at the same time. Of course, some families, schools, communities, or societies are less cognizant than others of the need to prepare students to make life choices by fostering awareness of free agency. To the extent that these institutions suppress or deny human agency they limit the capacity of their members for responsible moral decision-making. Since moral discourse presupposes agents who can opt in or out of a way of life as they are given to understand it, suppression of agency leads to a-moral communities that are closed to outside alternatives and that favour indoctrination into a mechanical rule-bound existence over education in a freely chosen ethical or religious identity (Alexander, 2005). However for the state to intervene in such an instance, and to impose a comprehensive liberal or rational view on a closed community for the sake of a child, would undermine the very freedom of choice upon which human agency relies, and so would serve only to jeopardise the moral legitimacy of the state itself. This would do nothing to liberate the child from the coercion of such a community, which can only be accomplished through an exercise of her own free will. Clearly, if a child is physically or emotionally mistreated in some way, the state has an obligation to protect her whether or not she is living in a closed or open community, although it may sometimes be difficult to reach agreement concerning what it means to be mistreated. The same would hold for any community that would seek to impose itself on another, or on the public at large—for example, through force and violence such as by means of attacks on abortion clinics or other acts of terror. Additionally, although I agree with Brighouse that the state may have an interest in providing funds to religious schools open to alternative

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points of view (Brighouse, 2006, pp. 77–94), my own view is much more positive about the contribution of dynamic faith traditions to liberal democracy, but more negative concerning the call of closed communities on the public purse, since it is unlikely that the alumni of their schools will possess the moral independence required for democratic decision making and responsibility. However, other than in such obvious or extreme cases, it is an entirely contestable matter whether a child would be better off living in one sort of community or another, since there is no way to conceive what might be better or worse for the child other than in the context of the religious or secular ethical traditions that govern our collective lives. In contrast to the universal view of liberalism advanced by Brighouse and Levinson, the ethical and political philosophy most compatible with the pedagogic and educational views expressed here involves a traditionoriented or communitarian reading of value-pluralism. I have called it communitarian liberalism (Alexander, 2004, forthcoming a). It is based on the idea that since a neutral form of rational autonomy is indefensible, moral agency must be founded on the genuine relationships of students to families, communities and traditions (including of course rational traditions), provided they are prepared to consider opposing views, revise current practice and acknowledge the rights of all. Education in religious faiths or initiation into particular cultures of small liberal republics is not necessarily antithetical to liberalism in this view; nor should it merely be tolerated in a democracy as suggested by Brighouse (though not by Levinson). Rather education in dynamic traditions has a profound contribution to make to the preparation of democratic citizens who can assess the choices and assume the responsibilities required of self-governance, since there are no grounds upon which to base these decisions and responsibilities outside of the traditions of conscience that foster human agency. There are many good reasons why liberal societies might choose to support schools that offer a broad secular education to their citizens other than the pursuit of an illusive rational autonomy. However, schools affiliated with particular traditions, communities or cultures are likely to do as well, if not better, than so-called common schools at initiating students into the dynamic traditions that liberal democracies require.

NOTES 1. Sections one and four are adapted from my essay ‘Educating Identity: Toward a Pedagogy of Difference’ (Alexander, forthcoming a). 2. Gray points out that Raz is a value pluralist (Gray, 2000, pp. 96–99), and that Mill’s writings exhibit a tension between universalism and pluralism (pp. 29–31). Yet both argue that liberal values should play a role in the lives of private citizens beyond that of negotiating between competing perspectives. Hence they can be counted as comprehensive liberals (Galston, 2002, pp. 8–9). 3. On the idea of education in a tradition ‘from the inside’ and ‘from the outside’, see Alexander and McLaughlin, 2003. 4. Levinson states explicitly that she identifies with the liberal tradition that was transformed during the past thirty years by John Rawls, rather than that of Thomas Hobbes, though she

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may disagree with Gray as to whether Hayek or Raz are universal or plural liberals (Levinson, 1999, p. 6). Levinson (1999, p. 63) writes that ‘the ideal liberal school establishes a plural community whose structure and content are dictated by the overriding goal to foster the development of children’s autonomy—a community instantiated by the norms of critical inquiry, toleration, and reflectiveness.’ This is a pluralism that excludes traditions that do not embrace rationality as a standard form of critical assessment or autonomy as a value. If Levinson’s ideal liberal school receives preferential treatment by the state, it is difficult to understand how this does not ‘discriminate against those who do not exercise autonomy in their own lives’ (p. 22). To be fair, Levinson does state that it is hard to hold the three liberal commitments together in a single account of liberalism; but surely she did not mean by this that we are to sacrifice pluralism on the alter of rationalism. For a critique of Gray’s account of value-pluralism see Appiah, 2005, pp. 36–61. The Hebrew Bible has been read in this way by a number of political traditions, sometimes in dialogue with philosophers from Aristotle to Dewey, although it has also been interpreted contrary to this spirit as well (Bellah et al., 1986; Sacks, 2003; Walzer, 1986). The narrative might include neutrality as an aspiration or ideal, but not based on a priori reason or common reasonableness. Terence McLaughlin referred to a similar perspective in his expression ‘autonomy via faith’ (McLaughlin, 1984, 1985).

REFERENCES Alexander, H. A. (2001) Reclaiming Goodness: Education and the Spiritual Quest (Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press). Alexander, H. A. (2005) Education in Ideology, The Journal of Moral Education, 34.1, pp. 1–18. Alexander, H. A. (forthcoming a) Educating Identity: Toward a Pedagogy of Difference, in: S. Miedema (ed.) Religious Education as Encounter (Munster, Waxman). Alexander, H. A. (forthcoming b) Engaging Tradition: Michael Oakeshott on Liberal Learning, in: A. Stables and S. Gough (eds) Sustainability and Security within Liberal Societies: Learning to Live with the Future (New York, Routledge). Alexander, H. A. and McLaughlin, T. H. (2003) Education in Religion and Spirituality, in: N. Blake, P. Smeyers, R. Smith and P. Standish (eds) The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Education (Oxford, Blackwell), pp. 356–373. Appiah, K. A. (2005) The Ethics of Identity (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press). Bellah, R. N., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swindler, A. and Tipton, S. M. (1986) Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley, University of California Press). Benn, S. (1988) A Theory of Freedom (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Berlin, I. (1953) The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History (New York, Simon and Schuster). Berlin, I. (1990) Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Brighouse, H. (2006) On Education (New York, Routledge). Buber, M. (1996) I and Thou (New York, Touchstone). Callan, E. (1997) Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Covers, R. (1983) Nomos and Narrative, Harvard Law Review, 97.4, pp. 1–68. Dworkin, G. (1988) The Theory and Practice of Autonomy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Freire, P. (2000) Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York, Continuum). Galston, W. A. (2002) Liberal Pluralism: The Implications of Value Pluralism for Political Theory and Practice (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Gray, J. (2000) The Two Faces of Liberalism (London, New Press). James, W. (2006) The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York, Cosimo Classics).

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Johnston, D. (1996) The Idea of a Liberal theory: A Critique and a Reconstruction (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press). Kant, I. (2004) Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Kant, I. (2007) Critique of Pure Reason (Harmondsworth, Penguin). Levinson, M. (1999) The Demands of Liberal Education (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Macedo, S. (2000) Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). McLaughlin, T. H. (1984) Parental Rights and the Religious Upbringing of Children, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 18.1, pp. 75–83. McLaughlin, T. H. (1985) Religion, Upbringing and Liberal Values: A Rejoinder to Eamonn Callan, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 19.1, pp. 119–127. McLaren, P. (2006) Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education (Boston, Allyn and Bacon). Mill, J. S. (1974) On Liberty (Harmondsworth, Penguin). Nagel, T. (1989) The View From Nowhere (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Oakeshott, M. (1962) Rationalism in Politics and other Essays (London, Methuen). Oakeshott, M. (1989) The Voice of Liberal Learning (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press). Pascal, B. (2000) Pense´es (Harmondsworth, Penguin). Peters, R. S. (1974) Psychology and Educational Development (London, George, Allen & Unwin). Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). Rawls, J. (1993) Political Liberalism (New York, Columbia University Press). Raz, J. (1986) The Morality of Freedom (Oxford, Clarendon). Rousseau, J-J. (2003) Emile, or Treatise on Education (Amherst, NY, Prometheus Books). Sacks, J. (2003) The Dignity of Difference, rev. edn. (London, Continuum). Scheffler, I. (1958) Conditions of Knowledge (Boston, Allyn and Bacon). Taylor, C. (1985) Human Agency and Language (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Tomasi, J. (2001) Liberalism beyond Justice: Citizens, Society, and the Boundaries of Political Theory (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press). de Tocqueville, A. (2007) Democracy in America (New York, Penguin Classics). Walzer, M. (1986) Exodus and Revolution (New York, Basic Books).

8 Common Schools and Multicultural Education MEIRA LEVINSON

Richard Pring explains some of the goals and purposes of common schools as follows: ‘The fight for the common school was essentially a moral one in terms of achieving greater social justice and equality, respect for persons and preparation for citizenship within a democratic order’ (Pring, Chapter 1, p. 1). Furthermore, the common school should serve as ‘the purveyor of a common culture, through which all might live in respectful understanding of each other whilst maintaining separate cultural traditions’ (Pring, Chapter 1, p. 2). Christine Sleeter, an influential multicultural theorist in the United States, explains some of the goals and purposes of multicultural education as follows: ‘Multicultural movements . . . challenge the United States [and presumably other countries too] to live up to its ideals of justice and equality, believing that this country has the potential to work much better for everyone. As tomorrow’s citizens, children in schools should learn academic tools and disciplinary knowledge resources from vantage points of multiple communities. Further, young people should develop some sense of solidarity across differences that enables working toward closing the gap between the nation’s ideals and its realities’ (Sleeter, 2005, p. 15). These descriptions hew closely, to say the least. This should not be surprising. Promoting inclusiveness and equality, reaching across difference, fostering mutual toleration and respect, enabling all students to achieve their highest potential, preparing citizens for a diverse society, creating a better world—these are all frequently appealed to as justifications for both common schooling and multicultural education. Intuitively, therefore, common schools and multicultural education seem to be mutually reinforcing. How better to achieve the aims of multicultural education than to ensure that students are educated in schools that welcome, respect and enable the academic success of students from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds? How better to achieve the aims of common schools than to ensure that their curriculum, pedagogies, school culture and practices are multicultural? It is hard to imagine how common schooling, done well, and multicultural education, done well, The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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could be anything but mutually beneficial, even possibly mutually necessary. My purpose in this essay is to push our imaginations a little further, to challenge our intuitions about the relationship between common schools and multicultural education. I start by querying the instrumental versus expressive relationship between the two, asking in section I if common schools are instrumental for realising the aims of multicultural education and the reverse in section II: is multicultural education instrumental for realising the aims of common schooling? I demonstrate that each is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for achieving the other, and in fact that each may in certain fairly common circumstances make the other harder to achieve. Given the failure of the instrumental argument, section III addresses the idea that common schools may be expressive of the multicultural ideal: that they serve as explicit, public symbols of our civic commitment to diversity, mutual respect and egalitarian inclusiveness. I agree that this relationship may hold in some schools, but point out that many demographically common schools neglect or even betray multicultural ideals, while many restricted entry and even segregated schools may express them better than most comprehensive and integrated schools. I end, therefore, by arguing that while multicultural education and common schooling do intuitively stand for similar, mutually reinforcing ideals, in practice they may be linked more closely in the confusions and dilemmas of implementation they both raise than in their concrete mutual realisation. I COMMON SCHOOLING IS INSTRUMENTAL FOR MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

Sonia Nieto and Patty Bode define multicultural education as follows: Multicultural education is a process of comprehensive school reform and basic education for all students. It challenges and rejects racism and other forms of discrimination in schools and society and accepts and affirms the pluralism . . . that students, their communities, and teachers reflect. Multicultural education permeates schools’ curriculum and instructional strategies as well as the interactions among teachers, students, and families and the very way that schools conceptualize the nature of teaching and learning. Because it uses critical pedagogy as its underlying philosophy and focuses on knowledge, reflection, and action (praxis) as the basis for social change, multicultural education promotes democratic principles of social justice (Nieto and Bode, 2007, p. 44).

Given this definition, it is easy to imagine how and why common schools might be instrumentally necessary, or at least useful, in realising multicultural ideals. As Pring shows us in his opening essay, for example, common schools in England represent a truly ‘comprehensive’

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(in both senses of the word) school reform in comparison to the selective schools they replaced. As common schools instead of just curricula or programs, they both symbolically and practically represent wholeschool reform; to switch from selective schooling to common schooling is necessarily to change the character and practices of the school itself. Furthermore, common schools in the comprehensive model both welcome and attempt to serve a diverse body of learners and teachers; they are committed at least in theory to the educational success of all children, not just a select group. In the United States especially, too, they were founded with explicit civic and democratic purposes (see Macedo, 2000; Tyack, 2003; Reuben, 2005), just as multicultural education aims for democratic equality, justice and common civic membership. In all of these ways, then, common or comprehensive schools (I shall use the terms interchangeably) may be understood as working in tandem with multicultural education. And, it makes sense to think of multicultural education as setting the ends for which common schools may be thought of as an instrumental means. As Terence McLaughlin puts it, ‘The ‘‘common school’’ is regarded as valuable not as an end in itself but to the extent that it is an appropriate context for the realization of the underlying conception of common education’ (McLaughlin, 2003, p. 124). Selective and/or segregated schools, by contrast, may understandably be seen as an inappropriate context for realising multicultural goals. When we probe more deeply, however, and think especially about issues of pedagogy and socialisation, then I think that common schools’ instrumental relationship with multicultural education becomes much more problematic. Consider one incontrovertible aim of multicultural education, that of fostering all students’ learning and academic achievement, so that ‘students from different racial, cultural, language and social-class groups will experience equal educational opportunities . . . [and] equal status in the culture and life of the school’ (James A. Banks, ‘Series Introduction’, in Sleeter, 2005, p. viii). Many educational researchers have advocated ‘culturally congruent’ (Gay, 2000) or ‘culturally relevant’ (Ladson-Billings, 1994) teaching as an essential means for accomplishing this. ‘Pedagogical equality that reflects culturally sensitive instructional strategies is a precondition for and a means of achieving maximal academic outcomes for culturally diverse students’ (Gay, 1995, p. 28). The argument here is that students come in to the school with certain ways of thinking, speaking, interacting with adults and relating to peers, as well as certain sources and types of knowledge, interests, skills, norms and beliefs. Kevin, for example, a twelve year-old white student who lives on the farm his grandparents started, may already know how to drive a car and repair a fence, expect in school to be given both substantial responsibilities and substantial freedom as he has on the farm, challenge his teacher and complain to his parents whenever he feels wronged and think that value resides in deeds not words, just as his parents have taught him. He also may love videogames and IMing with his friends. Yasmin, a twelve year-old Dominican student who lives in a city,

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may know three different languages thanks to her family’s frequent albeit involuntary moves, be restricted to playing inside to avoid the violence in her neighbourhood, assume that her job in school is to follow teachers’ orders without question, have extensive experience caring for young children and think that value resides in storytelling and relationships, just as her parents have taught her. She also may love videogames and IMing with her friends. For Kevin and Yasmin to feel comfortable and welcome in school, to gain knowledge and skills they do not have, and to have the opportunity to demonstrate and build on knowledge and skills they do have, they will need schools and teachers who are responsive to and inclusive of these differences (as well as their similarities). Culturally relevant instructional strategies may—and must—therefore take multiple forms: being aware of what feels ‘natural’ to students and responding appropriately, whether it be with respect to how students tell a story or make an argument, how they address people in authority, whom they view as being in authority, how they interpret and answer questions, or how they respond in cases of potential or apparent conflict; explicitly helping students master the ‘language of power’ while remaining confident and comfortable with their own languages or linguistic practices (Delpit, 1995; Levinson, 2003); incorporating cultural symbols or resources from students’ lives and cultures into the class as intrinsic components of the curriculum, not just add-ons (Ladson-Billings, 1994); creating opportunities for students to use and share their own expertise in school so that they do not feel ‘ignorant’ or disrespected; reaching out to parents and other family members in ways that build productive relationships as opposed to misunderstandings or hard feelings; and teaching students what they need to know to be emotionally, academically, economically and politically successful in the 21st century. As this description suggests, culturally relevant teaching is challenging— especially if the student body is quite diverse. If students’ incoming backgrounds, norms and experiences are fairly homogeneous, then educators can relatively easily adjust their curriculum and practices to capitalise on their students’ strengths and meet their students’ needs. A school full of students like Kevin, for example, might ground each instructional unit in a challenging, real-world problem that students are responsible for solving in small groups, explain clearly when and why rules are in place to limit students’ freedom, use examples from driving and farming as the basis for word problems in math class, proactively reach out to parents as educational partners and explicitly teach students how and why clear, fluent, verbal communication is essential for success and hence required through frequent discussion, debate and in-class presentations. A school full of students like Yasmin may take a very different approach because of her (and her peers’) different backgrounds, strengths and needs. In both cases, however, the school can establish a school culture, adopt pedagogies, incorporate content and set policies that are culturally responsive and help students learn and thrive. If the student body is extremely diverse, on the other hand, then such culturally responsive schooling is much harder to achieve. Teachers,

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schools and educational authorities can only do so much to incorporate and respond to each student’s background knowledge, skills, attitudes, beliefs, norms, aspirations and needs. Hence, to the extent that educational equity is a central goal of multicultural education, and that this necessitates culturally congruent/relevant teaching, then selective schools that are culturally restricted or even segregated may actually be more conducive to successful multicultural education—at least as defined by cultural congruence and students’ educational attainment—than are common schools that are culturally inclusive and integrated. (See Levinson, 2003, for a related argument.) This may help explain, in fact, why many advocates of high quality education for poor, immigrant and/or ‘minority’ children have actually reduced or even ended their efforts to integrate schools, both calling for resources to be directed instead toward improving the de facto segregated schools these students often attend and also commending the often unacknowledged strengths that historically segregated schools may have demonstrated (Massey and Denton, 1993; Ladson-Billings, 1994; Siddle Walker, 1996; Public Agenda Foundation, 1998; Hochschild and Scovronick, 2003; Levinson, 2007; see also Foster, 1997). Common schools may also impede the achievement of other basic aims of multicultural education: namely, the achievement of mutual toleration, respect and trust that are necessary preconditions for common civic membership, political cooperation and democratic equality. I acknowledge that this claim is counterintuitive, to say the least. What better way is there for young people (and the adult citizens they grow into) to become ‘used to’ each other (Appiah, 2006, p. 71) than to attend school with diverse ‘others’ (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew and Tropp, 2000)? As I myself have argued, ‘it is hard for students to learn to be mutually tolerant and respectful of other people, traditions and ways of life unless they are actually exposed to them. It is not enough to talk about tolerating others within the safety of mutually reinforcing, homogeneous groups’ (Levinson, 1999, p. 114). Nonetheless, there are reasons to think that common schools may not be instrumentally sufficient, necessary, or even useful for promoting these aims. First, common schools that are not conscientious about and effective in building tolerant, mutually respectful, cooperative and egalitarian relationships among its members can readily end up exacerbating tensions and prejudices rather than resolving or eliminating them. Merely bringing people together into a common space does nothing to help them get along and in fact may inflame existing tensions as children (or adults) find themselves in close proximity with mistrusted, threatening, or even detested ‘others’. Sadly, there is no shortage of examples of racially- or ethnically-motivated fights and even ‘race riots’ in diverse comprehensive schools (and prisons—another public institution that brings diverse groups together often with little plan for fostering mutual respect). This anecdotal evidence—which in itself demonstrates that common schools are not instrumentally sufficient for achieving the multicultural aims listed above—is buttressed by a wealth of empirical analysis showing that

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‘the more we are brought into physical proximity with people of another race or ethnic background, the more we stick to ‘‘our own’’ and the less we trust the ‘‘other’’’ (see the lengthy list of references in Putnam, 2007, p. 142). Second, recent empirical evidence suggests that the mere experience of living in a diverse community—and also, one may hypothesise, of being educated in a diverse setting—may reduce all residents’ civic engagement, trust, altruism, political efficacy, commitments to social justice and realisation of other, similar aims of multicultural education. In this case, it is not just trust of diverse ‘others’ that is negatively impacted. Based on his analysis of a massive survey of 30,000 Americans across 41 communities, Robert Putnam argues, ‘inhabitants of diverse communities tend to withdraw from collective life, to distrust their neighbours, regardless of the colour of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more, but have less faith that they can actually make a difference and to huddle unhappily in front of the television’ (Putnam, 2007, pp. 150–151). If Putnam is right, then not only may diversity not be sufficient but homogeneity might actually be necessary for the realisation of the multicultural aims listed above. On the other hand, of course, living in diverse communities and being educated in diverse common schools are very different experiences. It is quite plausible to think that common schools that treat diversity as an active good could not only avoid the negative outcomes that Putnam and others highlight but actually reverse these effects. In other words, thoughtful, intentional common schools might help transform students’ experiences in their diverse communities into a good that leads them to become more engaged, trusting and efficacious rather than less. I think this is a reasonable idea and certainly a laudable aspiration. At best, however, this shows that common schools have the potential to be helpful, not that they necessarily are, or even that they are likely to be more helpful than homogeneous schools. Third, common schools may impede students’ development of mutual respect and deep cross-cultural understanding insofar as their visible sources of diversity may lead to complacency, whereby other sources of both diversity and homogeneity go unrecognised and unacknowledged. Consider, for example, a fairly typical school in San Francisco Unified School District: Alamo Elementary School. In October 2006 it had a student population that was about 44 percent Chinese, 20 percent nonLatino white, 13 percent ‘Other Non-White’ (in this case meaning primarily Samoan), 5 percent Latino, 4 percent Japanese, 3 percent Filipino, 1 percent Korean, 1 percent African-American, 0.2 percent American Indian and 11 percent unidentified. About one-quarter of the students are classified as English Language Learners, and a little over 31 percent qualify for free or reduced-priced lunch (San Francisco Unified School District, 2006). This is an extremely diverse school by many measures and also apparently a popular one: it gets a 10/10 rating and

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uniformly positive comments from parents on the ‘GreatSchools.net’ website (GreatSchools.net, 2007). I imagine that students, parents and teachers take pride in Alamo’s diversity and inclusiveness in addition to its many other fine qualities, and I would guess that teachers go to some effort to incorporate students’ cultural backgrounds into their curriculum and pedagogical practices. One could imagine multicultural days in which students are encouraged to share or demonstrate special cultural practices, classroom libraries that include books of Mexican and Samoan folk tales, an interdisciplinary social studies and art unit that focuses on geography and scroll paintings in China, multilingual school publications, a genre study in literature that culminates with students’ writing and ‘publishing’ a biography of a relative, and many other thoughtful and well-planned approaches to recognising and incorporating the diversity of ethnicities, cultures, languages and family histories represented at the school.1 In the effort to be inclusive of the many cultures in the school, however, teachers may predictably neglect the many cultures, ethnicities, nations, religions and so forth who are not in the school. In the presence of so much visible diversity, it can be difficult to focus on Others who are not represented—say, African-Americans, South Africans, Iraqis, Swedes, or Muslims—as well as those who are potentially invisible, such as atheists or gays (well, outside San Francisco at least . . . ). One cannot teach everything, of course, and I am certainly not advocating that Alamo Elementary try to cover all countries, continents, religions, sexual orientations, etc. That would be a recipe for educational incoherence. But it is a real danger in diverse common schools that teachers and students become complacent about their inclusivity. They fail to think about whether the groups they choose to focus on because they are represented in the building are the most significant ones for students to learn about—should American elementary school students in 2007 really know more about Samoa, for example, than about the Middle East?—and on the educational implications of neglecting certain kinds of diversity altogether, such as religion (Levinson and Levinson, 2003) or ability. (Fewer than 7 percent of Alamo students are designated as needing special education.) Furthermore, insofar as multicultural curricula are shaped around the ‘cultures’ present in the school, students and teachers may end up treating each other as cultural representatives (Pollock, 2004): turning to the Filipino students for the ‘Filipino perspective’ on a topic, or to the African-American child for the ‘black perspective’—even if she is a ten year-old from California and the issue at hand is postcolonial Africa or the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s. Even if educators are attentive to this danger, they may still teach about cultures or groups in such a way as to establish expectations of what is ‘normal’, what members of this group are ‘supposed to’ believe, do, or take pride in. As Anthony Appiah notes in this regard, ‘What demanding respect for people as blacks or as gays requires is that there be some scripts that go with being an African-American or having same-sex desires. There will be proper

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ways of being black and gay: there will be expectations to be met; demands will be made’ (Appiah and Gutmann, 1996, p. 99). Diverse schools will not necessarily succumb to these faults, of course, but they are prone to them. In this respect too, therefore, common schools may fail to help students become respectful of and knowledgeable about ‘others’, and thus fail to realise this fundamental aim of multicultural education. Diverse common schools are thus not necessarily instrumental for multicultural education and may in some circumstances impede the achievement of multicultural goals. The diversity of the student body poses multiple challenges for designing and implementing culturally relevant curricula, pedagogies, institutions and family and community outreach. In bringing diverse groups together, common schools may exacerbate tensions, misunderstandings, or worse, among members of these groups as opposed to fostering toleration and mutual respect. Common schools may do such a good job of attending to the visible diversity on campus that they discount or ignore important sources of diversity that are either not represented in the school or are invisible to the naked eye. Common schools may also respond to the visible diversity by treating students and teachers as ‘race (or culture) representatives’, essentialising individuals and/or the groups to which they belong. Common schools do not have to do any of these things, of course; it is not that they are necessarily inimical to the realisation of multicultural ideals. But it would be misguided to think that common schools are necessary or even predictably useful for achieving the goals of multicultural education. II MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION IS INSTRUMENTAL FOR COMMON SCHOOLING

Perhaps, therefore, the relationship goes the other way. If common schools are not instrumental for multicultural education, maybe multicultural education is instrumental for common schooling. Many of the multicultural failures of common schools that I described above, after all, might be taken instead to be failures to implement appropriate multicultural education. Common schools (and selective schools, for that matter) may end up failing to teach in a culturally congruent manner, essentialising particular cultures, neglecting the importance of groups who do not happen to be represented in the school, or getting caught up in ‘celebrations’ of the visible aspects of culture to the exclusion of such invisible aspects as beliefs and values as well potentially invisible groups such as sexual minorities and the disabled. In fact, they are likely to do so—which is exactly why good multicultural education is so important. James Banks, one of the most prominent US theorists of multicultural education, argues: To implement multicultural education effectively, teachers and administrators must attend to each of the five dimensions of multicultural

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education. They should use content from diverse groups when teaching concepts and skills, help students to understand how knowledge in the various disciplines is constructed, help students to develop positive intergroup attitudes and behaviors, and modify their teaching strategies so that students from different racial, cultural, language, and social-class groups will experience equal educational opportunities. The total environment and culture of the school must also be transformed so that students from diverse groups will experience equal status in the culture and life of the school (James A. Banks, ‘Series Introduction’, in Sleeter, 2005, p. viii).

It seems fairly uncontroversial to say that a school that does this would be a great school—and would also be unlikely to succumb to many of the dangers discussed in section I. Hence, multicultural education might well be thought of as instrumental, even necessary, for realising the aims of comprehensive education. Multicultural education serves common schools, rather than vice versa. This argument has some merit—but that is at least partly because the relationship between multicultural education and good education has been circularly defined into existence: Successful comprehensive schools (and all other schools, too) are those in which all children are given equal and excellent educational opportunities; multicultural education is that which enables schools to teach children equally and equitably so that they all learn and achieve; therefore, multicultural education is essential for successful comprehensive schools (and all other schools, too). Well, okay. But this does not tell us anything about multicultural education as such. It is revealing in this context to look at how definitions of ‘multicultural education’ have changed over time. When advocates and theorists of multicultural education were first trying to characterise what multicultural (or originally ‘intergroup’ and then ‘intercultural’) education meant, they tended to focus on curricular accuracy and inclusiveness (Banks, 1993). In the United States, for example, multicultural educators mounted challenges to the overtly racist depictions of African-Americans in textbooks, challenging the depictions of ‘happy slaves’, Little Black Sambo, the KKK as ‘saviour’ of the South and so forth (Zimmerman, 2004); they also pressed for the inclusion of more examples that ‘properly present the contribution of the Negro to American culture’ (Zimmerman, 2002, p. 112) and eventually of other demeaned and/or neglected groups as well (e.g. Native Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans and women) (Banks, 1975). Over time, however, it became clear that inclusiveness was not enough. One could add numerous cultural fairs to the school calendar and sidebars to textbooks, but still fail to educate all children in an appropriate and equal fashion. Thus, as Banks explains the history, A second phase of multicultural education emerged when educators interested in ethnic studies began to realize that inserting ethnic studies content into the school and teacher education curricula was necessary but not sufficient to bring about school reform that would respond to the unique needs of ethnic minority students and help all students to develop

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more democratic racial and ethnic attitudes. Multiethnic education, the second phase of multicultural education, emerged. Its aim was to bring about structural and systemic changes in the total school that were designed to increase educational equality (Banks, 1993, p. 20).

So definitions of multicultural education changed with the times. By the 1990s, American theorists of multicultural education were emphasising the importance of ‘social reconstruction’ (Grant and Sleeter, 1999) in order to overturn racism, discrimination and power inequities. In 2001, for example, Banks argued that a primary goal of multicultural education must be ‘to help students acquire the knowledge, values and skills they need to participate in social change so that victimised and excluded ethnic and racial groups can become full participants in U.S. society and so the nation will move closer to attaining its democratic ideals’ (Banks, 2001, p. 236). In the past five years, with the federal No Child Left Behind law focusing attention on the ‘achievement gap’ among students of different races, ethnicities, socioeconomic status and special needs, multicultural education theorists have shifted again. It is not that they have abandoned their goals of restructuring society with multiculturally-oriented teachers’ functioning as ‘agents of social change’ (Banks, 2001, p. 236). After all, Nieto and Bode’s 2007 definition of multicultural education, quoted at the beginning of section I, clearly includes commitments to ‘comprehensive school reform’, ‘social change’, and ‘democratic principles of social justice’. But these definitions are now generally framed within an entirely egalitarian framework. Thus Nieto and Bode start their section on the goals of multicultural education with the statement that No educational philosophy or program is worthwhile unless it focuses on three primary concerns:  Tackling inequality and promoting access to an equal education  Raising the achievement of all students and providing them with an equitable and high-quality education  Giving students an apprenticeship in the opportunity to become critical and productive members of a democratic society (Nieto and Bode, 2007, p. 10). This strikes me as being right, and it certainly upholds the historic and present goals of most advocates of common schools. But when one combines these goals with the definition of multicultural education quoted at top, it is entirely unclear what work the ‘multicultural’ part of ‘multicultural education’ is actually doing. Similarly, James and Cherry Banks’ most recent definition of multicultural education is: ‘a field of study designed to increase educational equity for all students that incorporates, for this purpose, content, concepts, principles, theories and paradigms from history, the social and behavioural sciences, and particularly from ethnic studies and women’s studies’ (Banks and Banks,

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2004, p. xii). Again, it is unclear what work the ‘ethnic’ and ‘women’s studies’ is doing here beyond serving as window dressing. What if, for example, evidence from the social and behavioural sciences shows that educational equity is most effectively and efficiently achieved when schools set clear high standards, assess students frequently to measure their progress toward achieving the standards and apply research-based instructional practices to address identified student needs—regardless of the insights that ethnic and women’s studies have to offer? If a comprehensive school implemented these approaches and its students achieved at high and equitable levels, it is hard to understand what additional pull multicultural education would exert, or what it would have to add. Multicultural education has become a handmaiden to educational equity, not a distinctive enterprise in its own right. Thus, although it may be correct to view multicultural education as instrumental, and even necessary, for the success of common schools, this is only because its aims and practices have become definitionally indistinguishable from those of the common school in general.

III COMMON SCHOOLING EXPRESSES THE MULTICULTURAL IDEAL

If common schools are not instrumental for multicultural education, and multicultural education is not instrumental for common schooling beyond its being definitionally posited as such, then perhaps the relationship is expressive instead. On this reading, even if (let’s say) common schools are no more effective than selective/segregated schools at achieving multicultural education’s goals, they are still important public expressions of our common commitment to these goals. Common schools stand as explicit, public symbols of our civic commitment to diversity, mutual respect, social justice, equality and solidarity. We see their success as something for all of us to celebrate because common schools represent our nation writ small and our goals writ large. Their achievements are a source of common pride. Similarly, when comprehensive schools fail—when there is vast inequity in students’ educational achievement, when students’ race and school suspension and exclusion rates track each other all too closely, or when students emerge apathetic about social justice and indifferent to demanding claims of solidarity with Others—this failure shames us as a nation. Their failure is our common failure. From this perspective, it is crucial that we maintain comprehensive schools and strive for their success despite the challenges they pose because they serve as public expressions and reminders of our common civic values, goading us toward their achievement. (See Wingo, 2003, for an insightful discussion of the civic functions of public symbols, including schools.) I find this to be a compelling argument, up to a point. Public (state) schools do represent in important symbolic as well as practical ways the public’s aspirational view of itself: who is included and excluded, what values and virtues are taught and expressed, what kind of community we think we are and hope to become. This is, of course, one major reason that

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public schools are such politically contested domains. So if public schools are ‘common’ comprehensive schools, if their comprehensive status is understood to express a set of common multicultural values (such as diversity, mutual respect and equality of opportunity), and if the public feels a sense of shame when these schools fail to realise these values in practice and a sense of pride when they do, then I would agree that common schools are expressive of the multicultural ideal. But these are three big ‘ifs’. Let me address them in reverse order. First, all too often the public does not actually feel ownership of or responsibility for public schools. When schools are judged as failures, politicians, journalists, other professionals and citizens heap blame upon educators (most frequently teachers) and sometimes on ‘those’ parents and students, as well. Many educators do this too, as Lisa Delpit eloquently explains in Other People’s Children (Delpit, 1995); unfortunately, not even all teachers and administrators feel the sense of ownership—and accompanying pride and shame—that we might wish for. In any case, when comprehensive school failure is seen as an occasion for blaming Others rather than for questioning and challenging ourselves as a community, then I think common schools are not actually serving an expressive function. Members of the public do not see these schools as demonstrative of the community’s strengths, weaknesses, values, commitments and aspirations, in which case these schools are solely instrumental—tools to achieve certain ends—as opposed to expressive. Furthermore, if or as failure mounts, even the ideals may start to seem more alien and hence be more easily disavowed. Instead of simply blaming teachers for failing to teach, for example, citizens may start to blame the goals themselves, questioning the very purpose and aims of both multicultural and comprehensive education. Second, if common schools are lauded merely for expressing multicultural ideals, rather than for actually achieving them, then there may be a risk of complacency similar to that which I discussed in section I. As schools ‘celebrate’ their diversity—the number of languages their students speak at home, the number of countries their parents immigrated from and so forth—they may neglect to consider whether they are actually achieving the challenging aims of multicultural education. Are students mastering ‘disciplinary knowledge resources from vantage points of multiple communities’ (Sleeter, 2005, p. 15)? Do they consider the social justice implications of their actions? Do students know how to evaluate the normative implications of their actions and of those around them? Are they equipped to consider arguments, aesthetic creations, or cultural practices from multiple perspectives? Do they actually do so? My concern is that if the expressive function is taken as the entirety of the functional relationship between common schooling and multicultural education, then this celebration of the symbolic may in fact supplant the practical realisation of multicultural ideals. Third, equating the nonselective public school with the common school, and then equating the common school with the expression of the multicultural ideal, can distract one from the multicultural possibilities

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and pitfalls of nonselective and public, but de facto segregated, schools. This is an increasing problem throughout the United States and Europe (and likely elsewhere as well). In the US, one-third of black and Latino students overall, and over half of the black students in the Northeast, attend schools that have a 90–100 percent minority student population, while the average white students attends a school that is almost 80 percent white; these percentages have increased significantly over the past 15 years (Orfield and Lee, 2006; see also Orfield, Eaton et al., 1996; Orfield, 2001, Tables 14 and 18). Students are also segregated by class; for example, over 70 percent of the three million students in the four largest US school districts qualify for free or reduced price lunch (Dalton et al., 2006, Table A-9; US Department of Education and National Center for Education Statistics, 2002, p. Table 9), while many suburban school districts serve few poor children, as well as almost exclusively white students. School segregation is on the rise in Europe, as well (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2007, Chapter 5). In England, ‘Segregation is now so extreme in some schools that there is not much further it can go’ (Cowell, 2006), with both white and non-white students attending schools that are substantially more segregated than would be predicted by their percentages of the population even at the local level (Johnston et al., 2004). In Holland, schools have become increasingly segregated not only by religion (which has been true for decades) but also by social class and most recently by ethnic origin (Karsten et al., 2006). Roma students throughout Europe, Turkish students in Germany, North African students in France, and immigrant students and asylum seekers in many countries also frequently attend schools with a high degree of segregation—as do their white counterparts (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2007, Chapter 5). Thus, it is important to recognise that many schools may be state-supported (public) and non-selective, and hence in theory ‘common’, but still neither include nor represent (or ‘express’) the diverse population. Even if they decry the existence of these schools, those who care about multicultural education also need to take them into account, especially since by all indications their numbers will be increasing in upcoming decades. If the ‘common’ public school is assumed to be diverse and hence expressive of multicultural ideals, then the challenges (as well as the opportunities) that de facto segregated schools face in realising effective multicultural education will likely be neglected, to everyone’s detriment.

IV MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION AND COMMON SCHOOLING FACE SIMILAR CHALLENGES

I have been using ‘common schools’ and ‘multicultural education’ in this chapter as if they have clear, accepted meanings as well as aims. This is not true, of course. In fact, I would suggest that some of the possible inconsistencies and/or contradictions between common schools and multicultural education that I have raised either derive from or are

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expressive of lack of clarity about the scope and substance of these two ideas. This is not to suggest that if I had been clearer earlier on, many of these problems would have resolved themselves. To the contrary, I think that these conundra are built into the concepts of both common schooling and multicultural education. It is in the identification of these conundra, in fact, that we may gain the clearest understanding about what the relationship is between multicultural education and common schooling: not instrumental, nor expressive, but linked by the challenges they both face. I do not have room in this chapter even to describe (let alone address) these challenges in a way that does them justice, but I think it is worth at least sketching out a few to indicate where the dilemmas lie. First, I suggest that both common schools and multicultural education are challenged by the dilemma of how to define the relevant community. How can and should each measure and address ‘diversity’ and ‘difference’? What ‘groups’ are treated as important in taking these measures—race, ethnicity, gender, class, nation, education level, immigration status, historical status, caste, primary language, religion. . .—and whose definitions of these groups applies? Also, even once groups are defined, how does one determine the scope of the relevant community? In determining how ‘common’ a school truly is, should one compare the population of the school with the population of the local neighborhood? Across the city or county? Across the nation? Across the world? To whom is the common school responsible: students, parents, local residents, the nation, the world? Identical questions arise in determining what community multicultural education should prepare students to enter— and to help create. Second, common schools and multicultural education each are defined by a set of practices as well as a set of goals. In both cases, the specifics are hotly contested among theorists: Can common schools be religious? What should multicultural education do or say about sexist or racist practices within particular cultures? How does one weigh the goals of antiracism education versus education for social mobility in determining the purpose of common schools or multicultural education? There are no easy answers to these questions, even if there are plausible stands that one may take. Furthermore, these practices and goals may stand in tension with one another. I suggested in section II that multicultural education suffers this problem with regard to ‘ethnic studies’; if students achieve equal and demanding educational outcomes and emerge committed to social justice without their curricula or teacher’s pedagogies having been influenced by ‘ethnic studies,’ for example, then could advocates of multicultural education object? Would this be multicultural education, despite its failing to include recognisable multicultural practices? Similarly, a school may ‘look like’ a common school (practice open enrolment, include a diverse student body across a range of measures, etc.) but fail to realise the goals of achieving high student achievement levels, an inclusive and respectful community committed to social justice and ‘visibility’ for each child. Is such a school appropriately understood to be a ‘common school’? If a private, highly selective, highly homogeneous

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school did achieve these goals, would it be more or less ‘common’ than the first? Which school would be more admirable from the perspective of advocates of common schooling? Finally, common schools and multicultural education face the same dilemmas regarding means-end breakdowns. If there is compelling evidence that comprehensive school reform is likely to lead to massive ‘white flight’ (or ‘rich flight’) to private schools, for example, then what should comprehensive school advocates do? If overt challenges to institutional racism lead students and parents to reject the whole idea of ‘multicultural education’ and provoke protests against ‘radical’ teachers and schools, then what should advocates of multicultural education do? Because common schools and multicultural education both seem to rely on the presence of a certain kind of community—diverse, inclusive—in order to create of a new one—egalitarian, mutually respectful, civically engaged and justice-oriented—they are especially challenged by this breakdown. In this way, as in the others, common schools and multicultural education are linked possibly more by the dilemmas they face than by anything else. Common schooling and multicultural education are thus fraught with conceptual and practical predicaments that challenge each enterprise independently as well as in relation to one another. This fact should not call into question the ultimate value of their common goals. Equal educational outcomes for all students regardless of background, promotion of civic equality and social justice, respect for diversity, the production of civically motivated and engaged students, an end to racism, sexism, ableism and other inappropriate forms of prejudice and discrimination— these goals of common schooling and multicultural education remain compelling and inspiring for many philosophers and educators, myself included. In deference to the importance of these goals, however, we should be hyper-attentive to the challenges of their realisation, especially with regard to the relationship between common or comprehensive schooling and multicultural education. Neither one is a panacea for achieving the other; more to the point, each may actually make the other harder to achieve under certain circumstances. Although it is probably worth continuing to aim for their mutual realisation—as I said in section II, it is hard for me to imagine a more desirable school or educational setting than one that simultaneously serves a diverse student body and attains the goals listed above—it is crucial that we remain attuned to the potential conflicts between common schooling and multicultural education, and not automatically assume that the one will enable or even assist in the attainment of the other.

NOTE 1. I am also happy to imagine that Alamo engages in other culturally responsive practices, including reaching out to parents in a variety of ways, publishing the weekly newsletter in four different languages, ensuring the presence of translators at all parent–teacher conferences and school

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assemblies, explicitly teaching students the ‘language of power’ and so forth. These practices, while incredibly important, are unrelated to the argument I am making here.

REFERENCES Allport, G. W. (1954) The Nature of Prejudice (Cambridge, MA, Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.). Appiah, K. A. (2006) Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (New York, W.W. Norton). Appiah, K. A. and Gutmann, A. (1996) Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press). Banks, J. A. (1975) Teaching Strategies for Ethnic Studies (Boston, Allyn and Bacon). Banks, J. A. (1993) Multicultural Education: Historical Development, Dimensions, and Practice, Review of Research in Education, 19, pp. 3–49. Banks, J. A. (2001) Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform. Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives, 4th edn. J. A. Banks and C. A. M. Banks, eds (New York, John Wiley and Sons, Inc.) pp. 225–246. Banks, J. A. and Banks, C. A. M. (2004) Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass). Cowell, A. (2006) Islamic Schools Test Ideal of Integration in Britain, International Herald Tribune, October 15. Available online at http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/15/europe/ web.1015muslims.php Dalton, B., Sable, J. and Hoffman, L. (2006) Characteristics of the 100 Largest Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts in the United States: 2003–04 (NCES 2006-329) (Washington, DC, US Department of Education). Delpit, L. (1995) Other People’s Children (New York, The New Press). European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights [FRA] (2007) Report on Racism and Xenophobia in the Member States of the EU. Available in pdf format online at: http://fra.europa.eu/fra/index. php?fuseaction=content.dsp_cat_content&catid=3fb38ad3e22bb&contentid=46d3ce2da38d9 Foster, M. (1997) Black Teachers on Teaching (New York, The New Press). Gay, G. (1995) Curriculum Theory and Multicultural Education, in: J. A. Banks and C. A. M. Banks (eds) Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education (New York, Simon & Schuster Macmillan) pp. 25–41. Gay, G. (2000) Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice (New York, Teachers College Press). Grant, C. A. and Sleeter, C. E. (1999) Making Choices for Multicultural Education: Five Approaches to Race, Class, and Gender, 3rd edn. (New York, Wiley and Sons, Inc.). GreatSchools.net. (2007) Alamo Elementary School—San Francisco, California—CA—School Overview. Retrieved November 3, 2007, available online at: http://www.greatschools.net/ modperl/browse_school/ca/6335. Hochschild, J. and N. Scovronick (2003) The American Dream and the Public Schools (New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press). Johnston, R., Wilson, D. and Burgess, S. (2004) School Segregation in Multiethnic England, Ethnicities, 4.2, pp. 237–265. Karsten, S., Felix, C., Ledoux, G., Meijnen, W., Roeleveld, J. and Van Schooten, E. (2006) Choosing Segregation or Integration? The Extent and Effects of Ethnic Segregation in Dutch Cities, Education and Urban Society, 38.2, pp. 228–247. Ladson-Billings, G. (1994) The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass). Levinson, M. (1999) The Demands of Liberal Education (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Levinson, M. (2003) Challenging Deliberation, Theory and Research in Education, 1.1, pp. 23–49. Levinson, M. (2007) Hearing Voices, Telling Stories: Communal Constructions of Civic Identity. Unpublished manuscript (work in progress). Levinson, M. and Levinson, S. (2003) ‘Getting Religion’: Religion, Diversity, and Community in Public and Private Schools, in: A. Wolfe (ed.) School Choice: The Moral Debate (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press).

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Macedo, S. (2000) Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). Massey, D. S. and Denton, N. A. (1993) American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). McLaughlin, T. H. (2003) The Burdens and Dilemmas of Common Schooling, in: W. Feinberg and K. McDonough (eds) Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies: Teaching for Cosmopolitan Values and Collective Identities (New York, Oxford University Press) pp. 121–156. Nieto, S. and Bode, P. (2007) Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education (Boston, Allyn and Bacon). Orfield, G. (2001) Schools More Separate: Consequences of a Decade of Resegregation (Cambridge, MA, The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University). Orfield, G. and Eaton, S. and the Harvard Project on School Desegregation (1996) Dismantling Desegregation: The Quiet Reversal of Brown v. Board of Education (New York, The New Press). Orfield, G. and Lee, C. (2006) Racial Transformation and the Changing Nature of Segregation (Cambridge, MA, The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University). Pettigrew, T. F. and Tropp, L. R. (2000) Does Intergroup Contact Reduce Prejudice? Recent MetaAnalytic Findings, in: S. Oskamp (ed.) Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination. Claremont Symposium on Applied Social Psychology (Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), pp. 93–114. Pollock, M. (2004) Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press). Public Agenda Foundation (1998) Time to Move On (New York, Public Agenda). Putnam, R. D. (2007) E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century—The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture, Scandinavian Political Studies, 30.2, pp. 137–174. Reuben, J. (2005) Patriotic Purposes: Public Schools and the Education of Citizens, in: S. Fuhrman and M. Lazerson (eds) The Public Schools (Oxford, Oxford University Press) pp. 1–24. San Francisco Unified School District (2006) SFUSD Profile 2006–07: Alamo ES. Retrieved November 2, 2007, available online at: http://orb.sfusd.edu/profile/prfl-413.htm. Siddle Walker, V. (1996) Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South (Chapel Hill, NC, University of North Carolina Press). Sleeter, C. E. (2005) Un-Standardizing Curriculum: Multicultural Teaching in the StandardsBased Classroom (New York, Teachers College Press). Tyack, D. (2003) Seeking Common Ground: Public Schools in a Diverse Society (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). US Department of Education and National Center for Education Statistics (2002) Characteristics of the 100 Largest Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts in the United States: 2000–01 (Washington, DC, National Center for Education Statistics). Wingo, A. H. (2003) Veil Politics in Liberal Democratic States (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Zimmerman, J. (2002) Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). Zimmerman, J. (2004) Brown-ing the American Textbook: History, Psychology, and the Origins of Modern Multiculturalism, History of Education Quarterly, 44.1, pp. 46–69.

9 What Not To Wear: Dress Codes and Uniform Policies in the Common School DIANNE GERELUK

INTRODUCTION

The restriction of dress in schools is not new. Students and teachers alike have always had restrictions on what is appropriate and inappropriate dress. Virtually with no exception, schools have minimum dress codes in place: rules about what cannot be worn at school. Uniform policies state explicitly what must be worn in schools. And while this is common practice across schools in many countries, what is controversial is whether and to what extent school pupils should be allowed to wear symbolic clothing. France has arguably had the most media attention in this respect as a result of its 2004 legislation banning all ostentatious religious symbols in schools. Yet various countries have increasingly had contentious debates about whether symbolic clothing should be allowed in schools and, more generally, in the public sphere. It is apparent that the broader issue of symbolic clothing is not peculiar to France, but a matter of growing international concern—one charged with emotion and sensitivity. Schools shoulder much of the burden in trying to maintain the delicate balance between celebrating diversity, on the one hand, and instilling a cohesive shared ethos, on the other. To what extent can or should schools promote the kind of diversity that is reflective of the broader society? If clothing is a significant part of some individuals’ identity, are schools obliged to accommodate their requests and alter established uniform policies? By allowing certain exemptions to some individuals and groups, do schools privilege some affiliations and associations over others? Do we also undermine other arguably important values that may be linked to the existence of uniform policies? Symbolic clothing raises, then, a number of dilemmas for the common school. What is considered symbolic clothing is not without debate. I start from the position that symbolic clothing is a piece of clothing (or accessory) that signifies a part of an individual’s identity. Most commonly, symbolic clothing is tied to religious items of dress that form part of a person’s identity. The symbol may have varying levels of significance to an individual. It may be simply an outward expression of what one believes, The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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or it may be more like an essential part of one’s identity. In the latter instance, and especially where the item of clothing has religious significance, its removal may be seen as compromising a part of oneself. Symbolic clothing, however, can have a significance that is other than religious, a significance that is political or social. Wearing black may be tied to many different things. For instance, it has been connected to Goths, or to bereavement, and it may be a gesture towards the black armbands of the IRA. Similarly, wearing a piece of ‘gang wear’ is a strong symbol of allegiance to a particular group or cult. Individuals may wear a particular coloured ribbon to express their support for associations or movements, as in the case of the pink ribbon for breast cancer or ‘Make Poverty History’ wristbands. All such symbols fall under the umbrella of symbolic clothing. While I have noted three general categories of symbolic clothing— religious, political and social—the role of symbolic clothing may cross between these categories in such a way that in many cases distinctions between the three categories may not exist. In France and England, for example, the wearing of the hijab is not only a symbol of one’s particular religious affiliation: it has increasingly become a political symbol, as a sign of solidarity against the state’s decision to curtail Muslim dress in the public sphere. Moreover, the Islamic doctrine of tawhid, for example, suggests that politics like everything else exists only beneath the broad umbrella of religion.1 Widely divergent views are presented about how to deal with symbolic clothing. France’s legislation seems to be at one end of the spectrum, while Canada’s protection of ethnic minorities, with its notion of ‘reasonable accommodation’, lies at the other (Shariff, 2006).2 Other countries muddle through with widely varying views and decisions, which are often erratic and inconsistent from one case to the next. And, with very few exceptions, few guidelines are available to help educators and policy analysts to deal with these matters in a more consistent way. If guidelines are developed, as has happened in England with the initiative of the Department for Children, Schools and Families regarding symbolic dress and uniform policies (DCSF, 2007), the guidelines tend to be ambiguous, at best. Decisions regarding dress rest primarily with those who are in office at a particular time, and this is so in the cases of politicians, judges and educators. And if these people change by the time the next challenge about clothing is brought to the fore, so do the decisions about how to deal with the issue. The reasons given for banning various forms of clothing differ drastically both between and within nations, and the only thing that is clear is that there has not been a definitive way to proceed. The hodgepodge of precedents from various schools, districts, legal courts and states leaves the lay-person, the professional educator and the policymaker ill at ease about what should be done about symbolic clothing in schools. In an attempt to shed some light on this issue, I examine various justifications commonly used in banning symbolic clothing. I return to the concept of ‘reasonable accommodation’ and suggest that, by using this principle as a guideline, it is possible to reduce the numerous reasons used

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in banning clothing to four main considerations: 1) whether the clothing creates health and safety concerns; 2) whether the clothing is oppressive to oneself or to others; 3) whether the clothing significantly inhibits the educational aims of the school; and 4) whether the clothing is essential to a person’s identity. These four principles provide some basic guidelines for schools to assist them in setting the boundaries of symbolic clothing without becoming too heavy-handed and arbitrary. I begin by considering common reasons used for curtailing symbolic clothing. REASON ONE: TO PRESERVE THE PUBLIC SPHERE

France has taken the lead in preserving the civic republican tradition by banning religious symbolic clothing, although it is not the only nation to create such legislation. Turkey’s stance against headscarves, particularly in a largely Muslim country, is a direct attempt forcibly to make the country more secular (and arguably more Western) in order to parallel its counterparts in the Europe it aspires to join. Trevor Phillips’ remarks about England needing to inculcate a sense of ‘Britishness’ speak to a concern to create a stronger national identity (Phillips, 2005). Given that these are in their different ways moves towards a stronger national identity, one needs first to ask whether such an identity is desirable or possible. If it is desirable, the second question then becomes whether banning symbolic clothing will help create that identity. Let us begin with the first question. Whether one wishes to argue in favour of preserving the civic republican tradition in France, protecting secularisation in Turkey or developing a sense of ‘Britishness’ in England, what each policy seems to promote is the concept of a commonly shared identity amongst its citizenry—at least in the public sphere. The assumption is that having a common identity will help foster a more cohesive and stable society. Shared norms and values help to create this level of cohesiveness. Michael Walzer, for instance, suggests: Every substantive account of justice is a local account . . . One characteristic above all is central to my argument. We are (all of us) culture-producing creatures; we make and inhabit meaningful worlds. Since there is no way to rank and order these worlds with respect to their understanding of social goods, we do justice to men and women by respecting their particular creations . . . . Justice is rooted in the distinct understandings of places, honors, jobs, things of all sorts that constitute a shared way of life. To override those understandings is (always) to act unjustly (Walzer, 1983, p. 314).

What is central to Walzer’s argument is that shared cultural understandings rest with the political community. We understand our fellow citizens through the meanings that we share, without which we cannot come to agreement about the principles that provide the foundation for a political structure.

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The case of the Netherlands casts light on this claim. It is generally agreed that the Netherlands has held progressive political principles that reflect and underpin the shared political norms and values of its citizens. The threat to this political culture perceived by some as a result of the increasing numbers of Muslim immigrants seems to give added weight to the need to protect those shared norms and values. Ironically, the protection of its progressive political values has meant stricter legislation against the niqab for Muslim women and a conservative backlash about tightening up immigration into the country. The common criticism of Walzer’s claim is that suggesting that there is a particular political culture assumes too homogeneous a picture of culture. It silences or represses those on the fringes, whether women, ethnic minorities or children. And it paints a picture of a culture that is somewhat ossified—of a political culture that is rarely if ever challenged but rather taken for granted as the status quo. Yet Walzer’s argument for a shared political culture does resonate to some degree. It seems reasonable to suggest that a minimum level of shared values is required in order that people contribute to and abide by the political rules and regulations that govern a society. As Joseph Carens points out, Walzer does not suggest that a political community is all-encompassing. One can have a shared political culture without it assuming all of one’s cultural life. So long as we acknowledge ‘(1) some range of morally permissible implementations on any given account of the principles and (2) some range of reasonable disagreement about how to interpret the principles themselves’, we can have some sympathy for Walzer’s arguments (Carens, 2000, p. 28). The minimum threshold of a common political structure seems worth pursuing and protecting. So if we agree to a certain extent that there is value in developing a shared common identity, at least at the political level (as is argued by the French government), does it then follow that banning symbolic clothing will help in this cause? It is one thing to suggest that we wish to develop a shared political culture and that within this shared framework principles may be debated and discussed. It is another to suggest that banning symbolic clothing will be a significant factor in reducing friction amongst its citizens and in creating a more cohesive society with more shared understanding. If France provides us with any telling sign of the effects of such judgements, it is that the initial suspension of the three girls wearing headscarves only exacerbated the tension between the Muslim communities and the French government. The recent legislation against religious symbols does not appear to have brought various religious groups together under the larger political civic republican umbrella. To suggest that a neutral space can be achieved by simply removing symbolic clothing seems both naı¨ve and superficial (Gereluk, 2005). Further, it closes off an important debate in schools about how individuals can live together in an increasingly diverse and plural society. Instead, it ostracises and marginalises religious people, and in particular Muslims who have been portrayed negatively in the media, creating more tensions and hostilities. The race riots of November 2006 across France are evidence of this

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(Gereluk and Race, 2007). The focus on symbolic clothing seems both misplaced and inflammatory, and it deflects attention from the larger political discussion that needs to occur about the inequitable conditions suffered by many minority groups, whose members frequently live below the poverty line, face a greater chance of unemployment and experience discrimination on a regular basis. How can a society bring together such diverse groups of individuals when it does not tackle the inequitable and unfair treatment amongst these individuals? It is true that a debate must occur, but the debate must, if we are to come to some closer, reasonable consensus, include at its heart such issues of equality (Ramadan, 2007). Otherwise, it will perpetuate the unfair privilege enjoyed by dominant over minority groups. While banning symbolic clothing may be an easy policy to bring into law in attempting to foster the larger political culture of a society, it ignores the inequitable conditions that may be causing such tensions amongst groups. Further, in enforcing a ‘neutral’ space in schools in order to protect the political values of the society, it limits in a significant way the discussion of what it means to live in a society that combines the aspiration of a shared political community with the reality of diversity. The tension between political and cultural community is one that needs to be addressed—not swept under the carpet.

REASON TWO: SYMBOLS MAY BE OFFENSIVE

A common reason used for curtailing symbolic clothing is that it may be considered offensive. However, trying to decide what is deemed too offensive to wear delves into tricky territory when it comes to schools. The fact that girls wear the niqab may be considered offensive because they do not show their facial expressions to other people. Conversely, the girls wearing the niqab may find it offensive and humiliating to uncover their faces. Political slogans on t-shirts may offend those of a different political perspective, and yet schools may find it perfectly acceptable for girls to wear bikinis to promote school-sanctioned car-washes—something that may be found socially offensive by others (Gereluk, forthcoming, p. 70). The criteria for what is deemed offensive shifts from place to place, along with the shared norms and values of the particular community and context. Dress codes that ban certain clothing often provide some principles about the appropriateness of clothing in schools, but that too seems arbitrary. In schools, G-strings, thongs and exposed bra straps for girls, and, for boys, baseball caps, ‘hoodies’ and jeans that do not cover boxer shorts are currently on the hit list of unacceptable and offensive forms of dress. Yet again the list drastically varies from school to school and from locality to locality. Moreover, the practicalities of enforcement in schools create further complications and inconsistencies. The question of what is ‘reasonable’ is at stake here, especially when banning symbolic clothing may curtail an individual’s freedom of expression. A general consensus seems to exist that limiting freedom of

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expression is appropriate when physical harm is caused to other individuals. However, Joel Feinberg (1988) suggests that this may set the threshold too high, and he instead argues that limits can be placed on freedom of expression when that expression is offensive to other people. How that is determined may involve the consideration of a number of factors, such as the extent, duration and social value of the action in question, the ease with which it can be avoided, the motives of the agent, the number of people offended, the intensity of the offence, and the general interest of the community at large (see also van Mill, 2002). Feinberg’s offence principle may extend then to the wearing of symbolic clothing that is offensive to others. The offence principle provides some guidance in deciding the kinds of circumstances where it may be appropriate to limit freedom of expression. Yet, a grey area still exists over where exactly that line is drawn. To complicate the issue further, the parameters may change depending on the norms and behaviour of a particular community. For instance, in an Amish community girls’ skirts may be well below the knee, in accordance with the modesty required by this faith community. In another community, girls’ hemlines may follow the current fashion of knee-length or just above the knee. And in many cases, girls may not be required to wear a skirt to school. The values of the community, the number of people to whom offence might be given, and the extent of that offence, will all be factors that help to determine the appropriateness of attire. Schools have banned political t-shirts in the United States because of their offensive nature (Gereluk, 2006). Two such cases were those of Bretton Barber, who wore a t-shirt stating that George Bush was an international terrorist (ACLU, 2003), and Timothy Gies, whose shirts regularly displayed various symbols signifying peace or anarchy, and an upside-down American flag (ACLU, 2004). If we apply the offence principle to these cases, it would be hard for a school to argue that the tshirts caused such offence as to warrant their ban. Neither school had a uniform policy. Regarding the questions of extent and duration, the boys wore the t-shirts to school on an inconsistent and irregular basis, and so these matters are hard to gauge. The t-shirts did not cause a major disruption to the education in the school. The t-shirts did not appear to be morally offensive to a large number of people. Finally, the intensity of the offence was questionable. Wearing a t-shirt that provides a general political message such as ‘anarchy’ or ‘peace’ does not seem de facto offensive. Similarly, whilst the t-shirt against George W. Bush may have been morally offensive to some, it is not clear that the intensity of the offence is on the same level as other morally offensive symbols (such as the swastika or the white hooded Ku Klux Klan gown) where the offensiveness is generally agreed across society. What is considered offensive is difficult to ascertain without appropriate consideration of what it means to offend or to take offence. Robin Barrow contends that offence is used too readily, whether we are worried about offending others or whether we are taking offence ourselves. A number of distinctions are required before one can determine whether a behaviour or

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action ought to be considered offensive. For instance, the particular smell or taste of blue cheese may be considered offensive—in that it is displeasing to particular bodily senses. This, however, is very different from taking offensive action as: ‘1) meaning to offend; 2) actually giving offence, and 3) behaving in a manner that is likely to cause offence (or, of course, any combination of these)’ (Barrow, 2005, p. 268). For Barrow, the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of condemning behaviour or actions that may offend. Unlike the development of underpinning values of respect within the larger principle of toleration, taking offence ‘involves a refusal to show tolerance, to allow freedom, or to play fair’ (p. 274). Barrow’s remarks endorse the view that the complexity of using the offence principle is far from clear in setting the parameters for appropriate and inappropriate behaviour and actions. Graham Haydon makes the further point that we must consider what it is that is being offended, ‘namely the sensibilities of human beings’ (Haydon, 2006, p. 21). What is inherently offensive must be considered in light of the individuals it may offend—and that depends from individual to individual. We need to make two further distinctions, suggests Haydon. The first involves the person’s experience. It is one thing to be upset or hurt by an event; it is another to be upset by an action for which someone else was directly responsible (p. 24). The second is that we need to attend to the offended person’s ‘action or inaction’ (ibid.) and consider whether that person was hurt by the other’s action or, conversely, whether the inaction of the offended person led to the feeling of offence. Both doing something or not doing something may duly cause offence. Haydon’s example of the French Revolution illuminates this discussion. While most individuals in this day and age would find the idea of watching people have their heads chopped off offensive, most Parisians of the time, inured to the numerous beheadings, did not find the use of the guillotine offensive. ‘Inherent offensiveness’ must take into consideration the nature of our moral sensibilities. Haydon argues then that moral sensibilities must be cultivated in schools in order to make judgments about the moral implications of various kinds of offence. He further goes on to suggest that while judgment must be used over what is to be considered offensive, the conception of the place of this that Barrow advances is limited in its appropriateness and range of relevance. Haydon contends that some people may just have a propensity to become more easily offended. One does not choose to be offended: one merely becomes offended. While one can attempt consciously and deliberately to suppress one’s feelings, the response will remain an emotional one, not entirely controlled by rational and deliberate thought. This does not mean, as Barrow suggests, that the individual taking offence is automatically ‘being intolerant’; that is open to interpretation and debate. What is offensive shifts and moves between individuals, groups and societies. This theoretical debate illuminates the complexities involved in defining what is offensive, to whom it may be offensive, the degree to which it may be offensive and whether it is reasonable to take offence. Despite the problematic nature of offence, it has generally been applied to

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considerations of appropriate and inappropriate symbolic clothing. What becomes clear in this debate that ensues is where to draw the line. The principles that Feinberg puts forward provide some useful distinctions, but these too can be easily swayed by the political and social climate of the local community. And if the pendulum has swung drastically, as Barrow argues, then is that not worth challenging, despite perceived popular endorsement? ‘Offence’, as we have seen, is a slippery term that is increasingly being used too readily to ban symbolic clothing. A more useful distinction may be whether what should be banned is what is considered ‘oppressive’ rather than what is considered ‘offensive’.

REASON THREE: SYMBOLS MAY BE OPPRESSIVE

Much symbolic clothing is banned in the belief that the particular symbolic clothing is not only offensive but oppressive. Oppression is commonly understood as involving action that causes harm to another. Physical harm is the most blatant form of oppression, yet oppression can take more subtle forms. Feinberg argues that oppression is ‘a setback to one’s interest’ particularly when that individual has a stake in the action in question (Feinberg, 1995). Oppression can take the form of experiencing something that is against one’s particular best interests, or it can involve injustice, and it may also entail prolonged, severe physical or mental suffering. Jean Harvey moves beyond Feinberg’s argument and contends that oppression involves ‘a systematic and inappropriate control of people by those with more power’ (Harvey, 1999, p. 37). The act need not be intentional, as often the individuals perpetrating the oppression may have little to no awareness of their oppression. And even if the oppressed does take notice of the oppressive act, the oppressed may choose not to challenge it—perhaps because it may cause others distress or because it may ‘cause a scene’. Alternatively, the oppressed may internalise the oppression through ‘long-standing and social shared biases’ (p. 46). The oppressed become, in effect, disempowered, excluded and unable to challenge the perpetrator. If the act is unintentional, and the oppressed may not have any very clear awareness of the oppressive action, how can this principle provide us with particular guidance regarding symbolic clothing in schools? In very explicit cases, it seems quite clear that an explicit symbol may intentionally suppress or harm others. Gang and cult symbols may be designed to intimidate, to bully and to inflict harm on others. The potential victims may be those from competing gangs or simply those who do not belong to any group. The banning of such symbolic clothing seems both appropriate and justified. The Confederate flag in the American South is a controversial symbol. Historically, several versions of the Confederate flag were used following the American Civil War by the Confederate States of America. The most common Confederate flag consists of a blue cross with 13 stars inside, on

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top of a red background. Despite its wide use by Southern American States, its symbolism has heavy overtones of those states’ complicity in slavery and in the subsequent racial segregation that endured for almost a century. The flag became a symbol for those who opposed the civil rights movement, particularly when civil rights activists challenged the racial segregation laws. While the Confederate flag’s historical significance cannot be ignored in American schools, the racist overtones in the symbol must be acknowledged. In this case, one might be able to justify its use in American history and acknowledge the Confederate flag’s importance in textbooks. However, due to its continued role in the oppression of African Americans, wearing this symbol in the form of symbolic clothing should be viewed as unacceptable. Whether the individual who wears the symbol is aware of this significance should not be a consideration. The Confederate flag is explicitly oppressive to African Americans. The intention of the wearer need not be a factor. Muslim dress is trickier terrain. Many would suggest that Muslim dress is oppressive for girls. And if we follow Harvey’s criteria, intention does not need to play a part, nor does the person need to feel oppressed. Context and location are important here. It may be the case that in some countries, Muslim dress may be oppressive, linked with a political regime or dictatorship. The Taliban in Afghanistan provide a notable example of the forcing of women to wear strict Muslim dress. If, however, we consider the recent increase in the numbers of Muslim girls wearing the hijab in France, it is probable that the girls chose so to dress largely in reaction to the school suspensions and by way of growing political resistance to the French legislation (Gereluk, forthcoming, p. 121). There is nothing to suggest that—all of a sudden—French Muslim girls were being forced to wear the hijab by their families and communities. It is more likely that the girls decided to band together, perhaps as a sign of their religious conviction, and perhaps as a sign of solidarity against the government. In the case of Shabina Begum, her parents were already deceased when she decided to wear the jilbab to school. Her resilience in the face of media attention and when confronted by objectors is the result of her believing that she was oppressed by the ban. It is not enough to suggest that individuals may be oppressed by certain clothing, one needs to show supporting evidence to make the case. Such opposition to symbolic clothing has largely been directed against Islamic clothing for girls. But unless there is significant evidence to suggest the contrary, it is difficult to suggest that many Muslim girls are oppressed, at least in the Western countries to which I have alluded. And if there is a suspicion of oppression occurring, it is the burden of the state to demonstrate it.

REASON FOUR: SYMBOLS MAY BE DISRUPTIVE

Much symbolic clothing in the United States has been banned on the grounds that it may cause significant disruption. What is potentially

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disruptive often overlaps with what is considered offensive. Some order is obviously necessary in order for schools to carry out their educational mandate—that is a given. And minimising actions that may counter this basic requirement seems to be an appropriate response. If a piece of clothing creates tensions, unrest and instability, it may be justified for schools to consider banning the offending clothing. There is, however, a fine line between what may be disruptive and what is disruptive. Is it appropriate for schools to err on the side of caution or tolerance regarding what may be considered potentially disruptive? In Northern Ireland, for example, black armbands were banned in schools as they signified allegiance to and solidarity with the IRA. The probability that the armbands would cause unrest amongst pupils, parents and the community was so great that most would agree that the ban was warranted. Banning a t-shirt with a political message (as in many American cases) is, by contrast, more questionable. While the t-shirt may cause offence, would this be likely to lead to physical violence, insurgence or uprisings in schools? The particular context and circumstances are paramount. An American landmark case makes this explicit. In 1965, a group of students and parents in Des Moines, Iowa, held a meeting in the private home of one of their members to plan a series of events and actions to show their public opposition to the Vietnam War, one of which was for the children and adults to wear black armbands in protest against the war. Having heard of the meeting and its proposed actions, the school adopted the policy that any student seen wearing a black armband would be asked to remove it, and if this was not done the student would be suspended until they complied with the new policy. On 16 and 17 December, three students wore the black armband to school, and they were suspended until they complied with the policy, which the private meeting had stated would be after New Year’s Day. The families challenged the suspension and the case went before the United States Supreme Court (Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District). The Supreme Court argued that student expression should be protected unless the behaviour in question was likely to ‘materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school’ (393 U.S. 503, 1969). And while the judges acknowledged the school’s apprehension of potential disruption or violence escalating from the armbands, the judges noted that ‘undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression’ (ibid.). This landmark case changed the legal scope for constitutional rights for students. The US Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker proclaimed that ‘students do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate’ (ibid.). Potential disruption is not enough to warrant a curtailment of symbolic clothing. In trying to draw some distinctions, we must also consider the degree to which the clothing is likely to cause disruption. It is not enough to suggest that particular clothing may cause disruption. Even if the symbolic clothing in question causes massive disruption, one also needs to consider whether the disruption to the school should still be tolerated. Let us

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consider hypothetically a situation where a number of girls are wearing the hijab, in a largely white school. The school finds that the hijab has caused social divisions amongst pupils and parents, and considers banning the clothing lest it cause too much disruption. Is that the correct response in this case? Even if the piece of symbolic clothing is disruptive, it is reasonable to take the view that the disruption is a necessary step in challenging the stereotypes and intolerances in society. Should schools attempt to remain apolitical by taking a stance of neutrality on larger societal issues? While the disruption may cause instability in a school, it is appropriate to consider the unrest an opportunity to discuss and open up debate about contentious issues. Unfortunately as of late, there has been a tendency to move away from anything that may be considered controversial. Symbolic clothing is a target for attack in schools, but it is not the only one. If symbolic clothing calls into question the perceived norms and values of society, why is this considered a threat to the stability of schools? In the absence of any demonstrable significant and potentially violent threat, school authorities have been too ready to avoid confrontation and controversy, and they have preferred to stick their heads in the sand. This denial of open debate amounts to the loss of an opportunity to come to a better understanding of the complexities of major current issues of our time. MOVING FORWARD: WHAT CAN SCHOOLS REASONABLY DO?

The way in which Canada has dealt with the problem of defining the parameters can provide us with some guidance. The idea of ‘reasonable accommodation’ takes a proactive stance with regard to how best to adapt institutions in order to redress the inequitable treatment of those in the minority who are particularly disadvantaged. The onus is on those who wish to maintain the status quo to provide clear evidence to suggest that allowing symbolic clothing is likely to cause undue hardship on others. The criterion of offensiveness does not hold enough weight because judgments on such matters are always relative. How then do we create parameters of acceptable and appropriate clothing in schools? Clearly on the strength of the present argument, limits to clothing should exist in schools. Three considerations for both dress codes and uniform policies seem appropriate for judging clothing permissible or impermissible: 1.) Does the clothing create health and safety concerns? 2.) Is the clothing oppressive to oneself or to others? 3.) Does the clothing significantly inhibit the educational aims of the school? A fourth consideration then applies to schools where there is an already established uniform policy: 4.) Is the clothing essential to one’s identity?

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Let us turn to the first factor, that of health and safety concerns. It seems perfectly reasonable to curtail clothing that may cause concern from this point. Loose or baggy clothing may be a hazard during science experiments, particularly if the science class uses Bunsen burners. This pertains to all forms of clothing, not just symbolic clothing. This does not mean that the clothing must be banned, but it does suggest that it must be altered. Reasonable accommodation again suggests that small alterations and adjustments may allow pupils to wear certain symbolic clothing that does not pose a danger to themselves or others. For example, a small alteration on the hijab where, in place of pins, elastic is used to keep the head covering in place easily attends to the safety of the pupil and other students. The banning of clothing that is oppressive to oneself or to others seems clearly justified. Racist slogans identifying gang culture are all within the boundaries of unacceptable dress. But if we follow Harvey’s argument of civilised oppression, we can extend this to clothing that exploits and suppresses certain individuals and groups. In this way, the principle of oppression can be useful in more subtle cases of the inappropriate mistreatment of individuals and groups. The final consideration is whether the clothing significantly inhibits the educational aims of the school. Again, Muslim clothing is usually targeted because of the way that it supposedly prevents girls from taking part in various athletic activities. This, however, is a common misperception. In most cases, Muslim faith schools have addressed this either by altering the clothing in order that girls can participate in various physical activities, or by preventing males from viewing the activity. Such small alterations then allow Muslim girls to take part in physical activity without compromising their faith, and they do not compromise the educational aims of the curriculum. There is a stronger case to curtail the niqab, where only the eyes are visible. It would need to be argued that facial expressions are crucial for interaction and communication in school. And while this is not essential in all subjects, it might plausibly be suggested that seeing the mouth and facial expressions are essential to learning a language. Seeing how the mouth forms various vowels and consonants is a vital component for learning a language. Similarly, if one assumes that facial expressions are crucial to interacting with other people, and if interacting with other pupils is an essential part of attending school, then arguably, the niqab would significantly hinder this social development for the particular individual. Such extremes in clothing are rare, however, and the burden again must be on the school to show that the piece of clothing creates a strong obstacle to the child’s learning and development. Action against clothing that has the potential to disrupt the educational aims of the school needs to be taken only as a last resort, and even then substantial evidence must be provided to show that the ‘offending’ clothing will significantly inhibit the educational aims of the school. As I have repeatedly mentioned, it is not enough to suggest that the symbolic clothing is a potential source of disruption: it needs to be shown that it will cause the

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kind of disruption that will prevent the school from fulfilling its educational mandate or from ensuring the general safety of pupils and staff. Dress codes and uniform policies must take the first three considerations into account particularly when symbolic clothing may be a developmental hindrance and a safety hazard to oneself or others. The final consideration—that of whether the symbolic clothing is essential to an individual— becomes an additional criterion in determining whether the symbolic clothing should be accommodated within the uniform policy. One may justify a uniform policy for its perceived benefits of instilling pride and fostering a collective ethos in the school. Yet, uniform policies must acknowledge and recognise that symbolic clothing may also be an essential part of an individual’s identity. Unless the clothing in question poses a serious health and safety risk, is oppressive to that individual or to others, or significantly inhibits the educational aims of the school, it should be integrated into the school uniform policy. CONCLUSION

The heavy-handedness of schools in banning potentially offensive or disruptive clothing has not helped in providing any clear policy for what is to be deemed permissible. Some schools (and some countries) appear to have particular targets for symbolic clothing. France has taken a hard stance on religious symbols, while the United States has generally targeted political and social symbols. In many of the cases, ethnic minorities seem particularly targeted in contrast to mainstream, established, ChristianJudaic religions. And certain symbols may, more often than not, have a blind eye turned to them. For instance, Christian jewellery is usually acceptable in uniform policies while other symbols (for instance, chastity rings3) may not be. The arbitrariness of how the lines are drawn seems both unjust and discriminatory in many of the instances, cloaked as it is behind ambiguous, rhetorical school policies. These shifting and changing stances provide little assistance to other schools that face similar dilemmas. Similarly they exacerbate relations between groups, particularly racial and ethnic groups who may already feel marginalised from mainstream society. Creating flexible, yet consistent, guidelines that cut across all religious, social and political divisions, and are based on the best interests of children, in the light of their physical, emotional and developmental needs, is a sensible and pragmatic way in which to approach symbolic clothing. The criteria for such guidelines do not eliminate individuals’ fundamental freedoms but offer reasonable parameters within which certain symbols may not be judged appropriate, at least in the school setting. This approach still allows the possibility for implementing or maintaining a uniform policy, should schools so wish.4 NOTES 1. Many thanks to Mark Halstead for providing this example. Indeed in many cases there is little or no distinction between religious and political symbols.

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2. Reasonable accommodation is based on the premise that the state has a duty to adjust, accommodate and make alternative arrangements for particular individuals or groups in order to reduce discriminatory practices. It has been used in a variety of specific cases but has also been applied in the defining of the parameters of symbolic clothing in Canadian schools. 3. In 2007, Lydia Playfoot, a sixteen year old girl, was suspended for wearing a ‘purity ring’, symbolising chastity, to school. Wearing the ring is a symbol by girls to show that they have decided to be virgins until marriage. The High Court of England ruled in favour of the school noting that the ring was not an essential part of Playfoot’s faith. The ring was not ‘intimately linked’ to the belief in chastity before marriage, nor was she under any obligation to wear the ring (Gereluk, forthcoming, p. 91). 4. I wish to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.

REFERENCES American Civil Liberties Union (2003) Judge Rules in Favor of Michigan Student’s Right to Wear Anti-War T-Shirt to School, Free Speech, (October 3) http://www.aclu.org/FreeSpeech/ FreeSpeech.cfm?ID=13913&c=87. (Accessed 5 November 2005). America Civil Liberties Union (2004) Michigan School Reverses Decision to Suspend Student from wearing ‘Anarchy’ shirt, Free Speech, http://www.aclu.org/StudentsRights/StudentsRights. cfm?ID=15672&c=159. (May 10, 2004) (Accessed 5 November 2005). Barrow, R. (2005) On the Duty of Not Taking Offense, Journal of Moral Education, 24.3, pp. 265–275. Carens, J. (2000) Culture, Citizenship, and Community: A Contextual Exploration of Justice as Evenhandedness (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Department For Children, Schools And Families (DCSF) (2007) DCSF Guidance to Schools on School Uniform and Related Policies, http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/management/atoz/u/ uniform/ (Accessed 10 October 2007). Feinberg, J. (1988) Harm to Others (New York/Oxford, Oxford University Press). Feinberg, J. (1995) Limits to the Free Expression of Opinion, in: J. Feinberg and H. Gross (eds) Philosophy of Law, 5th edn. (Belmont, CA, Wadsworth Publishing Company). Gereluk, D. (2005) Should Muslim Headscarves be Banned in French Schools?, Theory and Research in Education, 3.3, pp. 259–271. Gereluk, D. (2006) ‘Why Can’t I Wear This?!’ Banning Symbolic Clothing in Schools, Philosophy of Education Yearbook, pp. 106–114. Gereluk, D. (forthcoming, 2008) Symbolic Clothing in Schools (London, New York, Continuum). Gereluk, D. and Race, R. (2007) Multicultural Tensions in England, France and Canada: Contrasting Approaches and Consequences, International Studies in Sociology of Education, 17.1&2, pp. 113–128. Harvey, J. (1999) Civilised Oppression (Lanham, CO, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.). Haydon, G. (2006) On the Duty of Educating Respect: A Response to Robin Barrow, Journal of Moral Education, 35.1, pp. 19–32. Phillips, T. (2005) After 7/7: Sleepwalking to Segregation: Speech given at the Commission for Racial Equality, 29 September 2005 (London, Commission for Racial Equality). Ramadan, T. (2007) Trying to Understand Radicalization and Extremism: Keynote address presented at the Education and Extremism Conference, London, England, 5 July. Shariff, S. (2006) Balancing Competing Rights: A Stakeholder Model for Democratic Schools, Canadian Journal of Education, 29.2, pp. 476–496. Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, 89 S. Ct. 733 (1969); 393 U.S. 503, 1969. van Mill, D. (2002) Freedom of Speech, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato. stanford.edu/archives/win2002/entries/freedom-speech/. (Accessed 20 November 2005). Walzer, M. (1983) Spheres of Justice: a defence of pluralism and equality (New York, Basic Books).

Part III Common Schools and Religion

The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

10 Religious Education, Religious Literacy and Common Schooling: A Philosophy and History of Skewed Reflection DAVID CARR

EDUCATION AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Well into the post-Second World War settlement, British state schooling reflected the prevailing Christian character of the domestic culture: the formative 1944 Education Act required a daily act of collective worship and local provision for religious instruction that invariably assumed a Christian confessional character (Chadwick, 1997; see also McLaughlin, 2003). Whilst such accord between state educational policy and the local religious consensus was something that the United Kingdom shared with many other European liberal democracies, it has been usual to contrast this feature of British life and policy with the constitutional separation of religion and state in the USA. However, with the advent of large-scale post-war immigration from many former British colonies, the overall Christian character and ethos of British state and other schools—not least in those schools in which non-Christians were often now in the majority— came to appear, from various perspectives, less than appropriate. In such circumstances, it became clear that British common school religious education needed urgent re-thinking. Briefly, two main trends emerged from latter day attempts to re-evaluate the place in schools of religion and/ or religious education. On the one hand, those sympathetic to religion but also professionally or politically committed to the aims and ideals of common schooling advocated exposure to a wider range of religious ideas through so-called ‘non-confessional’ approaches. On the other hand, those who viewed religious education more in terms of explicit spiritual and/or moral formation (or who regarded non-confessional approaches as inimical to such formation) continued to support or further advocate the diverse religious provision already available in British Catholic and other ‘faith schools’. Indeed, for various reasons that need not presently detain us, contemporary discussions of religious education (in Britain and more widely) have lately been overtaken by debates—usually generating more heat than light—regarding the relative merits of common and faith schooling. By and large, the present discussion bypasses such controversy The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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as something of a red herring. Although there may be social or political arguments for or against faith schools, I am inclined to doubt that there are actually any valid educational arguments for them—though it is integral to the present case that there are compelling arguments for universal religious education. From this viewpoint, it might be more usefully asked whether the apparently rival confessional and non-confessional approaches to religious education, sometimes held to underpin (respectively) separate and common schooling, are educationally defensible or coherent. To this end, the present essay will try to show that both confessional and non-confessional approaches rest on a variety of questionable epistemic, normative and political assumptions. Thus, after a brief critique of the liberal underpinnings of non-confessional approaches, the chapter will proceed to an equally critical exploration of various neo-idealist and/or communitarian arguments on which ideas of faith school and confessional religious education seem to have lately drawn. Following this, however, the chapter will proceed to suggest ways of thinking about common school religious education that might move us beyond some of the shortcomings of confessional and non-confessional approaches.

LIBERALISM AND THE NON-CONFESSIONAL TURN

There are two main—loosely linked—arguments for so-called nonconfessional approaches to religious education. The first is a broadly political argument reflecting a general liberal agnosticism concerning any and all broad normative perspectives—or, as it is sometimes said—‘comprehensive theories of the good’. The second is based on more radical epistemic scepticism—also associated with liberalism— regarding the objectivity of value judgements as such. Together or separately these arguments preclude promotion of contested or controversial (political, moral or religious) perspectives in liberal democratic contexts. From this viewpoint, state education is barred from allegiance to any and all controversial political, religious or moral belief or doctrines, or—on pain of indoctrination—from teaching these as if they are noncontroversially valid or true. In that case, the most that religious education might be permitted is some teaching about religious claims—as beliefs to which past and present societies and groups have subscribed—or about the cultures and customs that such beliefs may help partly to illuminate or explain. While the general drift of this chapter is not at all at odds with such liberal agnosticism, it does reject associated attempts to link liberalism with secularism. On such thinking, since religious perspectives are not just socially partisan but epistemologically suspect, the only proper course for state education to steer is avoidance of any and all exposure to religious belief in the name of secularism. The trouble here, however, is that it is not at all clear whether secularism is a position of neutrality regarding religion, or—more extremely—of some antipathy or hostility towards it. If the latter, exclusion of religious claims from educational consideration on

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secularist grounds—which are not themselves beyond controversy—could hardly be more acceptable than dismissal of secularist claims on religious grounds (though equally clearly neither position could be considered unproblematic). However, it is more than likely that the general agnosticism of much political liberalism and secularism has deeper roots in a more radical scepticism concerning the non-evidential character of value judgements that goes back at least at least as far as Hume (1966). On this view, since value judgements are little more than expressions of personal sentiment or taste, they cannot ever be liable to rational evaluation as true or false, right or wrong, and are therefore quite inappropriate for educational treatment. The adverse consequences for religion and religious education of this view are further reinforced by Hume’s enlightenment successor Immanuel Kant (1967, 1968). For while Kant arguably improves on Hume by showing how non-empirical moral judgements may indeed be rational, his own sharp separation of value from empirical fact is hardly more plausible than Hume’s. Here, by the way, it is not so much that Kant and Hume were mistaken in observing significant formal differences between factual and value judgements, or between description and prescription. In this light, recent anti-realist, neo-idealist and/or post-modern assimilation of facts to values in the name of the inherently ‘theoretical’ character of all human observation is surely no less confused than enlightenment separation of values from facts. The point is rather—as ethical naturalists from Aristotle (1941a) to the present have insisted (see, for example, Geach, 1977; Foot, 2001)—that although prescription is not reducible to description, we can only make full sense of value judgements in the light of features of human nature that are not just matters of locally constructed perspective. Indeed, non-human brutes that are not at all equipped with minds for theorising can nevertheless have correct or incorrect perceptions—and will behave appropriately or inappropriately in accordance with such perceptions. In short, enlightenment and empiricist views of values as entirely separate from facts, no less than post-empiricist assimilation of facts to points of view, are equally hard put to explain why human (or other) agents have the values that they do. However, notwithstanding the sense of liberation that it seems to have inspired in some theological quarters, Kant’s more particular assimilation of religious claims to faith rather than reason is no less questionable than his de-coupling of normative from empirical enquiry. To begin with, although Kant appears to believe that this is forced by his ‘demolition’ of traditional arguments for the existence of God, it may be doubted—as we shall see—that any theological case for faith depends exclusively on such arguments. To be sure, it may be the cardinal error of Kant’s work to have sought impossibly hard and fast distinctions between different modes of human enquiry. Thus, having denied that moral judgements can be empirically grounded because prescription has a different logical role from description, and that works of art cannot be sources of genuine knowledge because aesthetic judgement is more a matter of perception than cognition, it is fairly unsurprising that Kant proceeds to deny the

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rationality of religious claims because neither empirical evidence nor formally deductive proof serves to establish the existence of God. Such division of human cognition or knowledge into epistemologically separate compartments—undoubtedly an aspect of Kant’s empiricist inheritance—may well also have had some influence on the familiar subject-based curricula of traditional British and other schooling. It also seems that contemporary forms of subject-centred curriculum theorising have drawn (rightly or wrongly) on the forms of knowledge of Paul Hirst (1974). At any rate, according to Hirst’s (early) view, inasmuch as the logical form or grammar of religious propositions differs from that of moral, aesthetic or scientific statements, religious claims would need to be ‘tested’ in a different way from moral, aesthetic, scientific and other statements. This may indeed have done much to encourage the view that there are peculiar or specific religious ‘arguments’ (perhaps for the existence of God) that are largely insulated from moral, empirical and/or other arguments or considerations. Views of this kind may also have reinforced more popular ideas that religious education is a ‘Sunday school’ subject and that religious beliefs and experiences are mostly separate from other aspects of human life and conduct—much, perhaps, as arts have come to be regarded as ‘recreational’ pursuits, and science and/ or technical subjects have been seen as vocational matters. THE CONSTRUCTIVIST TURN

However, the tendency of empiricist, neo-Kantian and/or forms of knowledge theorising to downplay or deny significant rational connections between different realms of human discourse should be resisted. Although Aristotle (1941a) was arguably the first great philosopher to explore key logical differences between theoretical, moral and other forms of enquiry, he is committed (unlike Kant) to an ethical naturalism that clearly acknowledges the empirical basis of human moral virtue and judgement. That said, perhaps the most devastating modern critique of Kantian and other theses of the logical autonomy of diverse forms of human enquiry is associated with post-Kantian, non-realist or social constructivist conceptions of meaning and knowledge. In the anti-realist tradition of modern Pragmatism, for example, philosophers from Dewey to Quine have defended a ‘holistic’ conception of knowledge, meaning and understanding. Indeed, Quine has captured the spirit of such holism in his observation that ‘our statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not individually but only as a corporate body’ (Quine, 1953, p. 41). To be sure, despite its idealist or non-realist origins, such epistemic holism is now widely accepted in other (analytical and non-analytical) philosophical traditions, and is entirely consistent with critical and other realist views. Indeed, there is much to be said for disconnecting it from its idealist, non-realist or social constructivist sources—precisely in so far as such sources have in their turn encouraged a range of dubious approaches to thinking about religious education. The first and foremost of such

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questionable moves is the anti-realist claim that in so far as there can be no independent ‘objective’ reality against which any local religious or other perspective can be tested as true or false, the only reasons that can be given to support this or that judgement are culturally ‘internal’ or relative ones. However, notwithstanding recent neo-Hegelian attempts to develop a constructivist account of objective reason (see, for example, MacIntyre 1981, 1987, 1992), it is hard to see how such anti-realism can avoid ultimate collapse into more or less problematic cultural relativism. Still, in an effort to avoid such relativism—not least in relation to religion and religious education—some constructivists have appealed to the so-called ‘primacy of practice’. On this view, since local judgements cannot be ‘objectively’ grounded in any ‘view from nowhere’—since, from a constructivist perspective, there can be no such view—moral or religious and other claims and beliefs are best regarded as shorthand affirmations of local culture-sustaining customs and practices. It is beyond doubt that this idea has widely appealed to philosophical theologians and theorists of religious education, since it seems to remove any need for ‘external’ grounds for religious belief. Thus, theological advocates of an alleged Wittgensteinian perspective on the primacy of practice have argued that understanding Christian or other religious doctrines and creeds requires a grasp of the moral, aesthetic and social practices in which they are embedded—the practical ‘use’, in short, to which such religious propositions are put (for a useful exploration of Wittgenstein’s and post-Wittgensteinian ideas on religion, see McLaughlin, 1995: for instances of such views, see Phillips, 1976, 1986, 1988). In this light, rather than regarding the Apostolic or Nicene creeds as explanatory of the practices of Christians, one should regard the practices as (somehow) justifying the doctrines—which might also now need less literal interpretation. It should here be said, by the way, that there is nothing especially objectionable about regarding religious claims or propositions as non-literal: it should be clear not only that much religious and spiritual language is of a non-literal, figurative or symbolic character (see, for example, Halstead, 2003), but that such non-literal discourse can and does often play a theologically explanatory role. What is less clear, or even intelligible, is any suggestion that we might justify the beliefs normally taken to explain religious conduct in terms of (purely internal features of) that behaviour. If, for example, my belief that some god commands me to perform human sacrifices is no more than an expression of the (practical) meaningfulness to me of acting thus and so, and the belief in question is not open to the usual defences or objections to such practices (that there is or is not such a god, or that no genuine god would condone such conduct), then my thoughts scarcely count as beliefs in any meaningful sense at all. The idea of the primacy of practice is probably just a variant of a more commonplace idealist notion that human theoretical perspectives are little more than rationalisations of practices that serve to promote social and moral solidarity and cohesion. Under the influence of such considerations, communitarian educational philosophers have routinely held that educa-

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tion has a legitimate role to play in initiating young people into local loyalties and identities. Influential or not, such ideas need handling with care. First, as already seen, the constructivist basis of any such communitarian politics of identity is clearly problematic: to whatever extent local consensus is necessary for knowledge, it is just as clearly not sufficient—and the social construction of falsehood is far from unknown. But, secondly, though there may be social or political arguments for separate or ‘faith’ schooling—perhaps related to so-called rights to cultural recognition—it may be doubted that there is any defensible religious educational warrant for the promotion of faith or confession. Here, we should also not be overly impressed by a common defence of confessional approaches on the grounds that religious understanding or appreciation requires significant immersion in its practices (see McLaughlin, 2003).1 Whatever the force of this point with regard to woodwork or football, it is much less plausible in the case of religion. Indeed, if true, it would seem to preclude the possibility of the genuine conversion to a religious faith of any who have not been brought up in its observances.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND THE NARRATIVE TURN

To date, we have identified four problematic trends in contemporary thinking about religion and religious education: (i) the empiricist tendency to dismiss religious claims as non-evidence based expressions of subjective value or desire; (ii) a related liberal educational tendency to disassociate religious studies from other areas of study or forms of enquiry; (iii) a neo-idealist or non-realist inclination to construe religious (and other) claims and beliefs as local social constructions; (iv) an associated communitarian claim, sometimes supported by the idea of the primacy of practice, that religious perspectives may be justified in terms of their identity or community sustaining value—so that it may therefore be educationally appropriate for at least some schools to promote religious affiliation or allegiance. If, despite their undoubted influence, these ideas are less than conducive to coherent thinking about religious education, it is a matter of some urgency to develop a view of religious thought and its educational value that avoids such shortcomings. In this respect, I believe that it is worth turning to recent interest in narrative (see also Carr, 1994, 2004) as a potentially rich source of moral and spiritual wisdom and understanding—particularly to accounts of the value of narrative in the Aristotelian tradition of virtue ethics. As already noted, although Aristotle’s ethics is rooted in distinctions between different forms of enquiry, his concept of practical reason— unlike Kant’s—is not at all insulated from other modes or sources of human knowledge and/or enquiry. To begin with, Aristotle’s ethics (like utilitarianism) is clearly of a naturalistic bent that admits no logical discontinuities between description and prescription or fact and value: indeed, it could hardly be clearer from the Nicomachean Ethics (1941a)

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that one perfectly proper starting point for moral enquiry is from naturalistic reflections on the (quasi-biological) contribution of self and other-regarding dispositions (the virtues) to human well-being or flourishing. Again, although artworks cannot for Kant be much other than sources of aesthetic satisfaction—since moral judgement is confined to the universalising reflections of the categorical imperative—it is evident from Aristotle’s Poetics that such arts as drama and poetry play a significant role in the education of virtuous reason, desire and emotion. In this respect, indeed, it is worth recalling Aristotle’s insistence in the Poetics that poetry—the literary form of great moral and spiritual drama— ‘is something more philosophic and of graver import than history’, since it is addressed to matters of ‘universal’ rather than particular human concern (Aristotle, 1941b, p. 1464). From an Aristotelian viewpoint, in short, literature and the arts are not just matters of light entertainment, but potential sources—at least in the best instances—of human wisdom and insight. Of contemporary attempts to take up this Aristotelian theme of the moral and spiritual value of literature and the arts, Alasdair MacIntyre’s recent neo-Thomist reconstruction of Aristotelian virtue ethics is especially instructive (MacIntyre, 1981, 1987, 1992). In this regard, we may note two key MacIntyrean ideas. The first is the neo-idealist thought—often advanced in some opposition to the epistemic individualism of mainstream liberal theory—that our moral and spiritual values are matters less of personal choice than cultural inheritance. On this view, we enter the world not as existentially free choosers of our individual and social destinies, but as members or citizens of pre-existing associations or institutions who understand ourselves as heirs of received traditions of thought and practice. The second (related) thought is that with regard to understanding ourselves as moral and spiritual agents—rather than as mere passive objects of natural scientific study—the narrative forms and traditions of literary, artistic and (not least) religious thought and practice play not just a central but an indispensable role. On this view, the unity of the human person is the unity of a character in a story, and the agency of persons so conceived is part and parcel of such stories. Apart from such narratives, human selves and actions cannot be meaningfully individuated or comprehended at all. These ideas are not of equal present value. As already noticed, while the first thought has been influential, it is just as clearly philosophically treacherous, and—apart from the dubious logic of Hegelian dialectic (on which MacIntytre does rely)—probably difficult to sustain without collapse into more or less vicious socio-cultural relativism. MacIntyre’s social constructivism is also difficult to square with any straightforward Aristotelian naturalism. However, the second thought is more theologically promising. On this view, in so far as the great works of literary and artistic cultural inheritance are indispensable sources of human moral and other self-understanding, the great religious narratives of western and other cultural heritage might also be regarded (more than the arguments of Kant’s antinomies) as sources of theological wisdom and insight

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concerning the nature and destiny of the human soul. Moreover, to conceive the core of theological enquiry and insight as basically narratival, is also to take a very broad view of theological inheritance: it is to recognise the theological potential of not just the Jewish Talmud, the New Testament Gospels or Vedic hymns, but of such time-honoured fictional and poetic works as Dante’s Divine Comedy, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Milton’s Paradise Lost, C. S Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles and Phillip Pullman’s Dark Materials. However, there is also no reason why the ‘canon’ of traditional religious or theological literary and artistic sources might not be extended, as I have previously argued (Carr, 2006), to include the products of more modern popular and artistic media. It should be noted that despite his idealist roots, MacIntyre resists any radical constructivist reading of any and all theory or explanation as narrative (Lyotard, 1984). For MacIntyre, narrative offers a particular way of understanding ourselves that contrasts with but also counter-balances evidence-based scientific accounts of human nature. This general MacIntyrean distinction resonates strongly with other latter day efforts to show that there is more to human nature and experience than falls within the scope of scientific explanation. In this regard, MacIntyre’s point seems not unrelated to Mary Midgely’s opposition to the excessive claims of science—not least to Dawkins’ claim that science is the only acceptable route to knowledge—in the name of what she refers to as ‘poetry’ (Midgley, 2001). In a similar vein, the theologian Karen Armstrong (2004, 2005) has recently revived an old distinction (observed by many ancient and modern philosophers, theologians and psychologists) between mythos and logos, in which mythos performs much the same role as MacIntyre’s narrative and Midgley’s poetry in investing human life and action with spiritual and moral meaning and purpose. Yet again, such ideas appear to have clear affinities with Iris Murdoch’s (1993) ‘religious atheist’ defence of literature and the arts as significant sources of moral wisdom. Although none of these writers denies the value and power of empirical scientific knowledge, they appear united in their vindication of significant nonscientific sources of knowledge, wisdom and insight.

NARRATIVE AND LIBERAL EDUCATION

Moreover, despite any and all previous suspicions that empiricist scepticism might be part and parcel of liberal epistemology and educational policy, it seems clear that such leading nineteenth century champions of liberal education as Matthew Arnold (see Gribble, 1967) and J. H. Newman (1952) explicitly regarded the study of religious, literary and other narratives as of foremost educational importance. On this view, indeed, the educational benefits of the Bible, Shakespeare and other ancient and modern literary heritage are to be measured not only in terms of their aesthetic appeal or entertainment value, but in moral and spiritual terms: we can become better people by acquaintance with or immersion in such literary and other texts. In this light, there is a

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compelling case for regarding the narratival forms of non-empirical reflection as generally key—indeed indispensable—sources of (normative) insight, understanding and wisdom. We stand to learn much about human character and motive (in addition to any artistic and aesthetic appreciation or sensibility we may acquire) by close acquaintance with The Canterbury Tales, Hamlet, or Hard Times—even though we generally know better than to take such stories to be literally true. But, by the same token, we do not have to take the Mahabharata or the Old Testament Book of Job and other religious texts as literally true in order to appreciate that these works also contain insight and wisdom of enduring human value. It might be one objection to this train of thought, of course, that the standard narratives of religious texts are usually promoted to the faithful not just as illuminating stories, but precisely as literal truths. For many believers, the key difference between the Gospel story of Satan’s temptation of Jesus in the wilderness and Mephistopheles’ corruption of Faust in Goethe, Marlowe or Thomas Mann is that the former is history and the latter is fiction—and so it may be thought blasphemous to neglect or ignore this difference. All the same, for purposes of both religious understanding and pedagogy, it may be advisable to separate matters of the literal truth of religious narratives—even of those that we may as believers take to be literally true—from their moral and/or spiritual meaning and significance (see, on what seems to be close to this point, Anscombe, 1981). Indeed, it could be said that Christians have the very highest authority for observing precisely this distinction, since—in the parable of Dives and Lazarus—it is no less a figure than Christ himself who insists that portents and miracles may not, without true religious understanding, speak for themselves. A mere (empirical) event of resurrection counts as divine only in the context of religious interpretation: otherwise, indeed, it might be regarded only as a mere freak of nature—if not an act of Satan. From this viewpoint, as pragmatists would say, religious meaning is considerably underdetermined by empirical evidence. If this is so, although one might be inclined to deny that a narrative event was of any religious significance if it could be shown not to have actually occurred, one is not debarred from appreciating its moral, spiritual or religious import in the absence of one’s knowledge of its literal truth. But it would now seem to follow: (i) that one might teach the moral, spiritual or religious significance of a narrative whether or not it is known to be literally true (or even if it is known to be false—since many recognise the spiritual significance of the Arthurian grail narrative without supposing that it is literally true); (ii) that one is not anyway precluded from taking some narrative in which one finds moral, spiritual or religious significance to be nevertheless literally true (at any rate, in the absence of conclusive empirical evidence to the contrary). At all events, it is not unreasonable to claim that religious meaning—as in the case of literary and other educationally important forms of knowledge, understanding and appreciation—is primarily narrative rather than empirical meaning (even if it is both). Moreover, in the spirit of the great modern apostles of liberal

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education, we may argue that some broad acquaintance with the great religious narratives of humankind—as well as with the great creative products of our own or other literary heritage—is an educational sine qua non: that it would be hard to count anyone as properly educated who completely lacked any such knowledge.

THE DISCOMFORTS OF CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

In light of previous points, however, it is may also appear that such education in religious literacy has not been especially well served by past and present models of religious education, On the one hand, confessional or faith-based approaches to religious education at least run the risk of being too religiously dogmatic or theologically exclusive or of neglecting the educational importance of critical, comparative, and interpretively creative approaches to great religious narratives. At the fundamentalist extreme, some faith schools may misconstrue the ‘logical grammar’ of religious narratives and claims by construing religious myths—such as the creation stories of Genesis—as literal descriptions of past events. From this viewpoint, it might be of some educational importance to promote general appreciation that latter day disputes between so-called creationists and evolutionists rest largely on a misunderstanding of the character of religious narrative as mythos rather than logos. Hence, the problem is not—as some contemporary constructivists have maintained—that we are faced with rival perspectives that resist evaluation from any ‘view from nowhere’: it is rather that scientific evolutionary theory and Old Testament accounts of creation are evidently addressed to different issues and concerns. As such, while no ‘refutation’ of Genesis could suffice to confirm evolutionary theory, the truth of evolutionary theory need not invalidate Genesis. It remains a distinct possibility that both Genesis and evolutionary theory have something to contribute to human understanding of the world and our place in it. In this connection, the main thrust of latter day non-confessional approaches to religious education may seem broadly congenial. That said, non-confessional approaches often seem to be more agnostic, if not actually sceptical, about the contribution to human understanding of traditional religious narratives—beyond, perhaps, their relevance to understanding this or that exotic practice, or to the promotion (through this or that parable) of some general moral banality. Indeed, the trouble now is that superficial non-confessional treatment of diverse religious customs runs the risk of neglecting—if not actually distorting—what is intellectually, morally and spiritually distinctive and challenging in the teaching of this or that religion. This is an especial danger where (as in Scotland) religious education is explicitly linked to moral education (see Scottish Office Education Department, 1992: in such contexts, for example, it may appear more appropriate or appealing to teach the parable of the good Samaritan rather than that of the workers in the vineyard—precisely in so far as the former may seem more in line with

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secular liberal notions of distributive justice. In short, non-confessional approaches may err in the opposite (to confessional) direction of procrustean adaptation of the distinctive vision of this or that faith to some less substantial or controversial liberal-democratic social agenda. However, it is also arguable that traditional (confessional and nonconfessional) common school approaches to religious education have tended to conceive religious knowledge as a separate discipline or subject in the school curriculum—in ways that have greatly served to undermine its educational value for or relevance to pupils. But how might the spiritual and moral narratives, myths or poetry of non-literal discourse be ‘holistically’ related to the more empirical scientific or technical components of the school curriculum? While this is an immensely complex logical matter (to which we cannot do much justice here), it should be clear enough that there is much uncontroversially routine interplay between such different aspects of human discourse and understanding. Clearly, for example, ethical naturalists are right to argue that we cannot make sense of much if not most spiritual and moral value and aspiration in the absence of scientific and other knowledge of human nature. On the other hand, idealists are also at least right in thinking that our moral and spiritual values importantly shape the way in which we perceive, understand or interpret scientific observations and discoveries. Here, indeed, one might think of the way in which James Lovelock (1988) and others (see also Midgley, 2001) have drawn on the ancient myth of Gaia as a potent basis for critique of latter day science and technology driven environmental degradation. Moreover, despite the logical and epistemic complexities of such connections, it should be clear that they are the everyday fare of good (educational) practice that is precisely in the business of such ‘holistic’ meaning-making. With particular regard to religious education, however, it is all but impossible to understand the significance of any religion or religious narrative without some grasp of its connections with many other forms of study and enquiry—which are of course also often treated (in many primary as well as secondary schools) as separate subjects. Indeed, it is no less difficult to see how other areas of school study might be adequately comprehended without some religious literacy. Hence, given that religions have histories and geographies, it would seem that just as religions cannot be well understood apart from some historical and/or geographical knowledge of their origins in this or that particular part of the world, so it may be difficult to understand the history and (human) geography of past times and other places without some grasp of religious narratives and associated religious cultures. Again, one cannot really hope to understand contemporary (local and global) political and economic events and circumstances in the absence of some knowledge of religious culture and belief. Just as it is not possible to understand (say) the complex and vexed politics of Northern Ireland without reference to the diverse postreformation histories of Britain and Ireland, so it is all but impossible to grasp the no less vexed conflicts of Israel and Palestine without some understanding of the diverse religious inheritances and theological

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differences of the various Levantine peoples. But even more, it is hard to see how students of literature and art could begin to appreciate the meaning of such past and present works of the western literary and artistic canon as Dante’s Divine Comedy, Da Vinci’s Last Supper, Handel’s Messiah, Milton’s Paradise Lost, T. S. Eliot’s Waste Land or Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses in the absence of such literacy. In short, any and all serious (cultural) literacy would seem to require religious literacy. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM

In this light, there is clearly some case for rethinking traditional common school approaches to religious education in the direction of more coherent and meaningful links with other school studies in arts, humanities and sciences. The absence of such links has lately been lamented by Richard Pring (1999), who has also looked back to explicit latter day attempts to develop more integrated or interdisciplinary humanities based programmes of the sort he takes to be exemplified by Stenhouse’s Humanities Curriculum Project (see Stenhouse, 1973; also 1967). In this spirit, any serious proposal to re-conceive religious education for the promotion of more educationally meaningful religious literacy might be well advised to take account of the following points: (i) Irrespective of any need for some separate specialist provision for the school study of religion (for perhaps vocational or other purposes), such disconnected treatment is arguably inappropriate for the general run of pupils—precisely in so far as this serves to undermine or obscure understanding of the relevance of religious study to other studies and vice versa. (ii) In this light, religious studies teachers in secondary schools (as well as non-specialist teachers of religion in primary schools) might seek, in collaboration with teachers of arts and humanities, to develop programmes of integrated or interdisciplinary work in which such meaningful links are more visible. (iii) Further to this, there may be some case for the development of educational or pedagogical approaches that serve to make such connections more conspicuous (how, for example, might one combine studies of Genesis and Paradise Lost in mutually enhancing and reinforcing ways). To this end, a more explicit place might be given to attempts to explore such developments in the curriculum of professional teacher education. In short, the more meaningful development of common school religious education would seem to call for greater collaboration between specialists in (what are at present invariably) separate and diverse secondary (and sometimes primary) curriculum areas or fields. On this view, indeed, the key interests and purposes of religious education in particular and of meaningful education in general are not best served by specialist teaching within the same school, or segregated religious initiation in faith schools,

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but by teachers within common or other schools (irrespective of their specialisms) entering into genuine cross-disciplinary dialogue with one another. It might yet be asked whether religion and/or religious education are at all relevant to twenty first-century education and schooling. There can be no doubt that both are currently under serious fire from various intellectual and academic quarters—as the recent Times debate between Dawkins, Hitchens and Grayling and their adversaries (and the public defeat of their pro-religion opponents) amply demonstrates. For Dawkins, religion, religious belief and religious education are a private disgrace and a public menace. To be sure, given the way in which religion has lately become dangerously implicated in global and local political conflicts, one might agree with Dawkins (2006; but see also McGrath, 2007; Hitchens, 2007; and Grayling, 2007) that blind and irrational commitment to religious dogma or doctrine can have terrible consequences. But it is also clear from history that this applies no less to atheistic and scientific than to religious dogmas. In this light, apart from the one-sided and condescending character of much recent devil’s advocacy—not to mention the fact that this is more likely to inflame than calm current hatreds and antagonisms—it may be a saner course to try to promote better understanding of the positive spiritual and moral meaning that many have found in religious faith. Indeed, it is hard not to be struck by the churlish, graceless and philistine failure of such recent critics of religion to give any recognition to the culturally significant and substantial moral, spiritual and aesthetic achievements of much religious aspiration—still less to appreciate the extent to which such aspirations have shaped billions of good, decent and charitable lives. It is the present claim that no education devoid of such appreciation could be other than a woefully impoverished affair.2

NOTES 1. Rather ironically, Terence McLaughlin (2003) invokes the authority of the present writer—by no means erroneously at the time—in support of this view. 2. The material from which this chapter is mostly drawn was presented at two colloquia on religious education held at the St Deiniol’s (Gladstone Library) Conference Centre in 2005 and 2006. Terry McLaughlin was not only a key participant in these colloquia, but a gracious (as ever) principal respondent to my own presentations.

REFERENCES Anscombe, G. E. M. (1981) Transubstantiation, in Ethics, Religion and Politics: Collected Philosophical Papers Volume III (Oxford, Blackwell). Aristotle (1941a) Nicomachean Ethics, in: R. McKeon (ed.) The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York, Random House). Aristotle (1941b) Poetics, in: R. McKeon (ed.) The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York, Random House). Armstrong, K. (2004) The Battle for God (London, Harper Perennial). Armstrong, K. (2005) A Short History of Myth (Edinburgh, Canongate).

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Carr, D. (1994) Reason, Meaning and Truth In Religious Narrative: Towards an Epistemic Rationale for Religious and Faith School Education, Studies in Christian Ethics, 17.1, pp. 38–53. Carr, D. (2004) On the Grammar of Religious Discourse and Education, Zeitschrift fur Erziehungswissenschaft, Heft 3, pp. 380–393. Carr, D. (2006) Moral Education at the Movies: On the Cinematic Treatment of Morally Significant Story and Narrative, Journal of Moral Education, 35.3, pp. 319–333. Chadwick, P. (1997) Shifting Alliances: Church and State in English Education (London, Cassell). Dawkins, R. (2006) The God Delusion (London, Bantam). Foot, P. (2001) Natural Goodness (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Geach, P. T. (1977) The Virtues (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Grayling, A. C. (2007) Against All Gods: Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness (London, Oberon Books). Gribble, J. (ed.), (1967) Matthew Arnold (London, Collier Macmillan, Educational Thinkers Series). Halstead, J. M. (2003) Metaphor, Cognition and Spiritual Reality, in: D. Carr and J. Haldane (eds) Spirituality, Philosophy and Education (London, Routledge). Hirst, P. H. (1974) Liberal Education and the Nature of Knowledge, in: Knowledge and the Curriculum (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul). Hitchens, C. (2007) God is Not Great: The Case Against Religion (London, Atlantic Books). Hume, D. (1966) Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, L. A. Selby-Bigge, ed. (Oxford, Clarendon Press). Kant, I. (1967) The Critique of Practical Reasoning and Other Works on the Theory of Ethics, T. K. Abbott, trans. (London, Longmans). Kant, I. (1968) The Critique of Pure Reason (London, Macmillan). Lovelock, J. (1988) The Ages of Gaia (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Lyotard, J-F. (1984) The Post-Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, G. Bennington and B. Massumi, trans. (Manchester, Manchester University Press). McGrath, A. (2007) The Dawkins Delusion (London, SPCK). MacIntyre, A. C. (1981) After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN, Notre Dame Press). MacIntyre, A. C. (1987) Whose Justice, Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, IN, Notre Dame Press). MacIntyre, A. C. (1992) Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (Notre Dame, IN, Notre Dame Press). McLaughlin, T. H. (1995) Wittgenstein, Education and Religion, in: P. Smeyers and J. D. Marshall (eds) Philosophy and Education: Accepting Wittgenstein’s Challenge (Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers). McLaughlin, T. H. (2003) Education, Spirituality and the Common School, in: D. Carr and J. Haldane (eds) Spirituality, Philosophy and Education (London, Routledge). Midgley, M. (2001) Science and Poetry (London, Routledge). Murdoch, I (1993) Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (Harmondsworth, Penguin Press). Newman, J. H. (1952) The Idea of a Liberal Education: a Selection from the Works of Newman, H. Tristram, ed. (London, Harrap). Phillips, D. Z. (1976) Religion without Explanation (Oxford, Blackwell). Phillips, D. Z. (1986) Belief, Change and Forms of Life (London, Macmillan). Phillips, D. Z. (1988) Faith after Foundationalism (London, Routledge). Pring, R. (1999) Political Education: Relevance of the Humanities, Oxford Review of Education, 25.1&2, pp. 71–87. Quine, W. V. O. (1953) From a Logical Point of View (New York, Harper and Row). Scottish Office Education Department (1992) Religious and Moral Education 5–14, Curriculum and Assessment in Scotland National Guidelines (Edinburgh, Scottish Office). Stenhouse, L. (1967) Culture and Education (London, Nelson). Stenhouse, L. (1973) The Humanities Curriculum Project, in: H. J. Butcher and H. B. Pont (eds) Educational Research in Britain 3 (London, University of London Press).

11 Religious Worldviews and the Common School: The French Dilemma KEVIN WILLIAMS There may well be practical difficulties facing the common school in avoiding the transmission of general secular and relativist views. However, liberal educational values confront the common school with a principled obligation to address and resolve them (McLaughlin, 1992, p. 114)

In seeking to define and give practical content to national identity and aspirations, the school curriculum serves as an instrument of public policy through which national self-understanding is expressed and communicated to the young generation. The notion of using the curriculum to promote a particular religious view of the world would be considered, in the 21st century in most liberal democracies, an unacceptable encroachment of religion into the civic space. This marks a huge transformation of the strong historical connection between schooling and religion, a connection that is to be found in the Jewish and Islamic traditions as well as within Christianity. The rupture of the link between religion and schooling has been very dramatic in France. From the time of the French Revolution, the struggle to break the power of the Catholic Church and to end its control of schooling became an important feature of political life. In the later part of the 19th century a perception of its potential to be socially divisive led to the very strict and principled assignment of religion to the private sphere and to its exclusion from the common school. This policy is informed by what the French refer to as the principles of laı¨cite´. (There is no direct English equivalent for this term and it may be translated as non-confessionalism, civic neutrality or liberalism.) The Law of Separation between Church and State enacted just over one hundred years ago in 1905 gave full legal force to the principles of laı¨cite´ and to the exclusion of religion from schools. Though the French conception of the common school can appear simply hostile to religion, it has another important dimension. This is the aspiration that the school serve as a sanctuary apart from the rest of society. According to this tradition, initiated by Jules Ferry and cherished by the philosopher, Alain, the school is envisaged as a safe place where childish blunders do not have the consequences that they have in the adult world and where encounters with this world occur vicariously through the study of literature.1 The school has also famously been described by Jean The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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Zay as ‘an inviolable refuge into which the quarrels of humankind do not enter’ (quoted in Debray, 2004, p. 32).2 This conception of the school as a sanctuary from the rest of society runs deeply in France. For example, in a major address on religion in the public space in December 2003 the President at the time, Jacques Chirac, affirmed the role of the school as a ‘sanctuaire re´publicain’ (a ‘republican sanctuary’) (Costa-Lascaux and Auduc, 2006 p. 102). This is an expression of the underlying rationale of the French state school and of the deep commitment to its status as a sacred space of a secular character apart from the family and wider community. It is, however, to prevent the development of undesirable communautarisme or ghetto mentalities that any direct teaching of religion in schools is forbidden. Accordingly, the state school is conceived as a rigorously neutral, non-confessional, secular (laı¨c) civic space in which any expression of religious commitment is also prohibited including, most controversially, the wearing of Islamic headscarves. This is an expression of the Republican ideal in France and the school has historically represented, and continues to represent, a significant and highly sensitive civic space in terms of this ideal. As Henri Pena-Ruiz (2003, p. 37) explains, the most passionate struggles concerning laı¨cite´, have to do with schools. Yet even in France, two regions, Alsace and Moselle, enjoy an historic right to have optional confessional Religious Education included in the school day as part of publicly-funded educational provision. To the dismay of secularists, schools in these regions continue to provide dedicated courses in the study of religions/worldviews. And to the further dismay of secularists in an open letter to educators on 4 September 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy (2007), President of France, has proposed a serious engagement with religion in all French schools—more shall be said about this proposal later in this essay.

THE COMMON SCHOOL IN FRANCE AND BRITAIN

It is interesting to note the huge difference between the conceptions of the common school in France and in Britain. A common school in France is most clearly defined by its absence of religion, that is, by its nonconfessional, laı¨c character. What defines a common school in Britain is the notion of comprehensiveness in terms of a broad curriculum and nonselective intake. The attitude to ethnic and religious difference could hardly be more contrasting. As Richard Pring notes in his introductory chapter in this volume, schools in Britain not only tolerate ‘different beliefs on matters of human importance’ (Pring, Chapter 1, p. 9) but they also aim to ‘sustain’ these beliefs ‘with a view to reciprocal benefit’ (ibid.). By contrast the French model accepts that students will bring with them ‘different beliefs’ but refuses to reinforce them and insists that they are left behind them. Any reinforcement of these identities would promote communautarisme. Within the school precincts, learners, divested of the particular identities of their families and local communities, are received as neophyte citizens of the indivisible and unitary state that is France. Schools in the

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British model are based on a principle of equal inclusion of all religions, whereas the French have opted for a principle of their equal exclusion. Likewise perceptions of the relationship between school and society differ significantly. Pring, for example, refers to Oakeshott’s metaphor of the school as ‘monastic’ in its detachment from life as an expression of a form of elitism totally at odds with the notion of a common school.3 By contrast, in France the monastic metaphor of the school as a place apart from the rest of society captures its institutionally appropriate role. As explained above, this is related to the French conception of the school as humane sanctuary unencumbered by the conflicts that afflict society outside. It is also related to a profound commitment to the status of literate or ‘high’ culture as the patrimony of everyone. The French view has been given expression by the giants of the 19th century, Jean Jaure`s and Jules Ferry. Jaure`s argues that the children who will be future workers of the soil or labourers in factories should enjoy full access to the joys of art and of the beauty of great works of literature (Jaure`s, 2006, pp. 26–7). For Ferry ‘reading is the irresistible instrument of the freeing of the human spirit’ (see Thabault, 1993, p. 201) and initiation into the culture of reading is the special remit of the school. There is much that is commendable in the French aspiration to make of the school a space ‘into which the quarrels of humankind do not enter’ (Zay, quoted in Debray, 2004, p. 32). It is this aspiration that has led to the prohibition on the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in schools. As this issue is not the theme of this essay I shall not enter into the debate here and shall say no more than that I am sympathetic to the French prohibition on clothing and symbols that express particular identities. Indeed in my own time as a teacher in Ireland in the early 1980s, I welcomed the prohibition by the principal on political symbols supporting the IRA hunger strikers because symbol wearing supporters were an intimidatory presence within the school. What I wish rather to argue is that the principles of laı¨cite´ give rise to difficulties in terms of the school curriculum. Before exploring these difficulties, it is necessary to provide some detail on the cultural and ideological background to the treatment of religion within the French educational system. To this end, the principles underpinning laı¨cite´ need to be examined in order to give a sense of why the French are so committed to this ideal.

LAI¨CITE´: SOME MATTERS OF DEFINITION

The word laı¨cite´ derives from the Greek, laos, meaning ‘people’ and it has clear links to demos. The difference is that the notion of laı¨cite´ implies freedom from clerical interference, whereas democracy implies freedom from aristocratic domination. The relationship of laı¨cite´ to the religious/ clerical sphere means that non-confessionalism is probably the most accurate translation of the term but in different contexts it is more appropriate to speak of neutrality or even of liberalism in the Anglo-Saxon sense. In France both the demos and laos aspects of the Republican ideal

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derive from the French Revolution and the affirmation of laı¨cite´ culminated in the Law of Separation of 1905. The impulse behind the ideal of laı¨cite´ is to prevent the abuse of power by any established interest to curtail people’s choice of worldview and the freedom to enjoy their own way of life. In other words, this ideal affirms the res publica, literally, the public thing, the all embracing public space from which no one is excluded because of beliefs or lifestyle. Though we speak of a res publica, it is more accurate nowadays to think in terms of a res civilis, that is, the sphere sponsored by state/local authorities or over which these authorities have direct control (state and municipal buildings and schools and hospitals supported by taxation). The public sphere embraces a whole culture and, within liberal democracies, accommodates the expression of beliefs by individuals and groups, for example, the holding of processions and placing advertisements and notices. The only civic condition to the exercise of these rights in the public domain is the rule of law that normally proscribes provocative activities and the promulgation of material likely to cause offence or to incite to hatred. In other words, the notion of the public space is much more encompassing than that of the civic space. Somewhat ironically, and also an indication of the pervasiveness of religion in European culture, religion can find a profile within the civic space in France. In 2004 an exhibition on the Passion in Catalan art was widely advertised in public spaces all over Paris and it took place within ˆ ge. It was considered the civic space of the Muse´e National du Moyen A neither necessary nor appropriate to gloss the Christian expression ‘Passion’, although the word as commonly used has nothing to do with the suffering and death of Jesus. Likewise, as part of its remit as the 2004 capital of European culture, the French city of Lille mounted an extensive Rubens exhibition and many of the paintings drew on biblical themes. In France, then, it is striking that in spite of the commitment to secular neutrality, there seems to be no principled objection to profiling cultural artefacts of a conspicuously religious character in the public and civic space, including cemeteries. The outrage of the fanatical secularist and school teacher Tafardel at the absence of the motto ‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’ at the entrance to the village cemetery is one of the many hilarious incidents in Clochemerle, the French comic classic on Church State relations first published in 1934 (Chevallier, 2005, p. 15). More seriously, a significant example of the role of religion in the civic space is the recognition of the place of chaplains within the French army. Indeed the theologian Yves Congar (1981, p. 408; 1985, pp. 214–15) has written of the shared understanding that developed between him and his army comrades through his presence in this particular civic space.

UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEXT

What therefore is the spring of laı¨cite´, a principle that has been described as a ‘passion franc¸aise’ (French passion) (Coutty, 1997, p. 80)? At the

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heart of the theory is a sensitivity in France to the potential of religion to be divisive. Since religious beliefs are not universally shared in society, therefore any civic affirmation of religion is incompatible with a polity that is conceived as indivisible and unitary. Religion has also been associated with the ancien re´gime and as inimical to the Republican ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity. In France secularists perceive l’e´glise (the church), together with le chaˆteau, as being in alliance against the republican institutions made up of mairie, l’e´cole, et poste (the town hall, the school, the postal service) (see Raffi, 1997, p. 84). The kind of relationship between religion and society feared by secularists is captured in Edith Wharton’s short novel, Madame de Treymes, first published in 1907 and set in France at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th centuries. Madame de Malrive, an expatriate American, who is estranged from her philandering husband, explains that her husband and his family refuse to consent to a divorce for fear of losing custody of the couple’s son. Wharton offers a memorable account of the closed and manipulative nature of ‘upper class’ French family life and of its predatory designs on the son. Like other children of the upper class, the boy is enclosed in a ‘network of accepted prejudices and opinions’: Everything is prepared in advance—his political and religious convictions, his judgments of people, his sense of honour, his ideas of women, his whole view of life. He is taught to see vileness and corruption in everyone not of his own way of thinking, and in every idea that does not directly serve the religious and political purposes of his class. The truth isn’t a fixed thing: it’s not used to test actions by, it’s tested by them, and made to fit with them. And this forming of the mind begins with the child’s first consciousness; it’s in his nursery stories, his baby prayers, his very games with his playmates! (Wharton, 1995, p. 11, emphasis added)

The purpose of this form of social education is to appropriate the child ‘to his race, his religion, his true place in the order of things’ (p. 80, emphasis added). Madame de Malrive explains that she feels that her son is ‘only half mine because the Church has the other half, and will be reaching out for my share as soon as his education begins’ (pp. 11–12). The conjunction of religion with initiation into the values of and the interests of the socio-political establishment is another part of what the French fear and an historical reason for affirming the values of the Republican ideal. This account of the relationship between the establishment and the Church is not due to the jaundiced perception of the American novelist. The relationship also arises several times in the course of Clochemerle where the words of the domineering baroness to the hapless curate capture it well. ‘Did you not know’, she pronounces, that the ‘chaˆteau and the presbytery should walk hand in hand’ (Chevallier, 2005, p. 208). The metaphor here echoes that used by James Joyce in his poem ‘Gas from a Burner’ where he describes Ireland as a land ‘Where Christ and Caesar are hand and glove!’4

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The other aspect of the fear of secular Republicans is that religion will come to dominate the civic and private spheres and that the notion of the nation or its constituent local communities will become identified with the Catholic Church. Here too we might note that there is somewhat of a difference between the Republican ideal in France and in the United States. In the USA the Wall of Separation between Church-State serves to protect citizens from any proselytising intent on the part of a White AngloSaxon Protestant social/political establishment. In France the Law of Separation serves to protect citizens from the encroachment of religion into their lives via (normally) the Catholic Church. The French accordingly wish to insist on the distinction between the local community and the parish. These are not seen as co-extensive and, unlike in some countries, the school is precluded from involvement in the catechetical project of the home. Traditionally the primary teacher (l’instituteur) and the local priest (le cure´) are rivals for the hearts and minds of the young (see, for example, Statius, 2005, pp. 83–94). A further Republican fear is that moral obligation will be conceived as deriving exclusively from religious sources. These tensions are captured with humour and wit in Joanne Harris’s (2000) novel, Chocolat, which was subsequently made into a film. Vianne Rocher is a free-thinking single parent who sets up a chocolate shop cum cafe´ in a small French village. The village priest is outraged at what he perceives as the malign influence that she is exercising on some of the villagers. He determines to do everything in his power to combat her ‘for the sake of the community and the Church’ (p. 209). In this phrase is communicated the kind of identification that the French state resists. Later in the novel he confronts Vianne for harbouring in her premises a woman who has suffered from violence at the hands of her husband. The priest’s main concern is with preserving ‘marriage vows’ and he goes on to indict Vianne for bringing up her daughter ‘without God and without morality’ (p. 237). This affirmation of a necessary connection between morality and religion is totally unacceptable in France as indeed in any liberal democratic state. Such a connection can lead to the appropriation of religion for political purposes. An example from our time of what the French fear is provided in Azar Nafisi’s memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran. As soon as the mullahs assumed power, and ‘ruled the land’, writes Nafisi, ‘religion was used as an instrument of power, an ideology’. She deplores ‘this ideological approach to faith’ that was used ‘by those in power’ in order to confiscate from ‘ordinary citizens . . . their most intimate moments and private aspirations’ (Nafisi, 2004, p. 273). In concluding this section I would like to note that it would be wrong to conceive the country simplistically in terms of ‘deux France’ (see CostaLascaux and Auduc, 2006, p. 18; Estivale`zes, 2004, p. 171), that is, two totally opposed conceptions of France, one Catholic—traditional, religious and conservative and the other laı¨c—progressive, agnostic and tolerant. For example, one of the best collections of readings on laı¨cite´ by Henri Pena-Ruiz (2003) contains texts by Condorcet, Jaure`s and Jules Ferry’s Letter to Teachers, but also the passionate statements of two Catholic

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priest/politicians, L’Abbe´ Lamennais in the 19th century and L’Abbe´ Lemire in the 20th, condemning the encroachment of religion into the civil sphere. Some ten years ago Claude Dagens, the bishop of Angouleˆme, welcomed the recognition that people can be committed both to Catholicism and also to the principles of laı¨cite´ (Dagens, 1997, p. 83).

FAITH, CULTURE AND THE SCHOOL

Despite the French fear of the totalising impulse of political versions of Catholicism, religion holds a significant profile in French culture and a level of religious literacy is needed in negotiating aspects of the country’s cultural heritage. An understanding of religion is necessary to an informed response to the considerable body of religiously inspired poetry, music and art in French culture and in western culture in general. Culture is, of course, very much part of the public rather than the civic sphere.5 I have often been struck by the salience of religious motifs in French cultural life. For example, although the great 20th century songwriter, Georges Brassens, was a witty, subversive and ribald iconoclast, he often addresses religious themes. In her book on the work of Brassens, Sara Poole has two sections dealing with his attitude to religion (Poole, 2000, pp. 36–40). His lyrics also contain much Christian imagery. The pervasiveness of this imagery is illustrated in the metaphors of litany, Credo and Confiteor, in the chorus of his most famous song, Les Copains d’Abord (Friends First). Indeed, it is not unusual to find religious metaphors used in the French language itself. The following two examples communicate a sense of France as a secular state with a culture deeply influenced by Catholicism. The centenary of the Law on the Separation of Church and State, 2005, was described as the year that Republican France would celebrate its ‘High Mass’ (Chupin, 2003, p. 37). The missionary dimension of Christianity is captured in a reference to ‘missionaries’ being required to teach about religion in schools (Bonrepaux, 2004, pp. 48–49). But young people are perceived as ill equipped to negotiate the culture of France’s Christian tradition. As Dominique Borne, former Chief Inspector of Schools, observes many young people have lost contact with two constants of an older way of life: the rural and the religious (Borne, 2004, p. 56). The consequence of an absence of religious understanding on the part of young people is reflected in the well-known anecdote of the pupil who, on seeing a painting of the Madonna by Botticelli, asks ‘Who is the bird in the painting?’ (Debray, 2002, pp. 15–16). Blandine Dahe´ron gives as an example Baudelaire’s poem Harmonie du Soir (Evening Harmony) that commonly appears on the syllabus for the Baccalaure´at (the examination at the end of second level schooling) and which contains the terms encensoir/censer, reposoir/altar of repose and ostensoir/ monstrance. A teacher explains that four out of five pupils are not familiar with this vocabulary (Dahe´ron, 2004, pp. 51–52). This is hardly surprising because these are not common words—what is more striking perhaps is the expectation of the teacher that more students would know the terms. Dahe´ron gives another example that is far more likely to

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surprise readers. This concerns the need for a teacher to gloss, in the sense of contextualising, the expression ‘My God’ in literary texts (pp. 12–13). It is interesting to note that pupils in Catholic schools (some 20% of schools in France are Catholic) have been found to be equally ill informed regarding religious language (p. 13 and Debray, 2002, pp. 30–31). Debray (ibid.) points to research that shows that familiarity with this language relates more to the level of studies than to family background or kind of school attended. In other words, familiarity with religious language reflects cultural literacy rather than commitment to a religious faith.

THE ROLE OF THE SCHOOL

The school has contributed to the ignorance of the religious dimension of culture that has led to the condition of the religious illiteracy (l’inculture religieuse or analphabe´tisme religieux) on the part of many young people. In the first place, many teachers are reluctant to refer to religious subject-matter in case they infringe the principles of laı¨cite´ (see Estivale`zes, 2004, p. 206; Dahe´ron, 2004, p. 91) and provoke critical reactions from parents and from other teachers (see Costa-Lascoux and Auduc, 2006, p. 80; Dahe´ron, 2004, p. 89). Whenever the subject of religion is broached, Estivale`zes explains, teachers commonly feel ‘a sort of general unease’ (Estivale`zes, 2006, p. 484). In the light of the spirit underlying the following words from a college lecturer warning teachers to avoid what has been referred to as ‘the trap of proselytism or of militant atheism’ that may be the result of an inadvertent remark (Ce´delle, 2004, p. 32), this unease is understandable.6 As a result of the tradition of excluding religion from schools, teachers who are believers feel particularly ‘apprehensive’ (Estivale`zes, 2006, p. 484) about touching on religious issues. Robert Jackson (2007) reports a French colleague explaining that ‘there is a fear of assigning religious identities to pupils: we don’t want them to reveal whether they are Jewish, Muslim or Christian . . . I think this might be one of reasons why we don’t want too much of a pupil-centred approach’ (Jackson, 2007, p. 48). In the second place militant secularism remains common among French teachers. This attitude is reflected in the description of the teaching of history of religions or religious studies as a Trojan horse designed to subvert the secular polity (see Bost, 2002, p. 6; Debray, 2002, p. 22). It is also well captured in the remarks of a teacher quoted by Blandine Dahe´ron who tells her pupils that ‘everyone knows that God does not exist, so let’s move on to something more interesting’ (Dahe´ron, 2004, pp. 88–89). This attitude is totally at odds with the neutrality that is meant to characterise laı¨cite´ in the classroom. From an intellectual point of view the attitude is reprehensible because students of philosophy, which is an option at second level in France, must engage with the truth claims of religion. Indeed, the inevitability of engagement with religious truth-claims reinforces the exclusion of the direct study of religion from schools. The French approach is based on the view that, just as students cannot study

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philosophy without engaging in philosophical reasoning, they cannot study religion without thinking seriously about religious matters. THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL STATUS OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES

The French have other grounds than its potential to be divisive for excluding the study of religion from schools. Less well understood is the epistemological reason why they consider that the study of religion should not be given separate status as a field of knowledge (see Estivale`zes, 2004, pp. 168–173). What is taught in other countries in the form of history of religions or sociology of religion belongs within the disciplines of sociology and history and so does not merit being taught as a special field or area in schools or universities. The great irony is that the French think the proper teaching of religion has to be rooted in theology and hence has to be in this sense confessional. According to this argument, it is hard to see how we can actually teach religion in a serious sense without initiation into a particular religion. To attempt to teach religion without such a specific focus would be like hoping to teach sport without actually teaching children to play a specific game or activity, or to teach languages without teaching a particular language. So we have the situation where the home of laı¨cite´ shares the same vision of religious education as conservative believers. The religious illiteracy on the part of many young people has, however, been a cause of concern to both secularists and believers alike and has prompted a policy response on the part of the French Ministry of Education. RELIGIOUS ILLITERACY: THE POLICY RESPONSE

To address the condition of religious illiteracy, the Ministry of Education has adopted the proposal of Re´gis Debray (2002, 2003) that schools teach what is referred to as le fait religieux (see Dahe´ron, 2004; Estivale`zes, 2004). This requirement consolidates the emphasis on the religious dimension of the curriculum that appeared after 1996 in syllabi in history and literature (see Willaime, 2007, p. 93). The phrase can be translated minimally as religious facts or information about religion but more accurately as knowledge or understanding of religion as a human phenomenon. This can be referred to as ‘knowledge of religion’ or, depending on the context, as ‘teaching about religion’. Yet religion is not a special subject in the form of religious studies or worldview studies such as is to be found in the curriculum in other jurisdictions but rather the specialised treatment of religious themes as they arise across the curriculum, particularly in literature, history and philosophy. Underlying this policy is a very firm commitment to what is conceived to be an academic, detached, neutral approach to the topic of religion. The laı¨c spirit underpinning the policy is not hostile to religion and, rather than doctrinaire secularism, seeks to promote openness to all worldviews. In

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the words of Jean-Paul Willaime, a leading French specialist on the theme of this chapter, there has been a movement away from ‘abstentionist laı¨cite´ to a return of religion to public education’ (2007, p. 87). This movement has been reinforced by the tone of the current French president, Nicolas Sarkozy referred to earlier. Sarkozy (2007) first takes pains to affirm his commitment to the principles of laı¨cite´ as the best way to maintaining peaceful relations between religions and combating any tendency towards religious segregation within society. But he goes on to argue that serious attention be paid to religion in French schools in order that young people can better understand le fait religieux. Religious and spiritual inquiry, he argues, has always been a feature of human civilisations and so it needs to be undertaken in school. He also suggests that through the study of religion people will become more open to others and more capable of entering into dialogue with them. It is time therefore, he argues, to cease leaving le fait religieux at the door of the school but, he insists, it is necessary in doing so to avoid a ‘theological approach’ (ibid.) and any suspicion of proselytising intent. The explicit rejection of any project of theological formation reflects the association in France of religious education with the confessional teaching of theology. The aims attributed by Sarkozy to education concerning religion imply a sustained engagement with the religious belief. An attempt to introduce a more robust education about religion into schools would meet with stern resistance from the strong and well organised secularist lobby. The intervention of the country’s president also reflects an extraordinary level of public concern regarding the teaching of le fait religieux. Concern with the subject features not only in academic and more popular literature in France but is raised very often in the pages of Le Monde de L’Education—in the month of May 2005 (no. 336) six pages of the periodical were devoted to it. Mireille Estivale`zes also draws attention to the value of the contributions in the national press to her extensive study of the subject (Estivale`zes, 2004, p. 3). The literature in the area shows that not only do young people lack knowledge about religion and about its cultural expression but so do many of their teachers. The title of the previously mentioned article ‘Missionaries sought to teach about religion’ also suggests the difficulties of finding teachers willing to deal with religion in other subjects (Bonrepaux, 2004, pp. 48–49). As well as feeling uneasy at touching on anything to do with religious themes many feel incompetent in the area. Yet another feature in Le Monde de L’E´ducation in October 2005 also addresses the ignorance of matters religious on the part of many teachers (Perucca and Truong, 2005, pp. 54–56). But even if the teachers were willing and competent to teach it, I believe that the cross curricular treatment of religion as conducted in France is seriously problematic and requires a kind of detachment from religious beliefs that is neither possible nor defensible. To understand religious worldviews young people require a far thicker encounter with religion that study of le fait religieux will permit.7 Without such an encounter with religion, young people will not acquire what Debray describes as ‘an involvement lived from within that becomes part of the individual’

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(‘un engagement ve´cu de l’inte´rieur qui fait corps avec personne meˆme’) (Debray, 2002, pp. 22–3) or gain access to ‘the beating heart of living faith’ (‘le cœur battant de foi ve´cue’) (p. 40). In its aspiration to attain neutrality in schooling, French policy requires a pedagogically unsustainable detachment from religion as a feature of human experience. Current policy is based on an acceptance that religious worldviews should not be ignored in education but they cannot be treated in the neutral, depersonalised way assumed in the teaching of le fait religieux. The issue takes us to the heart of what Terry McLaughlin described as the ‘dilemma of substantiality’ that shall be next examined in respect of the relationship between laı¨cite´ and religion.

RELIGION, NEUTRALITY AND THE LOGIC OF LAI¨CITE´

There is one striking irony in the exclusion of the study of religion from French schools. Understanding what is meant by laı¨cite´ is a feature of civic education and such understanding requires an explanation of the nature of different claims to truth and consequently the truth status of religion must be addressed. This means civic education requires a more significant exploration of the nature of religious belief than policy-makers seem to appreciate. The laı¨c project also gives rise to more general epistemological problems where applied in a pedagogic context. Based on an over-simplified epistemology of the school curriculum, the project is informed by complacent and questionable assumptions regarding the distinction between the beliefs that characterise religion and the ‘facts’ that are a feature of other forms of knowledge. Facts are not, as Debray argues, ‘observable, neutral, pluralist’ (Debray, 2003; also quoted in Dahe´ron, 2004, p. 6). The western intellectual tradition draws heavily on interpretative theories rather than ‘facts’. It is obvious that the claims of influential thinkers like Marx and Freud are theories of such a character and prompt serious levels of disagreement. But this also applies within the more directly scientific sphere. Mary Midgley (2007), for example, argues that the theory of natural selection is a problematic candidate for the science curriculum on account of its metaphysical presuppositions. The knowledge embedded in other school subjects does not belong in a firm realm of facts leaving religion confined to the universe of mere beliefs. The following are examples of how other ‘factual’ subjects, history, civics and geography can also prompt very divergent interpretations. In history and civic education, it is impossible to envisage any ‘merely factual’ account of the French colonial adventure. In geography (and again in civic education) even the very definition of the configuration of the French state is contestable. As well as the status of the overseas territories, the appropriate political and cultural status of Alsace and of the Catalan, Basque and Breton regions can be understood very differently. Here we need to note a distinction between two versions of neutrality: what might be called the comprehensive version and the civic or laı¨c version.8 According to the first version, it is impossible in principle to

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reach conclusions regarding certain questions, for example, whether God exists, or whether there is an afterlife. This is not really neutrality; it is agnosticism and it reflects a secular conception of the world. In the classroom context, it is as impermissible to promote this view as it was for the philosophy teacher quoted earlier who stated to her pupils that God did not exist. ‘Acceptance of the notion that matters of civic virtue should be governed by secular criteria’, as Terry McLaughlin has explained, ‘is importantly distinct from promoting a secular view of human good in general’ (McLaughlin, 1992, p. 114). According to the second version of neutrality, these issues are highly contested and will always give rise to disagreement between people. This is what might be called the civic version of neutrality and it underpins laı¨cite´. Though representing a genuinely neutral attitude, it can be problematic where invoked in the classroom context. Students can understand neutrality in this sense as implying that one worldview is as good as another. Choice of worldview may become perceived as a matter of opinion. Young people can therefore get the impression that there is no ultimate criterion of truth or even of relative compellability that can be invoked in choosing between different worldviews. This suggests to them that the beliefs of eccentric cults have the same status as the beliefs of the great world religions or of atheism. The dilemma facing neutrality in this sense is the risk that it will give rise to an extreme form of relativism expressed in the claim that any all sincere convictions are equally valid. In any case, I am not at all sure how neutral it is possible or desirable for a teacher to be. If religion in the form of le fait religieux is addressed in the classroom, it is hard to see how teachers can be completely neutral. There is something distinctly odd about teachers being neutral in respect of different viewpoints on religion because it is part of every teacher’s remit to enable learners to respect the force of better arguments. In raising any issue concerning religious belief in the classroom a teacher may find it difficult to avoid all evaluation and assessment of religious truth claims. To be sure, conclusive proof cannot be provided in respect of the claims of faith but there exist criteria, if not of truth, then at least of plausibility and degrees of reasonableness in the area. No teacher can be neutral about the force of better arguments in respect of claims to reasonableness. The search for an extreme form of neutrality has led to extravagant efforts to avoid any reference to personal beliefs in French schools. The warning to teachers mentioned earlier to beware of ‘the trap of proselytism or of militant atheism’ that may be the result of an inadvertent remark Ce´delle (2004, p. 32) serves to show why teachers feel so uneasy in the area. Yet the forbearance exacted by such a warning could lead to a paralysing reticence on the part of teachers. It is only appropriate that teachers refrain from ‘assigning religious identities to pupils’ or from any attempt to elicit these identities from them (Jackson, 2007, p. 48) and this is one sense it is important that the teacher be neutral. But in dealing in the classroom with sensitive and controversial issues, there is a crucial distinction to be drawn between neutral and being partisan. Obviously it is impossible to conceive of anyone, let alone a

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teacher, being without an opinion concerning these and other great questions about life and its purposes. Answers to these questions should not have to be prohibited in the classroom because of fears of partisanship on the part of teachers. There is a parallel in the teaching of history. I am not persuaded that teachers of history, any more than teachers of civics, of morality or of religion, can be neutral but this does not mean that they have to be partisan. We do not have to choose between neutrality and partisanship. The approach I propose is for teachers to be non-defensive, honest and prepared to entertain questions about their beliefs, while being sensitive and exercising pedagogic tact in doing so.9 The second aspect of the French dilemma with regard to teaching of le fait religieux, is most conspicuous in regard to the teaching of literature. Here encounters with different worldviews are inevitable and these encounters must be made as vivid as possible. In teaching literature there is an educational imperative to address questions regarding our lives, our emotions and also, indeed, of truth.10

RELIGIOUS WORLDVIEWS AND THE TEACHING OF LITERATURE

Jeanne Benameur’s (2006) account of the teaching of the literature in her novel Pre´sent? captures the spirit of my argument here. Literary texts, she writes, ‘speak of life, of death, of absurdity and of beauty and of what keeps us on two legs’ (p. 78, my translation). As far as the teacher is concerned, he knows that his job is to communicate this insight to the learners in as embodied a form as possible beyond merely covering the syllabus: ‘Yes, he knows the syllabus! He knows also that the only syllabus that matters is the one that gets under their skin, makes their blood beat, makes them feel that the life of a human being is something great and that this greatness is to be found in texts’ (ibid.). In an academic context, it is interesting to note the endorsement of this approach to the teaching of literature by Tzvetan Todorov. Todorov reflects on his conversion from a formalist approach to literature to one that envisages literature as offering readers illumination of their own lives. He condemns the formalism underlying the teaching of literature in French schools on the grounds that it neglects the impact of literature on the lives of students. Literature, he now believes, enables us to make connections between texts and our lives and thus better to understand our emotions (see Dupuis, 2005, pp. 20–22).11 Applying this to the teaching of literature with religious themes means encouraging students to acquire an insider’s perspective on these themes (see Williams, 2004, 2007). I am not, of course, claiming that teaching such literature requires religious belief but, in an exclusively secular context, it does involve communicating an appreciation of the theological beliefs that inform the texts. Teaching religious poetry, for example, in this context in a way that respects the integrity of the experience that it embodies will demand sensitive efforts in promoting the imaginative sympathy necessary to enable pupils to respond appropriately to it. As

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poet Michael Longley puts it, one aim of the good teacher of literature is to explain to his pupils what a poem is ‘doing to him, the teacher, spiritually, emotionally and intellectually’ (see McSweeney, 1983, p. 139). It is impossible to conceive of the proper teaching of literature that does not take the ‘pupil-centred approach’ (Jackson, 2007, p. 48) about which some teachers are uneasy. Despite the powerful statement of Benameur’s fictional teacher, the French tend to overlook the extent to which effective pedagogy involves a level of personalisation on the part of learners.12 This personalisation is required even where texts raise religious issues. Many texts to be found within the French literary tradition do raise religious issues and therefore require some degree of theological literacy on the part of readers. I am not sure, though, how far I would wish to agree with the claim of Jean-Paul Willaime that ‘fully’ to ‘understand a religious theme in a painting or literary work, one must immerse oneself in all the subtleties of theological thought’ (2007, p. 94). Yet an appreciation of some works of literature may require significant levels of theological knowledge. The kind of knowledge of religious language involved can be at the straightforward level of vocabulary. For example, in respect of Baudelaire’s poem Harmonie du Soir mentioned earlier, the terms ‘altar of repose’, ‘censer’ and ‘monstrance’ can be explained by the teacher. Yet these terms offer somewhat more than what literary critic, Denis Donoghue, refers to as ‘local obstacles’ (Donoghue, 1998, p. 81) to understanding. Communication of the full religious import of the terms may require considerable explanation. This would have to be offered in a different spirit from the kind of explanatory detail necessary to make sense of references to myths. This is because, as Terry McLaughlin has pointed out, unlike myths, religious beliefs are live options for many people.13 An account of the terms used by Baudelaire would have to explain their place in rituals and the rituals in turn will demand a story of their place in the world of human purposes and practices. The presence of religious language can present an even more demanding challenge. As Henri Peyre points out (see Burnshaw, 1964, pp. 14–15), Harmonie du Soir can be said to make metaphorical reference to the sacrifice of Christ in the line ‘le soleil s’est noye´ dans son sang qui se fige/The sun has drowned in its congealing blood’. An exploration of this meaning requires a much more complex literary exegesis as well as a more elaborate elucidation of a theological character. In the second place a degree of religious literacy may be necessary to trigger the imaginative sympathy necessary to respond to a text. Here I shall take as an example Messe de l’Athe´e/The Atheist’s Mass, a wonderful short story by Balzac. It appears in a well known dual language collection of ten classic French texts, four of which are directly on religious themes. Messe de l’Athe´e deals with a successful surgeon called Desplein who does not believe in God but who has four Masses a year celebrated in memory of his benefactor or, as the latter would have put it, for the repose of his soul. To enter into the mindset of this benefactor and to respond to ‘the beating heart of living faith’ (Debray, 2002, p. 40) that

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motivated him involves cultivating in non-religious students a capacity to decentre and to enter imaginatively into the worldview of another. Students must learn to think a little like Desplein who is able to set to one side his own views out of a very intimate respect for another’s. The teaching of literature ipso facto may sometimes have to accommodate a serious engagement with religious or other worldviews. Students must learn ‘to inhale’, to use a metaphor of Nafisi’s, different experiences and to go beyond ‘control beliefs’, that is, ideological predispositions that inhibit a properly generous reading of texts.14 The relationship between personal beliefs and the reading of literature has been sensitively addressed by Denis Donoghue.15 His concern is with the reading texts by authors whose beliefs are very different from his mainstream Roman Catholicism. His approach is not to ask whether the affirmation of a particular belief is true, false or verifiable but rather to ask whether he can imagine ‘someone quite sane and honorable making the statement and holding to it’ (Donoghue, 2002, p. 177). More generally he considers the responsibility required of non-believers reading literary texts that are informed by religious belief. He commends thinkers such as Derrida and Girard who, although ‘not in communion with a church’, approach religious texts with an alert respect in order ‘to discover there further ways of thinking and feeling’ (Donoghue, 2001, p. 110). This discovery will require some degree of understanding of religious belief from the inside. In order to take on life in the imagination of a reader, this understanding will require more than neutral encounters with facts about religion or about religion as phenomenon in the form of le fait religieux. In brief, therefore, I suggest that there is much that is admirable in the French aspiration to make of the school a space ‘into which the quarrels of humankind do not enter’ (Zay, quoted in Debray, 2004, p. 32). But the implementation of the principles of laı¨cite´ gives rise to difficulties in terms of the school curriculum in terms of the ‘dilemma of substantiality’ (McLaughlin, 1991). In particular, if young people are to acquire an understanding of what religion means to believers, schools will have to provide an encounter with religious belief that is much thicker, richer or more substantial than that accommodated within the teaching of le fait religieux. For this reason President Sarkozy’s openness to the need for sustained education concerning religion has much to recommend it.16

NOTES 1. In a recent interview with Nicolas Truong, distinguished French historian, Mona Ozouf, offers an interesting review of this tradition, with telling use of some apposite quotations from Alain (Truong, 2007, pp. 68–73, pp. 70–1). 2. The French version is ‘Un asile inviolable ou` les querelles des hommes ne pe´ne`trent pas’ (quoted in Debray 2004, p. 32). Jean Zay was Minister for Education in the Government of the Front Populaire of 1936 and assassinated by collaborationists in 1944. As with the other French texts, the translations are mine. 3. The relationship between Oakeshott’s conception of the school and that to be found in France and in the English-speaking world is explored in Chapter Three, ‘An Exclusivist School’, of my Education and the Voice of Michael Oakeshott (Williams, 2007).

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4. In Williams, 2006a, I contrast the role of religion in the civic space in France with its role in Ireland. 5. In Williams, 2004, I explore more generally the notion of a religious dimension of culture. 6. These remarks from a college lecturer are quoted in Ce´delle (2004, p. 32). 7. In Williams, 2006b, I defend the direct teaching of religion against what I argue are exaggerated fears of the possibility of indoctrination. 8. For a helpful account of account of the very similar issues that arise in respect of John Rawls’s account of ‘comprehensive’ and ‘political’ liberalism, see McLaughlin, 1995, especially p. 243. 9. I am aware that this is a large and complex issue and one that exercised McLaughlin greatly (see McLaughlin, 1995, 1992). In Chapter Six, ‘Schooling and the Demands of Diversity’ of Williams, 2005, I consider how this tact can be given expression in the classroom. 10. The issues raised here are examined at some length in the chapter entitled ‘Art, Life and the Study of Literature’ in Williams, 2007. 11. I have paraphrased the points made by Todorov in the interview in Dupuis, 2005. 12. I make this criticism in a more general context regarding the school curriculum in France in Williams, 2006b. 13. In the course of a typically telling intervention at the meeting mentioned in footnote 16. 14. I am grateful to David I. Smith for alerting me to the expression ‘control beliefs’ from the work of Nicholas Wolstertorff. 15. In Williams, 2004, I refer also to the work of Donoghue in readings of some poetry by Rilke, Hopkins and Hardy. 16. The chapter is based on a paper that Terry McLaughlin invited me to give at the Institute of Education on 28 April 2004, and I am honoured to have this opportunity to elaborate upon themes regarding laı¨cite´ in French life and education. I also take this opportunity to invoke, in Terry’s memory and in recognition of his Irish background, the blessing Ar dheis De´ go raibh a anam dı´lis /At God’s right-hand side may his dear soul rest.

REFERENCES Balzac, H. de (1964) Messe de l’Athe´e/The Atheist’s Mass, in: W. Fowlie (ed.) French Stories/ Contes Franc¸ais: A Bantam Dual Language Book (New York, Bantam Books). Benameur, J. (2006) Pre´sent? (Paris, Denoe¨l). Bonrepaux, C. (2004) Fait religieux cherche missionnaires (Missionaries Sought to Teach about Religion), Le Monde de L’E´ducation, 325 (mai), pp. 48–49. Borne, D. (2004) Religion a` l’e´cole en France: De´bat (Religion in Schools in France: Discussion), Revue Internationale d’E´ducation, 36 (juillet), pp. 49–69. Bost, A. (2002) Fin de l’e´tat laı¨c (The End of the Non-confessional State), Le Monde de L’E´ducation, 306 (septembre), p. 6. Burnshaw, S. (1964) The Poem Itself: 150 European Poems: Translated and Analysed (Harmondsworth, Penguin). Chevallier, G. (2005) Clochemerle (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France). Ce´delle, L. (2004) Parler religion en toute laı¨cite´ (Speaking about Religion in an Nonconfessional Context), Le Monde de L’E´ducation, 321 (janvier), pp. 30–32. Chupin, J. (2003) L comme laı¨cite´/ L as in laı¨cite´, Le Monde de l’E´ducation, 319 (novembre), pp. 35–37. Congar, Y. (1981) Relections on Being a Theologian. New Blackfriars, p. 408. Congar, Y. (1985) Letter from Yves Congar, Theology Digest, 32.3, pp. 213–16. Costa-Lascoux, J. and Auduc, J-L. (2006) Laı¨cite´ a` L’E´cole: un principe, une e´thique, une pe´dagogie (Non-Confessionalism in the School: An Ethical and Pedagogic Principle) (Cre´teil, Sce´re´n). Coutty, M. (1997) Laı¨cite´, passion franc¸aise (Non-Confessionalism: A French Passion), Le Monde de l’E´ducation, 246 (mars), pp. 80–84. Dagens, C. (1997) Fin des rapports de forces (The End of Confrontational Relationships), Le Monde de l’E´ducation, 246 (mars), pp. 82–3. Dahe´ron, B. (2004) Les Religions au Colle`ge et au Lyce´e: qu’apprennent nos enfants? (Religions in Schools: What Are Our Children Learning?) (Paris, E´ditions Bayard).

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Debray, R. (2002) L’Enseignement du Fait Religieux dans L’E´cole Laı¨que (Teaching about Religion in the Non-Confessional School) (Paris, E´ditions Odile Jacob). Debray, R. (2003) Le fait religieux: de´finitions et proble`mes (Teaching about Religion: Definitions and Problems) (Paris, Ministe`re de Jeunesse, de l’E´ducation Nationale et de Recherche, Direction de l’Enseignement scolaire). Accessed 2 October, 2007. Available at: http:// www.eduscol.education.fr/index.php?./D0126/fait_religieux.htm. Debray, R. (2004) Ce Que Nous Voile le Voile: Re´publique et le sacre´ (What the Veil Hides : The Republic and the Sacred) (Paris, Gallimard). Donoghue, D. (1998) The Practice of Reading (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press). Donoghue, D. (2001) Adam’s Curse: Reflections on Religion and Literature (Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press). Donoghue, D. (2002) Questions of Teaching, in: A. Sterck (ed.) Religion, Scholarship and Higher Education: Perspectives, Models and Future Prospects (Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press). Dupuis, M. (2005) S’ouvrir a` l’immense domaine de l’eˆtre humain (Opening Oneself to the Immense Domain of the Human Person), Le Monde de E´ducation, 335 (avril), pp. 20–22. Estivale`zes, M. (2004) Les Religions dans l’Enseignement Laı¨que (Teaching about Religions in a Non-Confessional Schools), (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France). Estivale`zes, M. (2006) Teaching about Religion at School in France, in: M. de Souza et al. (eds) International Handbook of the Religious, Moral and Spiritual Dimension of Education, Part One (Dordrecht, Springer) pp. 475–486. Harris, J. (2000) Chocolat (London, Black Swan). Jackson, R. (2007) European Institutions and the Contribution of Studies of Religious Diversity to Education for Democratic Citizenship, in R. Jackson, S. Miedema, W. Weisse and J-P. Willaime (eds) Religion and Education in Europe: Developments, Contexts and Debates (Mu¨nster/New York/Mu¨nchen/Berlin, Waxmann), pp. 27–55. Jaure`s, J. (2006) Contre l’ignorance des de´sinhe´rite´s (Against the Cultural Disinheritance of the Poor), Le Monde de E´ducation, 349 (juillet/aouˆt), pp. 26–27. McLaughlin, T. H. (1991) Liberal Education and the Ethos of the School. Unpublished paper delivered in Trinity College, Dublin, 7 June 1991. McLaughlin, T. H. (1992) Fairness, Controversiality, and the Common School, Spectrum, 24.2, pp. 105–108. McLaughlin, T. H. (1995) Liberalism, Education and the Common School, The Journal of Philosophy of Education, 29.2, pp. 239–255. McSweeney, S. (1983) The Poets’ Picture of Education, The Crane Bag, 7.2, pp. 134–142. Midgley, M. (2007) Intelligent Design and Other Ideological Problems, Impact Pamphlet 15 (London, The Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain). Nafisi, A. (2004) Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (London and New York, Fourth Estate). Perucca, B. and Truong, N. (2005) Les profs ont-ils une culture religieuse? (Do Teachers Know Anything About Religion?), Le Monde de L’E´ducation, 340 (octobre), pp. 54–56. Pena-Ruiz, H. (2003) Laı¨cite´ (Non-Confessionalism) (Paris, E´ditions Flammarion). Poole, S. (2000) Brassens: Chansons (London, Grant and Cutler). Sarkozy, N. (2007) Lettre aux Educateurs (Letter to Educators). Accessed 3 October 2007. Available at: http://www.elysee.fr/elysee/elysee.fr/francais/interventions/2007/septembre/ lettre_aux_educ.79338.html. Statius, P. (2005) Pe´guy et les instituteurs (Pe´guy and the Primary Teachers), Le Te´le´maque, 28, pp. 83–94. Raffi, G. (1997) Le nouveau combat des laı¨ques (Secularism’s New Battle), Le Monde de l’E´ducation, no. 246 (mars), 83–84. Thabault, R. (1993) Mon Village: ses hommes, ses routes, son e´cole/1888–1914, l’ascension d’un peuple (My Village; Its Men, its Roads, its School/1888–1914, The Ascent of a People), (Paris, Presses de Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques). Truong, N. (2007) Entretien: Mona Ozouf (Interview: Mona Ouzouf), Le Monde de E´ducation, 355 (fe´vrier), pp. 68–73. Wharton, E. (1995) Madame de Treymes (Harmondsworth, Penguin).

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Willaime, J-P. (2007) Teaching Religious Issues in French Schools: From Abstentionist Laı¨cite´ to a Return of Religion to Public Education, in: R. Jackson, S. Miedema, W. Weisse and J-P. Willaime (eds) Religion and Education in Europe: Developments, Contexts and Debates (Mu¨nster/New York/Mu¨nchen/Berlin, Waxmann, 2007), pp. 87–101. Williams, K. (2004) The Religious Dimension of Cultural Initiation: Has it a Place in a Secular World?, Ethical Perspectives, 11.4, pp. 228–237. Williams, K. (2005) Faith and the Nation: Religion, Culture and Schooling in Ireland (Dublin, Dominican Publications). Williams, K. (2006a) Religion and the Civic Space in France and Ireland, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 95.378, pp. 129–139. Williams, K. (2006b) Religion and Curriculum Policy in France, in: M. de Souza et al. (eds) International Handbook of the Religious, Moral and Spiritual Dimension of Education, Part Two (Dordrecht, Springer), pp. 1031–38. Williams, K. (2007) Education and the Voice of Michael Oakeshott (Thorverton, Imprint Academic).

12 Common Schools and Uncommon Conversations: Education, Religious Speech and Public Spaces KENNETH A. STRIKE As for the American experience, it is utterly exceptional: there is no other fully developed industrial society with a population so committed to its faiths (and such exotic ones), while being equally committed to the Great Separation. Our [American] political rhetoric, which owes much to the Protestant sectarians of the 17th century, vibrates with messianic energy, and it is only thanks to a strong constitutional structure and various lucky breaks that political theology has never seriously challenged the basic legitimacy of our institutions. Americans have potentially explosive religious differences over abortion, prayer in schools, censorship, euthanasia, biological research and countless other issues, yet they generally settle them within the bounds of the Constitution. It’s a miracle. And miracles can’t be willed (Lilla, 2007).

If miracles can’t be willed can the virtues, practices and convictions that underlie them be taught? According to Professor Pring the task of common schools is to create community. This point needs to be made carefully. We must create community while respecting diversity. In societies characterised by durable pluralism, any common culture must be a common liberal democratic culture. This is what common schools should help create. The details of this project are complex and contentious and its execution difficult. Presumably, the commitments and virtues we wish students to share are to be created partly through some form of engagement. At least this is the story Americans often tell one another. We promote equal recognition of and respect for members of different cultures by telling and hearing our stories. We do this via a curriculum that includes the history and literature of everyone (as much as feasible), and we explain ourselves to each other and argue with each other in order to better understand one another—even if the explaining and arguing is sometimes painful and contentious. Whether, how much or how well this actually happens is debatable, but it is a good story. The success of the project of the common schools requires engagement. This is not the story we usually tell about religion. Professor Lilla suggests the core American story about religion is that of the Great Separation. We try to privatise religion and to keep religious voices out of the public square. It is doubtful that many Americans could give an The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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account of Rawls’s (1971) notion of public reason, but this idea is a technical formulation of the moral intuitions that underlie the Great Separation. When we deal with one another as citizens, we leave our faiths at home. Those who use God-talk in the public square need their mouths washed out with liberal soap. In schools we seem reluctant to seek even mutual understanding of our diverse religions. We avoid theology, let alone theological politics. Educators are partly motivated to keep religion out of schools because religion is the (a?) third rail of American education. Touch it and you die. The strategy of the common schools concerning religion is more one of avoidance than engagement. We even tend to expunge religiously sensitive material from the curriculum (see Vitz, 1986). This is understandable. Sensible people avoid third rails. It is less obvious that it is a good thing. So far as US education is concerned, it is also not clear that the Great Separation is the entire story. One factor that helped the privatisation of religion to succeed in the US was that the Great Separation was not carried out thoroughly. The American common schools were, at their inception, able to rise above religious sectarianism because they were founded on a consensual Protestantism in a largely Protestant nation (see Macedo, 2000). Moreover many religious people who were satisfied with the constitutionally required separation of church and state did not understand this to require religious voices to be silent about matters of public policy or education. Many thought that the lowest common denominator Protestantism that infused public schools was essential for public morality. And, as Lilla notes, political theology has long infused American politics. And God-talk has had its liberal/progressive moments. The abolitionist movement and the civil rights movement are paradigm cases. Indeed, the use of religious argument for liberal causes is well rooted in the liberal tradition. Locke’s A Letter Concerning Toleration (1946) is full of religious arguments. Still God-talk in the public square makes liberals nervous. Those taken with Rawls’s (1993) political liberalism are likely to argue that a successful overlapping consensus requires us to keep our comprehensive doctrines at a respectful distant from political debate. Hence two questions: Jeffrey Stout asks the first one well. Among the expressive acts obviously protected by this right [freedom of religion] are rituals and other devotional practices performed in solitude, in the context of one’s family, or in association with others similarly disposed. More controversial, however, is a class of acts that express religious commitments in another way; namely, by employing them as reasons when taking a public stand on political issues. What role, if any, should religious premises play in the reasoning citizens engage in when they make and defend political decisions? (Stout, 2004, p. 63)

The second question is this: In common schools what role does religious discourse have in the education of good liberal citizens? Is engagement or

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avoidance the better strategy? The answers I will give to these two questions are roughly these: First, we need to make more room for religious discourse in public space than many liberal theorists want. Second, with respect to religion, engagement is a better strategy for common schools than avoidance. In the next section of this chapter, I will argue that a civic culture that overly privatises religious speech has some undesirable consequences. In the section that follows, I will consider Rawls’s recent views on public reason arguing that they are supportive of considerable openness to religious argument. Finally I will apply the results to three ‘hot button’ issues in American education. These are creationism and/or ID in public schools, gay rights (Day of Silence versus Day of Truth) and the question of whether and how we should teach the Bible in schools.

RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE

Many liberals suggest that religious premises should have little or no role in political argument. Amy Gutmann (1987) claims that secular standards are a fairer and firmer basis for settling our differences than are religious standards. Bruce Ackermann (1980) claims that liberal neutrality requires that we avoid arguments that require us to claim that our conception of the good is to be preferred to that of others. Most famously, John Rawls (1971) has developed a view of public reason that seems to prefer secular standards to religious ones. Each thinker makes the claim that liberal citizens should give other citizens arguments appealing to premises that they can share and, since religious arguments cannot be shared in a religiously pluralistic society, they are inappropriate in the public square. Nevertheless, one hears much about religion in political discourse. Americans are a religious people and expect some measure of piety from their leaders. Still, asserting that one’s religious convictions should be normative for others in our civic life is usually frowned upon. Americans are not, as a rule, theocrats. Thus, paradoxically, American politicians now seem required to testify to their piety while also promising not to act on their distinctive religious convictions. Much religiously charged political discourse occurs on the edge of the public square. In addition to its many places of worship, America is chocked full of religious periodicals, broadcasts and web sites that assert political views. There are numerous religious schools where students hear political theology. Places of worship themselves have become sites of political activism. These forums largely preach to the choir, and religious forums are highly fragmented on ideological lines. While this fragmentation has become more prevalent even in mass-market media, it seems extreme in the religious world. Much theological politics in the US thus has two important characteristics. First, insofar as argument about politics actually occurs, it occurs in forums populated by the likeminded. When theological

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politics erupts into broader public forums, it is likely to be expressed more as conclusions and demands than as argument. Second, a common response to theological politics is that it is illegitimate because it is religiously inspired. What those who engage in theological politics often hear is not rebuttal of their arguments, but an accusation of bad faith. In this way broad based media give voice to the Great Separation. This state of affairs has several undesirable consequences. First, because religious arguments for policy positions are made largely before audiences of the likeminded, they are unlikely to be effectively tested or rebutted. Often, people of faith do not even hear, let alone understand, the voices of other people of faith who draw different conclusions than they. Arguably, as Mill (1859/1956) predicted in On Liberty, the fact that people of faith do not need to defend their views has resulted in a diminished understanding of them by their own adherents. Second, this state of affairs easily gives rise to the view that the debate is between people of faith and secularists—people of no faith, and the Great Separation is easily seen as a contrivance of exclusion of the faithful by the faithless. ‘Secular’ comes to mean ‘anti- religious’. ‘Liberal secularist’ is a redundancy. Third, this two-valued choice between liberal secularists and people of faith tends to identify religious views with conservative and illiberal views. Christian fundamentalists often claim to speak for Christians generally. When this view is granted by their secular opponents, liberal/ progressive religious views are discounted and ignored. Fourth, the delegitimisation of religion in the public square provides an incentive to disingenuousness among religious people. People of faith may invent secular arguments to get a hearing. Fifth, this state of affairs encourages misunderstanding and promotes vilification. When conclusions are visible and the reasons for them are not, people are less able to see an issue through the eyes of their opponents. People on the one side will see their opponents as ungodly. People on the other side will see their opponents as ignorant and unreasonable. The mutual respect required of good citizens is not encouraged. Sixth, what people of faith will hear when they are told that religious reasons do not belong in the public square is that the reasons they have are inappropriate even if they are true. Only the truth of secularists counts. This is likely to be experienced as exclusion and dominance and lead to disaffection with the political order. Finally, when public discourse is dominated by conclusions and exclusions rather than by open debate it is likely to degenerate into slogans and posturing—into a war of bumper stickers, slogans and T-shirts. These points suggest that a political culture in which people are not encouraged to express all the reasons they have for their conclusions and to do so where people who do not share their convictions will hear them and can respond to them will be unhealthy and miseducative. The points are not uniquely about theological politics. They characterise the dismal state of deliberative politics in the US generally. Yet religion is different because the privatisation strategy of the Great Separation suggests that a liberal political culture depends on people keeping their theologies out of the public square.

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RAWLS ON PUBLIC REASON

Are the reasons for keeping religious arguments out of the public square convincing? To address this question I want to look at Rawls’s (1999) most recent views on public reason. In fact, Rawls’s considered views on public reason do not conform to the restrictive picture that claims that religion has no role in public space. In order to develop the relevant features of his most recent account I want to attend to two core ideas. The first is the distinction between the public political forum and the background culture. The public political forum has three parts: judges in their opinions, public officials and candidates for public office. The background culture is the discourse of civil society. About the latter Rawls says, The idea of public reason does not apply to the background culture with its many forms of non-public reason nor to media of any kind. Sometimes those who appear to reject the idea of public reason actually mean to assert the need for full and open discussion in the background culture. With this political liberalism fully agrees (p. 134).

Rawls goes on to distinguish the idea of public reason from the ideal of public reason: . . . we say that ideally citizens are to think of themselves as if they were legislators and ask themselves what statutes, satisfying the criterion of reciprocity, they would think it most reasonable to enact . . . Thus citizens fulfill their duty of civility and support the idea of public reason by doing what they can to hold government officials to it (p. 135).

Presumably they should also hold themselves to it when debating matters that are or might be before the legislature if they are to satisfy the criterion of reciprocity and their duty of civility. Arguably, then, the ideal of public reason applies to the background culture. Rawls concludes with what he calls the wide view of public reason: Thus, the content of public reason is given by the principles and values of the family of liberal conceptions of justice . . . To engage in public reason is to appeal to one of these political conceptions—to their ideals and principles, standards and values—when debating fundamental political questions. This requirement still allows us to introduce into political discussions at any time our comprehensive doctrine, religious or nonreligious, provided that in due course we give properly public reasons to support the principles and policies our comprehensive doctrine is said to support. I refer to this requirement as the proviso . . . (pp. 143–4).

These ideas provide a view of public dialogue that is quite open to religious speech. Here is how I understand them:

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1. The idea of public reason applies directly to public officials in the conduct of their office. However, the ideal of public reason applies to all citizens in their role as ideal legislators and wherever political ideas are discussed. 2. The idea and the ideal of public reason serve the legitimacy of democratic decision making by ensuring that among the reasons that justify any given exercise of governmental authority are those that can be accepted by all because they are rooted in a conception of justice that is in the family of liberal conceptions. 3. The idea of public reason proposes no restrictions on the kinds of speech appropriate to the background culture. 4. The ideal of public reason imposes only a duty of civility. 5. The ideal of public reason permits people to express religious reasons for public policy so long as they eventually redeem their arguments with public reasons. The wide view of public reason can be extended to support what I call engagement. Rawls discusses two forms of non-public reasoning that consider background comprehensive doctrines. The first he calls declaration. Here the idea is that various parties declare their own comprehensive doctrines with no expectation that others will agree. They then proceed to show how, from the perspective of their own doctrine, they can endorse a reasonable public conception of justice. The second strategy is conjecture. Here one takes the perspective of the comprehensive doctrine of others and argues from it in an attempt to demonstrate that the perspective allows its adherents to endorse a reasonable public conception of justice. These strategies emphasise the implications of comprehensive doctrines, leaving the doctrines themselves untouched. A key assumption of both conjecture and declaration is that the comprehensive doctrines at issue are able to provide a basis for entering into a reasonable public conception of justice if they are interpreted properly. They do not however, put comprehensive doctrines themselves on the table for rebuttal; hence they do not provide people who hold illiberal comprehensive doctrines with reasons to change their minds. Nor will they provide a way of entering into debate concerning the policy implications of illiberal comprehensive doctrines. What is needed is an augmentative strategy that more fully considers the content of illiberal religious convictions. I will call this strategy engagement. Engagement involves two key ideas. First, in public debate, people are asked to provide all of the reasons (religious or not and illiberal or not) they have for their political views and to make these views as available to others as they are able. Second, these reasons are to be open to critique on their substance. Theological claims may be made and rebutted. Rawls’s wide view of public reason does not forbid engagement. At most the religious arguments involved in engagement need only be redeemed by public reasons. In fact the wide view forbids no speech, and,

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given that there will be few policies for which some public reason cannot be found, the proviso is easily satisfied. The wide view seems almost vacuous. Nevertheless I have reservations about it. It inhibits engagement even if it does not forbid it. First, the requirement that religious speech needs to be redeemed by the giving of public reasons still carries the implication that religious reasons for public policies are inadequate. This stigmatises religious reasons and tends to exclude those for whom they provide primary reasons for their political views. Arguably, the wide view of public reason manages the unique feat of stigmatising people of faith by means of a view that requires little of them. Second, the wide view suggests that while religious reasons may be given for public policies, it is less clear that or how they count as justifications. Suppose we are faced with a choice between policies A and B and that public reasons have been advanced for both. Suppose also that the preponderance of public reasons supports A. However, there are significant religious grounds supporting B. May we legitimately choose B because the proviso has been met? If we say ‘Yes’, then religious reasoning can tip the balance. This undercuts the point of the wide view. If we say ‘No’ then we have taken the view that while religious reasons may be given, they count for little or nothing. We have reduced religious reasoning to the provision of moral support for decisions that must be reached on non-religious grounds. God is made a cheerleader. Finally, even the wide view of public reason places those who have religious views for public policies in a difficult position. As a matter of conscience they may not be able to and should not be expected to disavow their religious reasons. If they are to take public reasons seriously as well they are, at best, committed to a kind of moral bilingualism where they must translate their religious reasons into secular terms. Is there anything that guarantees the possibility of such a translation? If there is not, moral bilingualism can lead to moral schizophrenia. Can we assume a kind of pre-established harmony between people’s religious frameworks and public reason? The only thing that is likely to ensure coherence is the possession of liberal religious convictions. For those who do not have them, this requires not only declaration and conjecture, but engagement. We should recall that when Rawls characterises what does count as a public reason, he notes that there is a family of liberal views and claims that ‘to engage in public reason is to appeal to one of these political conceptions—to their ideals and principles, standards and values—when debating fundamental political questions’ (pp. 143–4). Among the family of liberal views are those that are religiously rooted. To what extent do we wish the voices of those who hold liberal views for religious reasons muted? Should the liberal response to Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, to the arguments of the Abolitionist movement or to Locke in his A Letter Concerning Toleration be to suggest that such speech must be redeemed by public argument? Liberalism and religion are entangled in complex ways. Many of the principles of a liberal polity have their analogues and some of their roots in religious conceptions. Before Kant deemed human beings objects of respect, the

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Old Testament claimed that they were created in the image of God. Justice and concern for the poor is a constant theme in Biblical literature. The parable of the Good Samaritan is a multicultural story. Freedom of conscience is a Protestant doctrine as well as a liberal one. Sometimes those of illiberal religious persuasions might be redeemed from them by a more careful reading of their Bibles. People may coherently find a liberal conception of justice to be a consequence of their faith. God is thought by them to favour freedom and equality. If so, why should liberals disavow His support? What these arguments and examples suggest is that what liberals need to resist is not religious arguments for public policies; it is illiberal religious arguments. (They also suggest that any overlapping consensus should emphasise commitment to constitutional and democratic practices more than a shared political doctrine; see Stout, 2005.) The form that this resistance should take is rebuttal, not exclusion. This rebuttal may take as many forms as there are diverse reasons for resisting illiberal conceptions. However, theological rebuttal should be valued. Many illiberal views can be claimed to be bad theology as well as illiberal politics. We should be mindful that much of what now passes for theological politics needs rebuttal (see Hedges, 2006). Protestant fundamentalists are busily engaged in such endeavours as rewriting American history into a theocratic narrative; inventing a picture of the end times that distorts American foreign policy and discounts the need for environmental protection; reinventing biology to support creationism; and inventing medical and psychological facts to support abstinence programs in sex education. Most of this activity goes on under the radar, but it influences millions of people and, indeed, millions of children through fundamentalist schools and home schooling. The ideas generated in these forums often do not emerge into public space as ideas to be discussed and debated. They emerge as certitudes to be pursued by divine mandate. But they are eminently rebuttable and not just on secular grounds. It is important that illiberal religious convictions be rebutted by other people of faith employing theological conceptions and in forums where those who hold such illiberal views will hear the arguments.

ENGAGEMENT IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS

How might we encourage engagement in common schools? Common schools have goals that must be respected in promoting engagement. They must create good citizens. They must teach academic subjects and the arts with integrity (see Strike, 2005). To accomplish these goals, common schools must grant provisional authority to core ideas of the disciplines and to the norms of liberal democratic societies. Common schools are not so many speakers’ corners—places where anyone with a soapbox may be heard. When common schools seek to generate dialogue they are both moderator and teacher. As moderator schools must promote respectful and open democratic dialogue. As teacher they are a place where judgments

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about what is true or reasonable have to be made and where some ideas carry provisional authority. A number of things follow. Here is a short list: 1. Common schools must be open to religious dialogue in a way that does not endorse anyone’s religion. They may not compel either belief or practice. 2. Common schools should recognise the authority of academic communities to determine which ideas have provisional authority. 3. Common schools must respect and endorse core norms of liberal democratic societies. 4. Common schools may not permit the denigration of their members. 5. Common schools must insist on respectful debate. 6. Common schools must cultivate moral seriousness and reasonableness. One more caveat: Appeals to intellectual openness can be used to legitimate claims that are untenable or outrageous. Schools are often asked to let students hear the evidence on both sides and decide for themselves. Schools must make judgments about what ideas are worth debating. They need not provide a forum for or lend legitimacy to every idea simply because someone believes it. Consider now three disputes. Creationism

In the US some religious groups have wanted to secure some form of recognition for a family of views that have been alternatively called scientific creationism and intelligent design (I will refer to all such views as creationism). They have sought recognition through statutes that mandate that creation science be taught whenever evolution is taught (Edwards v. Aguillard, 1987) or that require that intelligent design be represented as a viable alternative to evolution (Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al., 2005). The following statement (partially quoted), which the Dover, PA, school board required to be read to students whenever evolution is taught, will illustrate: Because Darwin’s Theory is a theory, it is still being tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations. Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People, is available for students to see if they would like to explore this view in an effort to gain an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves. As is true with any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the origins of life to individual students and their families.

Note five crucial elements about these efforts. First, they claim that evolution is not established fact. Second, they claim that there is creditable

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scientific evidence against evolution and in favour of creationism. Third, they claim that the first two points warrant some form of curricular inclusion. Fourth, they present a ‘two-valued’ choice. That is they suggest that the choice to be made is between evolution and creationism. Moreover, creationists commonly see evolution as the secular choice (intimately associated with atheism) and creationism as the religious choice. Finally, they make an appeal to the academic freedom of students. Schools should let students hear both sides of the case and make up their own minds.

Gay Rights

The second dispute concerns gay rights. In some US schools gay rights activists have conducted what they term a Day of Silence. The Day of Silence (2007) web site gives the following description: ‘The Day of Silence is an annual event held to commemorate and protest anti-LGBT bullying, harassment and discrimination in schools. Students and teachers nationwide will observe the day in silence to echo the silence that LGBT and ally students face everyday.’ The Day of Silence asks those who wish to participate to be silent for a full day in their school. If they are asked about why they are silent, they are asked to pass out a card that reads: Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence, a national youth movement protesting the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies in schools. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by harassment, prejudice, and discrimination. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward fighting these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today. What are you going to do to end the silence?

The Day of Silence has been countered by a religious group that has sponsored an event called the Day of Truth. According to the Day of Truth (2007) web site students wear a T-shirt that says: ‘I am speaking the Truth to break the silence. Silence isn’t freedom. It’s a constraint. Truth tolerates open discussion, because the Truth emerges when healthy discourse is allowed. By proclaiming the Truth in love, hurts will be halted, hearts will be healed, and lives will be saved.’ The point appears to be to engage other students in conversation where the key message to be presented is ‘Homosexuals can change.’ Note the oddity. While the web site claims to want to challenge the ‘homosexual agenda’ with a Christian message, the T-shirt worn by the Day of Truth participants does not directly address the message of the Day of Silence. Why? I would conjecture the reason concerns a prior venture into T-shirt advocacy. The Day of Truth web site notes that,

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In the past, students who have attempted to speak against the promotion of the homosexual agenda have been censored or, in some cases, punished for their beliefs. It is important that students stand up for their First Amendment right to hear and speak the Truth about human sexuality in order to protect that freedom for future generations.

This is an apparent reference to a case, Harper v Poway Unified School District (2005) concerning a T-shirt message worn to school by a teenager named Tyler Harper in response to a Day of Silence event. Harper’s T-shirt read on one side I WILL NOT ACCEPT WHAT GOD HAS CONDEMNED and on the other HOMOSEXUALITY IS SHAMEFUL ‘Romans 1:27’ This T-shirt was viewed as inflammatory by school personnel, and Harper was made to spend the day in a conference room. This case wound up in the US Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit. The Court upheld the school’s contention that the T-shirt was inflammatory and that the school was within its rights to isolate Harper while he was wearing the T-shirt. The Court said: We conclude that Harper’s wearing of his T-shirt ‘colli[des] with the rights of other students’ in the most fundamental way. Tinker, 393 US at 508. Public school students who may be injured by verbal assaults on the basis of a core identifying characteristic such as race, religion, or sexual orientation, have a right to be free from such attacks while on school campuses.

The messages on the T-shirts worn by student participating in the Day of Truth were intended to draw other students into conversation about the matter so that the students could present their views on homosexuality while transforming the matter into a free speech issue and avoiding possible sanction for wearing a T-shirt with an inflammatory message. Three things should be noted. First, the Day of Truth misrepresents what the Day of Silence advocates claim to be doing. The Day of Silence advocates do not claim to be advancing a broad ‘homosexual agenda’. They claim to be making a case against bullying LGBT students (one wonders if the Day of Truth people approve of bullying). Second, we see the same two-valued choice that we see in the creationism argument. The Day of Truth advocates represent themselves as the Christian option in contract to the secular option. Third, the promoters of the Day of Truth appeal to norms of intellectual openness. If the matter is controversial, the solution is to allow students to hear both sides and make up their own minds. Teaching the Bible

The third issue concerns the question as to whether the Bible should be taught in public schools in the US. In Abington School District v. Schempp

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(1963) the US Supreme Court banned prayer and Bible reading as an impermissible establishment of religion. Schempp, however, also held that: It might be well said that one’s education is not complete without a study of comparative religion or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilisation. It certainly may be said that the Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic qualities. Nothing we have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, may not be effected consistently with the First Amendment.

Recently several groups have attempted to persuade schools to introduce courses about the Bible claiming that such courses are secular in character under Schempp. For some of these groups the view that students should study the Bible because it is a part of their heritage seems genuine and the intent to do so in a neutral and secular fashion sincere. Other groups radiate religious intent. The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (2007) web site describes their effort in this way: The curriculum for the program shows a concern to convey the content of the Bible as compared to literature and history. The program is concerned with education rather than indoctrination of students. The central approach of the class is simply to study the Bible as a foundation document of society, and that approach is altogether appropriate in a comprehensive program of secular education.

While the web site claims that its program is secular in character, it also raises some doubt about this. It claims, ‘The world is watching to see if we will be motivated to impact our culture, to deal with the moral crises in our society, and reclaim our families and children’ (see also Chancey, 2006). The preferred view of the NCBC about how the Bible is to be taught is to emphasise reading the Bible itself. Here is part of a justification: Not only is the use of the Bible as a primary textbook a good way to approach a class on the Bible, I would suggest it is the best way. Any Bible curriculum that does not allow students to read it for themselves and draw their own conclusions insults the intelligence of the students and short changes them from getting a well-rounded education.

One might conjecture that there are other reasons for wishing use the Bible as the sole text for courses about the Bible. Protestant Fundamentalists are often persuaded of the idea that the Holy Spirit speaks through the Bible. Moreover, emphasising the content of Bible excludes critical views about the Bible from serious discussion. Here too we see both the ‘Let students decide for themselves’ ploy and the structuring of the issues as a twovalued choice between the Christian view and the liberal secular view. Elsewhere on the web page we find the comment that ‘Of course, liberal

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groups are fighting at great expense to keep the Bible from being taught in public classrooms.’ Consider how well these issues illustrate my earlier characterisation of the state of public discussion about religion. First, the arguments tend to be formed in sectarian enclaves. They appear in public space as scripted pronouncements, slogans on warring T-shirts or on web sites aimed at the faithful. People do not envision meeting their opponents in a forum where each party considers the arguments of others. Arguments seem intended to elicit support from the already persuaded and to secure legitimacy for a particular view. Second, the debates are frequently represented as between people of faith and secular liberals. In these debates there is the secular liberal view and the Christian conservative view. Issues are represented as two-valued rather than multi-valued. There is a tendency on both sides of these two-valued debates to fail to recognise progressive religious views. Third, appeals to intellectual openness are common. If some people accept evolution and others creationism, let’s present the evidence and let the students decide. Let children read the Bible and decide for themselves. If gays can advocate for ‘the homosexual agenda’, then Christians can advocate for ‘the Christian view’. However, those who make this appeal often do not seem interested in a process where arguments are laid out in detail and opportunity for rebuttal is provided. Recognition, legitimacy and a chance to assert one’s case are what is wanted. Fourth, the arguments presented in public space often vilify opponents. People from the Christian right tend to characterise their opponents as liberal secular atheists. Liberals in contrast rarely concede the sincerity of their opponents’ religious convictions and are given to intimating that they are ignorant red-necked bigots. It is doubtful that either side could provide a full and accurate account of the views of their opponents. In short, these matters enter into public space as well as into schools in ways that inhibit dialogue and undermine engagement. How might we promote engagement? It is hard to make many concrete suggestions because contexts are so varied. Often the strategy must be to look for the teachable moment or to create the teachable moment. The Day of Silence and Day of Truth issues invite teachers to take time to discuss the matter in their classes. In cases such as creationism, outside speakers might be invited to speak in a class and to represent their views. If the Bible is to be taught, it must be taught in a way that is educationally appropriate and genuinely non-sectarian. I will now turn to some rules for engagement, which I will illustrate with the three issues I have discussed. To promote reasoned engagement in schools: 1. Schools must be clear about what they may, should and may not endorse. Schools may not endorse any religious or anti-religious view. They may endorse the well-established results of scholarship. If these results are inconsistent with some religious view, that is not to count as endorsing an anti-religious view. At the same time no argument may be excluded simply because its premises are religious.

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Schools may endorse evolution, but not creationism. They may endorse evolution because evolution is the established theory in the natural and biological sciences. Creationism is not. Thus, while schools may create forums in which the arguments of creationists can be heard and invite creationists to present them, they cannot do so in a way that endorses a message that creationism is a co-equal theory with evolution. To do so is to lie to one’s students. Similarly, if issues about homosexuality are to be discussed, schools may and should endorse a view of equal rights for gays. They may not endorse the view that homosexuality is sinful, but they may permit the view to be expressed and rebutted. If the Bible is to be taught, relevant scholarship about the Bible must be considered. This includes issues about the origins of the cannon and higher critical analyses of the text. Since these views are controversial among competent scholars, they should be considered but not endorsed. The divine authority of religious texts or their infallibility may also be considered but not endorsed. 2. Discussion must model the norms of respectful civic engagement. People should be encouraged to present all of the reasons they have for their views and to submit these views to rebuttal. The emphasis must be on the careful weighing of evidence, not on the opportunity to assert one’s claims and cliche´s. Moral seriousness and conscientiousness in debate must be encouraged as must respect and civility. Students need to understand that they are free to draw such conclusions as they wish from any discussion, but they must also be encouraged to achieve an accurate understanding of and respect for the views of those with whom they disagree. These norms need to be object of deliberate instruction, and students should come to see them and the reciprocity they presuppose as what is expected of good citizens. 3. Debates should not be structured so as to imply that they are twovalued—between secular liberals and religious conservatives. Often this means that the voices of religious progressives need to be heard. For example, if a creationist is to be invited to present the arguments of creationists, then someone who is a person of faith who accepts evolution should also be invited. Similarly, if issues about homosexuality are to be discussed, an adequate diversity of religious views on the matter must be represented. And if the Bible or some other religious text is to be taught, different views concerning the cannon, the origins, and the interpretation of sacred texts should be presented and discussed. 4. While schools may endorse views either because they are the established results of scholarly inquiry or are expressions of liberal democratic norms, they may not prevent alternative views from being heard. Schools may endorse evolution, but may not require students to believe it. Tests must test for knowledge and understanding, not agreement. Schools may endorse equal rights for homosexuals, but may not sanction students for holding that homosexuality is a sin.

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5. Intellectual openness does not require schools to provide a forum for the consideration of views that are heinous or devoid of rational support. Nor do they require schools to provide a forum to those unable to respect the norms of civil debate. Engagement is not easy. Many liberals will believe that I have given too much room for religious advocacy and have provided a voice to those whose views are irrational, unreasonable and perhaps contemptible. To them I can only say that democratic conversations that seek common ground cannot begin by excluding a whole genre of widely held views from serious discussion. Moreover, the attempt to exclude has tended to cause the expression of such views to go underground where they gain strength, go unrebutted and emerge in aggressive and theocratic forms. It is both more principled and strategically wiser to invite advocates of such views to the conversational table. Some people of conservative faith will think I have rigged the rules against them. In some cases, they will be invited to make their case in a forum that has endorsed views that they seek to rebut. The rules of engagement will not seem to them to provide a neutral forum for debate. Indeed, they might reasonably think that what I want is to invite them to a dialogical thumping. Here it needs to be noted that the rules provide an open opportunity to present one’s case and permit those students who are persuaded to believe as they wish. Schools cannot provide a neutral forum if that requires them to provide equal endorsement of views that have not gained respect in the approximate scholarly community. Schools may not lie to their students. Nor can they cannot abandon the task of creating citizens for democratic societies. Were I a school principal or a teacher I would be reluctant to take my advice. I have issued an invitation to touch a well charged third rail. I can only sympathise and recommend a suitable mix of courage and caution. Democratic societies need engagement. The Great Separation should not mean that people of faith are made second-class citizens or that religion cannot be discussed in public space or common schools. To do so is to invite religious views to go underground and to invite a dysfunctional struggle between some people of faith and liberalism. Conservatives sometime claim that freedom of religion should not mean freedom from religion. They are wrong about this. Freedom of religion does entail the right not to believe. However, freedom of religion should not mean freedom from religious discourse. Engagement is a better way for the common schools of liberal democratic societies than the avoidance we now practice.

REFERENCES Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) 374 US 203 Available online at: http://www.law. cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0374_0203_ZO.html (accessed 19 October 2007). Ackerman, B. (1980) Social Justice in the Liberal State (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press).

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Chancey, M. (2006) Textbook Case: Bible Class in Public School, Christian Century, November 14, pp. 12–13. Day of Silence (2007) Available online at http://www.dayofsilence.org/index.html (accessed 19 October 2007). Day of Truth (2007) Available online at http://www.dayoftruth.org/about/default.aspx (accessed 19 October 2007). Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) 482 US 578. Gutmann, A. (1987) Democratic Education (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press). Harper v. Poway Unified School District (9th Cir., 2006) Available online at: http://www.ca9. uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/D2D4CBF690CD61A6882571560001FEBD/$file/0457037. pdf?openelement (accessed 19 October 2007). Hedges, C. (2006) American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (New York, Free Press). Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al., (2005) Available online at: http:// www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf (accessed 19 October 2007). Lilla, M. (2007) The Politics of God, New York Times Magazine, August 19, Available online at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE3DA163DF93AA2575BC0A9619C8B63 (accessed 19 October 2007). Locke, J. (1946) A Letter Concerning Toleration (Oxford, UK, Basil Blackwell). Macedo, S. (2000) Diversity and Distrust (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). Mill, J. S. (1859/1956) On Liberty (New York, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc). National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (2007) Available online at: http:// www.bibleliteracy.org/Site/index2.htm (accessed 19 October 2007). Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). Rawls, J. (1993) Political Liberalism (New York, Columbia University Press). Rawls, J. (1999) The Idea of Public Reasons Revisited, in: J. Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). Stout, J. (2004) Democracy and Tradition (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press). Strike, K. A. (2005) Is Liberal Education Illiberal? Political Liberalism and Liberal Education, in: C. Higgins (ed.) Philosophy of Education, 2004 (Urbana, IL, Philosophy of Education Society). Vitz, P. (1986) Censorship: Evidence of Bias in Our Children’s Textbooks (Ann Arbor, MI, Servant Books).

Part IV School Choice and the Comprehensive Ideal

The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

13 How and Why to Support Common Schooling and Educational Choice at the Same Time ROB REICH The ‘common school’ is regarded as valuable not as an end in itself but to the extent that it is an appropriate context for the realization of the underlying conception of common education. Common schools are widely considered to be favored contexts for this purpose, however, since in bringing together students from many diverse backgrounds in a common institution, common schools constitute an educational environment which is both intimately related to the requirements of conceptions of common education and unobtainable elsewhere (Terence H. McLaughlin, 2003).

The common school ideal is the source of one of the oldest educational debates in liberal democratic societies. The movement in favour of greater educational choice is the source of one of the most recent. Each has been the cause of major and enduring controversy, not only within philosophical thought but also within political, legal and social arenas. The relationship between common schooling and educational choice might appear to be simple. Does educational choice lead to the creation and perpetuation of separate schools? If so, then choice conflicts with common schooling. If not, then choice and common schooling can co-exist. But this appearance is misleading, for how we view the relationship and assess the weight of each aspiration depends on something external to each. In particular, it depends on the normative significance we attach to the fact of pluralism, by which I mean the existence of ethical and religious diversity in a society. Whether or not we see common schooling and educational choice as in fundamental tension, merely compatible, or mutually reinforcing turns on how we interpret the normative implications of pluralism. Echoing conclusions reached by Terry McLaughlin, but taking the historical and legal context of the United States as my backdrop, I argue that the ideal of common schooling and the existence of separate schools, which is to say, the existence of educational choice, are not merely compatible but necessarily co-exist in a liberal democratic society. In other words, we need both common schooling and educational choice. The essay proceeds in four parts. First, I explain why we need to understand something about pluralism in order to understand common The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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schooling and school choice. In the second and third parts, I explore the normative significance of pluralism for common schooling and educational choice, respectively. In the fourth part, I show how the two can be reconciled, given a certain understanding of what pluralism demands. I begin, however, with a cautionary note. Little about the justice of either common schooling or educational choice can be settled decisively at the level of philosophical theory or principle. This is so for two reasons. First, the practice of schooling rests inevitably within particular social settings and historical traditions where the institutional structure of schooling reflects the community of which it is a part. Authority over education in the United States, for instance, is far more localised than in most other countries. Second, philosophy does not furnish a complete educational blueprint for all educational practice. At best, philosophy can provide a theoretical framework that shapes the making of policy and the particulars of practice. As McLaughlin notes, ‘The theoretical articulation of ideals of the ‘‘common school’’ and a ‘‘conception of common education’’ at an abstract level is one thing, and the articulation and realization of those ideals at the level of educational policy and practice is another’ (McLaughlin, 2003, p. 125). For these reasons, my goal here is not to spell out what happens when we combine common schooling with educational choice but rather to map out the key philosophical considerations involved in determining whether the ideals are reconcilable, and to provide an argument to show how they are.

THE FACT OF PLURALISM

Pluralism is a sociological fact in liberal societies. The natural outcome of the use of human reason within free political and social institutions is a multiplicity of values and ways of life. People will be divided by their adherence to a diversity of religious and ethical doctrines that differ in their understanding of what constitutes a good life. As a result, liberal societies house citizenries divided by religious and philosophical traditions that are sometimes in conflict or even incompatible. It is the distinguishing feature of liberal societies that they attempt to secure the legitimacy and stability of political institutions amidst such pluralism. Indeed, many interpret the rise of liberalism as a response to pluralism, specifically religious diversity. How then is the fact of pluralism related to common schooling and educational choice? Quite simply, both represent a response to cope with the political complications that arise in a pluralistic society. Let’s start with common schooling. The movement to create common schools arose in the mid-19th century in the United States as an effort to instil in diverse citizens a set of common values and allegiances in order to forge a unum from the pluribus. Common schools would be the vehicle in which children of all groups would be educated for democratic citizenship, in which the social cement of national identity would be laid. At times, as I shall describe below, the movement to create common schooling was unjustly oppressive of diversity because its leaders understood citizenship

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and nationalism in narrowly ethnic terms. But history also provides examples of common school defenders with views of citizenship and nationalism that are civic rather than ethnic. As Richard Pring’s lead essay notes, John Dewey has provided the most familiar articulation of the American common school aspiration: ‘The intermingling in the school of youth of different races, differing religions, and unlike customs creates for all a new and broader environment . . .. The assimilative force of the American public school is eloquent testimony to the efficacy of the common and balanced appeal’ (Dewey, 1916, pp. 21–2). The fact of pluralism, in short, makes the common school necessary in that the schoolhouse is perhaps the best vehicle available to the state to unite a diverse citizenry under common ideals and to help forge a common national identity. If the ideal of common schooling represents an effort to respond to and shape the diversity that attends a pluralist society, the movement for educational choice must be equally understood as a response to pluralism. But rather than an effort to shape diversity, school choice represents the appropriate accommodation to such diversity. If the liberal state must refrain from compelling uniform convergence on a single set of values or one way of life, it ought to respect diverse approaches to raising children rooted in particular ways of life. Educational choice is thought to be warranted because the fact of pluralism requires that parents and communities be permitted to create schools that accord with their own values and ends. Forcing all students to attend common schools not only fails to respect the choices of parents who wish for particularistic school environments, it also runs the risk of sowing the seeds of discord in the populace. Consider, for example, the view offered by US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson: ‘Probably no deeper division of our people could proceed from any provocation than from finding it necessary to choose what doctrine and whose program public educational officials shall compel youth to unite in embracing’ (West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 641 [1943]). School choice, in short, is an effort in keeping with liberal principles that seeks to accommodate parents and groups with diverse convictions. On this view, there seems to be an ineradicable tension between common schooling and educational choice. Efforts to inculcate common values in common schools run headstrong into efforts to respect and accommodate the diverse convictions of citizens. But must it be so? In the next sections, I examine the normative significance of the fact of pluralism for common schooling and educational choice as a prelude to showing how they can be reconciled.

COMMON SCHOOLS AND THE NORMATIVE SIGNIFICANCE OF PLURALISM

Historically, the movement to establish common schooling was driven by the task of creating citizens. Early proponents of common schooling hoped through schooling to produce a unified citizenry capable of democratic

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self-governance. Advocates such as Thomas Jefferson, for instance, thought common schools were a prerequisite for safeguarding individual and collective liberties. ‘It is an axiom in my mind’, Jefferson wrote to George Washington in 1786, ‘that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the state to effect, and on a general plan’ (quoted in Conant, 1962, p. 98). Later proponents such as Horace Mann thought common schools were necessary not only for the general diffusion of knowledge but also for the transmission of common virtues amongst an increasingly diverse populace. Schools would serve to educate children from all religious and class backgrounds, including the many newcomers to American soil, and to inculcate in them civic virtues and allegiances. The common school crusaders of the mid-19th century were heavily motivated by a religious ethic, however, and they understood civic virtue to be infused with Protestant Christianity. This orientation was naturally felt to be oppressive by the increasing number of Catholics in the United States, and led to monumental struggles that culminated in the creation of a separate Catholic school system (Ravitch, 1974; Tyack and Hansot, 1982). Charles Glenn has shown that the common school movements in France and the Netherlands were similarly oppressive (Glenn, 1988). As common schooling became established as a necessary vehicle for creating intelligent and loyal citizens from a diverse populace, then, it was an ideal that intertwined civic virtue with religious and ethnic allegiances. This is the historical record. It is worth recounting because it registers the intellectual roots connecting the common school ideal with citizenship and the actual institutional practices that tended to impose a dominant cultural matrix on religious and ethnic minorities. I turn now to contemporary philosophers, who do not advocate, of course, that common schooling be cast in narrowly religious or ethnic terms. Yet debates among liberal theorists reveal how common schooling is still understood as a response to pluralism. Consider two approaches that interpret the normative significance of pluralism in different ways, each flawed. Take first John Rawls’s defence of political liberalism, in which the aim of the state is to secure political agreement about fundamental principles of justice while remaining neutral to the reasonable but sometimes clashing and incompatible worldviews professed and lived by citizens. Here the existence of pluralism constrains what the liberal state can do in order to establish social unity; it may not seek to unite people under any one religious, philosophical, or moral doctrine. Therefore, according to Rawls, ‘Society’s concern with [children’s] education lies in their role as future citizens . . .’ (Rawls, 1993, p. 200), not in shaping their private identities, values, or allegiances. For Rawls, this implies that schools are common insofar as they all attempt to foster in children the political virtues of democratic citizenship. But they should not go beyond this. Common schools must instil a common political morality but leave private belief alone. In this vision of liberal society, because the state cannot endorse any particular comprehensive religious or moral doctrine, schools are authorised to cultivate a wide set of political virtues but must forbear

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from shaping the non-public identities of children and refrain from imposing any view of the good life on them. But this sharp demarcation between shaping public identities while leaving private identities alone is both impossible and undesirable. It is impossible because education can never be morally neutral to private life, for decisions about even such mundane matters as co-education or the identification of a language of instruction and school holidays transmit the importance of certain pervasive values (e.g. the equality of the sexes, the religious traditions worthy of public recognition). Moreover, the inculcation of political virtues such as political autonomy and reasonableness cannot be accomplished without making it possible for these to be activated in a child’s private life; teaching only political virtues in common schools cannot avoid spill-over effects (Gutmann, 1995; Callan, 1997; Macedo, 2000; Reich, 2002). These virtues require associated skills and habits such as rational reflection and evaluation, open-minded toleration of competing viewpoints, and a willingness to engage in collective deliberation, which possess alone and more strongly in combination a transformative potential, even likelihood, for the various private affiliations and allegiances of individuals. Because pluralism must be shaped in light of important civic purposes such as the achievement of justice and the development of public reason in order to ensure the endurance of equality and freedom that make respect for diversity possible, it follows that the liberal state should not seek to be neutral in aim or outcome. Hence, the liberal state cannot and should not leave private belief untouched to the extent that Rawls suggests. Another prominent strand of liberal theory takes the protection of diversity as the primary aim of the liberal state. William Galston, for instance, defends the ‘Diversity State’, which ‘afford[s] maximum feasible space for the enactment of individual and group differences, constrained only by the requirements of liberal social unity’ (Galston, 1995, p. 524). For those to whom diversity is of paramount importance, the fact of pluralism becomes the central point of departure for the liberal state, and these requirements of social unity are comparatively minor and unburdensome. On many such views, social unity can be achieved when public institutions convey the importance of law-abidingness and tolerance. Thus, Galston accepts the importance of a common civic education, but its aim is only to foster ‘social rationality’, or the ability to participate in the main social and economic institutions of society. The promotion of autonomy or political virtues such as reasonableness are seen unduly to constrain diversity because they valorise choice-making, critical thinking, and secular rationality. So long as children learn to tolerate their diverse fellow citizens and learn social but not secular rationality, schools have no warrant to teach children anything that threatens to interfere with or undermine diversity. In this vision of liberal society, common schooling is necessary but its programme of civic education is purposefully thin in order to allow maximum space for the flourishing of diversity.

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But a vision of liberal society and common schooling put at the service of deep diversity fails for two reasons. First, when maximum feasible accommodation of diversity is the goal, the content of common civic education must be reduced to the lowest common denominator of what citizens can agree upon. This strategy may seem attractive inasmuch as it eliminates anything considered controversial, but as Eamonn Callan argues, it effectively undercuts any argument for common schooling at all (Callan, 1997, p. 170ff.). If the content of common schooling is little more than tolerance and law-abidingness, few if any citizens will be motivated to send children to such schools because they will fail to teach anything even remotely approaching their most valued convictions. Boring, anodyne educational environments are hardly inspiring or attractive places for any parent. Second, it fails because a threadbare conception of common civic education neglects the independent interests of children in developing into autonomous persons. The arguments in favour of autonomy are varied (see Callan, 1997; Levinson, 1999; Brighouse, 2000; Reich, 2002), but the essential point is that children have an interest in developing into autonomous persons first because the exercise of autonomy is necessary in the political domain in order to establish legitimate and free consent to principles of justice, and second because the achievement of autonomy makes it possible for a child to exit a way of life and thereby precludes the inculcation of ethical servility to one’s parents or ethnocultural group. Political liberals, such as Rawls, interpret the normative significance of pluralism as necessitating a kind of liberal neutrality that restricts the pursuit of common educational goals to the political domain. Liberals who identify the protection of diversity as the primary purpose of the state, such as Galston, assign greater weight to the normative significance of pluralism; they abjure the cultivation of political autonomy, secular reason, and related political virtues in schools. Each view insists upon an important role for a common education, but the breadth of this education is circumscribed by the respective importance attached to diversity. Each view is also, I have argued, mistaken: the first because political liberalism bleeds inevitably into the realm of the private and must engage anyway in a transformative educational project supportive of liberal democratic citizenship; the second because maximal space for diversity means an insipid educational environment that will attract no one and because the protection of diversity should not take precedence over the interests of children in their prospective autonomy. How then should we interpret the normative significance of pluralism for the common school ideal? First, theorists must acknowledge that invocations of common schooling will have to contend with the past use of common schools to subjugate and coercively assimilate minority populations. The frequent result of such uses was not only social discord but, ironically, the stimulation of a separate system of schooling, as with the Catholic school system in the United States. Common schooling must be sufficiently responsive to the scope of diversity that it does not impose upon children a sectarian or ethnic conception of education. The task of

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the common school is not to overcome pluralism, but to shape it in light of public purposes. Second, our consideration of both political liberals and promoters of diversity with respect to their common school ideals helps to illuminate an absolutely fundamental aspect of the common school. Within a liberal pluralist society, the common school ideal is distinctive not for its structural features but for its substantive educational ethos and aspirations. McLaughlin calls this the ‘conception of a common education’, juxtaposing this against the simple idea of a ‘common school’ (McLaughlin, 2005, pp. 124ff.). Common schools are not necessarily schools whose funding is exclusively public or whose admission criteria are open to all. They are schools that might be privately funded or might welcome only some particular students but that pursue a conception of common education without regard to students’ or their parents’ ways of life. That a privately funded school might be considered common can be seen in the example of the contemporary state of Catholic schools in the United States. Many urban Catholic schools not only appear to achieve considerable success in civic outcomes but also admit students without considering their religious background (Bryk, Lee and Holland, 1993). Conversely, many publicly funded schools can hardly be said to deliver anything associated with the common school ideal. Consider the educational system in Israel, in which at least four separate systems of schooling are publicly supported, included the schools of the Ultra-Orthodox Jews, which are as good an instance of separate schooling as one is likely to find. That a school that limited admission to particular students might be considered common can be seen in the various and legitimate attempts to carve out forms of restrictive schools designed only for some students. Some schools pursue common educational goals but restrict entry in order to overcome certain forms of disadvantage. Consider, for instance, schools for disabled or ill children where teachers have special training and resources, or all-girls academies whose rationale is to promote science and math achievement more effectively. Arguments might be made to show that disabled children and girls are better off when schooled with all other students. But the point is that common schooling is consistent with separating students, so long as the separation is done for reasons that accord with liberal justice. What is fundamental to the common school ideal, then, is not its structure but its substance. A common school is marked by an educational environment that is open to ethical and cultural diversity and by a commitment to common educational goals. These common educational goals are twofold. First, schools are responsible for a civic education that teaches children what they need to know in order to be free and equal citizens in a pluralist liberal society. It is not my purpose here to settle what the scope and depth of civic education shall be; this is a matter of great controversy. My point is only to insist, as Terry McLaughlin has put it, that ‘[t]he common school has an obligation to ‘‘transmit’’ the basis or non-negotiable norms that constitute the framework of a liberal democratic society’ (McLaughlin, 1995, p. 247), however one understands these norms. Second, schools owe to children as a matter of justice an

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autonomy-promoting education. Independent of a state’s interest in civic education, children have an interest in becoming autonomous persons. As I shall argue in the final section, common schools that expose children to and engage children with cultural and ethical diversity are important in cultivating autonomy.

EDUCATIONAL CHOICE AND THE NORMATIVE SIGNIFICANCE OF PLURALISM

The fact of pluralism provides both the inspiration for and limits to common schooling. The need for a unifying civic education must be carefully balanced against an unjust oppression of the diverse convictions of citizens. To understand the normative significance of pluralism for educational choice, consider once again two different views, each flawed. One school of thought holds parental choice of schools to be inimical to the development of citizenship and the interest of children in autonomy. Bruce Ackerman, for instance, rejects vouchers out of hand because ‘most parents will refuse to spend ‘‘their’’ vouchers on anything but ‘‘education’’ that strives to reinforce whatever values they have . . . imposed on their children during infancy’, and that vouchers would legitimate ‘a series of petty tyrannies in which like-minded parents club together to force-feed their children without restraint’ (Ackerman, 1980, p. 160). Meira Levinson’s argument about the demands of liberal education are similar, concluding that schools must be ‘detached’ from parental and local control, and that all forms of religious schools in the United States and Britain should be closed because they are organised around divisive conceptions of the good (Levinson, 1999, pp. 144, 158). She also says that state regulation should be used to make private schools indistinguishable from public schools. Levinson endorses limited educational choice (among schools of different sizes and varying pedagogical approaches), but since schools cannot embody a particularistic ethos, it is choice that has virtually nothing to do with responding to the fact of pluralism. For Ackerman and Levinson, the deference to be accorded to the diverse convictions of parents concerning the best education for their children is small indeed. But this is a cramped view of educational choice, for it is both unfairly dismissive and unduly suspicious of parents’ interests in the education of their children. On the one hand, it fails to register the legitimate interests that parents have in the education of their children. Surely parents have some claim to influence the educational environment of their children, to be involved with their schooling, and to expect that schools will provide reinforcement for at least some portion of the child’s home environment. On the other hand, the Ackerman and Levinson view assumes that given the opportunity all or most parents will seek to shield their children from anything except their own moral or religious universe. To be sure, some parents will do so, but how many is an empirical question and the existence of some should not rule out the possibility that others may

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choose schools on the basis of values fully consonant with liberal democratic citizenship. Regardless of the empirical matter, however, the point is that the existence of state interests in common schooling provides no reason to ignore parental preferences. Authority over schooling is properly shared between parents and the state (Gutmann, 1987), and that shared authority is not inconsistent with an educational choice plan responsive to parental preferences. For a polar opposite view, take the position of legal scholar Michael McConnell. McConnell is an ardent proponent of school choice, or as he calls it, educational disestablishment. His argument rests on the claim that educational choice is required in order to maintain a free and liberal society in the face of wide cultural and religious diversity. He fears what John Stuart Mill worried about with respect to state-provided and regulated schooling: the imposition of a standardised uniformity on children that runs counter to liberal values supportive of diversity. Moreover, citing the battles between Catholics and the Protestantism of the American common school founders and contemporary strife between devout religious believers who see in public schools nothing but rampant secular humanism, McConnell says that common schooling sows the seeds of social unrest. Thus McConnell believes that a liberal pluralist society should organise education along pluralist lines, permitting parents to choose from a marketplace of educational options, including state, private, religious schools, and homeschooling. For McConnell the deference to be paid to the diverse convictions of parents is vast, constrained only by basic requirements of educational quality, and perhaps of minimal civic responsibility (McConnell, 2001). However, rather than asserting that parents possess natural or legal rights of some sort to direct the upbringing of their children in accordance with their own understanding of the good, he thinks that citizenship and democratic values are not only consistent with but are best served by educational choice. In an interesting twist on the usual line of argument, pluralism not only requires educational choice, but so too does the transmission of democratic citizenship. It is as if a greater number of diverse schools signals for McConnell a corresponding increase in civic health. If true, McConnell’s argument would undercut one significant foundation of the common school ideal. In developing this argument, McConnell makes three important claims. First, he endorses a minimalist set of political virtues that citizens need in a liberal democratic society: literacy and numeracy, a rudimentary understanding of history, and a tolerant live-and-let-live attitude. Second, he says that democratic citizenship requires a moral and spiritual underpinning, a coherent rather than disjointed worldview. And third, he appeals to empirical research indicating that public schools are flooded by a moral tidal wave of consumerism and materialism and that non-public schools foster comparatively higher rates of civic participation, voting, and community service. Even assuming these were true, however, the common school ideal with its attendant conception of common education would retain some force

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insofar as McConnell’s argument does not address the child’s independent interest in an autonomy-promoting education. Were educational choice to result in autonomy-undermining school environments, we would still have to weigh this result against the civic benefits of choice. But leaving this aside, McConnell’s argument for educational disestablishment as conducive to civic virtue has its own internal problems. For starters, it makes of democratic citizenship a thin gruel consisting of little more than some basic academic outcomes and a healthy tolerance for the beliefs and values of others. This is not the place to offer a defence of a more robust conception of citizenship, but few theorists understand citizenship as capped by the lowly hillock of tolerance; most defend at least a sense of fairness and civility. What’s more, McConnell strangely enlists Rawls’s conception of overlapping consensus on his behalf, claiming that since political arrangements are to be endorsed for a variety of reasons from the range of citizens’ diverse doctrines, educational choice will help foster the comprehensive moral and religious worldviews of citizens undergirding the overlapping consensus. But McConnell neglects to mention that an overlapping consensus can form only through the use of so-called public reason, which requires citizens to abstract from their particularistic views and come to understand, sympathetically listen to, and learn to respond to— not merely tolerate—the diverse views of other citizens. Public reason demands far more than tolerance, but a settled disposition to treat fellow citizens fairly and with civility, and it demands, as John Tomasi has argued, a potentially taxing psychological reintegrative project to show how public reason can be supported by one’s non-public affiliations and values (Tomasi, 2001). Rawls’s overlapping consensus does not support, but rather undermines educational choice of the sort promoted by McConnell. More importantly, the consequences of educational disestablishment do threaten in some cases to compromise a child’s interest in an autonomypromoting education. McConnell prefers morally coherent school communities to public schools, because he thinks a deep grounding in particularistic views sets the foundation for democratic citizenship. But some parents and religious groups, such as the Amish, do not value autonomy, because they think its exercise may lead their children away from their religious or ethical beliefs and communities. If permitted to select schools for their children that mirror and reinforce their own beliefs in every way, some parents will not provide an education for autonomy. Deference to parental choice in education must end when parents wish to thwart the development of autonomy in their children that enables them to exercise the basic freedom of living a life other than that into which they were born. Once again, we see how visions of educational choice are powered by a normative understanding of pluralism. The weight assigned to the authority of parents to choose an educational environment in keeping with their convictions depends on how one interprets what must follow from the fact of pluralism. The Ackerman and Levinson view offers too little accommodation to parents and educational choice, McConnell’s too much.

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Pluralism should not be discounted or exalted. Put differently, the fact of pluralism should neither wholly trump, nor wholly be trumped by, efforts to secure the basis of social unity and foster citizenship and autonomy. The function of schools is not to subdue or tame an unwelcome diversity of ways of life, or to be the institutional fertiliser that permits a thousand blossoms to bloom and sustains their reproduction over time. In some sense, they must do a little of each: schools must be common insofar as they secure unity, foster citizenship, and cultivate autonomy, which will inevitably cut against some ways of life and thereby narrow the range of pluralism that would exist if educational choice was a supreme value; and schools must be somewhat responsive to parental interests in education, which opens up space for some kinds of educational choice that would not exist if common schooling was a supreme value. With a proper understanding of pluralism—seeing it as one among several important values in a liberal state—we can honour both the common school ideal and calls for educational choice. The final section shows how.

RECONCILING COMMON SCHOOLING WITH EDUCATIONAL CHOICE

The fact of pluralism is, as Rawls says, not an unfortunate condition but a natural outcome of the exercise of freedom in a liberal state (Rawls, 1993, p. 37). But fostering pluralism is not the purpose of the liberal state, as if the only function of public institutions were to permit diversity to thrive, and the mark of a better or healthier liberal state were its ability to promote greater pluralism. Liberal states are committed in the first instance to ethical individualism, by which I mean that the fundamental unit of analysis is the individual and not the group or the state. Liberals view the freedom and equality of individuals as the highest political values, and the success of political arrangements is to be judged not on the basis of how they sustain or allow pluralism to thrive but on how they promote individual freedom and equality. Of course, the best understanding of freedom and equality can be contested, but the basic point is clear: individuals have equal entitlements to define for themselves what goods and ends are most worthy, according to their own lights and independent judgment, and to possess equal civic standing. Seen in this light, pluralism is the consequence of the liberal state’s concern to protect individual freedom and equality, for individuals will make different choices about how to lead their lives, choices that are worthy of the state’s and citizens’ respect. Given this understanding of pluralism, how should we understand common schooling and educational choice? As I suggested earlier, the fact of pluralism is a source of both personal and social meaning and enrichment but also sets up a foundational problem: what will provide the basis of the social unity of a diverse, free and equal citizenry, with shared commitments to justice, without unjustly oppressing the reasonable ways of life led by these diverse citizens? As I have argued, common schooling can be seen as

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an attempt to forge unity while educational choice can be seen as an accommodation to diversity. But this is not an either-or proposition. Common schooling can co-exist with educational choice, doing justice in the process to individual freedom and equality and to pluralism. In the previous section I concluded that the liberal democratic state has an interest in common schools that are marked by an openness to ethical and religious diversity and a conception of common education consisting in developing citizenship and fostering autonomy. Let us consider what kind of educational choice is consistent with this understanding of common schooling. First, following Callan and McLaughlin, we should distinguish between common schooling and common education (McLaughlin, 1995; Callan, 1997). Common schools are schools that are open to all and that as a result may attract a mixed student body. But what matters about the common school ideal is not, in the first instance, that a school accepts all comers and is diverse in population. What matters is the institutional ethos and common educational goals that are part of the common school ideal. The function of common schooling must be to promote common educational aspirations, and if they fail in this task they are not independently worthy of liberal approbation. To suppose that they are is to suppose, in Callan’s apt analogy, ‘that hospitals are good or bad in a way that is independent of their effects on the health of patients’ (Callan, 1997, p. 166). So if an institutional ethos that is open to pluralism and a conception of common education consisting in fostering citizenship and cultivating autonomy are what matter about the common school ideal, then there exists wide room for parental discretion in choosing among schools that are distinguished in a variety of ways but that all embody this educational vision. At least in principle, public, private, religious, and even homeschools can be successful in achieving the right ethos and common educational vision. Whether or not they do so in practice is an empirical question, and it is the proper task of the liberal state to set regulations on all forms of schooling such that the common educational goals are met. Here, then, we see how common schooling and educational choice can be reconciled. Educational choice in a variety of contemporary forms— private and religious schools, charter schools, vouchers—are all potentially consistent with the demands of common education. As I said at the outset, it is impossible to determine from the level of theory a specific institutional blueprint for the provision of schooling. What this analysis suggests is that so long as schools embody an ethos that does not shut out diversity and that develops citizenship and autonomy, parents should be free to choose among schools on the basis of how they want their children to be educated. This would include a great diversity of schools, public, private, religious, and homeschools. To be sure, it rules out some undiscriminating forms of choice, such as McConnell’s proposal, whose view of democratic citizenship is threadbare and ignores the child’s interest in autonomy. And it rules out schools that would refuse to expose children to and engage them with value diversity. Democratic citizenship and autonomy can be fostered only when children become

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aware of the existence of other ways of life, and moreover, when they engage intellectually with such value diversity. The liberal state should be wary of parents whose choices are made solely on the basis of shielding them from any and all competing views. To allow this would indeed establish a kind of parental despotism over children. As the liberal state seeks to protect the freedom and equality of all citizens, including children, it must make it possible for children to make decisions about the kind of lives they wish to lead. This does not imply the ridiculous claim that children deserve to be able to lead any life possible, or that the state should seek intentionally to increase the chance that children will be sceptical of their parents’ deepest convictions. It simply means that children deserve the basic freedom to lead lives other than those into which they are born, or to contest and revise the values of their parents’ or cultural communities. On some views, the achievement of these common educational goals might require side-by-side learning of diverse students. Randall Curren, for example, finds in an understanding of Aristotelian civic friendship that students must learn to exercise certain virtues in the practice of relating to diverse others (Curren, 2000). Similarly, Eamonn Callan believes that the exercise of the political virtue of reasonableness and the exercise of public reason can only be learned in deliberative settings in which students of diverse backgrounds encounter and engage each other (Callan, 1997). I believe there is a strong case to be made here, and that a diverse student body is an undeniable asset to both the democratic citizenship and autonomy-promoting goals of common education. Thus, to the extent that educational choice makes it likelier that schools will be divided along religious and moral lines the prospects of realising the common school ideal look dimmer. But again, the implication is not to forbid choice but to construct a framework for educational choice that does not lead to a system of schools marked by external pluralism and internal homogeneity. Indeed, supporters of some form of educational choice include among them some of the strongest defenders of a common educational vision (McLaughlin, 1995; Callan, 1997; Macedo, 2000). Each is deeply concerned with the common school ideal yet sees room for educational choice that is controlled or constrained by the public purposes of education. One approach is to see separate education—schools that are not open to religious or ethical diversity and do not foster citizenship or autonomy—as permissible during the early ages when children depend most on their parents and need most a coherent moral universe to establish an initial identity. Another approach sees the common school ideal as the very rationale for endorsing choice. Richard Kahlenberg’s proposal to create a choice system of schools integrated by socioeconomic lines, for example, assumes that such schools will not only produce better academic outcomes but also result in a broader racial and ethnic diversity than currently exists in most American public schools (Kahlenberg, 2001). A great many institutional arrangements for pursuing common education and accommodating educational choice will be permissible, and liberal accounts should leave the resolution of these arrangements to democratic politics.

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What cannot be subject to democratic politics, however, is the legitimacy of educational choice itself. The United States Supreme Court reached the same conclusion in a 1925 case, Pierce v. Society of Sisters. I conclude with a few short reflections on this case as it relates to my overall argument. The case concerned an Oregon ballot initiative, successfully passed by voters in 1922, which mandated attendance at public schools for every Oregon child aged eight to sixteen. The initiative effected a transformation of compulsory attendance laws into compulsory public school attendance laws, outlawing both sectarian and non-sectarian private schooling. The Supreme Court overturned the initiative, ruling in favour of the Society of Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, a Catholic school, and the Hill Military Academy, a non-sectarian private school. While the case is well known in American jurisprudence and remembered for the unanimous Court’s ruling that invoked the ‘liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing of children under their control’ (Pierce, 268 U.S. 510, 535), the historical context of the Oregon initiative is largely and unjustly forgotten. The ballot initiative represented the apex of efforts to secure common schooling against the perceived threats of immigrants, Catholics, and Bolshevism in the wake of three events: massive waves of immigration in the 1900s and 1910s, World War I, and the Russian Revolution of 1917. With the success of the Oregon initiative, a dozen other states were prepared to act in similar fashion. Along with the Scottish Rite Masons, the champion of the initiative was none other than the Ku Klux Klan. According to historians David Tyack, Thomas James, and Aaron Benavot, the Klan would recite, ‘I believe that our Free Public School is the cornerstone of good government and that those who are seeking to destroy it are enemies of our Republic and are unworthy of citizenship’ (Tyack, James and Benavot, 1987, p. 181). The Klan, in effect, was wary of the pluralism—especially the religious pluralism—that immigration had brought to Oregon and it sought to combat this by ensuring all children would attend common schools that would Americanise the youth. Social solidarity and common citizenship could be accomplished, the Klan evidently thought, only when private schooling was abolished. But the Klan, of course, was not making an argument in favour of what philosophers might call civic nationalism, the laudable attempt to secure civic unity without ethnocentric bias. The Klan was motivated by a conviction that white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) were a superior race; aliens, Catholics and Jews, and especially blacks all were genetically inferior. But with fewer than 1% blacks in Oregon, and with Plessy v. Ferguson the reigning law of the land, blacks could hardly have been the target of the initiative. Almost certainly the target were Catholics. Stephen Carter reads the historical context of the initiative as driven primarily by anti-religious and especially anti-Catholic sentiment (Carter, 1997; see also Garnett, 2000). Somewhat surprisingly, the Supreme Court rejected the democratic majority’s preferences in Oregon. While a portion of its ruling was

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technical, grounded in a finding that the Oregon compulsory public school attendance law destroyed the plaintiff’s business and property, the key declaration of Pierce is a defence of educational choice. Noting that ‘No question is raised concerning the power of the state reasonably to regulate all schools’ (Pierce, 268 U.S. 510, 534), the Court nevertheless issued a ringing declaration of limited government, echoing Mill’s concerns about the pernicious effects of complete state authority over schooling: The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations (Pierce, 268 U.S. 510, 535).

Pierce thus establishes in law that the liberty interests of parents in raising their children preclude the state from acting to abolish private schools. This constitutes, in effect, the liberty argument in favour of educational choice. It bears repeating that the liberty argument for educational choice does not establish the existence of unchallenged parental authority over schooling. To the contrary, the liberty argument establishes that the state may not act as the sole authority over schooling; it invests parental preferences about the education of their children with some weight. Enough weight to permit private and sectarian schools as educational options for parents, but exactly how much weight to control the curriculum and pedagogy in such schools is left unsettled. As Pierce recognised, the state could still regulate private schools and hold then accountable for public purposes. The battles over the accountability and financing of private schools have a long history in the wake of Pierce; indeed they continue today and constitute some of the main turf on which conflicts about school choice and vouchers are fought. These battles represent the ongoing efforts to reconcile in institutional form the tension between aspirations of common schooling and aspirations of educational choice. No philosopher can settle, at the level of principle, the institutional design of any school system. But I hope to have shown that the two aspirations, when understood against the normative significance of pluralism in a liberal society, are reconcilable in principle. Which is to say, educational choice is not merely justifiable but actually morally required in a liberal society. The liberty-based arguments are, I believe, the fundamental grounds of educational choice. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Most of this essay was drafted before Terry McLaughlin’s untimely death. Earlier versions appear in A Companion to Philosophy of Education, Randall Curren, ed. (Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, 2003) and in School Choice Policies and Outcomes: Philosophical and Empirical Perspective on Limits to School Choice in Liberal Democracies, Walter Feinberg and

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Christopher Lubienski, eds (Albany, NY, SUNY Press, 2008). Yet the inspiration for the essay is due mainly to the work of Terry McLaughlin, whose scholarship did much to advance the idea that the common schooling ideal could cohere with the existence of separate schools, the argument I advance in this essay. In this respect, the core idea animating this essay is indebted in the first instance to Terry McLaughlin. I thank Randall Curren, Christopher Lubienski, Walter Feinberg and the other participants in a conference on school choice held in April 2006 where I received comments on the chapter, and I thank Paul Standish and Graham Haydon for the invitation to contribute to this volume.

REFERENCES Ackerman, B. (1980) Social Justice in the Liberal State (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press). Brighouse, H. (2000) Social Justice and School Choice (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Bryk, T., Lee, V. and Holland, P. (1993) Catholic Schools and the Common Good (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). Callan, E. (1997) Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy (Oxford, Clarendon Press). Carter, S. L. (1997) Parents, Religion, and Schools: Reflections on Pierce, 70 Years Later, 27 Seton Hall Law Review 1194. Conant, J. B. (ed.) (1962) Thomas Jefferson and the Development of American Public Education (Berkeley, CA, University of California Press). Curren, R. (2000) Aristotle on the Necessity of Public Education (Lanham, MD, Rowman & Littlefield). Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and Education (New York, Free Press). Galston, W. (1995) Two Concepts of Liberalism, Ethics, 105, pp. 516–34. Garnett, R. W. (2000) Taking Pierce Seriously: The Family, Religious Education, and Harm to Children, 76 Notre Dame Law Review 109. Glenn, C. (1988) The Myth of the Common School (Amherst, MA, University of Massachusetts Press). Gutmann, A. (1987) Democratic Education (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press). Gutmann, A. (1995) Civic Education and Social Diversity, Ethics, 105.3, pp. 557–579. Gutmann, A. (2000) What Does School Choice Mean?, Dissent, Summer, pp. 19–24. Kahlenberg, R. (2001) All Together Now: Creating Middle-Class Schools Through Public School Choice (Washington, DC, Brookings Institution Press). Levinson, M. (1999) The Demands of Liberal Education (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Macedo, S. (2000) Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). McConnell, M. (2001) Education Disestablishment: Why Democratic Values Are Ill-Served by Democratic Control of Schooling, in: S. Macedo and Y. Tamir (eds) Political and Moral Education: NOMOS XLIII (New York, New York University Press), pp. 87–146. McLaughlin, T. (1992) The Ethics of Separate Schools, in: M. Leicester and M. Taylor (eds) Ethics, Ethnicity and Education (London, Kogan Page), pp. 114–136. McLaughlin, T. (1995) Liberalism, Education, and the Common School, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 29.2, pp. 239–255. McLaughlin, T. (2003) Burdens and Dilemmas of Common Schooling, in: K. McDonough and W. Feinberg (eds) Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies: Teaching for Cosmopolitan Values and Collective Identities (Oxford, Oxford University Press), pp. 121–156. Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 535, 1925. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 1896. Ravitch, D. (1974) The Great School Wars: New York City, 1805–1973 (New York, Basic Books). Rawls, J. (1993) Political Liberalism (New York, Columbia University Press).

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Reich, R. (2002) Bridging Liberalism and Multiculturalism in American Education (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press). Tomasi, J. (2001) Liberalism Beyond Justice: Citizens, Society, and the Boundaries of Political Theory (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press). Tyack, D. and Hansot, E. (1982) Managers of Virtue: Public School Leadership in America (New York, Basic Books). Tyack, D., James, T. and Benavot, A. (1987) Law and the Shaping of Public Education, 1785–1954 (Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press). West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 641, 1943.

14 From Adam Swift to Adam Smith: How the ‘Invisible Hand’ Overcomes Middle Class Hypocrisy JAMES TOOLEY INTRODUCTION

Richard Pring argues that the ‘fight for the common school was essentially a moral one in terms of [inter alia] achieving greater social justice and equality . . .’ (Pring, Chapter 1, p. 3). He also suggests that one of four arguments against the common school is predicated on the existence of parental choice and private schools, although this ‘raises issues that this chapter cannot deal with’ (p. 14). In this chapter, I argue that there is a moral argument for permitting parents to send their children to private schools, and that there might not be a contradiction between this action and ‘achieving greater social justice and equality’. To outline the basis for this moral argument, I use recent arguments of Adam Swift (2003, 2004a, b) as a springboard. The chapter first outlines Swift’s position on why private schools should be banned, suggesting that he does not go nearly far enough in only prohibiting private schools, allowing all sorts of other parental partiality to be maintained, if equality of opportunity is one of his major aims. Second, I briefly explore the alternative scenario that repels him, where parents are not allowed any partiality towards their children. But finally, I explore another alternative scenario, which rephrases what I think he means by parental partiality and capitalises on its virtues, including allowing parents to choose private education if they so desire, to provide a better system for all. The argument is taken out of the British context to which Swift confines himself, although I conclude with suggestions that it could be applicable to even that context. SCENARIO 1: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO ADAM SWIFT

Adam Swift’s recent ‘How Not To Be A Hypocrite’ addresses ‘middleclass angst’, ‘for parents who have a choice about what kind of school their children go to and find that the choice raises moral dilemmas’ (Swift, 2003, p. ix). Similarly to Pring, Swift (2003, 2004a, b) believes that two social values, equality of opportunity and social cohesion, lead to the conclusion that, in an ideal world, choosing private schools is immoral. He The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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uses the social cohesion argument mainly against selective schools (Swift, 2003, p. 36), although he agrees it can also be used against private schools, which ‘undermine community; they foster social division rather than social solidarity, fragmentation rather than cohesion’ (p. 44). In this chapter, I shall concentrate, following Swift, on equality of opportunity in the discussion of the pros and cons of private schools, but I suggest that parallel arguments could be made concerning social cohesion too; these are however beyond the scope of this current chapter. Equality of opportunity is offended when ‘the things parents do . . . give their children unfair advantages over others in the competition for future rewards’ (p. 11); ‘allowing parents to help their children to queue-jump is both unfair and inefficient’ (p. 25). One of the major issues is that education (note, not schools—Swift frequently appears to conflate education and schooling, which has repercussions for his argument, explored below) is a ‘positional good’. He writes, ‘The value of a person’s education depends not only on how good it is in absolute terms, but also on how good it is compared to that of other people’ (p. 23). Because of its ‘instrumental’ impact in gaining ‘jobs and money’, what is important ‘is not how much education one has, or how good it is, but how much one has, or how good it is, relative to the others with whom one is competing for jobs. This gives education something of a zero-sum aspect: the better educated you are, the worse for me (and vice versa)’ (Swift, 2004a, p. 11). And worse, allowing private schools not only benefits those who attend them, but it also lowers standards not just relatively, but absolutely within the state sector (ibid.).1 Moreover, it’s not just in terms of its instrumental value, but also in terms of its intrinsic value, that education can be positional, as Swift, in a rather convoluted way, appears to accept: At first, Swift seems to suggest that parents giving their children education for its intrinsic value does not offend positionality. He writes: I want my children to be able to play a musical instrument, so I buy them lessons. Is it unfair that my children get music lessons while other kids don’t? Yes. Are other kids made worse off by the fact that mine get them and they don’t? Not much. True, they will be worse off in the competition for those things for which being able to play an instrument is an advantage. But they needn’t be worse off in any general sense (Swift, 2003, p. 29).

But then he changes his mind a few sentences later: ‘In fact, however, things valued intrinsically—like the skills needed to appreciate Shakespeare—do also confer generalised competitive advantages on those who acquire them’, adding, after all, ‘Perhaps music lessons do’ (p. 29). He uses this to support his thesis that, for intrinsic as well as instrumental reasons, ‘kids going to private schools in a non-competitive spirit, for purely intrinsic goods, does, as a matter of fact, make others worse off than they would otherwise be’ (p. 30, emphasis added). I think this is exactly right—having music lessons and learning to appreciate Shakespeare are all

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part of what has usefully been termed middle-class habitus (Bourdieu, 1987), that will unfairly advantage middle class children when they are vying for positional goods (they can augment their CVs, they can discuss things at interview, they can rub shoulders at music competitions with others who will help later in life, they gain a valuable discipline that will help them in other areas too, etc.). But what is interesting is that Swift has used this to condemn children going to private schools (as in the emphasised passage above). Perhaps here the way in which he conflates education and schooling is a problem. For surely it equally applies to children getting these educational benefits from their parents outside of school. This is crucial to the argument here. (He does appear to accept this later in a reply to critics—see below—but this acceptance is not apparent in his book). So how do we distinguish morally between those things that parents can legitimately give their children (music lessons, bedtime reading, etc.) and those that they cannot? How biased can we be towards our own children? Following John Rawls, Swift gives an argument from a privileged ‘original position’ behind the ‘veil of ignorance’ to justify his conclusion that private schools are out, but music lessons, bedtime stories, etc., are in: ‘Imagine you are . . . ignorant of your personal circumstances, deciding the principles that should govern the distribution of benefits and burdens in society . . . You will choose those principles impartially—without regard to your own particular interests . . . What we are looking for, by taking the perspective of the original position, is an unbiased theory about how biased we can be’ (Swift, 2004a, pp. 13–14). In this thought experiment, Swift has allowed, as did Rawls, various empirical and theoretical propositions about what humanity will be like beyond the ‘veil of ignorance’ to inform our judgements about what is desirable: Rawls wrote, although the parties will not know ‘his place in society, his class position or social status; nor . . . his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like’, and although ‘the parties do not know the particular circumstances of their own society’, what is ‘taken for granted’ is that they know ‘general facts about human society. They understand political affairs and the principles of economic theory; they know the basis of social organisation and the laws of human psychology. Indeed, the parties are presumed to know whatever general facts affect the choice of the principles of justice’ (Rawls, 1971, pp. 136– 7, emphasis added). Quite a lot of background information, in fact, is allowed, and we shall utilise this below. From behind this veil of ignorance, we are, Swift implies, realistic enough, given our conception of human nature, to suppose that there will be a class of people who are both deeply concerned about their children’s education and able to realise these concerns—the ones that will lavish children with bedtime readings, music lessons, appreciation of Shakespeare, exotic holidays and food, and the like (Swift, 2003, p. 9ff, p. 29ff). These parents are also likely to be the ones wanting to send their children to private schools. As his book his aimed at ‘middle class’ parents (p. ix), let us dub such parents the ‘Middle Class’—doing so for convenience

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only, without wishing to bring in any other associations that this label may have. Presumably, then, there will also be parents who either do not have the financial means, or not the ability, or not the desire, or a combination of these, to lavish these things on their children: the ‘Non-Middle Class’. Says Swift, we have the likes of ‘Johnny and Jemima’ in one class, and unlucky ‘Tony and Tracey’ in the other (p. 11). Two observations on my presentation of his ideas here: first, of course, Swift may have simplified things down to these two classes in order not to confuse his target ‘general audience’ (Swift, 2004a, p. 323). Nevertheless, I believe you can simplify too much. Bringing in a more nuanced understanding of types of parents, as under Scenario 3 below, may substantially change the conclusions. Second, below I insert details from Swift’s argument into a parallel thought experiment where Swift himself is not explicitly considering the veil of ignorance. But I hope I have not done this in a way that is unfair to his argument, rather seeking to clarify his position. From behind the veil of ignorance, we as impartial observers, says Swift, will see all the partiality that the parents in the Middle Class wish to, and can, bestow on their children, and endorse it, morally, provided that children of both classes are compelled, by the state, to attend comprehensive, (non-selective) state schools, and are forbidden the choice of private schools. We will allow parents to be partial to their children in all these respects apart from private schooling, because in doing so we will see that equality of opportunity (or at least, the best possible approximation to this) will result, without allowing the important relationships that characterise parental-child interactions to be overruled. Importantly, from the Original Position, we are endorsing this, whichever class we believe we might end up in, as children or parents. Why state comprehensive schools? State, because private schools, as we noted above, offend equality of opportunity. Comprehensive, because social cohesion will result. And why allow many other aspects of parental partiality? Because, Swift says, that from behind the veil of ignorance we ‘will acknowledge the importance of people’s special relationships with their loved ones, recognising that those relationships are of fundamental value in human life, create special obligations, and license certain kinds of special treatment and partiality’ (pp. 13–14). Importantly, Swift appears to believe that, from the Original Position, we will endorse this outcome even if parental-partiality-short-of-sendingchildren-to-private schools does in fact lead to unfairness in terms of positionality, as I’ve suggested it will above. That is, Swift appears to accept that parental lavishing of goods other than private schooling on their children may still advantage them in the positional quest for the best employment, etc., and thus offend equality of opportunity, but should still not be discouraged or outlawed. This at least is my reading of his response to his critics Clayton and Stevens (2004). Here, on first reading, Swift seems to be suggesting that partiality such as reading bedtime stories to children might not necessarily be considered legitimate: Suppose, plausibly, that some parents and not others are in a position to read their children bedtime stories, and that the difference between those

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set of parents is properly regarded as injustice in background economic and social conditions. Not all parents have the same fair opportunity to engage in the partial activity. Suppose also that, whatever the intention, the effect of reading bedtimes stories is to improve one’s children’s chances in life relative to those who do not get such stories, in a way that makes those children yet worse off. If we were never justified in acting in ways that worsen the position of others who are already more unjustly treated than us (or our children), then those of us who are able to do so are not, at present, justified in reading bedtime stories to our children’ (Swift, 2004b, p. 332). However, it seems he is giving this not as a proscription on what the Middle Classes can legitimately do, but as a reductio ad absurdum to show that they are, in fact, entitled to do it. For he begins this paragraph with the note that his critics ‘do not suggest that we should never act partially in ways that have the effect of worsening the situation of others unjustly worse off than ourselves. They are surely right not to’ (ibid., emphasis added). Thus he apparently re-endorses his original stance in How Not to be a Hypocrite, where he writes, ‘Most evenings, I read a bedtime story to my kids. I am showing a special, partial interest in my children. I know that reading to them gives them advantages that will help them in the future, advantages not enjoyed by less fortunate others. It is unfair that they do not get what mine do. The playing field is not level; our bedtime stories tilt it in their favour. Even so, few would advocate that they be banned. Bedtime stories are the right side of the line’ (Swift, 2003, p. 9). Swift’s Original Position thought experiment is further elucidated by the parable of the shipwreck: Parable of the Shipwreck, (version 1): ‘Three children are drowning. Your daughter is one of the three. The way they are spaced out in the water, you can either save your own or let her drown and save the other two . . . Should you save yours? Or should you let your own child die to save the other two?’ (p. 18).

Swift says that it is morally fine to save your daughter. Indeed, Bernard Williams, when reviewing this kind of parable, says Swift, thinks that anyone who gives this another thought, is having ‘one thought too many’, for ‘You should save your child just because she is your child, not because morality permits one to save one’s child’ (quoted, p. 19). Perhaps because I’m not a parent myself, I personally find it hard to accept the implications of this parable if equality of opportunity is your aim, or even one of your major aims. At one point Swift seems perturbed by his position too—with regard to him giving music lessons to his children he writes ‘my kids still enjoy an unfair advantage, and one which I could remedy by giving (half?) the lessons to kids who wouldn’t otherwise get them’ (p. 29). But he concludes by ‘resisting the temptation to explore that radical possibility . . .’ (p. 29). I do not see why, if equality of opportunity is your aim, however approximate you think its eventual realisation will be, that ‘radical possibility’ is one to be dismissed so readily. It all seems too easy

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for the Middle Class in this view of what is morally permissible from behind the veil of ignorance. ‘Hypocrisy’, Swift points out from the dictionary definition, is ‘the practice of falsely presenting an appearance of virtue or falsely professing a belief to which one’s own character or conduct does not conform’ (quoted, Swift, 2004a, p. 10). He is not very charitable to parents who he believes are guilty of the same: ‘I am suspicious’, he writes, ‘of all claims about the alleged inadequacy of the local state school’, when this defence is given as a reason for parents sending their child to a private school: ‘Parents are very quick to believe that it is essential for the child to go private if she is to avoid various kinds of harm and it is hard not to think that this is because it suits them to believe it’ (p. 18, emphasis added). Far be it from me to impute Swift’s intentions in his writing. But it must be observed that the moral order he proposes certainly suits him, with the comforting outcome that everything he himself values—such as reading bedtime stories–is left intact, provided that he sends his children to the state comprehensive in his, it has to be said, rather nice area of Oxford. But even if the local comprehensive is not up to scratch, still his children, Swift hints, will not be adversely affected in the positional struggle: he agrees that ‘Many parents who have the option of buying unusually expensive schooling will have, and will transmit to their children, advantages that more than compensate for the failings of the local state school’ (p. 18). He gives the example of ‘a political philosopher who, when he taught at University of Chicago, sent his son to the local state . . . school, even though it had a bad reputation. He reckoned that, with his being an academic, his son already had a lot going for him and would continue to have a fair chance of success even if he went to that school’ (ibid.). For ‘well-educated, well-off parents whose children have lots of other advantages’, have nothing to fear from sending ‘their children to an average state school’ (p. 19). Indeed. From behind the veil of ignorance, not knowing whether we will be propelled into the Middle or Non-Middle Class, would we really be so sanguine about this level of parental partiality permitted by Swift? Or would we sympathise instead with Clayton and Stevens (2004) or Macleod (2004), in thinking that, if Swift’s characterisation of positionality is correct, and if an approximation to equality of opportunity is one of our aims, and we believe that the state is justified in imposing this as an outcome or process, Swift does not go nearly far enough in what he prohibits in terms of parental partiality? From behind the veil or ignorance, even if you thought that the local state comprehensive school will give you equal opportunities to those who are better endowed, parentally-speaking, during the period you are in school (not currently a huge proportion of a child’s total time, incidentally—pace Swift, 2003, p. 28), you might be reluctant to accept your fate in a Non-Middle Class family, knowing that such advantages are bestowed on others who, by chance, are thrown into the Middle Classes out of school. For the paradox is, if schooling is equal, and there are positional goods to compete for, the more important family influence will become, and the more parents of the Middle Classes will seek to bestow goods of educational value on their

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children out of school (see Tooley, 2003). Swift seems to agree with this: If private schools are banned, and the only alternative is state schooling, ‘Parents who currently rely on such schools to make sure their kids get good results might find themselves doing more to help outside school’ (Swift, 2003, p. 60). But in any case, if we are permitted to know from behind the veil of ignorance, after Rawls, many facts and theories about human society, we might be able to pull all this together and conclude that, in practice, state comprehensive schools are unlikely to be equal: after all, the median voter theorem (Downs, 1988; cf. Swift, 2004, n. 4, p. 230; Anderson, 2004, p. 104) and the later theory of public choice (Buchanan, 1954; Tullock, 1976, 1988), which both might lead to this conclusion (see Tooley, 1995), began as purely theoretical constructs based precisely on ‘principles of economic theory; . . . the basis of social organisation and the laws of human psychology’ (Rawls, 1971, pp. 136–7), all available to our participants behind the veil. This would make our deliberations in my view even more unlikely to sanction the parental partiality allowed by Swift. In short, it is hard to see how Swift’s principle of parental partiality, short of allowing children to go to private school, would satisfy us behind the veil of ignorance. But what is the alternative? Swift seems to think that there is only one, and it is far too grim to contemplate. SCENARIO 2: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO PLATO

The alternative, implies Swift, can only be something approaching (or even reaching) Plato’s abolition of the family, where parents are simply not permitted to bestow any positional advantages (at home or school) whatsoever on their children, perhaps even where children are taken away from their parents at birth and raised in state nurseries. No, says Swift, definitely we wouldn’t prefer this. It’s far too dismal a scenario, because, from behind the veil of ignorance, we will also ‘acknowledge the importance of people’s special relationships with their loved ones’, and recognise ‘that those relationships are of fundamental value in human life’ (Swift, 2004a, pp. 13–14). Equality of opportunity, whilst definitely being met in this alternative scenario, is not the only value in our moral lexicon. We also value relationships, especially those of parent-child, and we mustn’t sacrifice these, so fundamental to our very humanity. Swift offers an alternative parable of the shipwreck, actually in a different context, but illustrative of our concerns here: Parable of the Shipwreck, (version 2): ‘Limiting parents to giving their children a fair chance of avoiding . . . a bad outcome would be like requiring them to toss a coin when deciding which of two children, their own or another, to rescue from drowning’ (p. 18).

If there was no alternative, then I suspect many readers will agree that going down this route would be far too harsh, sacrificing too much of our humanity for the sake of equality of opportunity. And so they might side

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with Swift, and opt for the first scenario, even if, like Clayton and Stevens and MacLeod, they rearrange the precise details of what is and is not permitted in terms of parental partiality. In such a world, we know we won’t achieve equality of opportunity, but at least we shall approximate it, to some degree, whilst not sacrificing what we value about human relationships. But is there really no other alternative that allows for, nay celebrates, parental partiality, and has satisfactory social outcomes as a result? I believe there is. It requires stepping back from Adam Swift, to Adam Smith. SCENARIO 3: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO ADAM SMITH

Swift values parental partiality, as I guess most do. He wants to elevate it to a moral principle, which is perhaps why he dubs it ‘partiality’, rather than another term that comes to mind, ‘selfishness’, albeit selfishness with regard to your own kin (Swift hints that he is aware of this alternative terminology (2003, p. 13)). Swift is wrestling with the conundrum that selfishness (partiality) seems to have beneficial outcomes (strong families, the building block of societies, and the formation of loving relationships), but also seems potentially unpleasant, leading to ‘pushy’ parents (p. 31) selfishly concerned for their own children’s success at the expense of others less fortunate. He is trying to square this circle, and Scenario 1, in my interpretation, is the unsatisfactory result. But an earlier moral philosopher also wrestled with the propensity of humanity to be selfish, which seemed prima facie undesirable (particularly in terms of his Christian beliefs), and yet—and yet, it seemed to have such desirable outcomes for society as a whole. How could that be the case? Adam Smith’s conclusion was spelled out in The Theory of Moral Sentiments ([1759] 1976), strongly influenced by the Aristotelian ‘golden mean’: there are three pillars of virtue: prudence, strict justice and proper benevolence; the virtuous life consists of maintaining the correct balance between them. Within prudence, selfishness (or ‘self-love’—Smith too perhaps tried a semantic trick of making the term more palatable and less pejorative) has its proper place: Prudence is concerned with the achievement of the necessary conditions for preservation. Certainly man does not live by bread alone; but neither does he live by ‘Benevolence’ alone. It is perfectly right that the individual should look after his own body; this is not a selfish act in the pejorative sense of that word’ (West, 1976, pp. 27–8).

Furthermore, again similar to Swift, Smith acknowledges—and endorses—the commonsensical notion that selfishness (self-love) is bound to dictate that we want to look after our families first, (and also then our close neighbours, and then our more distant neighbours, etc.) And there’s nothing wrong with that at all. Families, by looking after themselves well, provide the basis for the good society and the virtuous life. Prudence, is a necessary but not sufficient guide to the good life. Smith says that it is not the ‘most endearing, or the most ennobling of the virtues. It commands a

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certain cold esteem, but seems not entitled to any very ardent love or admiration’ (quoted, West, 1976, p. 28). The virtuous life must be supplemented by Justice, ‘the observance of a set of legal rules by which each person’s freedom is reasonably secured and coercion is outlawed’ (p. 29), and also by Beneficence or Benevolence, regard for others, on one level the highest form of human behaviour, which, importantly, like Prudence, is voluntary, not requiring the law to enforce. But, most importantly, it is not from Benevolence, nor from the law (Justice) alone, that we obtain the basic necessities of society—as Smith was famously to remark later in the Wealth of Nations, ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.’ (Smith, [1776] 1976, book I, pp. 26–27). Thus Prudence, not Benevolence, is the ‘source and mainspring’, or at least a necessary condition, of all ‘successful economic activity’ (West, 1976, p. 27). It’s rather as if, to use what we now tend to term Smith’s analogy, (he of course meant it as more than an analogy), an ‘Invisible Hand’ has provided us with self-interest in order to promote the common good. But all of this is exceedingly pertinent to Swift’s conundrum. Let’s revisit the shipwreck again to see why, this time adding one of Swift’s phrases that I deliberately omitted earlier: Parable of the Shipwreck, (my version 3): ‘Three children are drowning. Your daughter is one of the three. The way they are spaced out in the water, you can either save your own or let her drown and save the other two. All the kids have parents who care for their kids just as much as you do for yours. Should you save yours? Or should you let your own child die to save the other two?’ (p. 18, emphasis added).

If it is true that all children have parents who care for them, the previously omitted phrase, then a more realistic version of the shipwreck parable would render nonsensical the two questions asked. For if the phrase in italics is true, then why would there be just one concerned parent awaiting the return of the ship during the storm? More realistically, the parable needs to be rewritten: Instead, all parents will be waiting at the dock, and each will rescue his or her own children. The paradox simply disappears in a puff of logic. This is surely the insight of Smith that is lacking from Swift’s version of events—that wanting to care for your children is a fundamental part of what it means to be human, rooted in our selfishness, nothing to do with any higher motive, but with the wonderful outcome that every child, in the revised parable, has a saviour. And translated into the educational context, through the ‘invisible hand’ of parental self-love (partiality), educational opportunities for all can be created and, importantly, bringing in Smith’s insights into the benefits of the invisible hand in economic society, educational standards can be raised.2 Reading Swift one sometimes gains the impression that he thinks that the Middle Class has a monopoly of this ‘caring’ (partiality) virtue—hence the

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paradox in his version of the shipwreck parable. Smith reminds us that it is a universal phenomenon and so the shipwreck parable loses its power. Actually, not quite universal—and this is obviously an important point. To return to the veil of ignorance thought experiment, Smith’s insights would surely be amongst those theories of economics, human psychology and social organisation that would be available to us. But the crucial question we would want answered, would rightfully demand from anyone who had set us deliberating behind the veil, is: in practice, what proportion of parents would be caring for their children (based on self-love), leading, amongst other things, to them being extremely concerned about their children’s education? A more charitable reading of Swift would be that he has thought through this question, and decided that it is only a minority— his Middle Class. Ultimately, of course, this is an empirical question that philosophy cannot answer (and perhaps means that leaving two versions of this thought experiment intact is acceptable—if you agree with Swift’s assumption (or my reading of him), then you might opt for Scenario 1. If you agree with mine, then you would probably opt for Scenario 3). But for what it’s worth, my reading of the history of education before the state got involved (see, e.g. West, 1965; Coulson, 1999; Tooley, 2000), and my reading of the evidence accrued from developing countries now, where state schooling is not functioning (see, e.g. Tooley and Dixon, 2006; Alderman et al., 2003; The Probe Team, 1999), is that only a tiny minority of parents will not be deeply concerned for their children’s educational wellbeing. (Part of the evidence would also reflect on the disturbing effect of the welfare state that it reduces parental responsibility, reinforcing the notion that parents lack concern—they might do now in countries like the UK, but only because the welfare state in education has brought this about (see Bartholomew, 2004).) Wanting the best for your children’s education, I believe the evidence suggests, is nearly universal, only a tiny minority of parents will not show this. But of course, while the vast majority of parents might want the best, educationally-speaking, for their children, and so, according to Swift, will want to share all the parental partiality that he permits and also want the forbidden fruit of private schooling (Swift is clear that he thinks private education is better than state education (see Swift, 2003, pp. 21, 23–24)), many will not be able to afford it. This is also something that would need to inform our deliberations behind the veil of ignorance. But this is where I part company with Swift’s version of events, at least in How Not to be a Hypocrite. For he sees private schooling as being much more expensive than state schooling, and so likely to be out of the reach of many. In my empirical work in developing countries, I’ve seen that private schooling, for the poor, is always the less expensive option in terms of the costs of running the schools, and often even in terms of what parents have to pay (because of the ‘hidden costs’ of state schooling, usually absent in the private schools). Moreover, private schools are available for fees that amount to only about 5–10% of poverty-line income—that is, very affordable to many poor parents. And these private schools, my research has shown, outperform the state schools, at a fraction of the cost (Tooley

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and Dixon, 2005, 2006). In other words, not only do the vast majority of parents want the best educationally-speaking for their children, only a slightly smaller majority are also able to afford, if not the best, then certainly a better option than is provided ‘free’ by the state. (We’ve found figures of 65% to 75% of schoolchildren attending private schools in poor slums in Africa and Asia.) But that’s not the only advantage of the market—the private schools themselves provide free or heavily subsidised places for the poorest of the poor, up to 20% in some of the slums researched. In effect, the poor are subsidising the poorest to go to private school. Not only is Smith’s Prudence (self-love) operating in this market, but his Benevolence too. Swift’s view of the private educational market is constrained by what he sees in the very distorted market (we can hardly call it a market, given the near-state monopoly) of the UK, where only 7% of children attend private schools. Later he does seem to recognise that even in the USA things might be different—where a slightly larger proportion of children (he says 12%) attend private school, which may indeed be less expensive, and have beneficial impacts on equality of opportunity (Swift, 2004a, p. 8)—so much so that he now revises his argument to say, ‘When I write of private schools, think of expensive elite private schools. It is the unfairness, not, the privateness, with which my arguments will be concerned’ (p. 9). In which case, Swift might be in agreement with my conclusion here, moving from the abstract to the particular. If we were behind the veil of ignorance, and told that we would be propelled into, say India or Nigeria, where, I suggest, all of the above is true of private versus state schooling, and we were told these facts, then we would have no hesitation at all in allowing parental partiality (self-love) to rear its beneficial head in all ways, including allowing us to send our children to private schools— indeed, we would see it (again, as Swift seems to acknowledge (2004a, p. 18)), as being a fundamental prerequisite of equality of opportunity that we should be permitted to make those choices. In particular, we might become children of parents who, like the vast majority, care deeply about our children’s education, but are not able to impart even reading bedtime stories to them, because we ourselves are illiterate. It would make absolutely no sense to allow us the freedom to do what we can’t do, but prevent us from doing what we can, viz., pay for our children’s private education, which, as Swift also agrees, would go some way to ‘compensate for [our] lack of cultural capital’ (Swift, 2003, p. 59). Many readers will be impatient by now: this is all very well, but what about that (by assumption, tiny) minority of parents who don’t care at all, and that (slightly larger) minority of parents who care but can’t afford to pay for private schooling, even at the low rates discussed above? Surely from behind the veil of ignorance our deliberations would have to take them into account, and that this would lead us to withdraw from these conclusions, and posit a universal state schooling for all? I don’t see that at all. Just as the fact that these same parents may not be able, or be willing, to provide food and clothing for their children does not lead most of us to desire universal state feeding and clothing, nor should it lead us to think

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that, in any circumstances, universal state schooling is the answer. Just as state food and clothing programmes have been tried in communist countries, and shown to be grossly inefficient, because they failed to take into account Smith’s insight of the beneficial effect of self-love on the economy, so, I believe, universal state schooling suffers from the same defects (see Tooley, 2000). What is required instead, we would surely conclude, to ensure an approximation to equality of opportunity, is some form of targeted assistance—building on what the schools already offer in the way of free places for the poorest of the poor, utilising Smith’s benevolence, either through private philanthropy and/or through some state mechanisms, (as Smith himself proposed when reflecting on education (Smith, 1950, p. 281)), for those too poor or neglectful to provide for their children’s education. In short, I suggest that, our deliberations from behind the veil of ignorance will self-evidently lead to a different outcome from that given in How Not To be A Hypocrite, at least if we were to be propelled into the reality of developing countries today, and we knew various facts about them. Possibly Swift might even agree—for his argument, while abstract and philosophical, is based on the reality of the UK, and he might agree that it is not applicable elsewhere.

CONCLUSION: THE THREE FS

But I think there is an even stronger conclusion that we can derive from a veil of ignorance argument that has applicability away from developing countries too. Why would it be any different if we knew we were going to be propelled into a richer country, like the UK? This argument is beyond the scope of this chapter to address. However, elsewhere (Tooley, 2000) I have suggested that, if we really were to follow Rawls’ prescriptions and consider, from first principles, the kind of education system we would like, if we knew nothing about the particulars of the social position we would end up in, we certainly would not design a system of state schooling, that has many disadvantages that I believe Swift is ignoring (Tooley, 2000, 2005). Instead, I have argued that, from first principles we would develop a system that relied on the principles of what I dubbed the ‘three Fs’, viz., family, freedom and philanthropy: The Family is the core educational institution around which all others are built in society, crucial to early development, and to the promotion of a thriving civil society. Freedom is required, first, to enable families to choose educational opportunities, and, second, for the whole range of entrepreneurs attracted to education, who must have freedom to invest their energies and to raise investment wherever they thought best could tackle educational problems. They need freedom to be able to devise student loan schemes and methods of cross-subsidisation. And they need the freedom to devise methods of inspiring and motivating young people to want to learn. Finally, Philanthropy, would have a key part to play to help with those families who were dysfunctional, providing substitute

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families if necessary or mentoring for those who needed it. And it has a part to play in finding funds, administered with discretion and discernment, to those who need help to fund their own or their children’s educational opportunities. Crucially, these principles would lead not even to schools (let alone state schools), but to a whole gamut of private educational opportunities based in civil society and the market. And, very importantly, whilst not arriving at equality of opportunity, they could arrive at a close approximation to it, which is all that Swift’s position professes to offer too. The problem with Swift’s argument, as an abstract philosophical argument, forgetting its practical applications, I contend, is that he is too constrained by the British status quo, where state schools are the norm. He is not allowed his philosophical imagination full rein to think through the alternatives. Perhaps if near-monopoly state schooling was the only possibility, I might agree with Swift’s conclusion. But as philosophers conducting genuine thought experiments, we are surely entitled to a more fundamental exploration.3 In Reclaiming Education, I argue that if we were really to take a step back from the hurly-burly of reality and reflect on what is really just and possible, we’d decide on a fully private education system, supplemented by philanthropy where required. I now realise that subconsciously or otherwise, but certainly not deliberately, my three Fs precisely map onto Adam Smith’s three pillars of the virtuous life—the ‘family’ maps onto his notion of Prudence and selflove, ‘freedom’ is precisely freedom within the law, Smith’s Justice, and ‘philanthropy’ is obviously his Beneficence. With these principles in mind, and conducting a careful thought experiment, I suggest that Swift would not be correct in setting out the kind of system we’d prefer, neither in the abstract nor even applied to richer countries. And perhaps Pring could also find this kind of thought experiment persuasive in leading him to a different conclusion about the role of private education and the moral values he promotes.4

NOTES 1. I think that this positional ‘zero-sum’ argument for education may be overdone, although I acknowledge it has a distinguished history (back to Hirsch, 1977). There are many very successful people who have not benefited from the advantages of, say, a university education (e.g. Bill Gates, Alan Sugar, Richard Branson, Paul McCartney, Aneurin Bevan, Jim Callaghan, John Major, Ferdinand Porsche, etc., etc.), but have nonetheless done exceptionally well in the positional stakes, better than those who have had higher education. Nevertheless, for the sake of the argument, we’ll go along with this assumption. 2. Actually, Swift is aware of this kind of argument, (see Swift, 2004a, p. 17, and 2003, pp. 60–62), although he perceives it narrowly in terms of encouraging parents to work harder so that they can invest in their children’s education, leading to ‘a powerful motivation to work’, and ‘we all benefit when other people are working’ (pp. 60–61). Reassuringly, Swift judges it the ‘right kind’ of argument to be made in terms of justifying private schools, that allowing them ‘serves the common good’ (Swift, 2003, p. 62). I believe the argument is much more powerful than Swift believed. 3. Swift points out why he didn’t do this more fundamental exploration of whether or not parents in his Middle Class are actually entitled to their privilege, because he didn’t want to ‘raise readers’ hackles’ (Swift, 2004b, p. 338). But I doubt if readers would have been riled by the kind of exploration I have in mind.

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4. Terry McLaughlin invited me to give an earlier version of this chapter at a meeting of the London Branch of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain held at the Institute of Education, in March 2006. He was too ill to chair the session, and it was to be the last time we met, as he went into hospital a few days later. Although he would disagree with the conclusions, nevertheless he was the inspiration for my work in this area, and he always, teasingly but emphatically, encouraged me to explore ideas where I thought they led, rather than where others thought I should take them. I dedicate this chapter to him.

REFERENCES Alderman, H., Kim, J. and Orazem, P. F. (2003) Design, Evaluation, and Sustainability of Private Schools for the Poor: The Pakistan Urban and Rural Fellowship School Experiments, Economics of Education Review, 22, pp. 265–274. Anderson, E. (2004) Rethinking Equality of Opportunity: Comment on Adam Swift’s How Not To Be a Hypocrite, Theory and Research in Education, 2.2, 99–110. Bartholomew, J. (2004) The Welfare State We’re In (London, Politico’s Publishing Ltd.). Bourdieu, P. (1987) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). Buchanan, J. M. (1954) Social Choice, Democracy and Free Markets, Journal of Political Economy, 62, pp. 114–23. Clayton, M. and Stevens, D. (2004) School Choice and the Burdens of Injustice, Theory and Research in Education, 2.2, pp. 111–26. Coulson, A. J. (1999) Market Education: The Unknown History (New Brunswick and London, ransaction Publishers). Downs, A. (1988) In Defence of Majority Voting, in: G. Tullock (ed.) Wealth, Poverty and Politics (London, Basil Blackwell), pp. 19–31. Hirsch, F. (1977) Social Limits to Growth (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul). Macleod, C. (2004) The Puzzle of Parental Partiality: Reflections on How Not to be a Hypocrite, Theory and Research in Education, 2.3, pp. 309–21. Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice (Oxford, Clarendon Press). Smith, A. [1776] (1976) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, R. G. Campbell, A. S. Skinner and W. B. Todd, eds. (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Smith, A. (1950) The Wealth of Nations, 6th edn., E. Cannan, ed. (London, Methuen). Swift, A. (2003) How Not To Be a Hypocrite: School Choice for the Morally Perplexed Parent (London and New York, Routledge). Swift, A. (2004a) The Morality of School Choice, Theory and Research in Education, 2.1, pp. 7–21. Swift, A. (2004b) The morality of school choice reconsidered: A response, Theory and Research in Education, 2.3, pp. 323–342. The Probe Team (1999) Public Report on Basic Education in India (Oxford and New Delhi, Oxford University Press). Tooley, J. (1995) Disestablishing the School (Aldershot, Avebury Press). Tooley, J. (2000) Reclaiming Education (London and New York, Continuum). Tooley, J. (2003) Why Harry Brighouse is Nearly Right About the Privatisation of Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 37.3, pp. 427–447. Tooley, J. (2005) Education Reclaimed, in: P. Booth (ed.) Towards a Liberal Utopia? (London, Profile Books). Tooley, J. and Dixon, P. (2006) ‘De Facto’ Privatisation of Education and the Poor: Implications of a Study from Sub-Saharan Africa and India, Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education 2006, 36.4, pp. 443–462. Tullock, G. (1976) The Vote Motive (London, Institute of Economic Affairs). Tullock, G. (ed.) (1988) Wealth, Poverty and Politics (London, Basil Blackwell). West, E. G. ([1965], 1994) Education and the State, 3rd edn. (Indianapolis, Liberty Fund). West, E. G. (1976) Introduction, in: Smith, A. [1759] (1976) The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Indianapolis, Liberty Fund).

15 School Choice, Brand Loyalty and Civic Loyalty MARY HEALY

A Church school was approaching an Ofsted inspection.1 A new head teacher had been appointed the year before under unusual circumstances (the only person interviewed, close friend of some of the governors, etc.). The new head came from her previous school with a reputation for poor management style, and soon the new school staff discovered why. In short, she was a bully. She not only bullied the staff, but also the pupils. It was commonplace for her to shout at staff and undermine their authority, in front of each other and in front of the children, and to humiliate the children as well. Staff meetings were dreaded as each member of staff was targeted in turn for ridicule, until eventually they either left for other jobs or went on extended sick leave. Within a year, half the staff had left and been replaced. New arrivals soon started looking for a way out. The staff were caught. Should they stay and try to protect the children from the worst of the bullying, or should they think first and foremost of themselves and their careers and get out? Finally, those staff who remained decided that they had to let the inspection team know what was really happening in the school, and five of them told the Ofsted inspectors the truth. The inspectors were horrified at the reports . . . and accused the said staff members of being disloyal. The seeming view of the inspectors was that the teachers owed a duty of loyalty to the school and to the head that should have prevented them from any action that put either in a bad light. They assumed that the overriding loyalty should be to protect the school’s reputation, and the head teacher in her role as head teacher. The staff, whilst acknowledging their emotional ties and loyalties in this direction, felt competing claims for their loyalty because of their resolve as professionals to protect the children. To be loyal to one area entailed a necessary disloyalty in another area. The UK, in common with many other countries, has gradually been importing the language and practices of the marketplace into educational practice. The privatisation of education as yet another commodity or object of parental choice has been written about many times (Boyd, 1987; Halpin et al., 1991; Edwards and Whitty, 1997; Fitz et al., 1997; Brighouse, 2000). I do not propose to cover the same ground but accept The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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that this invasion by market values, with its consequent effects upon parental choice and a ‘product differentiation’ of schools, has occurred. The social process that I am looking at has been considered recently from the point of view of parents and their responses to the increasing effects of the marketisation of education systems. Marketisation has created conditions in which parents act in order to gain advantages and maximise their children’s chances, in a climate of intensified positional competition (Ball, 2003). I depart from the extensive commentaries and empirical research on this topic in that my purpose is to examine philosophically the specific problem of loyalty: the commodification of education leads to an undermining and, under certain conditions, to the erasure of the very structures of loyalty—to those ties between people that are essential not only for the maintenance of the civic arena but also for schools in their civic task of educating the future citizenry. Richard Pring, in his timely essay (Chapter 1), indicates that the common school has often been argued to be the most effective way of educating the future citizens of a democratic society. My essay, whilst supporting this conclusion, approaches the topic from a different angle. There is, I shall argue, something particular that the common school can encourage that is not so easily developed where schooling is differentiated—whether the segregation is by faith schools, academies, private schools, or other means: this is civic loyalty. Using both theories of brand loyalty and Albert Hirschman’s distinction between exit and voice, I examine how human loyalties may be formed, both in general and in specific terms in the field of education. I indicate the implications this has for how these attitudes can be taught and developed among future citizens. I argue that the use of an inappropriate model of loyalty is forming our discourse in education and that this has serious repercussions for developing civic loyalty: the form of loyalty encouraged and fostered within school systems and organisations is more akin to the vertical loyalty of the ruler and ruled (brand loyalty) than to the horizontal loyalty required of equal citizens in a democratic society.

LOYALTY IN THE CIVIC SPHERE

Historically, human beings have defined themselves in terms of loyalty to a person (whether to emperors, princes or popes) or to an institution (empire, state, nation, church, etc.). As late as the 16th and 17th centuries, the individual’s loyalty to the sovereign was personal and real, but with little sense of community between ruler and ruled. The loyalty was, as Thomas Franck puts this, ‘law-based and religiously enforced, a duty, not a blossoming of common culture or affinity’ (Franck, 1999, p. 53). This vertical loyalty was owed by those who were ruled to their social superiors as their birthright. The move from subject to citizen in the West, which followed the revolutions of the late 18th century in America and France, replaced this with a form of horizontal loyalty, a loyalty between citizens. Loyalty thus became understood as owed by the people to each other. This new idea of nationhood and nationality, Franck claims, was based on

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shared ideals, not on the grounds of race, shared history and culture. The ‘common bond of mutual loyalty’ (Franck, 1999, p. 54) was expressed in the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. Loyalty became one of the invisible ties that bind us together in our lives as citizens of democracies. The challenge for the modern liberal state goes over and beyond the shifting loyalties of vertical bonding. It needs to encourage the loyalties necessary for civic life to exist, without abandoning the individualist principles of personal choice, and to develop the horizontal forms of loyalty necessary for citizens to be able to identify with each other and thus be willing to sacrifice some of their well-being for the sake of others—from a willingness to pay taxes to benefit others to the ultimate sacrifice demanded in warfare. This requires treading a fine line between the selfish individualism of too little loyalty and the horrifying spectre of too much: in tribalism, racism and nationalism. Loyalty in its horizontal form constitutes a crucial plank in our civic obligations to others within the liberal state. A loyalty, as Andrew Oldenquist states, ‘defines a moral community in terms of a conception of a common good and a special commitment to the members of the group who share this good . . . Those who share this common good comprise my tribe; the common good is its flourishing’ (Oldenquist, 1982, p. 177). It results from our identifying with certain groupings: we see ourselves as being of the same sort and thus have reasons to consider their well-being. Social life is made possible by the development of group loyalties, where an object of loyalty can be shared with others. It is a loyalty that goes beyond an individual to collective others.

WHAT IS LOYALTY?

Loyalty does not arise in the abstract: it arises as a result of a relationship to a particular other. Loyalty has to have some object—one has to be loyal to something or someone. To be loyal is more than merely having an attachment: it requires a particular attitude. It is difficult to find a person with no loyalties at all. Sometimes, as in the example at the start of this essay, there are competing loyalties. Loyalty requires an attitude of affection enabling one to put the needs or wants of another above one’s own. Loyalty requires that we choose to help and support our friend over a stranger. It grounds our behaviour and gives us motives for action. We do not just adopt projects, causes and persons to be loyal to at random; we are generally loyal for reasons or at least as a result of particular histories. We are usually loyal when by being so we in some way benefit or we deem the cause to be valuable. Loyalty denotes how we stand to one another within an intricate web of relationships. Historically our loyalty to tribe and clan members has been ingrained in us but also carried with it some expectation of a mutual benefit: the expectation of their being loyal to us, an expectation of food, shelter, and comfort— things necessary for survival: our loyalty was a condition of this.

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Loyalty can interfere with our deepest convictions in deciding on and judging moral behaviour. It can cloud our ability to be impartial where questions of our ties to others come into play. When we love someone, when we have an attachment that demands particular forms of loyalty, impartial moral judgement is blurred and sometimes inappropriate. The fact that we rescue from drowning our partners, our children or our closest friends before we attend to strangers is demanded by those ties, frequently without any questioning of the moral justification. We just do it. Indeed, the very act of questioning really would be ‘one thought too many’. Those who do hesitate and weigh up what they should do before acting at all in such circumstances are somehow reproachable: they fail fully to understand what is demanded by those ties. These aspects of loyalty appear to cross from the personal to the civic arena. One does not suddenly choose to be loyal and then become loyal any more than one wakes up one morning and decides to be someone’s friend. Loyalty takes time to develop and also requires some form of shared history. I cannot decide to be loyal suddenly to Canada and all its values, ways of life, etc. I can, however, begin to transfer my allegiance to Canada by, for example, finding out about its values, ways of life, and so on, and it may be that then, finding them to my liking, I decide to adopt them. The time element is crucial: the emotional ties or attitudes take time to form and bind one properly from one set of values to another. As the new ones form, the old wither away, and exit from the previous attachments becomes possible. When I have a loyalty towards something or someone, I regard it as in some way being ‘mine’. Its value to me is derived from that emotional attachment—my friend, my family, my school. When what belongs to me prospers, I feel pride; when it is hurt or suffers, I suffer or feel the pain as well. We care about the objects of our loyalties, and this can move us to action. Who we are as people is affected by the values and attachments we form and the beliefs, attitudes and actions surrounding us. Our commitment to uphold these values and attachments reinforces them within a moral community. Being loyal, having ties and commitments, is fundamental to what it is to be human. Loyalty can help us separate those we need to be partial to from those deserving of impartiality (Oldenquist, 1982). But loyalty should not be a substitute for moral discernment: loyalty should be our attachment to the cause after deeming it worthwhile. The problem is discerning what is worth our loyalty, and how much loyalty it deserves.

LOYALTY AND IDENTITY

Who we are and how we view ourselves impinges on our relationships with others. When we speak of our personal identity, we usually mean those attributes that make us unique as individuals and different from others (Olson, 1965). George Fletcher refers to this as the ‘historical self’: our history and our personal biographies make up who we are (Fletcher,

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1993, p. 16). We do not choose to be born into a particular culture, neither do we choose our initial mother-tongue, childhood religious or political ideals, and so on; these commitments are made on our behalf by others— our parents, family, leaders, etc. For example, it is to be expected that a child brought up in a closed community such as that of the Amish, will eventually choose to stay Amish. The Amish claim to have a 90% retention rate (Walker, 2002). They have been brought up to have certain beliefs about how they should live their lives, which will affect how they live their lives. Their earlier experiences will have formed their inclination to make that choice. People identify with each other on the grounds of similarities: aspects of our self-identity are tied up with this. Benedict Anderson’s idea of the ‘imagined community’ points to a certain psychological component of nationhood—that we need a group identity, a community we think of as ‘us’ (Anderson, 1991). Some groupings may clash in their aims and objectives; others sit side by side. In the civic arena, this springs from the need to identify those who are to be governed together, and those outside the scope of such governance (Gilbert, 1998, p. 26). Whilst our personal identities are linked with our group memberships and loyalties, there is also, as Jonathan Glover points out, an identity that we create for ourselves, branching out from these ‘givens’, that provides a sense of authority over our own lives (Glover, 1999). This self-creation is a long process. Glover likens it to a narrative: ‘The story we tell ourselves, partly by what we do and partly by how we edit the account of our past, is central to our sense of our own identity’ (p. 145). Our lives are bound up with those of other people, who in turn play a role in our stories. This makes them important to us: we draw heavily on shared stories, a shared frame of reference to these events, a common history in which our lives can flourish. Our group identities frame what we value and how much we value it. To have a coherent identity leads us to behave in ways that protect that identity: we are loyal to the sources that give meaning to that identity.

WHAT MAKES US LOYAL?

We can be loyal to differing things, many at the same time: to professional associations, to family units, to sports teams. The loyalty is strongest when it is to particular others—this particular football team, this particular family, this particular group of workers. With a professional association, it may take the form of supporting other like-minded people, paying a fee or taking political action in support of that association, even when it has no benefit to oneself. With a sports team, one can buy replica kits to show ‘belonging’, one can watch the matches, sing the songs. Loyalty has benefits to others as well as to ourselves: it keeps us bound to like-minded others when there are alternative choices.

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But to go further with this concept I need to introduce two further clarifications, using theories and empirical evidence drawn from economics in order to look at the psychology behind loyalty: brand loyalty (in order to discuss what keeps us loyal) and Hirschman’s concepts of exit and voice (Hirschman, 1970).

Brand Loyalty

The majority of empirical studies of what it is to be loyal centre on the usefulness of loyalty in economic terms. They study how firms can, through advertising and their public ‘face’, reinforce ‘brand loyalty’. Whilst this theory of brand loyalty comes from marketing and economic theory, it can be a helpful lens through which to examine how human loyalties can be formed and how they are applied in education. Brand loyalty, as Birger Wernerfelt points out, is a fundamental concept in strategic marketing (Wernerfelt, 1991). Consumer behaviour theory is greatly concerned with loyalty as an attribute and with the sources and mechanisms through which it is created. A customer is defined as brand loyal ‘if his purchasing pattern depends positively on the last brand purchased’ (p. 231). Wernerfelt identifies two types of brand loyalty. The first—inertial brand loyalty—is characterised by a lack of awareness of the virtues or values of alternative brands: people are loyal out of habit: the consumer who stays with the local electricity board/gas company and never seeks to compare prices or to switch companies to get the ‘best deal’; the voter who always votes for the same party because that’s what they have always done; the parent who sends their child to the local school because it is their local school (or the one they themselves went to), without any thought or investigation of alternatives. The second—costbased loyalty—is characterised by consideration of the costs of switching. The consumer arms themselves with the information (comparisons of prices, etc.) but chooses not to be loyal for now: maybe there are costs to switching, inconvenience; the current brand has some advantage, and so on. Conversely, think of the voter who reads all the manifestos and votes according to the policies that they most agree with or that most benefit them. Consider the parent who collects all the available information about different schools: they read the Ofsted reports, visit and then make their ‘informed’ choice; but this is open to revision should circumstances change. Brand loyalty is important in marketing because of its role in ensuring that customers return again and again to the same item. Brand loyalty is one means by which companies strive to prevent consumers looking elsewhere. It ensures higher equilibrium prices: loyal consumers are less likely to look for alternatives. Companies breaking into existing markets are forced to try to find ways to shift existing loyalties by working out the costs to loyal consumers of switching to other companies or by building up loyalties in those not currently engaged in the market—perhaps by lower prices to new customers, special offers and the like. Brand loyalties

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tend to be negative by nature: people are loyal not because of the value of the item in question but because they see things as ‘mine . . . for now’. Occasionally companies will try to create a horizontal relationship between consumers—making them identify with the company products through their sense of ownership of them: this grouping says something about the type of person they are or the type of person they wish to be seen as (for example, clubs for purchasers of a particular brand of car). These customers identify each other as members of a group. As fellow members of that group, they have strong feelings of affection, but this does not extend to a willingness to sacrifice one’s own well-being for the others or to the kind of mutuality of sacrifice normally associated with the virtue of loyalty. It is too small a part of their identity. Brand loyalty is created by various measures: easily identifiable logos or mottos, clear public marketing to identifiable audiences, ‘free’ marketing via corporate sponsorships, company identities (which can involve factors ranging from the use of uniforms and house-style to the design of premises). Brand loyalty is essentially a form of vertical loyalty: it exists in the asymmetrical relationship between the supplier and the consumer. If the consumer is not satisfied, they can exit and seek another supplier.

Exit and Voice

When members or customers become dissatisfied, the choices of action are exit (the customer leaves for another product) and voice (the customer stays but provokes change by directly influencing the organisation). Exit, and prevention of exit, has a major role to play in marketing strategies. Companies want to prevent exit and to keep people loyal to their brand. However, conventional free market theory decrees that exit is to be encouraged in that it creates competition, drives down prices and benefits the consumer (Fletcher, 1993, p. 3). To avoid this flight, companies need to give consumers reasons to stay—hence, loyalty schemes. Voice can involve a number of actions, ranging from making a complaint, to attending stockholder meetings, to negotiating and to banding together with others. Many companies have had to change policies because of voice—think of Nestle´ and the baby milk scandal of the 1970s or Barclays Bank response to protests against Barclays involvement in South Africa, for example. However, voice demands greater commitment than exit. Neither exit nor voice, as David Labaree points out, is the exclusive response to any one problem (Labaree, 2000). Hirschman points out that exit is particularly suited to the economic sector—it is impersonal and neat (one exits or one doesn’t), it is indirect and confrontation is avoided (Hirschman, 1970). Voice, on the other hand, is personal—one has to articulate one’s criticisms whether by casual grumbles or organised protest. Hirschmann describes it as ‘political action par excellence’ (Hirschman, 1970, p. 16).

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This chapter has, then, looked at the nature of brand loyalty and sought to examine this in the light of the notions of exit and voice. What light do these considerations cast on loyalty in schools?

LOYALTY AND SCHOOLS

Schools are inevitably in the loyalty business. They depend on it for the maintenance of their own identities and cohesiveness. Our schools create bonds of identity-loyalty between pupils and in relation to the institution as a whole. They aim at both horizontal loyalty (between each pupil as a member of the school) and vertical loyalty (from each pupil to the school). The loyalty aspects of belonging and team-building exercises, if used sensitively, have much to recommend them. Yet some of these ‘team’ loyalties serve to exclude rather than include: competition does not sit easily with cooperation. There is nothing wrong in itself with a school developing its own character and ways of working. However, some practices that are adopted to this end are the cause of, rather than the solution to, problems: they may be aiming at the wrong type of loyalty. The former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is widely reported to have stated his wish that some of the practices of independent, fee-paying schools should be brought into the state school sector. Interestingly, the very practices he wished to import were all concerned with the production of loyalty: for example, school ‘houses’, the earning of points or credits, having and wearing school uniforms, internal competition between pupils and between groups of pupils, and competitive sports. These are all geared towards the loyalty-forming process. They help schools to establish themselves as a brand, with corporate identity based on that brand. State schools have, since the 1980s, set up in direct and open competition with each other in order to attract pupils. The devolution of budgets to single school level has made it possible for schools, on the one hand, to function as quasi-businesses whilst, on the other hand, to continue as services to society at large. For schools to be able to plan financially, they need to know how much money is coming in, which in turn depends on the number of pupils. As pupil funding now follows the pupil to the new school, there is the financial incentive for schools to encourage exit from other schools: this can be a particular problem amongst schools with falling numbers or with questions hanging over them as to their financial viability. As schools view themselves as businesses, they adopt particular business practices. Where schools once worked together within particular clusters, the concept of competition now makes cooperation unlikely or difficult to achieve. Schools are unlikely to share ideas or to work on shared projects if such activities could have an adverse effect on their ‘brand position’ in the local market. Each school looks for something unique as its selling-point to parents. The loyalty required towards one’s particular ‘brand’ or school requires teachers to put their own school first, above

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other schools, and this can have the unwanted effect of discouraging cooperative behaviour and the sharing of ‘good practice’. Government policy in the UK in the 1980–90s encouraged schools to ‘opt-out’ of local education control by offering those that did the promise of greater financial resources. Schools were encouraged to leave cooperative practices of mutual support and financial interdependence for the sake of greater individual independence. The additional financial resources such schools received set them up as a more ‘attractive’ option for parents, who saw them as better resourced and in some way ‘exclusive’. Indeed, in some cases schools received as much as d300,000 more per year than if they had stayed with the Local Education Authority counterparts (Fitz et al., 1997, p. 20). Bribery, I am sure, was never the reason for exit. A parallel case can be suggested with the academies programme. Much of economic theory is concerned with choice (Akerlof, 1983). The development of a range of different types of schooling systems and organisations—each offering its distinctive ‘brand’—appears to create conditions of choice for the consumer (the parent or the child). But research has helped to show that such choice is superficial at best and that schools’ ability themselves to ‘choose’ their pupils is becoming apparent (Edwards and Whitty, 1997; Fitz et al., 1997). Parents eager to maximise their child’s economic welfare would thus be inclined to value choice between types of schools where it can be shown that one type would prove more advantageous for their child. Choice can reduce loyalty. Schools have thus been encouraged to seek ‘exit’ as a strategy for ‘improvement’; the parent has also been given the opportunity to exit from the particular school for the sake of their child’s advancement. Many school choice activists have noted that parents have been exercising this ‘exit’ indirectly for many years. Parents, who are financially able to do so, exit their children from state schools that do not meet their standards (whether educational or social) by moving house into the catchment area of a school that does (Anton, 2000; Cuban and Shipps, 2000; Swift, 2003). Some have been known to buy second homes in such areas; others stay in their homes and buy into a different school system (private education); others who find that local faith schools have a ‘better reputation’ or ‘better standards’ suddenly discover their religious commitments; and still others choose to home-school (less so in the UK than in the USA, and in each country for what are generally different reasons, but growing numbers, it seems, are opting out altogether). Exit is possible—but expensive. Those who move to a more affluent area or pay thousands of pounds every year in private school fees are a minority. However, with funding following the pupil as they transfer between state schools, the cost of exit is then borne by the school as it loses pupils. Parents who choose one of these routes are ‘treating education as a private good’ (Labaree, 2000, p. 115); they are treating education as another consumer good by exiting one system for another. The aim is not to improve the system or the school they have left behind, but to attain the best goods for themselves. This vertical loyalty between

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consumer and supplier snaps as the consumer seeks another, ‘better’, product. Exit wins out over voice. Labaree claims it is to be expected that state education should be experiencing the exit option as the preferred solution to educational problems: Reform initiatives for choice, charters, and vouchers offer educational consumers a variety of ways to leave schools they do not like and move to schools they do like. All of these reforms work by removing governmental barriers to the exercise of the exit option and increasing the responsiveness of schools to their exiting customers. The result, we are told, will be an increase in the quality of education (Labaree, 2000, p. 115).

Yet ‘voice’ is something schools are particularly open to—with parentteacher organisations, with the possibility of complaining directly to the teacher and head teacher, through the work of professional and other organisations, by appealing to the governors or the Local Educational Authority, and becoming parent-governors, to name various possibilities. A recent television programme on school choice issues in the UK reported on a middle-class group of parents who consciously made the decision not to send their children to private schools but to support their local state school. They each believed that state education would improve only if parents such as themselves (articulate, committed, etc.) would support their local school. Whilst each was reluctant to do it alone, they argued that collectively they could achieve an effectiveness that could not be available to them separately. Voice over exit. The transfer of a metaphor from one field to another can lead to serious problems. The application of the metaphor of market values has led to the slow erasure of the horizontal loyalty demanded by a commitment to the civic sphere. For example, in one town in the shire counties in the 1990s, Roman Catholic parents were torn between their competing loyalties when the local Catholic secondary schools all became ‘Grant Maintained’ and thus exited LEA control. For some parents, the decision to keep their children within the religious sector meant they had to choose that identity over their civic identity. Whilst the individual schools benefited by large amounts of money by going Grant-Maintained, doing so frayed their relationships to other state schools. By an overemphasis on loosening our loyalties in one area, and by focussing on the self-centred individual parts as opposed to the whole, we lose sight of what loyalty provides in the civic sphere. WHICH TYPE OF LOYALTY SHOULD SCHOOLS AIM AT?

Loyalty is useful for what it achieves or aims at: it aims at allegiances. Our loyalty holds our allegiances. It identifies those we are bound to as well as those whom we can count on and who in turn can count on our help. Just as loyalty can draw us towards those who are most like us, it can also

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identify those who fall outside of this remit and in consequence make them ‘other’. But are those we are closest to the only ones who should come within our sphere of moral concern? If we only identify and bond with those most like us based on one element of our identity, how would we realise differing bondings across the civic arena? We do not live (and arguably probably never have lived) in homogenous groupings: real life is far more messy and mixed up than that. Any conception of civic loyalty has, by its very nature, to go beyond our immediate concerns and identities. An argument could be made to the effect that we need a variety of loyalties, and it is only by encouraging such that we can create a civic sphere to begin with. If so, perhaps school systems should be formed to create and disperse our allegiances and loyalties as widely as possible. Let us start from where we are: should Catholics only go to school with fellow Catholics, Buddhists with fellow Buddhists? Where would such a model lead? Wicca worshippers with fellow Wicca worshippers? Should rich parents be able to choose a school based, say, on wealth? Should middleclass parents be enabled to choose schools with only middle-class children? Should white skinhead parents be allowed to choose schools that best reflect their belief systems? What about drug-addicts? Could we have schools specially designed to bring children up to identify and be loyal to particular drugs? What counts as relevant criteria upon which to base choice? Parents who seek a particular type of school are, in effect, seeking a school that can reinforce and nurture the same self-identity-reinforcing loyalties that they have or aspire to have. The horizontal loyalties, attitudes and dispositions that may be found within groups are not necessarily the same as the horizontal loyalties, attitudes and dispositions demanded of equal citizens between groups. The bonds of loyalty, mutual recognition and identity that tie group members together may prove to be more circular than horizontal; they may not expand out of the particular grouping to other groups in the wider community. The loyalty of faith school parents to a faith school and to each other is that of fellow worshippers or co-believers. Whilst faith school parents may already share a common loyalty with a faith community, lessening the likelihood of exit from a school that strengthens and reinforces that particular bond, even these parents have been known to ‘trade up’. If we only identify with those most like us, if our sense of self-identity is formed by those associations, this raises the question of how to create a space for the development of the horizontal loyalties needed in the civic relationship, loyalties demonstrated in cooperation as opposed to competition, and sharing as opposed to selfish individualism. Cooperation does not sit easily with competition. Instead of schools constantly playing a version of ‘Robbing the beanbag’,2 more might be achieved by reintroducing notions of collegiality and working together. An overemphasis on vertical loyalty (brand loyalty) over horizontal loyalty—‘my-ness’ over ‘our-ness’—may adversely influence the development and nurturing of civic loyalties, particularly those that encourage citizenship to flourish. To assume that education has only instrumental

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value—and is a product that can be bought and sold—is to ignore the value it has as a ‘social good’ and the value it may have in the life of the person being educated. I am not arguing that it has no instrumental value—on the present account, one could hardly claim one had a flourishing life if one were left unemployable or unable to participate in the economic life of the collective. The ideas of market and choice work best when used to discuss the repeat trading of simple goods, where there is easy entry and exit. This, however, is at odds with the highly complex nature of education systems and schools, and it neglects the public good that society expects from schools (the promotion of particular values, the creating of citizens, and so on). The issue of exit from schools from one to another is perhaps more of a problem in certain geographical areas than others, and it can be affected by the age of the pupils concerned (parents may be less likely to move pupils in the middle of their years of study for public examinations). To speak of an educational marketplace at all is in any case to misuse a metaphor. But problems really arise when we forget that the language of the market is just a metaphor and become convinced that this is the reality of it all. Through the misuse of the metaphor of the market in educational parlance, there is the danger that those practices necessary for the development of civic virtues may be neglected. Through schools’ concentrating overly on creating loyalty to their particular brand and school systems, through their ‘selling’ of themselves as a ‘product’ in the search for ‘customers’, the development and encouragement of personal loyalty (horizontal) and civic loyalty are downplayed. The future loyalties of the pupils as citizens may be better maintained by the common school, wherein pupils are likely to meet a wider selection of their future fellow citizens. School choice privileges the private loyalty commitments of individual citizens over the civic loyalties needed to support the public sphere. As Pring points out in his chapter, the original aims of the common school in the USA were precisely to encourage the ability to live in a diverse community, as part of being a citizen. Civic loyalty may not be effectively provided by market-driven school choice mechanisms. It may well prove to be the case that common schools are the most effective way of developing civic loyalties through their ways of enabling us to meet and get to know those who are unlike us; they can enable us to move from the primary relationships of family and friends to the secondary relationships needed to sustain civic solidarity. It is incumbent upon a democratic government that its policies on the organisation of schools should not conflict with its policies in other areas. The recent inclusion of citizenship and the new legal requirement on schools to consider community cohesion (which came into force in England and Wales in September 2007 and is subject to inspections by Ofsted) shows the seriousness with which the aims of social inclusion and the importance of civic education are held. These aims, however laudable, may well end up by being undermined by policies on school choice. School choice would cease to be an issue if all schools were equally good or offered something of equal value. But they are not, and they do

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not. As long as this continues to be the case, markets will continue to exist with parents seeking to maximise chances to gain positional advantage. Moving away from ‘choice’ in schools may prove to be politically unacceptable. It may be appropriate, therefore, to consider how best we can by-pass some of the unwanted aspects of school choice. Schools need to be enabled to share good practice without fearing the loss of their ‘market position’. The development of school partnerships, networks or federations may be worth pursuing: where such practices exist, parents can choose between various partnerships or groups of schools that band together as opposed to individual schools. Matters can also be improved where teachers have to account as much for their contribution to team-work within a school as for their individual responsibility for pupil progress in professional development issues. Private schools increasingly have to prove the ‘public benefit’ they provide in order to retain their charitable status; perhaps something similar should be asked of all non-common schools that require public funding. One thing is certain: we need to reinvigorate the ‘public’ aspect of public education, continually remaking the argument for this aspect of the function of schools.3

NOTES 1. Ofsted (The Office for Standards in Education) is the body responsible for inspection of schools in England. 2. A common game for four children in primary schools. Four hoops are set out at right angles with a few metres space in between. Each hoop starts with the same number of beanbags. The aim is for the winner to end up with the most beanbags by ‘robbing’ the other hoops. However, as each person is equally robbing each other’s hoops, the overall number of beanbags in any one hoop stays more or less the same. A lot of energy and time is expended for very little progress. 3. I would like to thank my supervisor, Patricia White, for all her unfailing support and insightful comments on this and previous versions of my chapter. In addition, I would like to thank Graham Haydon for his helpful suggestions in preparing this version.

REFERENCES Akerlof, G. A. (1983) Loyalty Filters, The American Economic Review, 73.1, pp. 54–63. Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities, revised edn. (London and New York, Verso). Anton, A. (2000) Public Goods as Commonstock: Notes on the Receding Commons, in: A. Anton, M. Fisk and N. Holmstrom (eds) Not For Sale: In Defense of Public Goods (Boulder-Colorado and Oxford, Westview Press), pp. 4–40. Ball, S. (2003) Class Strategies and the Education Market (London and New York, Routledge Falmer). Boyd, W. L. (1987) Balancing Public and Private Schools: The Australian Experience and American Implications, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 9.3, pp. 183–198. Brighouse, H. (2000) School Choice and Social Justice (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Cuban, L. and Shipps, D. (eds) (2000) Reconstructing the Common Good in Education (Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press). Edwards, T. and Whitty, G. (1997) Specialisation and Selection in Secondary Education, Oxford Review of Education, 23.1, pp. 5–15. Fitz, J., Halpin, D. and Power, S. (1997) Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Diversity, Institutional Identity and Grant-Maintained Schools, Oxford Review of Education, 23.1, pp. 17–30.

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Fletcher, G. P. (1993) Loyalty (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Franck, T. (1999) The Empowered Self (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Gilbert, P. (1998) The Philosophy of Nationalism (Boulder, CO, Westview Press). Glover, J. (1999) Humanity A Moral History of the Twentieth Century (London, Pimlico). Halpin, D., Power, S. and Fitz, J. (1991) Grant-Maintained Schools: Making a Difference Without Being Really Different, British Journal of Educational Studies, 39.4, pp. 409–424. Hirschman, A. O. (1970) Exit Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). Labaree, D. F. (2000) No Exit: Public Education as an Inescapably Public Good, in: L. Cuban and D. Shipps (eds) Reconstructing the Common Good in Education (Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press), pp. 110–129. Oldenquist, A. (1982) Loyalties, The Journal of Philosophy, LXXIX.4, pp. 173–193. Olson, M. (1965) Logic Of Collective Action, in: B. Barry and R. Hardin (eds) Rational Man and Irrational Society? (London, Sage). Swift, A. (2003) How Not to be a Hypocrite (London, Routledge). Walker, L. (2002) Devil’s Playground (Documentary film, 77 minutes, USA). Wernerfelt, B. (1991) Brand Loyalty and Market Equilibrium, Marketing Science, 10.3, pp. 229– 245.

Part V Common Schools and Inclusion

The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

16 Capability and Educational Equality: The Just Distribution of Resources to Students with Disabilities and Special Educational Needs LORELLA TERZI

Controversy about educational questions should not surprise us, because education is inextricably involved in fundamental questions about human good and value (McLaughlin, 2003, p. 152).

INTRODUCTION

The ideal of educational equality is fundamentally grounded in the egalitarian principle that social and institutional arrangements should be designed to give equal consideration to all. Educational institutions should therefore enact the value of equal concern—whose significance has been highlighted by Richard Pring in his contribution to this collection—by ensuring that all students have a fair share of educational goods and fair access to the benefits these yield. However, beyond this broad stipulation, the precise content of the ideal of educational equality is more difficult to determine. Equality in education is mainly theorised along the ‘divide’ between equal input, however defined, and equal outcome (Brighouse, 2003, p. 472), and there seems to be a lack of consensus on its implications at policy level. In this chapter, I aim to contribute to the debate on educational equality by dealing with the timely and contentious issue of provision for students with disabilities and special educational needs.1 The question of a fair provision for these students is currently extremely controversial in almost all developed countries. The debate involves considerations of educational theory and practice, as well as arguments related to public policy, and it is mainly centred on whether education should be provided in inclusive or in special schools. However, there is a crucially foundational, but rather neglected philosophical core to the issue, which I aim to analyse in this chapter by addressing the following questions: what constitutes a just educational provision for students with disabilities and special educational The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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needs and, more specifically, what distribution of resources is fair to these students? I provide an initial answer to these questions by outlining an understanding of educational equality in terms of a principled framework for a just distribution of resources. This framework employs a version of liberal egalitarianism and draws primarily on the capability approach, as developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, as well as other scholars. According to the capability approach, social and institutional arrangements should enact the value of equal concern by aiming at equalising people’s ‘capability to function’, i.e. their real opportunities for well-being and hence for living good lives. It is through the concepts of capabilities (real opportunities for functionings, or real freedoms) and functionings (valued beings and doings, such as, for example, being educated, or having a rewarding job) that a conception of educational equality can be outlined and defended, in order to provide justified answers to my initial questions. My argument is that the capability approach helps substantially in conceptualising educational equality by focusing on the fundamental functionings, promoted by education, that are essential prerequisites for an equal participation in society. On this view, educational equality consists in equal effective opportunities and access to these basic functionings. Students with disabilities and special educational needs are entitled to achieve educational functionings established for all. Therefore, they should have educational opportunities and resources to achieve effective levels of functionings. This is the principled justification for additional resources, and it sets the measure of the differential amount due to these students as a matter of justice. Finally, beyond the level of capabilities identified as a just educational entitlement, considerations of efficiency, drawing on John Rawls’s principles of justice, should be applied to the necessary promotion of higher or more complex educational functionings. While this framework aims at providing a justified answer to the specific demand of equality in education for students with disabilities and special educational needs, it does not constitute, however, a full theory of educational equality. Such a theory would require formulating the case for equality in relation to other values, like parental rights and liberties, as well as to broader principles of justice. However, some of the insights of the capability perspective on educational equality presented here may nevertheless suggest important insights towards the formulation of a full theory of equality in education. I EDUCATION, CAPABILITY AND EQUAL PARTICIPATION IN SOCIETY

Education, both in terms of formal schooling and informal learning, is central to the capability approach.2 The approach emphasises specifically the contribution that the capability to be educated3 makes to the formation and expansion of other capabilities and, hence, the contribution it makes to people’s opportunities for well-being and for their effective freedoms. Sen

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identifies education among basic capabilities, i.e. among ‘a relatively small number of centrally important beings and doings that are crucial to wellbeing’ (Sen, 1992, p. 44). In his account, equality has to be sought primarily in these basic capabilities, which constitute, therefore, areas of specific concern for egalitarians. Included among the basic capabilities, the capability to be educated is therefore of specific interest for egalitarians, too. The distinctive contribution of the approach consists precisely in identifying education as essential to well-being and among the primary concerns of equality. Two fundamental and interrelated considerations follow. The first concerns the essential role of education both in the sense of meeting a basic need to be educated, and for the promotion and expansion of other capabilities. In including education among the constituents of well-being, Sen emphasises how lack of education constitutes a fundamental disadvantage. This is specifically, albeit not solely, the case for children, as being deprived of education during childhood, both in terms of informal learning in social interactions and of formal schooling, determines a disadvantage that proves difficult, and in some cases truly impossible, to compensate for in later life. As Nussbaum argues, the exercise of certain functionings, like that of play and imagination, is particularly important during childhood in order to form the future mature capability (Nussbaum, 2000, p. 90). In this first facet, therefore, being educated responds to some essential basic needs of human beings, which, if unmet, cause substantial harm. But being educated is also foundational to other capabilities as well as future ones, thus expanding individuals’ freedoms. This is perhaps best illustrated through an example. Consider, for instance, the case of learning mathematics. Formally learning mathematics not only expands the individual’s various functionings related to reasoning and problem solving, but also widens the individual’s sets of opportunities and capabilities with respect, on the one hand to more complex capabilities and, on the other, to better prospects for opportunities in life. The broadening of capabilities entailed by education extends to the advancement of complex capabilities, since while promoting reflection, understanding, information and awareness of one’s capabilities, education promotes at the same time the possibility to formulate exactly the valued beings and doings that the individual has reason to value (see Saito, 2003). On the other hand, the expansion of capabilities entailed by education extends to choices of occupations and levels of social and political participation. Learning mathematics may lead to choosing to become an economist or a teacher, for instance, as well as promoting one’s civic participation in different forms. Thus, education has a distinct role in expanding capabilities and in determining people’s real opportunities for well-being. This leads to the second consideration. Education promotes the achievement of functionings that are constitutive of one’s well-being, while also providing the resources for the enactment of important aspects of agency, thus enhancing individuals’ effective freedom.4 Given the complex interrelation of individuals with the society they inhabit, forms of civic and indeed economic participation play an important role in

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determining one’s well-being, while providing the basic structure for the exercise of effective freedom. This suggests important considerations about the kind of education that should be provided to individuals. Wellbeing can be seen as requiring forms of engagement in economic as well as civic participation in one’s dominant social framework, but also forms of reflection on one’s valued functionings. It follows that an education consistent with enabling people to achieve well-being and allowing the exercise of agency, entails the promotion of functionings and capabilities pertaining to abilities and knowledge that enable them to become participants in dominant social frameworks, while at the same time promoting reflection on valued goals. Consequently, among the countless capabilities that might be developed through education and schooling, the approach suggests the promotion and expansion of those necessary to participate as equals in society.5 This responds, on the one hand, to the duty of institutional arrangements to show equal consideration to all, while, on the other hand, providing the constitutive elements for making one’s life go well, thus for the enactment of freedom. These considerations are foundational to a conception of capability equality in education. However, the idea that education should equip individuals to become effective and equal participants in their social framework, and the precise meaning of an effective and equal participation in society, need further articulation. After all, it could be objected that education should instead promote all possible functionings and related capabilities, rather than certain specific ones. Two fundamental reasons support the idea of an effective and equal participation in society as an appropriate goal of education and provide a reply to the possible objections raised. First, as Elizabeth Anderson has rightly argued in defending her view of democratic equality, the basic duty of citizens, acting through social and institutional arrangements, is to secure the conditions of everyone’s freedom (Anderson, 1999, p. 329). This implies that among the countless capabilities that can be chosen, institutional schemes have a duty to promote those that are significant and crucial for well-being, thus foundational to freedom. In this sense, as Anderson notices, being an excellent card player is hardly significant towards that end, whereas being literate and able to participate in a system of production and in civic life certainly is (p. 317). Second, Sen insists on the importance of assessing social inequalities and public policy—and therefore in promoting equality—in the space of well-being freedom (see note 4), since pervasive inequity and disparities emerge primarily in the actual opportunities that people have to enjoy well-being (Sen, 1992, p. 72). However, he also maintains that ‘the person’s actual use of her wellbeing freedom’ will allow well-being agency to be pursued. Thus, wellbeing freedom provides the conditions for effective freedom. It follows that an education that provides individuals with the conditions for their equal participation in society provides also the conditions for the possibility to exercise agency and, therefore, with wide opportunities for freedom. While the precise content of such education is best determined as the result of processes of democratic deliberation, some functionings

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developed by education appear to have a truly basic, enabling role for democratic participation. Hence a fundamental basic education would plausibly include the cultivation and expansion of literacy and numeracy, as well as forms of scientific understanding, attitudes and dispositions to sociality and participation, and to learning functionings, as well as exercise and play. Furthermore, the inclusion of practical reason and deliberation within the functionings promoted by education seems congruent with a project aimed at equal participation in society. However, the meaning of effective and equal participation in one’s social framework requires further specification. While an immediate understanding of this concept may conjure up images of success and adherence to a predefined, somehow ‘normal’ view of what effectively participating in one’s framework entails, that need not be the case. An understanding in line with the capability approach endorses instead the view of an individual who has effective opportunities to lead a meaningful live, free from the constraint of deep inequalities in well-being and able to choose, among a set of capabilities, those that she has reason to value. Here the effectiveness in participating in dominant social arrangements relates to the possible engagement in forms of economic, political and democratic activities, while exercising one’s agency in bringing about the outcomes and changes, both in one’s life and in society, that one has reason to value. This further relates to the element of an equal participation and, hence, as Anderson suggests, in relations of equality to other participants (Anderson, 1999, p. 316). By having effective opportunities to take part in social and political schemes, people are also enabled to ‘stand as equals’ in those schemes, since this contributes to the removal of relations of oppression and discrimination. This view, however, entails the requirement of equal opportunities for functionings in education. I now turn my attention to this aspect.

II CAPABILITY EQUALITY IN EDUCATION: ELEMENTS OF A FUNDAMENTAL EDUCATIONAL ENTITLEMENT

There are three important interrelated reasons in support of equality in the fundamental educational functionings for participation in society. The first concerns the equal consideration due to citizens. Recall here that according to Sen (1992), seeking equality in the space of capabilities constitutes the appropriate enactment of the equal consideration due to individuals. Education is crucial for people’s well-being and plays a substantial role for the promotion of those achieved functionings necessary for individuals to participate effectively in society. Unequal provision in basic educational capabilities would lead to unequal freedom to develop effective functionings in society. While being an obvious inequality of consideration, this would at the same time undermine the legitimacy of social and institutional arrangements. Consequently, opportunities for educational functionings should be equally provided. Interrelated to this reason is the fundamental importance of education for

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people’s freedoms. Within the space of capabilities, the variable we are trying to equalise is the effective freedom people have to choose the life they value. It therefore follows that the capability to be educated, as fundamentally constitutive of well-being, has to be part of the equalisation, too. There is, finally, another aspect of education that supports equality in the space of fundamental educational capabilities. Thinking of education, and especially the education of children, implies considering contingent and future-oriented dimensions. Education has a prospective value for the child in the future, while also entailing considerations of the present, contingent value it yields for the child as a child, now. It follows that unequal provision in educational capabilities would substantially put individuals at a disadvantage in a consistent and pervasive way, both contingently and for future prospects. These important reasons support seeking equality in the space of educational capabilities and point in the direction of its possible meaning. I now turn to this aspect. The capability approach suggests a conception of educational equality in terms of equal opportunities to the achievement of fundamental functionings developed by education. This understanding relates substantially to the dimension of opportunity inscribed in the idea of capability. Capabilities represent the substantive freedoms that people have to choose among valuable functionings: they are capabilities to function. Inscribed in people’s substantive freedom are the opportunities to enact this freedom in achieving functionings. Sen maintains: ‘Freedom is concerned with processes of decision making as well as opportunities to achieve valued outcomes . . . we have to examine . . . the extent to which people have the opportunity to achieve outcomes’ (Sen, 1999, p. 291). Applied to education, this view translates into considering the extent to which people have opportunities to achieve fundamental educational outcomes. The insight of the capability approach is that people should have the same extent of opportunities to achieve fundamental functionings, like being able to read and to write, or to concentrate and accomplish task, or to reflect critically on one’s own actions. Opportunities are here considered in a broad sense. They include: educational resources, both in terms of physical resources and human resources; settings, like school buildings and facilities; and external conditions, like policies and regulations that are necessary to promote educational achievement. Hence, the kind of freedom we are equalising encompasses the opportunity to achieve a valued functioning and the conditions for that functioning to be achieved (Unterhalter and Brighouse, 2007, p. 83). The aspect of opportunity within the idea of capability emphasises furthermore that what we are equalising is not actual achieved functionings, but the effective access to the achievement of these functionings. For instance, people should have equal effective opportunities to achieve reading, writing and reasoning functionings. This allows considering the individuals’ freedom to choose to achieve certain functionings by deploying means at their disposal and, furthermore, it leaves open the possibility of choosing whether to achieve certain educational functionings or not. An

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example may illustrate this distinction. Consider, for instance, Len and Josh, who have achieved different mathematical outcomes. Len has high numerical reasoning, whereas Josh has achieved basic counting functionings. Suppose they have similar personal characteristics and both have attended a very well equipped school, with highly motivated and qualified teachers, and wide possibilities to learn in a stimulating environment. Suppose furthermore that Josh has achieved lower outcomes since he has decided to spend his time in leisure activities rather than in learning. Here the capability approach does not consider the different achieved functionings as a matter of equality, since difference in achievement in this case relates to the individual’s choice. Suppose instead that Len and Josh have different achieved functionings due to the fact that Len’s school could provide for additional courses aimed at improving levels of achievements. The differential outcomes in this instance relate to a substantial inequality of capabilities. The capability approach highlights this difference and insists on equality as equal effective opportunities for functionings. What matters in terms of equality of capabilities is the equal opportunity that people have to secure educational functionings, rather than equality in achieved functionings. This position allows the possibility of choosing whether or not to achieve certain functionings, providing the relevant opportunities are available. There is, however, a tension in this position that relates primarily to the possibility of choice when considering the education of children. There are levels of choice that, given their status, are unavailable to children. Children’s status requires adults to protect their interests and meet their needs, and, hence, children’s agency freedom or the exercise of autonomous choices are fundamentally limited. Thus, when operationalising the capability approach in relation to the education of children, the emphasis is on providing a kind of education that, while considering the actual well-being of children during their childhood, can, at the same time, equip them with the fundamental capabilities that they will exercise in future. On the one hand, this endorses the importance of equal access to fundamental educational functionings and, therefore, to a kind of education that will provide children with the means to function effectively in society. On the other hand, however, it raises the problem of justifying choices actually made for children and not by children. For instance, children cannot choose not to be educated and cannot choose among educational functionings and capabilities. In this case, the parent and guardian, as well as the state for certain capabilities, exercise the actual choice for the child. A possible way of solving this tension is to consider parents’ choices and the enforcement of certain regulations by the state, for instance compulsory schooling requirements, as actually made in the child’s best interest and, hence, for the child’s present and future wellbeing. These can therefore be seen as proxy-choices. Thus, when referring to the education of young children, as Sen suggests (Saito, 2003, p. 27), it is perhaps more appropriate to consider actual functionings, rather than the related capability. Nevertheless, from the point of view of the design of social and institutional arrangements, what can be reasonably provided and distributed by democratic governance are ultimately opportunities and

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resources. This solution, albeit partial, allows considering equality in terms of equal opportunities to educational functionings, with the caveats illustrated above, as valid and justified in the case of children’s education. Drawing on these considerations, I can now outline a first, provisional understanding of what constitutes a fundamental educational entitlement. This consists in equal opportunities and access to levels of educational functionings necessary to function and to participate effectively in society. Basic functionings promoted by education form the necessary enabling conditions that, once achieved, allow individuals to function effectively in their dominant framework. In so far as we can, ultimately, we should provide individuals with equal secure access to these educational functionings, which constitute the transformational resources necessary to function and participate effectively in society. While conceptualising equality in terms of the equal opportunities for functionings, this view highlights the importance of the prospective educational achievements in terms of levels of functionings for an effective participation in society. It implies therefore a threshold level of achieved functionings that educational institutions should promote and foster, set at the level necessary for effective participation in dominant social frameworks. This position presents evident similarities with the threshold level of capabilities proposed by Martha Nussbaum in her version of the approach. According to Nussbaum, her list of Central Functional Human Capabilities ‘gives us the basis for determining a decent social minimum in a variety of areas’ (Nussbaum, 2000, p. 75), which constitutes at the same time the underpinnings of basic political principles informing constitutional guarantees. In her view, therefore, governments should provide a threshold level of capabilities, and this provision should be a constitutional requirement. The threshold of educational capabilities I suggest is more specific and circumscribed in scope, since it aims primarily at selecting levels that are essential for functioning in society, and, hence, it aims at outlining educational capabilities that are of central egalitarian concern and, as such, that should be equally distributed. Furthermore, the educational entitlement proposed, as we shall see, aims also at addressing issues of educational entitlement for children with disabilities and special educational needs. Nevertheless, despite the more restricted scope of my proposal, its underlying idea draws on Nussbaum’s conception. An educational entitlement thus conceived, however, although already demanding a goal for social and institutional arrangements, may raise problems. Two in particular are significant. The first relates to the provision of a subset of basic capabilities rather than the full range of possible educational ones. Should individuals be equally entitled to achieve higher levels of educational functionings? Or a broader range? This issue relates directly to the problem of indexing capabilities inherent to the approach, while also implying considerations about education. As we have seen in relation to education, the capability approach faces the problem of deciding which capabilities, among the countless possible ones, society should aim to equalise. At the same time, the presumptive

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dimension proper to education compounds this problem, since deciding in advance what capabilities and what level of achieved functionings will ultimately allow a person to flourish is a very difficult task. However, the fundamental educational entitlement outlined can withstand this objection for two important reasons. First, securing fundamental functionings, which are essential to participate effectively in society, means giving people those transformational resources that will allow them to choose the kind of life they have reason to value. It therefore means assuring their well-being and expanding their freedoms. Since this is the fundamental variable upon which people’s relative positions in social arrangements should be evaluated, this meets the requirements of the approach and the demands of equality. Second, since the basic educational functionings are at the same time fundamental in expanding other and future capabilities, providing people with this subset means securing those enabling conditions upon which to base higher educational as well as other functionings and capabilities. After all, higher educational functionings cannot be achieved without the prior achievement of fundamental enabling conditions, such as literacy and numeracy. However, setting this basic educational entitlement leaves open the important issue of the promotion of higher levels of functionings beyond the basic entitlement outlined, which I will analyse in the final section of the chapter. The second problem concerns how to conceptualise this educational entitlement in relation to disability and special educational needs, and, hence, while evaluating functionings and capabilities restrictions. More specifically, it concerns how we can think of equality of sets of educational capabilities when certain disabilities may limit functionings and capabilities, sometimes in consistent ways. The next section addresses this issue in more detail.

III ELEMENTS OF A FUNDAMENTAL EDUCATIONAL ENTITLEMENT FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES AND SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS

A capability perspective on educational equality defines it in terms of equal effective opportunities to levels of functionings that are necessary to participate in society. This constitutes a fundamental educational entitlement and establishes a threshold level of basic capabilities that should be guaranteed to individuals. Students with disabilities and special educational needs are entitled to the achievement of educational functionings established as a matter of justice for all individuals. However, disability and special educational needs imply functionings and capabilities limitations that may result in difficulties in the achievements of those levels of educational functionings. It follows, therefore, that students with disabilities and special needs should receive educational opportunities and resources necessary to achieve effective levels of functionings in their dominant social framework. This implies the provision of additional opportunities and resources, where necessary, as a

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matter of justice. Equalising opportunities and securing fundamental educational functionings in the case of children with disabilities and special educational needs means exactly providing those additional opportunities and resources necessary for the achievement of an effective participation in society. Thus, for instance, a child with dyslexia is entitled to additional opportunities and resources that will allow her to achieve reading and writing functionings appropriate to participate effectively in her social framework. The aim here is not simply the fairness of the share of resources, but, more appropriately, it is ensuring appropriate levels of functionings. While answering the central question related to educational equality for students with disabilities and special educational needs—i.e. what allocation of resources is just for them—this perspective presents some positive insights, both normatively and for more practice-oriented issues. First, the educational entitlement is set within a normative framework where competing demands of equality for children with disabilities and non-disabled children are evaluated comparatively. In providing the normative basis upon which to reconsider the contentious issue of resource allocation, the capability approach presents a justified answer to long debated issues. More specifically, in identifying an educational entitlement, it allows considering the additional requirements of resources for children with disabilities and special educational needs as requirements of justice. Second, determining an educational entitlement that indicates a threshold level of capabilities, necessary to the individual to function effectively in society, helps in avoiding a possible problem related to the resource provision for disabled people, i.e. the problem of infinite demand.6 This problem arises, for instance, in relation to severe impairments, like multiple cognitive impairments, when compensatory models imply an infinite allocation of resources in order to get the individual to an even starting point, as compared to other individuals, so that she has a real chance for equality over a lifetime. In setting a threshold level within the basic educational capabilities and in specifying this as the level for effective functioning in society, we avoid the problem of infinite demand in two ways. First, we set an actual limit on how much resources should be distributed, and that limit corresponds to the opportunities and resources necessary to the individual’s effective participation. Second, the demands of disability and special educational needs are considered within a framework of equality that evaluates it in relation to the demands of other individuals. Thus, an infinite allocation of resources to a disabled child that would deplete the others of resources necessary to achieve levels of functionings to participate effectively in society is not possible, since it is contrary to the same principle upon which the distribution takes place in the first instance. Third, the educational entitlement proposed provides a possible, although provisional, answer to the problem of indexing capabilities, or, more specifically, to the question of what capabilities to foster and

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promote in relation to the limitations of disability and special educational needs. Recall here that the capability approach faces the question of which capabilities to promote equally among individuals and, hence, which capabilities are of egalitarian concern. The proposed entitlement suggests a possible answer by outlining basic educational capabilities essential to function effectively in society and that should, therefore, be provided as a matter of justice. However, this answer needs further specification when related to some of the complexities of disability and special educational needs. Consider, for instance, severe and multiple cognitive disabilities. There are situations where teachers and parents of severely cognitive disabled children decide to privilege the promotion of certain capabilities and the achievement of certain functionings, for instance that of establishing positive social relationship, over capabilities and achieved functionings like numeracy ones, for instance. In such cases, therefore, teachers and parents, under external resource constraints and considering the child’s individual characteristics, apply mild perfectionist considerations in deciding which capabilities would help the child to flourish in life. On the one hand, the educational entitlement outlined applies exactly this kind of mild perfectionist considerations: it selects a list of capabilities that, once fostered, will allow individuals to function effectively in society, therefore giving them the bases to flourish. The capability approach is here very useful, not only because it allows us to focus on essential freedoms, but also because it provides considerations relating to means-ends, where the ends are the expansions of the individual’s freedom to choose the life she has reason to value. Mild perfectionist considerations, ultimately, are necessary to the project and lead to useful answers. However, on the other hand, the same considerations constitute also the limit of the approach. More specifically, the selection of basic capabilities as constitutive of the educational entitlement may present problems. Reconsider here the example of the severely cognitive disabled child. Suppose the child’s well-being rests almost entirely on two activities: on her enjoyment of music, and, hence, on functionings like listening and singing, and on her swimming and exercising in water. Obviously, the child’s well-being is paramount; and hence the promotion of these functionings can be seen as a matter of justice. However, the educational entitlement proposed does not consistently account for these instances, thus presenting a substantial limit (this objection is also addressed further on). Finally, a further positive insight of this perspective concerns its important practice-oriented implications. The educational entitlement determines the additional opportunities and resources for students with disabilities and special educational needs as a matter of justice, and it furthermore specifies a threshold level for enactment of the distribution. I believe that this constitutes an important insight for the design of educational policies, in that it suggests a normative framework upon which to draw more precise funding formulae for inclusive and special education. The latter, moreover, is drawn on a framework that considers

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the competing demands of students with disability and non-disabled students, and, hence, on a comprehensive perspective of the demands of equality in education. Despite these positive insights, there are, however, two main and consistent limits to this perspective. The first concerns the possible element of ‘reductionism’ implied in an educational entitlement and in the related selection of capabilities. Reconsider here the case of severe cognitive disabilities: in this case supporting the achievement of musical and swimming functionings enhances the well-being of the child. Why should we propose an educational entitlement based on basic capabilities necessary to an effective participation in society, when some impairments restrict functionings in such substantial ways that the actual well-being of the individual is better promoted through securing other functionings? Should we not instead reconsider the full set of educational capabilities and promote it? Moreover, even in its broader understanding entailing alternative ways of functionings, are we not suggesting an idealised and somehow ‘normalised’ view of what ‘effective functioning and participating in society’ may mean? This first limit is interrelated with the second one, which concerns the possible discriminatory and oppressive use of any threshold level, however carefully designed, in separating those individuals that achieve the set levels from those who do not. Disabled people’s movements have long denounced these discriminatory and stigmatising perspectives, and oppose the idea of threshold levels, however well intentioned they may be.7 Why not propose the promotion of capabilities and functioning achievements and abandon any idea of threshold levels? I shall admit at once that I do not have a full defence of the proposed framework against these questions and that I share many of the perplexities they raise. However, some considerations may clarify the reasons in support of an educational entitlement. First, there are considerations of justice that endorse the proposed entitlement. Questions of justice arise in situations of scarcity of resources, and the just design of social and institutional arrangements implies an evaluation of the distribution of benefits and burdens among individuals. Society, through the design of social and institutional arrangements cannot equally promote the countless possible capabilities that people may have reason to value. A selection criterion is needed when considering issues of equality. In the specific case of education, the criterion chosen relates to the possibility to function effectively in society, and the basic capabilities indicated respond to this requirement. The aim and the criterion meet egalitarian ideals and seem justified for selecting both the capabilities and the level at which they should be distributed: we are providing people with the transformational resources that will allow them to choose the life they have reasons to value. Moreover, in promoting people’s functioning and participation in society, they are provided with the effective freedom for exercising agency and citizenship, which is one of the aims of disabled people’s movements and activisms. Second, the entitlement is based on an idea of educational equality as equal opportunities and presents the threshold

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level as an indication of the proposed achieved functionings in order to set levels of distributions that, for instance, do not incur the problem of infinite demand. In this sense, the threshold level is not meant to discriminate between people or to evaluate their competence in a range of functionings (as certain understandings of the medical model of disability would suggest, for instance). Rather, it establishes a presumptive aim for the distribution to be at the same time equal and effective. While these considerations do not fully respond to the objections raised, I believe they provide useful specifications to attenuate their force. The view presented so far, however, leaves open the fundamental aspect of providing and promoting higher levels of educational functionings, which appears important in itself, for the intrinsic value of education and, instrumentally, in light of the complex structures of contemporary societies. This last aspect of the framework is addressed in the final section of this chapter.

IV TOWARDS A PRINCIPLED FRAMEWORK FOR A JUST DISTRIBUTION OF EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES TO STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES AND SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS

Although an effective participation and the possibility of taking part as equals in society do not require individuals to achieve high levels of educational functionings, their promotion is important both intrinsically and instrumentally. For instance, the possibility of interpreting complex literary theories or understanding the scientific underpinnings of the Human Genome Project are not necessary to participate effectively in society. However, their pursuit may enhance the well-being of some, for instance those who love literary works or scientific endeavours, while also proving instrumentally valuable in giving access to better or preferred job opportunities. At the same time, these endeavours may yield positive results for people other than those undertaking them. For instance, some implications of the Human Genome Project may prove helpful in alleviating genetic conditions. It follows, therefore, that considerations about the provision for higher educational functionings are not only important, but necessary, too. Our interest in equality requires an analysis of this provision. Sen clearly states that the capability approach does not constitute a theory of justice, but a normative framework for the assessment of inequalities. The approach, therefore, does not specify the principles upon which to establish a just distribution of resources and these have to be drawn on other theories. In particular, Rawls’s seminal work on justice as fairness outlines fundamental principles that can guide the just distribution of resources, whilst also providing valuable insights for permissible inequalities. Rawls’s theory of justice stipulates two fundamental principles. According to the first, the Liberty Principle, each person has the same claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which include

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freedom of thought and speech, as well as freedom of conscience. The Second Principle consists instead of two parts. It states, first, that social and economic inequalities are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under fair equality of opportunity. Second, that these inequalities have to be to the benefit of the least advantaged members of society (Rawls, 2001, pp. 42–3), understood as all those with the lowest shares of income and wealth. This second part is known as the ‘difference principle’ and regulates what inequalities are permissible under conditions of justice. Rawls further specifies the First Principle as prior to the Second, and fair equality of opportunity as prior to the difference principle. Hence, inequalities are permissible only against a background where the prior principles are satisfied, and thus against a background where people have equal basic liberties and are provided with fair chances of attaining rewarding positions. While constituting a strictly distributive norm (p. 61), Rawls inscribes the difference principle within a conception of social cooperation and specifies it essentially as a principle of reciprocity. He maintains that however great the inequalities in income and wealth may be, and however consistent the differences among people in exerting effort and earning a greater share of output, inequalities must contribute to the benefit of the least advantaged individuals. Furthermore, this contribution must be effective, and, hence, it requires that to each improvement in the legitimate expectations of the more advantaged, must correspond an equal improvement in those of the least advantaged (p. 64). Considerations of efficiency are therefore central to the difference principle. Finally, according to Rawls, ‘This condition brings out that even if it uses the idea of maximising the expectations of the least advantaged, the difference principle is essentially a principle of reciprocity’ (ibid.). In this sense, the difference principle requires that inequalities are to benefit others, as well as ourselves (ibid.). How can Rawls’s principles of justice help in determining the norms for regulating the distribution of opportunities and access to higher levels of educational functionings? The difference principle appears particularly relevant in the context of determining this distribution, since it limits permissible inequalities within considerations of justice and efficiency. Applied to education, these considerations lead to the distribution of resources and opportunities for higher functionings in ways that allow for inequalities to be used by those with a greater capacity in relation to the design of the educational arrangements. At the same time, it requires these inequalities to serve the interests of the least well off. In other words, it seems plausible to argue that beyond the threshold level of fundamental capabilities guaranteed to everyone, those who can obtain the highest functionings in education should receive resources to that aim, providing that the benefits they gain from their education correspond to an equal long term prospective improvement and benefits for those least successful. In this sense, for instance, higher levels of functionings achieved by some, may provide the rest of us with more advantages than we would have otherwise had and, therefore, improve our long term well-being in considerable ways. Similarly, severely disabled children or children with

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profound and multiple impairments might benefit from the higher educational functionings achieved by others, and this ultimately justifies applying considerations of efficiency to the distribution of resources for higher educational functionings. I can now, therefore, attempt to provide a (provisional and tentative) conception of the principled framework for a just distribution of opportunities and effective access to educational functionings for children with disability and special educational needs. This framework consists of two parts. The first stipulates that equal opportunities for fundamental educational functionings be provided at levels necessary to individuals for an effective participation in society. It sets a threshold level of capabilities and states that all should have effective equal opportunities to the achievement of those fundamental educational functionings. From the conception of disabilities and special educational needs as functionings and capabilities limitations, it follows that necessary and legitimate additional resources have to be devoted to children designated as having disabilities and special educational needs. The second part of the framework applies considerations of efficiency to the distribution of opportunities and resources for the effective access and achievement of higher levels of functionings. It states that beyond the threshold level of fundamental functionings, resources should be devoted in ways that allow the higher achievements of some to benefit the lower achievement of others. While this framework does not provide a theory of educational equality, it nevertheless helps in providing a possible answer to the debated question of what constitutes educational equality for children with disabilities and special educational needs.8

NOTES 1. The use of the expression ‘students with disabilities and special educational needs’ reflects the contentions at the centre of the debate on inclusive and special education. While disabled people’s movements, particularly in the UK, suggest the use of the term ‘disabled students’ and reject the concept and categories of special educational needs, the latter are nevertheless widely adopted in the literature, as well as being still in use in policy and legislation in England. While the chosen expression may seem redundant to the reader, its use is primarily aimed at acknowledging the debate on these issues. 2. For an extensive discussion of education in the capability approach, see, for instance, Robeyns, 2006; Saito, 2003; Walker and Unterhalter, 2007; and Walker, 2006. The capability approach in education is a growing and evolving area of study, and numerous theoretical and empirical researches are in process. An overview of the topics and the studies produced is available on the website of the Human Development and Capability Association, at: www.hdca.org. 3. I have extensively analysed the understanding of being educated as a basic capability in Terzi, 2007. Some sections of this discussion draw on that contribution. 4. Sen (1984, 1992, 1999) distinguishes between well-being freedom and agency freedom, and maintains that both aspects are important for egalitarian considerations, since they both provide important information about a person’s quality of life. To illustrate the distinction between wellbeing and agency, Sen reminds us of the case of a person who happens to be present at the scene of a crime that she would ideally like to prevent. While the well-being of this person might indeed decrease in taking some forms of actions to stop the crime, since she could be harmed, her agency may instead increase considerably by taking some forms of action on the strength of her beliefs.

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However, this distinction does not detract from the emphasis on well-being freedom (capabilities for well-being) as the dimension constitutive of the person’s capability set. This view, which will be outlined in more detail later on, draws on Elizabeth Anderson’s influential article ‘What is the Point of Equality?’ (Anderson, 1999). Anderson develops the idea that what matters is securing the ability of all to participate effectively in a democratic society. My position applies this idea in relation to the role and aims of education, and draws also on Amy Gutmann’s (1987) idea of democratic education. The problem of infinite demand in relation to educational provision for students with cognitive impairments is discussed in depth in Veatch, 1986. For an interesting and well-argued critique of establishing threshold levels in relation to disability, and the related possible discrimination and oppression, see for instance Silvers and Francis, 2005 and Wasserman, 2006. Harry Brighouse and the late Terence McLaughlin provided me with invaluable insights and sustained support while I was working on the project from which this chapter is drawn. An initial version was presented at the workshop on Normative and Quantitative Analysis of Educational Inequalities at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, in June 2005. Further versions were discussed at the Fifth International Conference on the Capability Approach: Knowledge and Public Action, held at UNESCO, Paris, in September 2005; the Annual Conference of the Association of Legal and Social Philosophy, Dublin, July 2006; and the Gregynog Philosophy of Education Conference, in Wales, in June 2007. I am very grateful to the participants for their useful comments and questions. The chapter was finalised during a research fellowship at the Centre for Public Policy Research at King’s College, London, where colleagues provided robust and most helpful suggestions. I am grateful to Roehampton University and to King’s College, London, for this invaluable opportunity. All shortcomings remain, of course, entirely my own. This essay is part of a chapter in my forthcoming monograph, Justice and Equality in Education: A Capability Perspective on Disability and Special Educational Needs (Continuum, 2008).

REFERENCES Anderson, E. (1999) What is the Point of Equality?, Ethics, 109.3, pp. 283–337. Brighouse, H. (2003) Educational Equality and Justice, in: R. Curren (ed.) A Companion to the Philosophy of Education (Oxford, Blackwell Publishing), pp. 471–486. Gutmann, A. (1987) Democratic Education (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press). McLaughlin, T. H. (2003) Teaching Controversial Issues in Citizenship Education, in: A. Lockyer, B. Crick and J. Annette (eds) Education for Democratic Citizenship: Issues of Theory and Practice (Aldershot, Ashgate). Nussbaum, M. (2000) Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Rawls, J. (2001) Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Cambridge, Harvard University Press). Robeyns, I. (2006) Three Models of Education; Rights, Capabilities and Human Capital, Theory and Research in Education, 4.1, pp. 69–84. Saito, M. (2003) Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach to Education: A Critical Exploration, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 37.1, pp. 17–33. Silvers, A. and Francis, L. (2005) Justice Through Trust: Disability and the ‘Outlier Problem’ in Social Contract Theory, Ethics, 116.1, p. 54. Sen, A. (1984) Well-being, Agency and Freedom: The Dewey Lectures 1984, The Journal of Philosophy, LXXXII. 4, 1985, pp. 169–221. Sen, A. (1992) Inequality Reexamined (Oxford, Clarendon Press). Sen, A. (1999) Development as Freedom (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Terzi, L. (2007) The Capability to be Educated, in: M. Walker and E. Unterhalter (eds) Sen’s Capability Approach and Social Justice in Education (New York, Palgrave Macmillan). Terzi, L. (forthcoming, 2008) Justice and Equality in Education: A Capability Perspective to Disability and Special Educational Needs (London and New York, Continuum). Unterhalter, E. and Brighouse, H. (2007) Distribution of What for Social Justice in Education? The Case of Education for All by 2015?, in: M. Walker and E. Unterhalter (eds) Sen’s Capability Approach and Social Justice in Education (New York, Palgrave Macmillan).

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Veatch, R. M. (1986) The Foundations of Justice: Why the Retarded and the Rest of Us Have Claims to Equality (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Walker, M. (2006) Higher Education Pedagogies: A Capabilities Approach (Maidenhead, Open University Press). Walker, M. and Unterhalter, E. (eds) (2007) Sen’s Capability Approach and Social Justice in Education (New York, Palgrave Macmillan). Wasserman, D. (2006) Disability, Capability and Thresholds for Distributive Justice, in: A. Kaufman (ed.) Capabilities Equality: Basic Issues and Problems (New York and London, Routledge), pp. 214–234.

17 A Question of Universality: Inclusive Education and the Principle of Respect RUTH CIGMAN

1 INTRODUCTION

On March 30th 2007, the UK government signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, along with 79 other countries. The basic aspirations of the document are just and humane: it calls for countries to ‘promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity’ (UN, 2007). It also emphasises the ‘importance for persons with disabilities of their individual autonomy and independence, including the freedom to make their own choices’. However, there is a possible tension between the emphasis on autonomy and an aspiration expressed later in the Convention, to ensure that: ‘Persons with disabilities can access an inclusive, quality and free primary education and secondary education on an equal basis with others in the communities in which they live.’ What does this mean? It suggests, not unreasonably, that educational institutions have a duty to do everything they can to provide access to all children, irrespective of disabilities. However, confusion arises when (a) this duty is abstracted from the possible practical difficulties of educating all children satisfactorily in the same institutions, and (b) the duty of institutions to attempt to make schools accessible to all is understood as a duty of parents to send their children to mainstream schools, as implied by the ambition to close all special schools. Inclusion UK (a consortium of organisations representing disabled children and their families) openly espouses this ambition, in direct opposition to groups campaigning for the right to send disabled children to special schools. The latter are concerned that their autonomy is threatened by the ambition to close the special schools that, in their view, some children need. This is a dispute about universality, for Inclusion UK — and at certain points the UN Convention — make claims about what is best for every child without exception. Insofar as mainstream education is considered ‘best for all’ by the UK government, we need to understand and critically assess this view. The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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2 INCLUSIVE EDUCATION AND THE DECENT SOCIETY

Inclusive education is a contested concept. Some reserve it for the principle that mainstream schools should welcome and adapt themselves to all children without exception, irrespective of the nature or severity of their difficulties or disabilities. Others use it to refer to the principle that such schools should welcome and adapt themselves to all children as far as possible. The second principle embraces the thought that mainstream schools are incompatible with an adequate education for some children; the first principle rejects this thought. I shall call these principles ‘universalist’ and ‘moderate’ respectively, and describe their defendants as universal and moderate inclusionists. Moderates see inclusive education as compatible with, and indeed as requiring, the existence of ‘special schools’ for a small number of children. Universalists tend to be antagonistic to such schools, seeing them as threatening the project of universal inclusion. At the heart of this conflict of views is disagreement about what is ‘possible’. The universalist says or implies that it is ‘possible’ to include everyone; the moderate denies this. I shall call this the ‘possibility clause’. It has been suggested that the dispute is a storm in a teacup. It is about the placement of a tiny minority of children, and an onlooker might ask: why should it matter what kinds of schools they attend, so long as their basic educational needs are met? This might be answered, initially, by pointing out that in a world of scarce resources, the meeting of educational needs raises tough questions about distributive justice. Society cannot afford to give everyone what they want, and the ambition to give everyone what they need is scuppered by the considerable conceptual difficulty of identifying needs and comparing severity of need. These abstractsounding problems translate into daily nightmares for children, parents and teachers who live with the practical reality of what they see as educational misplacement. The inclusion debate is hugely consequential for many individuals, even if they are a small proportion of those involved in education. This is one reason why the disagreement between universalists and moderates is not a storm in a teacup. But there is another reason. The inclusion debate is not only about the education of children; it is also, as I shall argue in this chapter, about the nature of a decent society. Decent societies, according to Avishai Margalit, are ones ‘whose institutions do not humiliate people’ (Margalit, 1996, p. 1). I intend to follow this definition and will suggest that, to the extent that special schools or other institutions are both systematically humiliating and generally tolerated, the decency of the society to which they belong is impugned. ‘Humiliation’ is defined by Margalit as ‘any behaviour or condition that constitutes a sound reason for a person to consider his or her self-respect injured’ (p. 2). He distinguishes between psychological or empirical ascriptions of humiliation (a person, or group, feels humiliated, as a matter of fact) and normative ascriptions of humiliation (a person, or group, has a sound reason to feel humiliated).

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This distinction is of the first importance. The claim under consideration is that special schools are inherently, or by their nature, humiliating or demeaning for the children who attend them. They give children a ‘sound reason’ to consider their self-respect injured, even if they do not in fact feel this way. The claim is not, I should add, typically expressed this way, but it is implied by statements like the following, from the Centre for Studies in Inclusive Education (CSIE): The discrimination inherent in segregated schooling offends the human dignity of the child . . . Segregated schooling appeases the human tendency to negatively label and isolate those perceived as different. It gives legal reinforcement and consolidation to a deeply embedded, selffulfilling, social process of de-valuing and distancing others on the basis of appearance and ability in order to consolidate a sense of normality and status (Centre for Studies in Inclusive Education, 2004).

The CSIE argues that special schools should be phased out altogether. The implication is that we should ignore the wealth of testimony from people who place great value on special schools: testimony from parents of children with disabilities, and also from many disabled people themselves. Jim Sinclair, an autistic man, writes: I do not know of any advocate from within the disability community who believes that inclusion should not be an available option. Disability advocates believe that disabled people should be able to go anywhere and do anything in mainstream society . . . However there are concerns within the disability community that inclusion is not always the best option for every person with every disability, and that involuntary inclusion is as problematic as involuntary segregation (Sinclair, 1998a).

Against such testimony, the CSIE suggests that, insofar as we retain and tolerate the institutions known as special schools, we are sustaining a practice that is fundamentally indecent. Is this right? Do special schools as such, simply because they are special schools, and not because (or insofar as) they are bad or unsuccessful special schools, give children a sound reason to consider their self-respect injured? Some will no doubt object that this question over-intellectualises the problem. It seeks for reasons for feelings, and as such flies in the face of an influential tradition that puts reasons (or justifications) in one category and feelings (or emotions) in another. This tradition, which is firmly rooted in contemporary culture, advocates a kind of unconditional respect for feelings whatever they may be, independently of questions of justification. Indeed, the idea of seeking to justify feelings is seen as issuing from a set of unpleasant attitudes that are censorious and ‘judgemental’. This approach is embodied in the modern ‘self-help’ movement, which seeks to boost the self-esteem of children independently of the bases or reasons that one might have for experiencing a sense of self-esteem. I have written about this at length elsewhere (Cigman, 2004). I want to illustrate

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the point about sounds reasons for humiliation by reference to the possible excesses of feminism. Feminists, traditionally, are angry with men. They feel humiliated by their treatment and status in male-dominated societies. Under certain circumstances, these feelings (anger, humiliation) are not only feelings; they are reasonable responses to the situations in which women find themselves. It is essential to emphasise this ‘reasonableness’, which paves the way for a potent critique of the social conditions that oppress women. However, feelings of anger or humiliation can become inappropriate or excessive, depending on the adjustments that society makes or fails to make. Without going into any detail (which might provoke unnecessary disagreement), feelings can outlive the rationale that initially inspired them. This, I want to emphasise, is not a political but a conceptual point. The point is that it is possible for feelings to be excessive or unreasonable insofar as they fail to respond to circumstantial change. This possibility lies at the heart of Margalit’s distinction between psychological and normative ascriptions of humiliation. The idea that special schools are inherently humiliating or demeaning is often (but by no means always) advanced by people who experienced the pain and humiliation of old-style segregated education. There is no doubt that the legacy of such schools for many is an enduring sense of stigma and inferiority. The principle of such schools, established by the 1944 Education Act, was that ‘abnormal’ or ‘handicapped’ children would be sent to an institution which catered for one of eleven categories of handicap, irrespective of any other attributes that the child may have. Although some children fared reasonably within this system (on the liberal aspect of the 1944 Act see Dyson and Slee, 2001), many suffered intensely from the experience of being reduced to a category of handicap. It should be clear (a) that many children had sound reasons to feel humiliated and demeaned within this system, and (b) that this is sufficient reason to abolish such institutions. This, I believe, was recognised and addressed in the 1981 Education Act which followed the 1978 Warnock Report. Universalists say or imply that special schools in the late 20th/early 21st century are in principle the same as post-1944 segregated schools. They are inherently demeaning and should, therefore, be abolished, and the implication is that special school attendance can only be voluntary in the limited sense that it is chosen from options available within an indecent society. It is chosen (and can only be chosen) insofar as mainstream schools do not provide a non-humiliating educational experience for some children; do not, in other words, adapt themselves adequately to those who fail to conform to a narrow stereotype of ‘normality’. Associated with this claim is an argument about so-called labels: terms which refer to types or categories of difficulty or disability, like ‘autistic’, ‘deaf’, ‘learning difficulty’ and so on. The suggestion is that such ‘labels’ are conceptually humiliating in the same sense as that in which special schools are institutionally humiliating. (This is implied in the CSIE passage quoted above, where ‘labelling’ is associated with negativity, devaluation and distancing.) Conceptual and institutional humiliation are

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analogous—they involve alleged injuries to self-respect—and also, of course, they are socially linked in the sense that ‘labels’ are associated with choice of special school, or within-school special provision. My question about ‘labels’ parallels my question about special schools: do ‘labels’ as such constitute a sound reason to consider one’s self-respect injured? As with special schools, some people with disabilities and difficulties accept and even value a ‘label’, claiming that it brings access to educational resources, greater understanding from others, and so on. There is an autistic pride movement called Autscape, which considers itself radical rather than regressive, and argues that the condition known as autism is seen as embarrassing or shameful because it is misunderstood and misrepresented in society. ‘Say it Loud, Autistic and Proud’ is the label-affirming title of a newspaper article on this subject (Burne, 2005). Jim Sinclair, quoted above, writes: ‘I am not a ‘‘person with autism’’. I am an autistic person . . . Saying ‘‘person with autism’’ suggests that autism is something bad—so bad that it isn’t even consistent with being a person. Nobody objects to using adjectives to refer to characteristics of a person that are considered positive or neutral’ (Sinclair, 1998b). Are we to ignore this view? Are we to accept the universalist idea that the ‘labelling’ of disabilities and difficulties is essentially negative or humiliating? Len Barton suggests as much when he assumes a continuity between special educational ‘labelling’ and the negative ‘labelling’ of children in the old secondary modern schools as ‘thick’, ‘stupid, ‘hopeless’ (Barton, 1993, p. 31). Is ‘autistic’ like ‘thick’? Does a child have a sound reason to feel humiliated solely because he or she is identified as autistic? It is crucial to raise these questions. They involve a departure from purely empirical or psychological questions about whether people do feel humiliated by special school attendance or ‘labels’. Empirically, one thing is certain; some do and some do not feel humiliated by these things. It would be interesting to discover the true proportions of this difference amongst the so-called disabled population (and of course the boundaries of this group are ragged to say the least) as a whole. As far as I am aware, this empirical question has never been properly investigated. Meanwhile universalists talk as if they represent all disabled people when they talk about the reduced self-respect and self-esteem suffered by children in special schools. They support this assumption by retaining the expression ‘segregated schooling’ to emphasise the continuity between special schools as they are today and post-1944 segregated schooling. Empirically they are wrong; they do not represent all disabled people, as the Autscape movement makes clear. Disabled people speak with many voices, exactly as one would expect. (Another noteworthy example is DEX, the Deaf Ex-Mainstreamers Group, at www.dex.org.uk.) Indeed one could argue that the idea of a ‘disabled voice’—which appears not infrequently in the literature—disrespectfully implies that independent thinking is alien to this group. However my present concern is not this. I want to explore the philosophical or conceptual question of whether there are ‘sound reasons’ for a person to consider her self-respect injured by (a) special school attendance or (b) disability ‘labelling’, as such.

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III SELF-RESPECT AND THE GOALS OF INCLUSION

What counts as a sound reason to consider one’s self-respect injured? I am suggesting that this abstract-sounding question has an urgent claim to our attention because it informs the puzzlement and unease that many people feel when they consider the universalist argument. The universalist characterises special schools and ‘labels’ as inherently demeaning without clearly explaining why this must be so. There is an empirical argument (some people feel demeaned by special schools/’labels’), which (as I argued) disregards the multiple voices on this matter. There is a rights argument (all children have a right to a mainstream education: see CSIE 2001), which fails to respond to concerns that this kind of ‘rights talk’ is problematic and inflationary (see, for example, Blackburn, 2001, pp. 103– 107; Warnock, 2005, pp. 83–116; and Low, 2007). The rights argument sometimes sounds like a duty argument, suggesting that all parents have a duty to send their children to a mainstream school, irrespective of the nature or severity of the child’s difficulties or disabilities. Another duty argument is sometimes ascribed to schools, which are said to have a duty to provide an appropriate educational environment for every child without exception. In all this talk (or implied talk) of duties, there are suggestions about what ‘ought’ to be the case without any apparent awareness of the fact that, as philosophers put it, ‘ought implies can’. (This principle is often attributed to Kant, though he did not say it in so many words.) Schools ‘ought’ to provide a satisfactory environment for every child; but can they? Is it possible to do what universalists say schools ought to do? Many parents whose children have struggled in inclusively oriented mainstream schools deny that this is so. Many special school attendees are there voluntarily, and indeed many have struggled to gain resources to go there. It would ordinarily make a crucial difference to the pride and self-respect of children whether they attend an institution because they have been denied access to another, or whether they have elected (indeed struggled) to go there. Segregated schooling post-1944 involved the former; children with so-called handicaps were simply refused entry to mainstream schools. Of course the same can be true today, and if so there may be a case to be answered. However, contemporary exclusions are generally couched (and by law must be couched) in terms of the practical difficulties of educating children with widely disparate needs and abilities together. These alleged practical difficulties are typically viewed with scorn by universalists, or written off as due to under-funding or under-commitment to inclusion. It is this that many find puzzling, not least because it appears to remove the need to investigate the practical issues empirically. To return to our question, what constitutes a sound reason for a person to consider her self-respect injured? At this point, I shall offer only a summary answer, to be developed in the course of this chapter. The basic answer, I believe, was given by Kant. whose moral philosophy is considered by most philosophers today to articulate the foundation of modern liberal thinking. Kant (cf. Kant, 1785) thought that the proper

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object of respect is the moral will, meaning the capacity possessed by all or most human beings to reflect rationally on what is right and wrong, distinguishing this from what one desires. Irrespective of the kind of life a person leads, there is a presumption of capacity to reflect in such a way, which constitutes the foundation of our belief that every human being (with the obvious exception of those who are comatose and the like) is entitled to self-respect. There is no space in this chapter to expound this grand idea in any detail, but I would like to suggest that it relates to our topic in the following way. First, Kant provides a basis for the notion of moral responsibility: the freedom to commit oneself to the values one passionately believes in and in particular to control one’s vital interests. Of course this freedom is not unconditional. It may be limited by available resources and by the requirements of distributive justice. Nonetheless, it is arguable that the closure of special schools would infringe upon this freedom in serious ways. Many parents choose special schools because their children have been miserable and unable to learn in mainstream ones. Such parents often deny, after bitter experience, that it is possible for mainstream schools to adapt satisfactorily to the needs of their child. If respect is to be shown to parents who struggle for the retention of special schools, their capacity to reflect responsibly about the vital interests of their children must be taken seriously. Second, Kant identified a kind of treatment of human beings which is not to be tolerated. This is the treatment of a human being purely as a means to other people’s ends, as in slavery or the sexual abuse of women. To treat a human being purely as a means to an end is to fail to respect him or her in the most fundamental way possible. Something like this is hinted at when universalists talk as though all children are required to attend mainstream schools, irrespective of whether or not this serves their own interests. The CSIE (undated), for example, claims: ‘The existence of ‘‘special’’ schools contributes to the insecurity and fear of rejection by those in the mainstream’. No evidence is given of this. Nor are we told whether special schools are supposed to contribute to the insecurity and fear of rejection of all, most or just a few. The failure to address this and other empirical questions contributes to the air of rhetoric that often surrounds the universalist position. There is the worrying implication that parents have a duty to avoid sending their children to special schools in order to protect the feelings of children other than their own, and irrespective of the difficulties experienced by their own children in mainstream schools. This suggests that parents of children who are already vulnerable in all sorts of ways have a duty, in Kantian terms, to treat their children as means to the ends of other children’s wellbeing. It is widely believed that Kant’s moral theory was not so much a model or conjecture as an articulation of the structure of our thinking about morality. If this is right, it goes some way towards explaining why many feel uneasy about universalism. I have argued elsewhere that universalism ‘aspires towards a society in which all children attend mainstream schools, but it is based on an understanding of what special schools mean which is

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conspicuously unshared’ (Cigman, 2007, p. xviii). In other words, universalists tend to disregard the fact that special schools are seen by many parents, not as inherently demeaning environments, but as liberating and in the best sense educational environments for their children. Many parents fight for their children to attend special schools, and a parental attack on Tony Blair over the widespread closure of special schools in the UK was headline news just a few years ago. No universalist can be unaware of this passionate clash of convictions, yet the universalist tendency is to portray special schools as inherently demeaning, as though there were no plausible view other than their own. The goal of universal inclusion is pursued in a way that is pointedly (and, one might say, disrespectfully) oblivious of the non-universality of its own values. In short, a person has a sound reason to consider her self-respect injured if (a) she is denied the freedom to pursue and control her vital interests, or (b) she is treated as a means to other people’s ends. This, as I said, is a basic answer to the question about when humiliation is and is not a justified feeling. We now need to consider and develop this answer in relation to inclusive education.

IV INCLUSION AND THE CONCEPT OF POSSIBILITY

As a theory about the educational practices that ought to be adopted, universalism flounders on the notion of possibility. Ought implies can; it is either meaningless or unjust to say that someone (or an institution) ought to do something that in a real sense she (it) cannot do. Whether all children can satisfactorily be educated in the same classrooms and with the same curricula (which is what the inclusive philosophy is often said to amount to) depends in a serious way on empirical matters, about which I shall have more to say in due course. (It also depends in a serious way on the conceptual question of what counts as a ‘satisfactory education’; but I shall not discuss this here.) But first I want to avert a possible misunderstanding arising out of my argument so far. I have suggested that universalism provokes unease by stating or implying (a) that parents who believe passionately in special schools for their children should be rebutted or ignored, and (b) that some children may be used as means to the end of other children’s well-being. These two implications raise worrying questions about the extent to which the universalist agenda upholds the principle of respect. Having said this, however, I think it is important to bring out the sense in which all inclusionists, universalist and moderate, are concerned about the principle of respect. I see the philosophy of inclusion, and the heated debate to which it has given rise, as a sustained attempt to resolve problematic questions about respect to which the recent history of educational segregation has given rise. Who is different from whom? To what extent should we conceptualise difference? To what extent should we treat everyone as the same? Is it demeaning to be identified as different from the norm? If we retain the

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concept of normality, how should we define it and how should we think about people who fall outside its bounds? If we reject the concept of normality, how can we ensure that atypical needs are adequately met? How might we be failing those whose needs are atypical? In particular— and I see this concern as pervasive and shared—how might we be failing to respect them? The inclusion debate, according to the argument of this chapter, is a kind of conversation in which these and similar questions are picked over. The universalist exhibits what I call a homogenising tendency, meaning a reluctance to conceptualise individual differences and a desire to talk instead about human diversity as the condition of which we are all a part. The moderate, on the other hand, exhibits a distinguishing tendency, which draws attention to individual differences (and particularly individual needs), in part as a corrective to the homogenising tendency of the universalist. The homogenising and distinguishing tendencies gain their impetus, respectively, from the motives (a) to ensure that everyone has access to common social goods and (b) to protect individuals from neglect of their needs. Both these motives arise out of a concern with self-respect and the avoidance of humiliation. Developing the Kantian account of respect, Margalit offers two interconnected concepts of humiliation. The first: ‘I claim that humiliation is the rejection of a human being from the ‘‘Family of Man’’ . . . that is, treating humans as nonhuman, or relating to humans as if they were not human. Treating persons as if they were not human is treating them as if they were objects or animals’ (Margalit, 1996, p. 108). And the second: ‘There seems to be a competing notion of humiliation to that of rejection from human society. This is the notion of humiliation as the deliberate infliction of utter loss and control over one’s vital interests’ (p. 115). It seems clear that the universalist preoccupation with inclusion expresses concern about humiliation in the first of Margalit’s senses: humiliation as rejection from the ‘Family of Man’. Schools are institutions that prepare children for adult life as a fully paid up member of society. The testimony of many adults who were excluded from mainstream schools in the 1950s and 1960s expresses the lasting pain and humiliation of being socially marginalised. However, my question remains: are those who attend special school necessarily marginalised, and thus understandably humiliated, in a comparable way? Or is the attempt to deny them access to such schools a way of humiliating them (denying them self-respect) by denying them control over their vital interests? That universal respect is the fundamental issue that concerns all inclusionists is confirmed again and again in the literature. Mel Ainscow, a well known universalist, writes: ‘[Teachers must] overcome the dangers and limitations of deficit thinking: only in this way can we be sure that pupils who experience difficulties in learning can be treated with respect and viewed as potentially active and capable learners’ (Ainscow, 1998, pp. 11–12). The reference to deficit thinking belongs to an argument about the use of ‘labels’ (‘labels’ fix a negative image on to children and encourage people to see them as ‘deficient’), with which some will disagree. However, we see from this passage that there is a fundamental concern: all

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children without exception should be treated with respect. People may disagree about what it means to show or withhold respect, but that all human beings are entitled to unconditional respect is, I suggest, the basic concern driving this debate. Universalists locate respect and disrespect primarily within institutions and concepts. Moderates are concerned about forms of disrespect within inclusive (i.e. basically respectful) institutions, and identify this in part with the withholding of distinguishing concepts which give children access to the differential provision that they may urgently want and need. ‘Exclusion within inclusion’ was a central concern of Mary Warnock in her 2005 paper, where she led the way for the moderates by arguing that many children with disabilities and difficulties suffer from feelings of exclusion within inclusive schools (Warnock, 2005, p. 45; see also Rogers, 2007a, b; and Pirrie and Head, 2007). Such children are often bullied, teased or shunned. They may have sensory or other difficulties which mean that they need an environment unlike that of a typical mainstream school. (This seems to be true particularly of autistic children.) Whereas in primary schools these sorts of difficulties are often easily overcome— primary school children are usually amenable to new ways of thinking about difference and may be easily encouraged to put aside initial prejudices—in secondary schools life can be extremely hard for children who do not conform to standards set by their peers. It seems that as children grow older, differences become more consequential, and the pain of a child who is stubbornly perceived as different may be irresolvable, except by removal to another school. Although Warnock does not articulate as I have the principle of respect for all children, it seems to me that her concern about ‘exclusion within inclusion’ is fundamentally this. To say ‘this child is thoroughly miserable and failing to learn’ without even considering the possibility that the child needs a different kind of school is, she implies, disrespectful. It is humiliating to feel excluded by other children at the school one attends, and this resembles the way it is humiliating to be excluded from the school one wants to attend. The universalist is unmoved by these sorts of considerations, and it is an interesting question why this is so. I have suggested that institutional and conceptual respect are the universalist’s first concerns and that these are bound up with the idea of a decent society. But can a society be decent if it tolerates exclusion within institutions? Is Warnock right to suggest (as I think she implies) that such exclusion is humiliating and hence an injury to one’s self-respect? It is in response to this kind of question that the possibility clause is required: even if some children feel excluded within inclusive institutions, it is possible that they should become included. It is possible, that is, that they will come to enjoy the goods of mainstream education: the sense of belonging to a community, the right to participate in shared programmes of learning, the opportunity to prepare for adult life in an inclusive society, and so on. The possibility clause is essential, for without it there is an unavoidable sense that the suffering of some children is shamefully ignored. The

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universalist does not think he ignores this. He sees suffering as an inevitable but provisional corollary of the ‘process of inclusion’, as Mike Oliver explains when he says that inclusion ‘is not a thing that can be delivered by politicians, policy-makers or educators, but a process of struggle that has to be joined’ (Oliver, 1996, p. 90). ‘Process of struggle’ implies that some failure is inevitable; the answer is not to duck it but to engage with it. This is not a matter of keeping children in mainstream schools knowing that it is impossible that they should ever benefit; it is a matter, on the contrary, of believing that they can benefit and trying to ensure that they do so. This is seductive thinking. It suggests that even to ask whether the suffering of a child might be unacceptable is to fall into the trap of assuming that inclusion is a ‘thing that can be delivered’, and hence assessable as a ‘bad thing’. It gags parents who have a sense that their children are needed for the project of inclusion, whether or not their children need inclusive schools. Conceptually, this way of thinking relies on a notion of possibility that is tenuous and weak. What do we mean when we insist that something is possible? Usually we mean that there are empirical grounds for feeling confident that a certain thing might happen. When I set off on my hill walk, I was sure that a full day’s walking was impossible, given the recent injury to my foot. It is now 4.00 pm and, given that my foot is holding up well, I now believe it is possible for me to finish the course. This, I suggest, is an everyday use of the word ‘possible’, and it is empirically based. The universalist has no empirical basis for the possibility clause. He does not say: we used to have doubts, but inclusive practice has improved so much that children we used to be concerned about are now learning happily alongside everyone else. Rather, the possibility of including everyone is asserted or assumed, and in this sense it is essentially an article of faith. It is asserted, moreover, in the face of a great deal of evidence to the contrary, showing that some children not only are unhappy in mainstream schools but seem destined to remain so given our growing understanding of the nature of their difficulties (see, for example, Sainsbury, 2000, and Rogers, 2007a.) The moderate rejection of the possibility clause is based on precisely this kind of evidence; but the universalist is, as I said, curiously unmoved. The assertion that it is possible to include every child in the mainstream appeals to a notion of possibility that is rather like a double negative: it is not impossible. We think in this way when we say, for example, that it is possible that two adults produced by sperm from the same donor might one day meet and fall in love. We are not willing to deny that this is possible; but statistically (given safeguards) it is almost vanishingly improbable. The universalist’s possibility clause is not statistical; as I said, it is more like an article of faith. As such it is unable to support a sincere belief in the possibility of including all children without provoking profound, and understandable, doubts about its practical realisation. The refusal to deny that all children can be included is maintained in the face of considerable empirical evidence. I have mentioned autistic

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children, and the literature on children with social and emotional difficulties supports the idea that mainstream schools can be disastrous not only for their teachers and classmates, but for these children themselves (see Rogers, 2007b). It is hardly surprising that this is so when one thinks about the meaning of mainstream education as a creative community of children embodying shared values and a shared approach to learning. Some children have difficulties that are inescapably social in nature; they appear unable to understand the nature of groups or to participate in such communities (see Moore, 2007). The idea that they can learn to participate—that such learning is ‘possible’ (see Cigman, 2001)— may be optimistic without being remotely realistic. It is hardly surprising that the universalist drains the notion of possibility of empirical or factual content, given her uneasy relationship (as I shall argue) with human, everyday reality. The reserve about the conceptualisation of difference, though intended to yield a richer perception of the reality of diversity, in fact creates a fatal barrier against proper receptivity to, and respect for, individual children. This will be the theme of the next section, where I shall explore the theoretical underpinning of the universalist position.

V INCLUSIVE EDUCATION AND THE CONCEPT OF REALITY

The universalist sees special schools as inherently demeaning, meaning that even if a child does not actually feel demeaned in a special school, she has reason to do so. This point is emphasised using terms like ‘exclusion’ and ‘segregation’ to refer to special school practice. Children at special schools are excluded, are segregated, even if they have elected to attend these schools and are confident and learning well. This view has a theoretical or metaphysical underpinning, which is to say that it will be found compelling or not depending on whether one is prepared to accept a highly abstract argument. Many do accept this argument, and I would add sceptically that many accept it hook, line and sinker, meaning that they are insufficiently critical and accept something they do not properly understand. Indeed I would go so far as to say that it is not possible properly to make sense of this argument in the way that it is typically presented. This is a large subject, for I am talking about the need to have a meta-discussion about the assumptions at the heart of much special education. In the space available, I can do no more than touch on this subject, and no doubt my comments will be found inadequate by many. The universalist position is said to be supported theoretically by a paradigm that is known as post-positivist. The post-positivist paradigm negates the positivist paradigm, which says: 1. Differences between learners are ‘objectively ‘‘real’’’. 2. These differences ‘take the form of deficits and difficulties’, which may be understood through medicine and educational psychology.

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3. Special education is essentially a ‘rational response to these difficulties and deficits’ (Clark et al., 1998, pp. 157–8). This paradigm will be recognised as that which informed post-1944 segregated education. Some people were seen as normal; others had deficits and difficulties (‘handicaps’). Such deficits and difficulties were seen as objectively ‘real’ and susceptible to medical or psychological interventions. The aim of special education was to respond rationally to them, which meant giving priority to medical or psychological issues. Post-1944 segregated education was unsatisfactory in ways that are familiar. Most unsatisfactory was the fact that many children were systematically humiliated by being reduced to a category of handicap. We have discussed how they were excluded from the ‘Family of Man’—i.e. socially marginalised in ways that were unjust and unacceptable. However, positivism was not, according to proponents of post-positivism, confined to the post-1944 era. The 1981 Act, which followed the 1978 Warnock Report and brought large numbers of children with (what were now called) special needs into mainstream schools, was said to perpetuate positivist ideas about differences between children. It retained the idea that there are ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ children. It tried to address the needs of the latter group through medical and psychological interventions. It retained the idea that schools are primarily for ‘normal’ children, bringing in others almost as an afterthought and insofar as they did not interfere with the education of the ‘normal’ ones. Theoretically or metaphysically, it is argued, the post-Warnock educational era retained the three positivist assumptions listed above. The shift from positivism to post-positivism in the 1990s was accompanied by the conceptual shift from thinking in terms of integration to thinking in terms of inclusion. To integrate children (as Warnock proposed) is to bring together children whose difference in kind is not in question. (Differences between learners are assumed to be objectively ‘real’.) To include children in single institutions is, by contrast, to give up the idea that there are differences of kind independently of socially constructed differences. It is to make the concept of diversity more fundamental than the concept of difference, and this is expressed by saying that differences between learners are ‘objectively unreal’. The post-positivist paradigm negates the positivist paradigm as black negates white. At the heart of this paradigm shift is a pair of abstract claims:  Differences between learners are objectively ‘real’.  Differences between learners are objectively ‘unreal’. On the face of it, these express two different beliefs or opinions that a person may hold. ‘Do I believe that differences between learners are objectively real or unreal?’ sounds like a question that any intelligent person may ask herself and, after some reflection, answer. We could then line up the adherents of one claim opposite the adherents of the other, extracting from each a substantial position. However, this is precisely

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what we cannot do. Because it is so unclear what the assertion and denial really mean or amount to, the opportunities for serious dialogue or debate between adherents of each are sadly lacking. There is, in other words, an impoverishment of meaning that makes the debate between universal and moderate inclusionists polarised, repetitive and barren. I now need to substantiate this claim. The philosopher Wittgenstein (1968) wrote: ‘Must I know when I understand a word? Don’t I also sometimes imagine myself to understand a word . . . and then realise I did not understand it?’ Wittgenstein said memorably that languages ‘idles’ when it is not connected to the machinery, as it were, of our everyday lives. To understand a word is to understand the difference it makes, the work it does, the role it plays in particular situations. If we deny that something is objectively ‘real’, are we saying that it is fake? Are we warning people not to pay too much money for it? If we cannot answer this question, or identify some other practical difference between believing and disbelieving something, then we may not have a clue what we are talking about. What does it mean to deny that differences between learners are ‘real’? We should note, first, that the word ‘real’ rarely appears in this discussion without protective punctuation. As it appears in this context, it is not an everyday word, and this should arouse some suspicion. J. L. Austin wrote: ‘‘‘Real’’ is an absolutely normal word, with nothing new-fangled or technical or highly specialised about it’ (Austin, 1962, p. 62). He was warning people about the dangers of what one might call airy-fairy thinking: thinking that relies on language that ‘idles’, in Wittgenstein’s sense, because it is disconnected from everyday life. Austin and Wittgenstein were profoundly sceptical about metaphysics—they thought that much if not all of it was literally meaningless—and in this they may have gone too far. But they were right, in my view, to point out that the meaning of a term like ‘real’, when used outside everyday contexts, is at the very least hard to pin down. To earn its keep, as it were, metaphysics requires difficult, sustained reflection. Inverted commas around words that give off a metaphysical smell are no substitute for thinking. We need to ask what difference it makes whether one asserts or denies that differences between learners are objectively ‘real’. The answer is surely this: it makes an ethical difference and has nothing whatsoever to do with metaphysics. We have touched on the ethical difference. We have seen that people deny that differences between learners are real because they want to protect some children from the stigma of abnormality. The problem, however, is that this suggests that other people do not want to protect children from the stigma of abnormality. This suggestion is provocative and, I believe, in most cases untrue. I have argued that all inclusionists are motivated by a desire to protect children from disrespectful practices and attitudes. The appeal to metaphysics to support an ethical argument is misguided and also damaging. There is a logical difference between metaphysics and ethics, which I should like to express as follows. Metaphysics tolerates and sustains either–or thinking, whereas ethics is often corrupted by such

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thinking. Assuming for a moment that we understand the claim that differences between learners are objectively ‘real’, it then makes sense to offer people a choice: do you believe or disbelieve this? It is reasonable to suppose that a choice must be made, as a dealer in coins must decide whether a coin is genuine or counterfeit. The idea of paradigms reinforces this idea. You are either a positivist or a post-positivist. You cannot be both. Nothing could be less true when we turn to ethics. The art of thinking well ethically, if I may put it like this, is precisely to avoid creating false and unnecessary disjunctions by thinking through the options imaginatively. Yes, children should be protected from the stigma of abnormality. No, children’s needs should not be neglected. If children have needs which have traditionally earned them the stigma of abnormality, then we must acknowledge and try to meet these needs and also, as far as possible, protect them from the stigma of abnormality. The idea that we either protect them from stigma or address their needs properly is a huge assumption. It is also dangerous because it sets up false polarities, creating an atmosphere in which productive dialogue and debate are impossible. Imaginative solutions that synthesise apparent alternatives are discouraged. The metaphysical denial that differences are real slides into an ethical denial that your difficulties are real, provoking responses like the following: . . . there is a tendency within the social model of disability to deny the experience of our own bodies, insisting that physical differences and restrictions are entirely socially created. While environmental barriers and social attitudes are a crucial part of our experience to disability—and do indeed disable us—to suggest that this is all there is to it is to deny the personal experience of physical or intellectual restrictions (quoted in Oliver, 1998, p. 38).

This is a disabled person asserting: the restrictions of my body are real. One can understand why someone might be tempted to say this, and why the parents of children with disabilities are often desperately frustrated because their voices are not heard. The post-positivist paradigm denies such parents a voice by interpreting their appeals as an expression of erroneous and outdated metaphysics. This leads to the extreme polarisation that we see in special education today, and the result, as Brahm Norwich has rightly said (in a personal communication), is a policy impasse. My concern about the role of the concept of reality in special education is captured in this passage by Iris Murdoch: There is a two-way movement in philosophy, a movement towards the building of elaborate theories, and a move back again towards the consideration of some simple and obvious facts. McTaggart says that time is unreal, Moore replies that he has just had his breakfast. Both of these aspects of philosophy are necessary to it (Murdoch, 1970, p. 1).

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I am concerned that special educators have become so bewitched by their theories and so intent on their theory-building that they forget (to turn Moore’s remark around) that some children have not yet had their breakfast. By this I mean that what is forgotten is that some children are losing out on an education. This impression is confirmed if we look at a rather confusing editorial chapter in a book about special educational theory. Theorising Special Education grew out of a concern that ‘the state of theorising in special education was complex, not to say confused’ (Clark et al., 1998, p. 1). What follows is a commentary on this theorising which is as confusing as the theorising itself. Theorists, it is said, work in an ‘intellectual ghetto’ involved in endless re-cycling of attacks on the positivist paradigm. There is ‘internal fragmentation’ in which commentators ‘divide themselves into camps engaged as much in critiquing each other’s work as in developing provision for vulnerable children’ (ibid., p. 164). All this sounds like philosophers who are bewitched by the idea that Time is unreal. We are told that such theorists are ‘not likely to be predominantly interested in empirical enquiry or in questions that demand empirical answers’ (ibid.); on the contrary, ‘set positions are rehearsed with no very clear means whereby founding assumptions can be problematised or changed’ (ibid.). From these remarks, it sounds as though theorising in special education is in a bad way indeed. Vulnerable children and their needs or pains or difficulties are apparently no longer on the agenda. These are empirical matters, in which special educators of this ilk are ‘not predominantly interested’. Instead, they are interested in ‘set positions’ that are immune to criticism or enquiry. It is puzzling, having read this, to come across the sentence: ‘None of this constitutes a criticism of work undertaken within this paradigm’ (p. 163). In this sentence (and elsewhere) the editors distance themselves from the unease with the state of theorising that the book sets out to address. I see this as a serious and unresolved equivocation. I would argue that it permeates not only this book, but also the entire debate as it is conducted from a universalist or post-positivist perspective.

VI CONCLUSION

I want to conclude with a few remarks about the ethical importance of the concept of reality in discussions about special education. I begin by quoting two universalists whose theoretical position is that all differences between people are socially constructed. The first, Mike Oliver, writes: ‘The reality is, of course, that disabled people’s lives cannot be divided up in this way to suit professional activity (Oliver, 1996, p. 37, my emphasis). This appears in the course of an argument to the effect that many disabled people’s lives have been taken over by professionals and pseudo-professionals. The second passage is this, by Derrick Armstrong: ‘The rhetorical emphasis upon mainstream schools as the point of delivery for educational support [under New Labour] was hardly new. Given the continuing reliance upon special

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schools for the most disabled and troublesome pupils the reality did not represent such a radical departure from the past as it was claimed to be’ (Armstrong, 2005, p. 3, my emphasis). Both Oliver and Armstrong use the term ‘reality’ (without inverted commas) in the course of an argument to the effect that something of importance has been overlooked. Both are committed to the proposition that there is no such thing as ‘reality’ beyond our social constructions. My purpose here is not to make a cheap point. It is to argue that the denigration of reality that permeates universalism is not only pseudometaphysical but unsustainable. Reality is not a super-realm to which our statements correspond or fail to correspond. Reality is what we point to when we are engaged in a debate with someone who, we feel, fails to see things clearly. We draw attention to reality in the course of an argument. We talk about reality when we try to be truthful or get something right. The concept of reality serves a purpose when we try to engage with each other and with the circumstances or situations in which we find ourselves. Raimond Gaita expresses this well: Ethical understanding is often coming to see sense where we had not seen it before, or coming to see depth where we had not seen it before. It is seldom learning something completely new (there are no Nobel-prize winning discoveries in ethics) and it is seldom seeing that there is, after all, a valid argument to support positions we had previously judged to be dubious. It is often seeing what someone has made of something that we had often heard before (Gaita, 2004, p. 281).

The term ‘reality’ is not used in this passage, but it seems to me that it is implied. The concept of reality plays a crucial role in enlightened and, I would say, respectful dialogue. We use the word ‘reality’ quite literally in the hope of enlightening people, bringing them to share our view. The use of this word, far from expressing a dogmatic or deluded notion of absolute truth, may carry a supposition that the other person is willing to respect one’s view, take it seriously, consider re-thinking her position. The freedom to say ‘the reality is this, not that’, as Oliver and Armstrong do unwittingly, is essential for fruitful dialogue. It takes us beyond the stilted, consensual thinking in which motives and assumptions are ascribed to large numbers of people as though there is no possibility of variation. It is essential that special educators hear individual voices and attend to the realities to which they draw attention. There are many disabled voices, not just one, and many attitudes towards disabled people, not merely a prevailing attitude that issues from an abstraction called ‘society’. The term ‘reality’ plays a crucial role in a respectful dialogue between individuals, and this is what special education frequently lacks. Indeed one could say that what is needed is a truly inclusive dialogue, in which differences between disputants are heard and treated with respect. There is something deeply paradoxical about a debate that aims to secure respect for all children, conducted (as I believe it often is) without respect.

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In this chapter I have called for a substantial improvement in the quality of special educational debate. There is a backlash against inclusion—not against its fundamental values, but against its insistence on unconditional universality. This needs to be taken seriously, for nothing less is at stake than the decent—i.e. non-humiliating—treatment of some children. Children who cannot flourish in inclusive mainstream schools are no doubt a small minority; but their existence has been highlighted in all sorts of ways, and it needs to be acknowledged by all participants in the debate. The following is no doubt true: ‘we should focus individualised special needs strategies only on the very small minority of children who genuinely need provision that is ‘‘additional to or different from’’ what an enhanced mainstream can provide on a group basis’ (Dyson, 2002). I have argued that failure to address the needs of a ‘very small minority’ means failure to accord respect to all, in favour of the spurious notion of inclusion for all.

REFERENCES Ainscow, M. (1998) Would it Work in Theory? Arguments for Practitioner Research and Theorising in the Special Needs Field, in: C. Clark, A. Dyson and A. Millward (eds) Theorising Special Education (London and New York, Routledge). Armstrong, D. (2005) Reinventing ‘Inclusion’: New Labour and the Cultural Politics of Special Education, Oxford Review of Education, 31.1, pp. 135–151. Austin, J. L. (1962) Sense and Sensibilia (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Barton, L. (1993) Labels, Markets and Inclusive Education, in: J. Visser and G. Upton (eds) Special Educational Needs after Warnock (London, David Fulton). Blackburn, S. (2001) Being Good: A Short Introduction to Ethics (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Burne, J. (2005) Say it Loud, Autistic And Proud, Observer, (13.11.2005). Centre for Studies in Inclusive Education (CSIE) (undated) Reasons Against Segregated Schooling, http://inclusion.uwe.ac.uk/csie/reasonsagstsegschooling.pdf Cigman, R. (2001) Self-esteem and the Confidence to Fail, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 35.4, pp. 561–576. Cigman, R. (2004) Situated Self-esteem, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 38.1, pp. 91–105. Cigman, R. (2007) Editorial Introduction, in: R. Cigman (ed.) Included or Excluded? The Challenge of the Mainstream for Some SEN Children (London, Routledge). Clark, C., Dyson, A., and Millward, A. (1998) Theorising Special Education (London, Routledge). Dyson, A. (2002) Special Needs, Disability and Social Inclusion—The End Of A Beautiful Friendship? http://www.nasen.org.uk/Documents/Disability%20publication%20May%2002.doc Dyson, A. and Slee, R. (2001) Special Needs Education from Warnock to Salamanca: the Triumph of Liberalism?, in: J. Furlong and R. Phillips (eds) Education, Reform and the State—Twenty Five Years of Politics, Policy and Practice (London, RoutledgeFalmer). Gaita, R. (2004) Good and Evil (London, Routledge). Kant, I. (1785) Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, passim, but especially chapter 1 (any edition). Low, C. (2007) A Defence of Moderate Inclusion, in: R. Cigman (ed.) Included or Excluded? The Challenge of the Mainstream for Some SEN Children (London, Routledge). Margalit, A. (1996) The Decent Society (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). Moore, C. (2007) Speaking as a Parent: Thoughts About Educational Inclusion for Autistic Children, in: R. Cigman (ed.) Included or Excluded? The Challenge of the Mainstream for Some SEN Children (London, Routledge). Murdoch, I. (1970) The Sovereignty of Good (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul). Oliver, M. (1996) Understanding Disability: From Theory to Practice (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan).

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Pirrie, A. and Head, G. (2007) Martians in the Playground: Researching Special Educational Needs, Oxford Review of Education, 33.1, pp. 19–31. Rogers, C. (2007a) Parenting and Inclusive Education: Discovering Difference, Experiencing Difficulty (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan). Rogers, C. (2007b) Experiencing an ‘Inclusive’ Education: Parents and their Children with ‘Special Educational Needs’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 28.1, pp. 55–68. Sainsbury, C. (2000) Martian in the Playground: Understanding the Schoolchild with Asperger’s Syndrome (Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage Publications). Sinclair, J. (1998a) Concerns about Inclusion from Within the Disability Community, http:// web.syr.edu/jisincla/inclusion.htm Sinclair, J. (1998b) Why I Dislike ‘Person First’ Language, http://web.syr.edu/jisincla/ person_first.htm UNESCO (1994) The UNESCO Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Educational Needs Education (Paris, UNESCO). Warnock, M. (1998) An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Ethics (London, Duckworth). Warnock, M. (2005) Special Educational Needs: A New Look (London, Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain). Wittgenstein, L. (1968) Philosophical Investigations (Oxford, Basil Blackwell).

18 The ‘Futures’ of Queer Children and the Common School Ideal KEVIN MCDONOUGH At the most basic level, a ‘common school’ can be regarded as a school which is open to, and intended for, all students within a given society regardless of their specific differentiating characteristics (Terence McLaughlin, 2003, p. 122).

INTRODUCTION

A fundamental test of the common school’s legitimacy is this: Can the common school ideal, and the liberal political principles that underwrite it, coherently accommodate reasonable and legitimate forms of moral and cultural diversity, especially those forms that have historically been marginalised, discriminated against or excluded? In this chapter, I focus on an especially urgent challenge to the legitimacy of the common school ideal—one that has hardly been addressed within contemporary debates within liberal philosophy of education.1 This challenge arises from claims to accommodation by queer people and queer communities—claims that are based on notions of queerness and queer identity that are seriously underrepresented within contemporary liberal political and educational theory. At its simplest, the question I wish to address is how liberal principles that underwrite the common school ideal are capable, if they are capable at all, of providing a coherent ethical and educational basis for accommodating and recognising queer people and queer identities. QUEER THEORY MEETS LIBERALISM: FUTURITY, AUTONOMY AND FLOURISHING

The view that liberal theory and liberal educational institutions cannot adequately accommodate the legitimate claims of queer children (and adults) has recently been advanced by queer theorists who are beginning to critically engage with the arguments of ‘mainstream’ liberal philosophers of education. A good example of the willingness on the part of queer theorists to engage critically with liberal arguments can be found in recent articles by Cris Mayo (2006a, 2006b), and for that reason her work provides the primary reference point in queer theory for my arguments in this chapter. The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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Perhaps Mayo’s deepest concern is that liberalism, and the educational institutions it sponsors, have thus far failed to address, and perhaps cannot address, the fact that ‘queer children are denied a sense of futurity’ in liberal societies and in public schools (Mayo, 2006a, p. 473). As Mayo puts it, ‘For a philosophy and political practice dedicated to interrogating traditions and opening possibilities for innovation, liberalism has been suspiciously unwilling to extend its analysis to sexual freedom, its embrace of autonomy to queer critique, its sense of progression toward new possibilities to queer futurities’ (p. 471). In developing a liberal response to queer theory’s concerns, I follow Mayo’s usage of the terms ‘queer’, ‘queer identity’ and ‘queer children’. According to Mayo, ‘one reason theorists have turned to using the concept ‘‘queer’’ is to underline the uncertainty and shifts in sexual identities, practices, and communities’ that queerness raises for queer people and communities, and for the wider population (p. 469). A number of complexities are worth attending to here. First, ‘queerness’ refers to more than a person’s sexual desire or preferred sexual behaviour. For example, it implies a certain orientation to the ways in which one’s gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered identity unsettles and ‘disrupts’ dominant heterosexual norms, roles, laws and communities. Thus, there is an overtly political element to the term that is lacking or less prominent in terms like ‘homosexual’ or ‘sexual orientation’. This political element is explicitly oppositional with respect to the dominance and exclusiveness of heterosexual norms and assumptions in law, policy and public institutions. The term ‘queer identity’ also suggests an affiliation with self-identified queer communities. Not all homosexual people will accept queer affiliations in this sense, though queer theorists will argue that queerness still applies in a more limited sense to all gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people, even in the absence of felt affiliation. For example, some people with homosexual desires may live their lives in heterosexual marriages. And some homosexual couples will live according to roles and values that seamlessly merge with those of many heterosexual families; and they may have little interest in highlighting or drawing attention to the main difference between them and their heterosexual neighbours—the fact that both partners in the relationship share the same gender. Nevertheless, as queer theorists will point out, that difference may not be missed and may not be accepted by the heterosexual neighbours and citizens with whom gay and lesbian couples must share a society and polis; and the laws and political policies of the liberal state may not include them as equal citizens in many respects. In this way, the concept of ‘queerness’ captures a sort of social ‘rupture’ that is present even when homosexuals reject the queer identity label. Finally, and most importantly, the term ‘queer children’ refers to children whose sexual identity is not simply ‘in formation’ as are the sexual identities of all children, but children whose identities depend upon social categories that are as yet not widely understood or recognised, and often are excluded by liberal law, or within public political and social discourses within liberal societies. Because these identities are poorly understood,

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because they are viewed with considerable ‘animus’ by heterosexual citizens, and because their sexual differences are not assigned equal value within liberal law and politics, Mayo argues that queer children are ‘barely recognizable’, particularly in public schools (p. 469). I am particularly concerned with issues having to do with the ‘recognition’ and accommodation of queer children in common schools. However, it might seem that the preceding discussion of queerness makes the notion of ‘queer children’ and their recognition in schools a problematic one. If children’s identities are still developing into forms that are poorly understood, in part because those forms are still emerging and changing, then it might seem premature to speak of the need to support and recognise those identities in schools. For one thing, it is not clear what is being supported and recognised; and as such it may be that the intention to ‘recognise’ and ‘support’ gets distorted into forms that are both anti-liberal and against the best interests of queer children. For example, if identities are poorly understood, then the danger may arise that schools will socialise children into pre-existing moulds based on educators’ distorted and inauthentic conception of what a queer identity should be, rather than leaving children free to choose and endorse their own conceptions of queerness through an examination of how queer people actually might live worthwhile lives.2 In addition to impeding children’s autonomy, this educational approach would constitute a damaging form of identity misrecognition, since it would change and distort queer identities (perhaps unintentionally), rather than recognise them. Here I want to stress two points. First, the demand for queer recognition need not assume that we know beforehand precisely what forms of queer social identity forms are being recognised; nor does it require that we be able to identify exactly which children are ‘queer children’ and which ones are not, so that we can on that basis ‘recognise’ them accordingly. Rather, it assumes that some children will discover at some point in their development—perhaps not until they are adults—that they cannot live well as heterosexuals. Furthermore, it is precisely because we cannot pick out beforehand which children these will be that all children require exposure to alternative models of identity, including queer models, upon which to base their developing individual sexual identities (for a compatible view see, for example, Brighouse, 2000, pp. 74–5; Brighouse, 2006, pp. 17–18). The second point I want to emphasise is that the demand for queer recognition need not assume that the boundaries between queer children and heterosexual or ‘straight’ children are crystal clear and absolutely fixed. Again, the main assumption underlying the demand for queer recognition in common schools is that some children will find that their identities simply cannot ‘synch up’ comfortably with conceptions of good living that heterosexuality provides. For these children, sexual identity will not be a matter of choice, or it will be a matter of limited choice because it will exclude heterosexual options while remaining open to a variety of alternatives. But this is compatible with a wide range of (necessarily speculative) views about the ultimate origins and sources of

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sexuality and sexual difference. It may be, for example, that for many children the discovery that their queer identity is not a matter of choice is a complex matter of socialisation and genetic endowment. For others, the question of whether to live as a heterosexual or as a homosexual or as a bisexual person may seem more open-ended. It may also be that, for some, heterosexuality and homosexuality are ‘phases’ through which one passes. This is not objectionable speculation from the liberal point of view so long as we acknowledge both possible tracks along which the ‘phase’ might constitute a moment of progression. That is, it must be acknowledged that one child might develop in such a way such that her heterosexuality is a phase in an otherwise homosexual life; while a different child could develop in such a way that homosexuality is a phase in a life whose future is heterosexual (Reiss, 1997, p. 348). The significance of these two points is this. Although we may lack certainty about which children will turn out to be ‘queer’ and although there may be differing views about how fixed (or fluid) we should interpret sexual identities to be, some children will turn out to reject heterosexual ways of life and heterosexual identities, and in some cases this will not be a matter of choice at all; in other cases it will be a matter of choice only among various non-heterosexual identities; in still other cases there may be a choice to alter one’s sexuality in order to adjust it to new circumstances and new self-knowledge. Thus, uncertainty and disagreement about how to draw the line between queer and non-queer identities does not obviate the need for an exploration of why and how liberal common schools might accommodate queer identities. Such an elaboration is needed in order to ensure that children have educational opportunities that include the possibility of a ‘queer future’. LIBERAL AUTONOMY AND ‘FUTURITY’

What does all this have to do with liberal education and the recognition of queerness in the common school? The connections to liberalism may already seem quite clear, at least in outline—especially the connection to liberal concerns about democratic citizenship and personal autonomy. But does pursuing these educational aims require something that we might want to call the ‘recognition’ of queerness and queer identities in common schools? to address this question, I begin with John White’s recent comments: A core liberal value is personal autonomy. An autonomous person is one who determines how he or she should live according to their own, unpressured, picture of a worthwhile life. But autonomy on its own is not enough. A tyrant might also value this, but only for himself, just as a certain sort of elitist might think autonomy fine for the upper classes to which she belongs, but not for the common people. A liberal makes no such discriminations among persons: personal autonomy is a good applicable to all. Equality of consideration is, therefore, a second core liberal value (White, 2003, p. 147).

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The connection White emphasises between autonomy and equal consideration is crucially important, since it highlight’s liberalism’s concern to extend autonomy to individuals from historically excluded and marginalised groups. Liberal schooling is, of course, seen as a vital instrument for extending autonomy in this way. It follows from this claim that the autonomy of queer children is as valuable and important a political and educational concern of the liberal state as that of any other child. It also follows that liberal education cannot legitimately ‘educate children away from queer futures’ any more than it can educate children ‘away from heterosexual futures’ (Mayo, 2006a, p. 473). These are matters for autonomous choice, and liberal education must treat them as such.

EQUAL CONSIDERATION: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPELUNKING AND QUEERNESS?

Why, though, does equal consideration of autonomy require explicit recognition of queer identities? In order to autonomously choose a life as a spelunker,3 centred on the goods and skills of spelunking, I need not have been familiarised with the activity of spelunking itself until adulthood. Certain cognitive and affective capacities developed as a child, in relation to an examination of other ways of life may have prepared me sufficiently to evaluate this and other ways of life, that I did not become familiar with until after my schooling had ended. The question arises, then, why does promoting the autonomy of queer children require that we familiarise children with queer ways of life and ‘queer identities’ prior to adulthood? Here I ask this question without considering the school’s role. What I mean to ask, simply, is why we might think that children’s autonomy depends on their becoming familiar with specifically queer roles and queer communities and queer identities? Why are not generic capacities for critical thinking and sympathetic imagination for alternative ways of life sufficient? The reason it is important to answer these questions is that if the failure explicitly to expose children to queer ways of life does not affect the development of their autonomy, then we have no reason to suppose that a concern for children’s autonomy requires the school to recognise queer identities. But if queer children’s autonomy does depend on actual engagement with queer options, then there exists a compelling prima facie reason for the common school to facilitate such engagement. I shall argue that the compelling prima facie reason does exist, and that it entails a form of ‘recognition’ for queerness in common schools. Alasdair MacIntyre’s comments on how the ability to imagine different futures is connected to the capacity for practical reasoning are extremely helpful here. MacIntyre is interested in particular in understanding the various dimensions of ‘the child’s transition from dependent infancy to the agency of an independent practical reasoner’ (MacIntyre, 1999, p. 72). One such dimension, he notes, is the acquisition of the ability to imagine ‘different possible futures for me’. The full passage in which this comment occurs is worth quoting:

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How we structure our understanding of the future depends in part of course on the established use of clocks, calendars, and modes of scheduling of the culture in which we find ourselves. But as a practical reasoner I have to be able to imagine different possible futures for me, to imagine myself moving forward from the starting point of the present in different directions. For different or alternative futures present me with different and alternative sets of goods to be achieved, with different possible modes of flourishing. And it is important that I should be able to envisage both nearer and more distant futures and to attach possibilities, even if only in a rough and ready way, to the future results of acting in one way rather than another. For this both knowledge and imagination are necessary (MacIntyre, 1999, pp. 74–5).

MacIntyre here is writing in the context of a discussion of how disabled children might be subjected to ‘too constrained and impoverished a view of future possibilities’ (p. 75) in what might be called ‘able-normative’ societies.4 Importantly, according to MacIntyre’s account, the impoverishment of imagination about disabled children’s ‘future possibilities’ is not primarily a characteristic of the disabled individual (though it obviously affects the disabled more profoundly than it does the abled). Rather, it is a characteristic primarily of ‘the groups of which [the disabled child] is a member’. To illustrate: one example of the way in which ablenormativity exerts a withering pressure on the ‘imagined possible futures’ of disabled children lies in what Hans Reinders calls ‘the presumption of suffering’ of the disabled and those who care for them (Reinders, 2000, ch. 10). As MacIntyre notes, something like this presumption is often attached to characteristics such as ‘blindness, deafness, deformed and injured limbs, and the like . . .’; and because this presumption suffuses communal norms, institutions, modes of relationship, etc., it and other similarly harmful presumptions ‘exclude the sufferer from more than a very, very limited set of possibilities. And this has often been treated as if it were a fact of nature’ (MacIntyre, 1999, p. 75). What MacIntyre’s discussion highlights, most importantly, is how communal attitudes, norms and relationships help to ‘structure our understanding of the future’ at the level of individual development, upbringing and education. Furthermore, important elements of communal life that structure the development (or lack of development) of skills of independent practical reasoning are mutually reinforcing sets of rules (laws), virtues and practices. Without sustained and engaged exposure to these elements of a community in ‘good order’ then the capacities for independent practical reasoning can develop only inadequately, in ways that diminish our individual and communal ‘view of future possibilities’ (p. 85). These reflections on the ways in which the agency of disabled people is dependent on (in part) communally structured ‘visions of future possibility’ apply similarly to the case of queer children. If the communities of which children are a part (here I do not just mean those children who turn out to be queer, but all children) fail to include expansive visions of queer possibilities, then the ability of queer children (i.e. those who turn out to be unable to live their lives as heterosexuals) to

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develop into independent practical reasoners will be constrained to the extent that they will be unable to link up their reasoning to realistic and expansive ‘imagined futures’ involving valuable and worthwhile queer roles, communities and identities. Relatedly, they will not be able acquire sufficient knowledge of the goods those communities afford their members, and they will be unable to achieve a sufficiently vivid sense of the virtues, practices and rules that provide group members with a meaningful understanding of what their respective intermediate and longterm alternative future possibilities might consist in. The problem in the case of queer children is not just that their communities lack a sufficiently expansive range of queer futures. Rather, the problem is also that those communities may actively to foreclose queer possibilities as children’s capacities of independent practical reasoning are developing. These forces of foreclosure are even more powerful in the case of queer children (arguably) than they are in the case of disabled children. And one reason for this has to do with the differences of family relationship that structure queer children’s futures differently from those of other children, including children with disabilities. QUEER CHILDREN AND THE FAMILY

In societies where heterosexual roles and norms are dominant in politics, law and civil society, numerous socially acceptable and approved pathways for heterosexual identity development are available for children to examine and choose from. Furthermore, families are likely to support and encourage children’s access to and familiarity with at least some if not many of these different social contexts so as to increase their opportunities and to expand their imaginative horizons. At the very least, they are not likely to restrict children’s access to heterosexual roles and communities simply because those roles are heterosexual ones. Furthermore, heterosexual children can usually count on a good deal of parental love, support and care as they grow up; or at least their sexuality does not usually present the prospect of the parental withdrawal or rejection as it may for queer children. At any rate, the development of a capacity for personal autonomy and well-being is not typically threatened for heterosexual children due to the lack of available or valuable heterosexual role models, communities, etc., though the development of these same capacities may be threatened for just these reasons in the case of queer children. Queer roles and communities are also available within liberal civil societies, and as such they are potentially accessible to queer children and queer youth. But the availability and accessibility in this case is comparatively thin and restricted, especially when it comes to children. First, queer communities may be few and far between—in part because those adult forms of community tend to be concentrated in certain areas of large urban centres (Levy, 2005, p. 183). Furthermore, queer communities are likely to be subject to strong social and parental disapproval; and thus exposure and access to these communities for young people will often be viewed as harmful and dangerous, rather than as providing a rich and

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textured social fabric for positive identity formation. Finally, queer children are more likely than heterosexual children to be members of families that do not favour their sexual identity and that thus seek to change it, impede it or at the very least neglect its development and flourishing. Problematically, then, on the one hand, queer and ‘proto-queer’ children will often find that their emerging sense of personal identity fits uncomfortably, if at all, into the socially accepted ‘heteronormative’ pathways. On the other hand, the adults who have the power over and responsibility for queer children’s sense of future possibilities are unlikely to facilitate access to queer communities that might support a more expansive sense of future queer possibilities. At the same time, the extra-familial communities of which queer children are members—families, neighbourhoods, churches, local community organisations, etc.—will likely reinforce a diminished sense of future queer possibilities, rather than expand them. This will not always be due to ‘animus’ towards queerness or queer people. Rather, it may result from the lack of fit between social categories available for identity recognition, on the one hand, and queer children’s complex selfunderstandings, on the other hand. Thus, for example, a child’s parents may be scrupulously committed to liberal principles of non-discrimination while also expressing disapproval and confusion at their son’s periodic and (to the parents) unpredictable flirtations with cross-gender dressing. As this example illustrates, heterosexual families and communities will often lack concrete, phenomenological understandings of how people who identify inconsistently or not at all with established gender categories negotiate their complex self-understandings. As such, their child’s selfunderstanding is likely to exist in part in the interstices of his family’s or his local community’s accepted social identity categories. And thus even the sympathetic heterosexual family or community may be ill-equipped to help a queer child make the transition from the confusions and dislocation associated with interstitial self-understanding to socially accepted and meaningful identity. Thus, queer children who grow up in heterosexual families and communities will likely find themselves in social contexts that provide too limited a set of experiences to ‘navigate the complexity and possibility of language’, experience and meaning they need in order to explore ‘future possibilities’ (Mayo, 2006b, p. 43). This also constitutes an important difference between queer children and heterosexual children; hetero-sexual children are far more likely to have substantial exposure to caring communities and families that provide expansive and meaningful visions of their future possibilities. These complexities of sexuality can and do create considerable confusion and distortion about queer sexual identities, both from the perspective of queer children themselves and on the part of non-queer people whose responses to and interpretations of queerness, or perhaps absence of response to and lack of interpretation of queerness, play an important role in the shaping of queer identities. These confusions are likely to have harmful effects on queer children’s identity formation—on their autonomous flourishing. Martha Nussbaum neatly summarises the

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complex and various ways in which processes of misrecognition and lack of recognition toward queer people can cause harm: ‘Like E. M. Forster’s character Maurice, many gay and lesbian [and, Mayo would add, bisexual and transgendered people] seem indistinguishable from nongay people— or, rather, distinguishable only by the experience of discovering that what they want is socially unacceptable’ (Nussbaum, 2000, p. 232). Unlike that of heterosexual children, whether they come from religious or non-religious families, the experience of growing up in a heteronormatively constituted society may be an experience of pervasive hostility and harm. It may also be an experience of growing up in families and communities that lack expansive possibilities for ‘queer futures’; and it is likely to be an experience that insulates one from or bars access to more friendly and hospitable queer communities and social contexts. But if MacIntyre is right, as he surely is, that individual agency and flourishing depend on ‘knowledge and imagination’ about one’s future possibilities and that this must be developed through concrete, phenomenologically rich encounters with real communities, stories and identities, then the problems facing queer children seem especially severe. The fundamental problem may not be that queer children have fewer opportunities than heterosexual children to develop a sense of autonomous flourishing. The problem may be that queer children’s education and upbringing provides so little exposure to the material conditions of individual agency and practical reasoning about future possibilities that queer lack any significant opportunities for flourishing at all. (For a different but compatible argument, see Brighouse, 2000, p. 73.) This point highlights the need for children to have access to actual queer communities and raises the question of what role the common school might play. Here we can return to the example of the hypothetical autonomous spelunker that began this discussion. The autonomous adult can presumably choose spelunking as a way of life, without having been exposed to that way of life in his upbringing or education, because two important conditions are met. First, spelunking is a way of life that is available within a social sub-community whose practices, rules and virtues are practised and taught in such a way that I can learn them if exposed to them. Second, my upbringing and education as an independent practical reasoner has not already foreclosed spelunking as an option for me by the time I am exposed to it. That option is ‘open’ as a future possibility (in this case, the very near future) because it is continuous with and unimpeded by what I have learned as a developing independent practical reasoner up until this point. My society is not pervasively and intensely ‘antispelunking’, although spelunking is regarded by most members of my community as an exotic and eccentric way of life. And the skills needed for spelunking mesh rather smoothly with the norms, virtues and practices that I have learned in prior stages of my education and development. There are no serious tensions or conflicts, and numerous areas of compatibility and mutual reinforcement between my past identity incarnations (which were once future possibilities as well) and my current ‘possible future’—spelunking.

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But for many queer children, neither of these conditions can be taken for granted at the outset. And as a result, the task of choosing queer options as adults is likely to be sharply discontinuous with their development as ‘practical reasoners’, rather than continuous as in the case of the autonomous spelunker. The point I want to stress is just this. That the ‘transition from dependent infant to independent practical reasoner’ that MacIntyre speaks of requires a certain sort of educational community—a community that children lack in the home or in most locally available groups. Furthermore, independent practical reasoning is constitutive of autonomy. The capacity for autonomy, like the capacity for independent practical reasoning, cannot be based on either wishful thinking based on highly abstract fantasies, or by a restricted imagination based on a limited range of options that excludes many worthwhile possibilities. As such, queer children require exposure to queer communities that provide expansive visions of future possibilities as queer people.

LIBERALISM, THE COMMON SCHOOL IDEAL AND QUEER FUTURES

In the preceding section I articulated and defended three interlocking claims. First, the development of personal autonomy depends upon an upbringing and education that attends to the conditions necessary for developing and exercising certain capacities of practical reasoning. Second, these capacities of practical reasoning are essential for children to have a vision of possible ‘queer futures’. Third, developing these capacities of reasoning depends in part on children developing a reasonably thick familiarity with and understanding of actual queer lives and queer communities. These conclusions suggest some relatively straightforward practical recommendations for the recognition of queerness in the common school. In this section, I would like to briefly address five areas of concern. First, common schools would need to make serious and sustained attempts to address issues of what seems to be pervasive and persistent violence, bullying and other forms of harassment against queer children in schools. In the US, schools such as the Harvey Milk School in New York City have been established specifically for gay, lesbian and transgendered kids. These schools are partially funded by public money; and the use of public funds is justified in part because these schools are a response to the widespread violence and emotional harm that queer children experience in public schools, in their families and in the wider society (Dennis and Harlow, 1986; see also Mayo, 2006a).5 As D. L. Dennis and R. E. Harlow explain, the students in schools such as the Harvey Milk School have often been subjected to violence at the hands of other students and teachers. Furthermore, this abuse is sometimes tacitly endorsed by school administrators who refuse to extend protection to queer students even when they become aware that abuse is occurring, and even when they are aware of which specific individuals are committing the abuse (Dennis and Harlow, 1986, pp. 446–456). Mayo emphasises throughout her paper the multiple and complex ways in which ‘animus’ against queers might manifest itself in

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liberal societies and in common schools, and she emphasises the fact that merely adopting official policies of anti-discrimination—for example, speech codes or anti-bullying policies—does not sufficiently address the ways in which discriminatory and violent treatment toward queer students can persist in the presence of such policies, since teachers, administrators and students often fail to recognise such treatment when it occurs; and they may recognise it but nonetheless tolerate it or overlook it when queer students are the target. Where deep-seated animus towards queerness exists, individuals will find creative and sometimes hard-to-identify ways of rationalising and obscuring officially prohibited discrimination and violence. Certainly, ensuring the psychological, emotional and physical well-being of children is a precondition of their developing capacities of autonomous practical reasoning, if anything is. A second area that requires attention is the curriculum. In order to develop realistic and valuable conception of possible queer futures, children would need detailed and rich examples of queer role models. This might include narratives (historical and fictional) of gay, lesbian and transgendered people that provide a sense of the fullness of their lives. These stories would also need to be incorporated into the curriculum not as tokenistic ‘special features’ that highlight the eccentricity or exotic nature of queer lives and communities. They would need to be incorporated seamlessly as part of children’s educational induction into the complex and multi-faceted, cosmopolitan cultural context of liberaldemocratic societies. Narratives and other cultural products including queer elements would need to address issues not merely to do with the ‘different’ sexual behaviour and sexual desires of gay, lesbian and transgendered people, but also concerning the ways in which their queerness has affected the social, personal, economic and political dimensions of their lives. Attention would need to be given to the ways in which contemporary liberal societies have broached or failed to broach issues of queer oppression and discrimination, and also the ways in which anti-discriminatory legal and political policies address certain aspects of inequality while leaving other aspects of social life unchanged, at least in the short term, as it pertains to the construction and treatment of queer people. It would also need to address the ways in which laws that incorporate heterosexual norms affect both personal and political aspects of life for queer individuals and queer communities. A third important area of concern is teacher training and hiring practices. Teachers in the common school would need to be knowledgeable about queer life and also be disposed to treat the complex nature of queerness (e.g., in its political, legal, social and personal dimensions) both generously and critically. This is necessary in order to provide children with a realistic picture of what possible queer lives might involve. Relatedly, it is necessary for providing children with either an excessively discouraging picture of the struggles against oppression that such lives often entail, or an excessively unrealistic and fantastic picture of the goods and values that can be derived from such a life. In order to cultivate the capacity for personal autonomy rooted in concrete abilities

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of practical reasoning, the aim should be to provide a richly concrete, nuanced and detailed, future-oriented sense of what such lives involve. In this way, attempts to attract queer teachers for teacher education programmes, and for public schools, should be included as policy priorities for the common school. And all teachers should be provided with training that would equip them to undertake competently the tasks outlined above. Furthermore, and fourth, attention should be given to the fact that school officials and school boards are not always, to say the least, supportive of teachers like those described in the preceding paragraph (Reiss, 1997, p. 350). And so in addition to broadly based, sometimes legally imposed, policies of anti-discrimination based on ‘sexual orientation’, some serious attempts must be made to ensure that official policies are applied in such a fashion as to take account of the manner in which queer children may be discriminated against in ‘hidden’ or at least ignored ways within the textured, complex social life of school communities. Here, MacIntyre’s point about the complex and mutually reinforcing relationships of laws (or rules, such as speech codes and the like), practices and virtues within communal life apply with some force to school communities. Fifth, and finally, attempts to address issues of recognition and accommodation of queerness and queer identities must address in some way the role that specifically queer communities might play in children’s education. As Mayo puts it, ‘because liberal theorists consider levels of civic engagement to move from family to state, they miss the place of subcommunities and social movements in shaping who youth may become and how they may arrange their lives’ (Mayo, 2006a, p. 484). Here the role that state-supported common schools might play is limited but still significant. Common schools cannot simulate or emulate queer sub-communities; nor can they adopt queer communal values as ‘constitutive’ of the school community. Doing so would violate liberal commitments to inclusiveness and equal consideration. Nevertheless, common schools might seek to find creative ways to foster links and interactions with queer communities. Where possible, this might be done through field trips, guest speakers and perhaps consultations with queer activists regarding the inclusion of queer issues within the school curriculum. Where actual interaction is impossible, due to geographical concerns for example, virtual interaction is possible through web-based learning models. In any case, children’s awareness of and familiarity with such communities will be an important part of their education, especially as they make the transition from family and schoolbased lives to lives of greater independence from those institutions.

CONCLUSION: QUEER THEORY AND LIBERALISM—IS A CIVIL UNION POSSIBLE?

In seeking to advance the aims of queer liberation, liberalism is often the favoured target of queer critique. This is understandable and sometimes

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appropriate, especially when the liberalism they challenge is that of liberal realpolitik and of existing liberal educational practices and institutions. Nevertheless, my general conclusion in this chapter has been that liberal principles of justice and their educational correlates need not stand in the way of political and educational reforms that significantly accommodate queer recognition in public schools. Moreover, I have tried to show that liberal principles can help to advance the aims of queer recognition more fully than is commonly acknowledged, by either liberal or queer theorists. In particular, I have tried to illuminate some promising routes for extending liberal recognition to queer children and queer communities within public schools. Nevertheless, it is also important to acknowledge that queer theory and liberalism are to some extent at least embarked on divergent projects. Liberalism is a political theory that seeks to define more clearly the limits of state power over individual lives and seeks to clarify the sorts of educational practices that an appropriately constrained state needs in order to maintain its legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens, and in order to uphold justice within its borders. The constraints that the liberal state must respect include, most importantly, those that arise from social facts of cultural and moral diversity. And the educational practices needed for ensuring legitimacy and justice in a liberal state are deeply shaped by these same facts. Queer theory is not similarly constrained. It is, in part, a theoretical manifestation of a social movement aimed primarily at advancing the interests of queer people. In doing so, it is, according to Mayo, ‘essentially a movement that disrupts norms’; and queer theory may emphasise and encourage these disruptions without necessarily paying much attention to how liberal norms and values might be reinterpreted in light of the new circumstances and considerations raised by queerness (Mayo, 2006a, p. 472). The moral constraints constitutive of liberal politics place limits on the extent to which the liberal state can influence the shaping of a child’s identity. But they also must impose limits on the authority of cultural, sexual, religious and other sub-communities to shape children’s moral commitments and identity. Importantly, the best answers to the question of what these limits should be are not permanently fixed (Feinberg and McDonough, 2003, p. 9). The best answers will change, in part due to changes in understandings about what sorts of identities and commitments are compatible with liberal commitments of equal consideration, tolerance and mutual respect among the morally diverse citizens who comprise liberal societies. To that extent, liberal philosophers of education should seek to respond to the ‘normative disruptions’ emphasised by queer theory. Liberal philosophy of education should seek to clarify what the best account of those limits is now, in present conditions; but it also seeks to determine what prospects exist for maximising the individual autonomy of all citizens when present social, legal and political conditions illegitimately restrict it. But the divergences between queer theory and liberalism should not be overemphasised. Significantly, as Mayo herself indicates, queer theorists

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and advocates are ‘often indebted to liberal theory for their general normative commitments’ (Mayo, 2006a, p. 472). These debts may be implicit or they may be explicitly acknowledged. But the project of interpreting the limits of liberal norms and the project of advancing queer interests are in any case unlikely to track each other perfectly. The task I have been engaged with in this chapter is to see if progress can be made in understanding the extent to which broadly liberal political, moral and educational commitments can be aligned more snugly with a wider, more diverse set of social practices—in particular, practices that are congenial to queer people and to the flourishing of queer children. I do not know if the forms of educational recognition and accommodation I have recommended in this chapter will be sufficiently robust to satisfy the concerns of queer theorists and activists. If they are not, then it may be that my arguments in this chapter are wrong and queer theorists like Cris Mayo are right when they argue that liberalism cannot adequately address the educational concerns that queerness raises. But it may also be that queer advocates, like advocates of all the various sub-communities within liberal societies, need to adjust their expectations of what liberalism, as a political theory, can be expected to accomplish in the name of any particular group and its members. However that may be, my hope is that the arguments and ideas in this chapter will contribute to an ongoing dialogue that will teach us how common schools might better serve the interests of queer citizens.6

NOTES 1. Some more or less liberally minded educational theorists have addressed issues of teaching about homosexuality as a controversial moral issue (Reiss, 1997; Halstead and Lewicka, 1998; Callan, 2000). However, issues of queer identity have not been discussed in any sustained way in the recent voluminous literature on issues at the intersection of liberalism, cultural identity and education. One notable exception is McKay (1998). Alexander McKay’s discussion draws heavily on John Rawls in developing his arguments on sexuality education, but rather than treating sexuality in terms of cultural and identity diversity, he treats these issues as centrally involving ideological pluralism. 2. Thanks to Mark Halstead for helping me to clarify this point. 3. That is, a caver or speliologist. 4. The admittedly awkward label ‘able-normative’ is mine, not MacIntyre’s. I use it simply to highlight the parallel with Mayo’s ‘heteronormative’. 5. The need for separate schools for queer students is surely regrettable, especially when it is an emergency response to violence and bullying. But if such extreme measures are in some cases the only feasible option, then public funding should at least be sufficient to provide an adequate education. According to Dennis and Harlow, ‘The Harvey Milk School is essentially a one-room schoolhouse, staffed only by one full-time and one half-time teacher. The New York City Board of Education pays their salaries . . . but all other expenses of the school . . . must be paid for [by private fund raising efforts]’ (Dennis and Harlow, 1986, p. 455). 6. Mark Halstead and Paul Standish were exceptionally gracious editors of this chapter. Both of them provided critical comments, late in the day, on an earlier draft. Without their help, for which I am very grateful, I could not have finished this chapter in time to have it included in this volume dedicated to Terry McLaughlin. I have also benefited a great deal from Liz Airton’s insights on queer theory. It has been a delight to learn from her in our numerous conversations over the past few months. Of course, I am solely responsible for any errors contained herein.

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REFERENCES Brighouse, H. (2000) School Choice and Social Justice (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Brighouse, H. (2006) On Education (New York, Routledge). Callan, E. (2000) Discrimination and Religious Education, in: W. Kymlicka and W. Norman (eds) Citizenship in Diverse Societies (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Dennis, D. I. and Harlow, R. E. (1986) Gay Youth and the Right to Education, Yale Law Review, 89.2, pp. 431–479. Feinberg, W. and McDonough, K. (2003) Liberalism and the Dilemma of Public Education in Multicultural Societies, in: K. McDonough and W. Feinberg (eds), Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies: Teaching for Cosmopolitan Values and Collective Identities (Oxford, Oxford University Press), pp. 1–19. Halstead, M. and Lewicka, K. (1998) Should Homosexuality be Taught as an Acceptable Alternative Lifestyle? A Muslim Perspective, Cambridge Journal of Education, 28.1, pp. 49– 64. Levy, J. (2005) Sexual Orientation, Exit, and Refuge, in: A. Eisenberg and J. Spinner-Halev (eds), Minorities within Minorities: Equality, Rights, and Diversity (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). McKay, A. (1998) Sexual Ideology and Schooling: Towards Democratic Sexuality Education (New York, SUNY). McLaughlin, T. H. (2003) The Burdens and Dilemmas of Common Schooling, in: K. McDonough and W. Feinberg (eds), Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies: Teaching for Cosmopolitan Values and Collective Identities (Oxford, Oxford University Press), pp. 121– 156. MacIntyre, A. (1999) Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues (Peru, IL, Open Court). Mayo, C. (2006a) Pushing the Limits of Liberalism: Queerness, Children, and the Future, Educational Theory, 56.4, pp. 469–487. Mayo, C. (2006b) The Tolerance that Dare not Speak its Name, in: M. Boler (ed.), Democratic Dialogue in Education: Troubling Speech, Disturbing Silence (New York, Peter Lang). Nussbaum, M. (2000) Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education (Cambridge, Harvard University Press). Reinders, H. (2000) The Future of the Disabled in Liberal Societies (Notre Dame, IA, Notre Dame). Reiss, M. (1997) Teaching about Homosexuality and Heterosexuality, Journal of Moral Education, 26.3, pp. 343–352. White, J. (2003) Five Critical Stances Towards Liberal Philosophy of Education in Britain, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 37.1, pp. 147–161.

19 ‘Lookism’, Common Schools, Respect and Democracy ANDREW DAVIS INTRODUCTION

Richard Pring, echoing Tawney’s egalitarian vision, comments: In understanding, therefore, the arguments for the common school, one needs to address the principles of equality, including equal respect for persons, and the preparation for living in a community that requires a common culture to overcome divisions arising from ‘wealth and birth and social position’ (Pring, Chapter 1, p. 3).

This raises a familiar question. What exactly does ‘respecting’ each individual in a democracy really amount to? In this chapter I explore the issue through an examination of ‘lookism’, a form of discrimination on the grounds of appearance. Broadly speaking people are valued or discounted as persons because of how they look. What is it, then, to value someone independently of her social and visible presentations? A robust defence of anti-lookist policies apparently requires us to understand persons in such a way that they can have ‘value in spite of any and all ways of appearing in the world’ (Butler, 2000). Addressing the challenge of understanding and promoting respect for each and every person in society is at the heart of an appropriate preparation for citizenship in a pluralist liberal democracy. Since the common school is justifying its very existence on the grounds that it is supremely fitted to offer such a preparation, an account of how persons are properly to be valued is required as an element within this justification. If the common school is viewed as the most appropriate place in which students learn ‘equal respect for persons’ its teachers need a deep appreciation of personhood and the justification for its unique moral status. Terence McLaughlin observed: . . . in order that they can handle in an adequate way the complexities of such notions as ‘tolerance’, ‘respect’ and the like, teachers need to have a broadly philosophical grasp of the matters at stake which is professionally operationalisable (McLaughlin, 2000, p. 560). RESPECT AND VALUING PERSONS

Graham Haydon characterises respect as a type of attitude (Haydon, 2006). He refers approvingly to Joseph Raz, according to whom: . . . respecting people is a way of treating them. It is neither a feeling, nor an emotion, nor a belief, though it may be based on a belief and be The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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accompanied (at least occasionally) by certain feelings. It is a way of conducting oneself, and more indirectly, of being disposed to conduct oneself, towards the object of respect (Raz, 2001, p. 138).

So attitudes linked to respect may well involve beliefs about those to whom respect is accorded, and this point is important on Haydon’s view because ‘teachers have the general responsibility to see, so far as they can, that their students’ beliefs are well founded’ (Haydon, 2006, p. 460). This in turn implies that the preparation of students for a life of respecting their fellow citizens involves educating their beliefs about their fellow citizens, ensuring that as far as possible these beliefs are well-founded. It is only too evident that people vary in their talents, moral qualities, looks, cultural and social capital and much else. If the respect due to each citizen in a democracy depended entirely on such features then some citizens would deserve little or no respect. Since all are worthy of respect, it follows that respect cannot be determined entirely by the kinds of personal qualities that can vary from one individual to another. Moreover, consider for a moment the type of respect for individuals that is based on qualities not universally distributed across the human race. In the real world many fail to base respect of this kind on ‘well-founded’ beliefs about the subjects of respect and their qualities. Beliefs are nearly always involved but these beliefs are flawed in a variety of ways. Such phenomena are at the heart of many discriminatory attitudes: familiar examples of beliefs that are not well founded include the idea that Jews are grasping, Blacks are lazy and so on. I will argue later that such stereotyping, when at its most corrosive also comes to include the deeper denial that those stereotyped have worth per se. This denial flourishes regardless of whatever particular set of non-universal qualities they are thought to possess and of just how ill-founded the beliefs about these qualities may be. The ‘politics of recognition’ debate diverted attention from issues of common humanity to cultural differences that opponents of classical liberal democracies felt had not been properly valued. However, some retort that such differences have value just because they are valued by the individuals who own them: ‘If I should recognise your identity because that identity matters to you, I must accord recognition to you independently of your identity. It is only because you have moral significance for me that your identity should have moral significance to me’ (Jones, 2006, p. 30). The term ‘identity’ plays a confusingly large number of roles in philosophical literature. In Jones’s observations it covers personal features from ethnic membership to religious belief, deemed to be important to the individuals who own them either by themselves or others. Jones is talking about what people are like, namely qualitative identity. The semantic and conceptual murk surrounding identity has been made even thicker since some political philosophers argued that personal features such as an individual’s deepest values or aspects of their culture could in some sense be ‘constitutive’ of their identity (Sandel, 1984; Taylor, 1995). I suspect that there is a confusion

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here between qualitative and numerical identity of selves, but cannot deal with that issue in this chapter. Jones’s view may be further explained by distinguishing, after Stephen Darwall (1977), between appraisal respect and recognition respect. On the one hand in appraisal respect we acknowledge the quality that someone or something may possess independently of our recognition—such as achievement, talent, or aspects of culture or religion. On the other hand recognition respect involves recognising someone’s status, for instance as a person or as a human being. It is at least partly constitutive—status is acquired by being recognised. Modern democracies contain individuals whose merits range widely. Accordingly the appraisal respect in which they are held is likely to vary. However each individual deserves recognition respect in a democracy. (This is a basic assumption of my chapter.) While Jones’s observations here provide us with a useful starting point, there is arguably a significant gap to be filled—namely an explication of the nature of personhood in virtue of which each individual has a special moral significance. Whatever it is that has distinctive value must be more than a place-holder, a mere bearer of personal characteristics, if the vision of a democracy of individuals each of whom deserves an inviolable respect is to make sense. We apparently need a notion of personhood or the self whose worth is understandable whatever its ‘identity’ may be in terms of culture, religion and so on. On the face of it, such a self is also required for philosophically adequate critiques of racism, sexism, and host of other forms of discriminatory behaviour and attitudes. We can readily appreciate why this familiar philosophical problem proves so intractable. For if, after much philosophical struggle we are finally able to offer an explanation of the respect due to personhood, is it not the case that this must take the form of an account of the nature of persons, a story about what persons are like? This is apparently a move in the wrong direction, however, since what is needed is an account of personhood that underlies recognition respect. Yet a story about what people are like seems to be leaning towards appraisal respect. However I will ultimately argue that a defensible account of the respect due to all persons can sidestep the distinction between recognition respect and appraisal respect. At this point we begin to focus on lookism directly to take these issues further.

LOOKISM

The large number of researchers who have highlighted the occurrence of lookism in formal situations such as employment include Daniel Hammermesh and Jeff Biddle (1994) and Timothy Browne and Andrea Giampetro-Meyer (2003). It also features in hosts of informal social interactions. The lookism syndrome extends beyond mere looks. Tall men do better socially and in employment than their shorter peers, according to Timothy Judge and Daniel Cable (2004). Some people appear nervous,

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have a dull manner of speech, expressionless faces, a habit of avoiding the glances of others or an ungainly walk. Such mannerisms and personal habits make a considerable impact on others, evoking a range of judgments about their capabilities, maturity and many other key personal qualities. Moreover good looks may be linked to poor qualities. For example, the ‘dumb blonde’ idea associates a specific female image and low intelligence. Despite uses of such terms being largely flippant, the idea is sufficiently powerful to have inspired the actress Sharon Stone to join Mensa and apparently to make a point of publicising her high IQ. For the visually handicapped, a ‘lookist’ attitude might relate to judgments made on the basis of how another person sounds, or even how they smell. Jon Slater reports that one in three secondary students believe their school work to be affected by fears that bullies will mock their looks (Slater, in Lovegrove, 2003). Three quarters worry that their appearance will be scorned. One in five 15 year olds claims to have played truant over similar issues. A third admit that they will not speak in class for fear of drawing attention to their looks and the consequent abuse. Much has been written of adolescents’ difficulties about self-esteem, and the links with perceptions of their own bodies. In particular some adolescent girls have a poor ‘body image’. Daniel Clay, Vivian Vignoles, and Helga Dittma (2005) claim that this is partly because females highlighted by the media are absurdly thin. This raises some fundamental questions. Is it really sensible, mature and rational to make judgements about my value as a person (and by implication, to accept that others could make well-grounded judgements about me) simply on the basis of how I look? After all, we vigorously reject the related ideas that I might judge my value as a person according to the colour of my skin, or my gender. We would deny that it could ever be sensible to accept the judgments of others about me on such a basis. Note, for instance the title of a representative article on this topic: ‘I Would Rather Be Size 10 Than Have Straight A’s’, by Marika Tiggemann, Maria Gardiner and Amy Slater (2000). Interestingly the same article reveals that not all adolescents share this view. One young person is reported as observing: ‘When you are pretty you have plenty of false friends’.

DISCRIMINATION AND STEREOTYPING

The familiar phenomenon of stereotyping is at the heart of discriminatory attitudes, and lookism is no exception. Accordingly I now analyse stereotyping in some depth. Stereotyping involves highlighting a personal quality or feature, such as gender, age, race or culture and linking it with others. Thus, for instance, gay men are sensitive, Germans are humourless, good-looking people are intelligent, and Blacks are lazy. No characteristic appears to be exempt from featuring in this social process. Here I focus especially on observable features such as skin colour, height or body shape, and how society

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associates them with other personal qualities. It is a commonplace, however that prejudice can target accent, living in the ‘right’ or the ‘wrong’ part of the city, the occupation of your parents, your tattoos or whether you attended an independent school, to name but a few more examples. The qualities so linked are rarely viewed in a value-neutral fashion. Intelligence and sensitivity are splendid while laziness and the absence of humour are distinctly undesirable. Frequently the personal feature originally highlighted (being homosexual, German, Black or Jewish) is also awarded a positive or negative valuation together with the person who possesses it. So, for instance the gay man, the German, the Black or the Jew himself may become the object of hatred. How the value judgments attached to these features are interrelated can be a complex matter. In the simplest cases the value awarded to the original focus of the stereotyping stems from how the qualities with which it is associated are valued. Thus my belief that women are ‘emotional’, and my negative view of being emotional might make me less than enthusiastic about women. Sometimes, however the value ‘taint’ appears to work the other way round, at least to a degree. I might have decided that I dislike people from Scotland, believe that the Scots are careful with their money and because of this take a particularly dim view of financial thrift. Adrian Piper discusses what she calls ‘second order discrimination’ where the explanation for disvaluing e.g. ‘rhythm’ is because it is linked with certain black groups that are disvalued by the individuals guilty of the discrimination in question (Piper, 2001). A number of important dimensions associated with stereotyping must be noted. They inform our judgments about what, if anything is wrong with the stereotyping concerned. In the following analysis, ‘P’ stands for the originally highlighted personal feature, such as being homosexual, German, Black or Jewish.

(i)

The quality stereotypically linked to P may be ascribed to an individual by others, or it may be ascribed to an individual by herself, or both. For instance Jones, a short man is believed by others to lack authority in the workplace. He also thinks this of himself. Moreover P itself—culture, religion or language, for example—may be held by those who possess it to be ‘part of their identity’. Equally, of course, P may be a feature to which an individual attaches no importance, (or would attach no importance if she is left to herself) such as hair colour, the fact that she lives in a particular part of the town or that she speaks with a particular accent. Even when P is outside the individual’s control she still may think of it as part of her identity and happily accept that others concur. One obvious example is the biological aspect of gender. Some individuals feel that this is at the very heart of ‘who they are’. Nevertheless it may be argued that such an attitude is often regrettable and irrational. We return to this point

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later in connection with how people value themselves in terms of their own appearances. Nevertheless where P falls outside an individual’s control this often explains why that individual denies that P is part of her identity and does not wish others to see P as part of who she is. At the same time if P is subject to individual agency it still may be regarded as wholly separable from ‘identity’. A case to consider is my choice of shoe colour. Stereotyping may still be a problem if the link between P and other features is self-ascribed, even if it is ascribed correctly. I return to this issue shortly. (ii)

The relationship between P and other qualities need not be held to be universal. It may be believed, for instance that a subset of those with P have the relevant qualities (Harvey, 1990). I might think, not that all gay men have ‘feminine’ personality traits, but that a certain proportion have. (iii)

At first sight we have the following possibilities concerning the accuracy level of the belief relating P and other qualities p1, p2, p3 . . . (let us exclude for the sake of this discussion the case just mentioned, the belief about a subset): (a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

No people who are P are also p1, p2, p3 . . . A minority of people who are P are also p1, p2, p3 . . . Around half those who are P are also p1, p2, p3 . . . The majority of people who are P are also p1, p2, p3 . . . All those who are P are also p1, p2, p3 . . .

Possibilities (a), (b) and (c) imply beliefs involving plenty of false imputations. The undesirability of false imputations does something to explain the objectionable character of stereotyping in such cases. (d) also allows for a measure of falsity, so stereotyping remains undesirable in this sense. (e) rules out falsity. So if I believe that all those who are P are also p1, p2, p3 . . . ., and as a matter of fact all those who are P are also p1, p2, p3 . . . ., does that mean I am stereotyping ‘acceptably’—or that the term ‘stereotyping’ should not be used here at all? I do not think that (e) cases are acceptable. If this is right, falsity is not the only problem with stereotyping. Some of the earlier examples of personal qualities involved in stereotyping are dispositions—how people tend to behave. They are not fixed characteristics such as blood group or height. They involve choices. We begin to grasp what is wrong with (e) type stereotyping involving dispositions of these kinds when we ask what could possibly ground this universal generalisation. I suggest that (e) type stereotyping involving

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character dispositions in fact collapses into a yet stronger version of stereotyping that may be expressed as follows: (f) All those who are P must also be p1, p2, p3 . . . I believe that this version is at the heart of some of the most objectionable kinds of stereotyping, and that the problem about it is independent of whether or not all those who are P have the associated characteristics in question. What is troublesome here is how those who are stereotyping are thinking about the people who are P. In the case of racist or sexist beliefs there is more than the hint of claims about nomological connections of some kind between character qualities and dispositions on the one hand, and physical or biological make up on the other. It is held by some racists in effect that people with black skins must have inferior personal qualities of various kinds compared with Caucasians or Asians for example. Bernard Boxhill argues that in the 18th century Europeans availed themselves of the Aristotelian theory of natural kinds to conceptualise race (Boxhill, 2001). On this theory scientific categories contain things that share internal structures or essences, and these explain their observable properties. Similarly races differ from each other in observable characteristics, and these differences are explicable in terms of unchangeable internal structures. Arguably this mode of thinking about race is still alive and well. Racial essences are held to override the role of the individual agent in the qualities and dispositions concerned. This is at the heart of the offence. Whatever may be true of a group who shares with me a particular characteristic such as skin colour (and of course, many of the claimed generalisations are notoriously false in any case), it is always possible that it is not true of me. In this species of objectionable thinking I am merely one of a ‘kind’. People are not reacting to me; they have already switched their attention from me because they have noted that, for instance, I have a black skin, I am short, bald, over 60 or Jewish. The point here is not that I somehow have to be thought of as unique, and treated as someone who fails to share qualities with others. This would be absurd, and indeed quite impossible. It is rather that there is a crucial moral imperative that I am seen as an agent, someone who can make her own choices. To anticipate the argument to come, the pernicious character of stereotyping of this kind overlooks the essence of personhood, the source of agency and moral dispositions. (iv)

The belief may be true because, independently of those holding the belief, those with P also have p1, p2, p3 . . . . Or the belief may be true either entirely or to some extent because Ps are believed to have the allegedly associated personal qualities or traits. Living with a feature such as a racial characteristic or an unlovely appearance, held to be tied to low capabilities, this in turn awarded a negative valuation and her possessor

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accordingly regarded with hostility and contempt may be self-fulfilling. The individual concerned diminishes. This is not inevitable, but it often happens. Equally, the opposite phenomenon occurs. Those with a trait evoking positive stereotypes may well feel confident and optimistic about their social potential and capacity to learn. This confidence then may generate more opportunities for learning and growth than those afforded to individuals not so endowed. They measure up to society’s verdict, thus reinforcing discriminatory attitudes. Some readers will readily link these points to the idea of the ‘lookingglass self’ proposed by Charles Cooley (1902) and often cited in social science literature—that we perceive our identities through the responses of others. I also suggest (but this is no more than empirical speculation) that if the community believes that P and p1, p2, p3 . . . are nomologically linked, then the self-fulfilling effects will be stronger than if the belief merely associates P and p1, p2, p3 by way of a contingent factual generalisation. If, for instance society in effect thinks that being black is belonging to a natural kind, and that this kind features more extreme states of laziness than other racial kinds, the potential effect on individuals subjected to this is especially devastating. Again, anticipating subsequent argument, the unacceptability stems at least in part from the way the collective belief in the link undermines the appropriate role of the individual’s choices about whether to embrace qualities p1, p2, p3 . . . or not.

(v)

Kwame Anthony Appiah identifies ‘normative’ stereotypes. These are not beliefs about links between P and p1, p2, p3 . . . , but rather views about how people who are P ought to be linked to p1, p2, p3 . . . (Appiah, 2000, 2005). Gender stereotyping affords plenty of examples. It might be believed, for instance that women ought to be ‘caring and nurturing’. This belief is, of course independent of whether some, most or all women are caring and nurturing though Appiah points out that such beliefs can help to bring about the existence of the links that are the subject of the normative attitudes.

(vi)

The value attached to P and to p1, p2, p3 . . . may or may not be rationally grounded. How could valuing a white skin rather than a black one be rationally grounded, or instance, or contempt for someone who comes from Belgium?

(vii)

The belief linking p1, p2, p3 . . . to P may be irrational. Moreover it may resist contrary evidence. I may decide that all motorcycle enthusiasts have

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below average intelligence, and continue to believe this even after encountering some who are very obviously clever.

THE SELF, STEREOTYPING AND LOOKISM

I now argue that lookism involves some, though not all of the kinds of stereotyping analysed above. I try to show that ultimately it overlooks the heart of the self as an agent, a source of moral choices and the potential foundation of virtues. I say ‘argue’, but I readily concede that there are empirical assumptions involved in the argument that cannot be established philosophically. In modern social life image and imagery is supreme. It is increasingly difficult for us to penetrate beyond the stereotypical judgments linked to first impressions. Llewellyn Negrin comments: ‘We live in a world constituted solely of images which are no longer seen to refer to anything beyond themselves but are themselves constitutive of what is taken to be real’ (Negrin, 1999, p. 113). Although Negrin is highlighting what may seem to be a quintessentially contemporary phenomenon, related thinking has a very long history. According to Richard Twine ‘Physiognomy’, or the view that appearance is an important indicator of character is taken seriously by both Plato and Aristotle who associate physical beauty with moral goodness (Twine, 2002). Perhaps normative stereotyping on the basis of appearance is not especially widespread, though it does occur. ‘Nice’ looking women ought to be nice. Tall men ought to be authoritative. People who look old (especially old women) ought to be cheerful and kind. Short people, or those endowed with less favourable looks in the context of a particular culture should ‘know their place’. Suppositions of a nomological connection between physique and character may lurk tacitly in some lookist judgments. In effect the pretty blond woman is held to belong to a natural kind that features relatively poor cognitive functioning. She belongs, as it were to an inferior race. Similarly, the short man’s ‘kind’ includes poor leadership qualities, relatively poor intelligence and inferior social skills. An ugly person’s kind incorporates spiteful or mean dispositions. There is good empirical evidence for our tendency to think in ‘essentialist’ ways about others. For example, Nick Haslam, Brock Bastian and Melanie Bissett examined how far personal traits are viewed as ‘discrete, biologically based, immutable, informative, consistent across situations and deeply inherent within the person’ (Haslam, Bastian and Bissett, 2004, p. 1667). According to their research many people think like this. According to Julie Gelman (1992, 2003) among others a view of traits as underlying causal entities rather than mere descriptive labels is deeply entrenched. The self-fulfilling character of beliefs in society linking appearance to personal qualities of the most varied kind is very obvious, though arguably society does not have to be like this, and at the end of the chapter I argue for education playing a constructive role here. A short person believed to

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lack authority because he is short may very well fail to develop personal qualities required for convincing authority. Someone held to be unattractive and believed in consequence to lack positive moral qualities may well live down to their expectations. Beliefs of the kind sketched in (vi) and (vii) above are widespread in lookist attitudes. It is not rational, for instance to value a tall person more than a short person. It is often unreasonable to believe that good-looking people are likely to be morally virtuous, but such beliefs often resist the impact of counter-examples in everyday experience. (I said ‘often’ rather than always, since as we have seen, some cultures may help to bring about what they believe in. Hence, for example, someone who has been endowed with attractive features and accorded moral virtue on the basis of this may be helped to become morally virtuous!) Some aspects of lookism apparently go beyond the phenomenon of stereotyping itself. Admittedly these are difficult to pin down. For stereotyping very obviously is at the heart of our perceptions and judgments of others and it is difficult to separate the valuations linked to this stereotyping from those more directly related to image. However, I would argue that even where we do not draw conclusions about people’s qualities and capabilities on the basis of appearance we still frequently value people directly according to their image. We may see Bernard as having worth because of his good looks per se. So this differs from crediting Tom indirectly with value because we think his looks are correlated with other valuable capabilities and virtues such as intelligence or moral fibre. I am not concerned with aesthetic responses to the appearances of others. Needless to say these often occur. There need not be anything morally problematic about such aesthetic judgments, if that is all they are. However, an individual’s worth as a person in the eyes of others can often be tied to that individual’s aesthetic appeal. Moreover an individual may value herself as a person according to how others judge her aesthetically. Arguably such phenomena are both sad and destructive. Yet if such a view is to be defended an account of the self behind appearances that has moral significance must be offered. One of the reasons that people link their sense of self-worth to their appearance is that as we have already seen, feelings of self-worth are related to recognition by others. On this point, see for instance Charles Cooley (1902), Charles Taylor (1995) and Bhikhu Parekh (2000). The reality experienced by all of us, but particularly young people is that criteria for ‘looking good’ are alive and well within particular communities, that these criteria vary from one culture to another and even will change over time within the same culture. They may even alter locally in micro-societies at the whim of individuals or groups who wish to exert power. What can seem to matter very much at the time is how my body is judged by the culture or community in which I am embedded. If the stereotyping involved in lookism is objectionable because it overlooks the self as a source of agency then presumably a similar criticism may be brought to bear on any view of the self that regards

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personal appearance as linked directly to identity and self- worth. Many aspects of my appearance defy my choices. Even the most surgically advanced and expensive techniques of face lifting, cosmetic treatment and use of designer clothing do little to halt the inexorable advance of aging. I cannot by an effort of will increase my height, as the Gospel reminds us. In contrast, whatever my appearance I can, at least in principle make moral choices and develop virtues. Incidentally there is no implication here that there is necessarily something wrong with ‘making the best of myself’, whether for instance in terms of clothes, hair style, or cosmetics. I can pay for plastic surgery, alter my voice (remember Mrs Thatcher), study video of my behaviour and attempt to alter habitual mannerisms, use shoes with high heels or the opposite, and wear clothes to project as I may think a particular personal image. However I would argue that if I somehow view these processes as attempts to show the world ‘who I really am’, or as bound up with my fundamental worth, then my understanding of the respect due to each person including myself is gravely flawed. Commenting on Robert Post’s reflections on the possibility of antilookist legislation Butler contrasts three views of the person. The first is characterised as the sociological view, which ‘holds that the concrete, social ways in which people appear in the world are central to their value and meaning as persons’ (Butler, 2000, p. 56; Post, 2000). The second is the transcendental position, a concept of the person ‘as having value in spite of any and all ways of appearing in the world’. The third reduces a person to a bundle of functions or capabilities. Butler notes that judges dealing with lookist discrimination cases, in avoiding the sociological view of the person might turn to the idea that each person has an ‘essential worth’ that is the same as everyone else’s. In such cases judges would in effect be helping themselves to the ‘transcendental position’. Alternatively judges might consider whether the potential victims of discrimination in employment recruitment can actually do the job concerned. They would be reaching conclusions about the putative employee’s technical skills. Here, the instrumentalist functional view of the self would be to the fore (Butler, 2000). Opponents of the very idea of the transcendental self may hold that there is no independent personal reality behind personal appearance that we could succeed in accessing, no persisting objective self that could be represented more, or less accurately by images or by physical appearance. In a speculative passage, Brian Fay claims that the self is not ‘a fixed entity with definite boundaries but a process whose nature is fluid and changeable . . . Better to think of (the self) as a multifaceted, internally conflicted field of potential energy that becomes actualized in interactions than as a fixed, solid substantial thing’ (Fay, 1996, p. 39). Over a lifetime appearance changes radically—though mostly there are continuities between one stage and the next. Rather rarely there may be sudden and dreadful transformations—for instance if someone is involved in an accident, severely burned, and so on. In late 2005 a woman who had been savaged by a dog was given tissues, arteries, veins and muscles from

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a brain-dead patient by surgeons in France. What account, then can be given of the common sense idea that the ‘same’ self may not always appear the same over time? The familiar answer runs as follows: At the heart of the self is an agent with a centre of consciousness over time, an agent who can make plans, change her mind, and be held responsible for her actions. Kim Atkins comments: . . . an important insight of Kant’s was to show that we can view ourselves from two different standpoints: as objects of theoretical understanding or as agents, ‘originators of our actions’. The latter viewpoint is one that we necessarily take because we cannot avoid making choices in life, and so the necessity of thinking of ourselves as agents is made without reference to metaphysical or theoretical facts (Atkins, 2000, p. 337).

Now Butler’s third conception of the self characterised it as a bundle of functions. She referred to this way of thinking as ‘reductionist’. A bundle of functions per se seems to be in the wrong category on which to base the unique moral significance of each self. One bundle is as good, or as bad as another. The instrumental self is ‘impersonal’. What is significant for employers, for instance if enjoined by anti-discrimination legislation to discount race, gender or appearance is the presence or absence of a function or set of functions in a prospective employee relevant to the proposed employment. They need not look beyond the instrumental value of relevant capabilities when considering who they should hire. So we return to the account of personhood with fundamental moral significance already emerging in our earlier discussion. Can this measure up to the transcendental self with ‘value in spite of any and all ways of appearing in the world’? The making of choices over time can establish related dispositions, capacities or moral habits. A person can develop or acquire a set of moral functions or capabilities; she becomes the owner of virtues. The special value attached to each person arguably stems from the fact that she has the potential to make her own choices; no one else can have ownership of my choices. A moral disposition directly involves one individual agency. Now many personal capabilities or functions can, at least in theory be owned without being manifested. For instance, it might be the case that Jones has the capacity to type even though he never does. Tracy might be very good at mathematics but never demonstrate the fact in school. In contrast it does not make sense to think of moral virtues that are never manifested. They involve patterns of moral choices and of emotional reactions to life situations. Virtues transcend mere dispositions or capacities: I can only have a moral virtue if I actually exhibit it in my dealings with other people. Hence moral dispositions and virtues lack the impersonal character of the instrumental bundle of functions envisaged by Butler. According to Aristotle, ‘We become just by performing just acts, and temperate by performing temperate acts’ (Aristotle, 1984, 1 105a18– 19). And Philippa Foot writes: ‘a virtue is not, like a skill or an art, a mere capacity; it must actually engage the will’ (Foot, 1978, p. 8). Nevertheless

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it is only too evident that more needs to be said here. For we believe that we should respect all citizens in a democracy regardless of their moral qualities. Murderers deserve respect as persons even if they do not deserve freedom from imprisonment. Our ultimate goal, according to the thinking advanced early in the chapter, includes an account of a basis for recognition respect. I believe that the solution here is to see each person as the potential originator of moral dispositions. Is it not precisely this that justifies the unique status of persons, which explains why everyone in a democracy is worthy of respect? The solution here is of course a familiar one, being close to the liberal self whose source is Kant. Although I have characterised this solution as a basis for ‘recognition respect’, it may be argued that in effect the distinction between appraisal respect and recognition respect has now been sidestepped. The ‘solution’ offers a universal and essential feature of persons and as such can provide the foundation of a kind of appraisal respect due to all persons. Every individual, whatever their actual moral qualities, appearance or capabilities is the potential possessor of moral dispositions. So all human beings have this feature essentially, and in virtue of this feature are due an inviolable respect. LOOKISM, COMMON SCHOOLS AND EDUCATING FOR RESPECT

In this final section I argue that the common school is the ideal place in which to tackle education for citizenship where people respect each other and avoid discriminating against groups of any kind. I go on to suggest that despite its initially unpromising character as an extreme form of ‘political correctness gone mad’, anti-lookist education could be an excellent indirect way to tackle racism and other traditional varieties of prejudice. There are no simplistic and robust arguments for the claim that the common school is the most appropriate location for education about respect. Clearly such education can and does occur in many types of schools including faith schools and independent schools. McLaughlin holds that certain kinds of religious schools are compatible with the provision of what he calls ‘common education’, which he links to the development of citizenship in a liberal democracy (McLaughlin, 1992). He contends that there are no simplistic routes from notions of common education to policy about how it should be delivered, and that ‘common education’ could be provided in separate schools (McLaughlin, 2003). At the same time, Haydon offers us broadly persuasive considerations for dealing with respect and tolerance in the common school when he notes aspects of respecting people under a certain description: I can . . . respect people as colleagues. This is entirely compatible with respecting them as persons, but it is also more specific. I am conscious of sharing with my colleagues in some joint enterprise, I give weight to the contribution they seek to make to that enterprise, I am inclined to trust that they wish the enterprise to succeed, and so on (Haydon, 2006, p. 462).

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At its best the common school can encourage both a sense of sharing the common enterprise of a pluralist democracy with groups peacefully coexisting in relations of mutual respect, and a wish for the continuing health and success of that society. Separate schooling by its very nature will find this a more difficult feat to accomplish. It must be conceded, however, that claims of this kind are empirical, and involve matters of degree. Many might be disposed to reject the very possibility of ‘anti-lookist education’ as absurd and wholly unrealistic. People always have judged each other on the basis of looks and they always will. Friendships and sexual relationships invariably involve elements of attraction based on appearance among other things. Such phenomena are basic to human interaction and it would be wholly absurd even to attempt to oppose this. Certainly heavy-handed attempts to deal with lookism might make the situation very much worse than it already is, just as certain well intentioned but misguided anti-racist programmes may have exacerbated racial tensions. It must also be admitted that the line between making judgments about the value of another person on the basis of their appearance, and feeling attracted (or the opposite) to that person because of their appearance may be very difficult to draw. Anti-lookist educators would always have to have this point at the front of their minds. The importance of attempts to combat racism as part of schooling cannot be overestimated. Racism differs from lookism in that the former has crucial social, political and historical ramifications. At the same time this points to how anti-lookist education might come into its own in the Common School. Issues relating to race, sexual orientation, gender, religion and so on are often highly charged. Teachers attempting to deal with these must often feel overwhelmed by the forces of intolerance at work in the communities they serve. By contrast the issue of how persons are to be valued and respected in the context of ‘anti-lookism’ could be distanced from traditionally emotive areas such as race. Of course ‘race’ relates to appearance in one specific way, but lookism covers many aspects of appearance unrelated to race however it may be conceived. Given this perspective students could begin to gain a sense of the unique value of personhood, a kind of understanding that ultimately can play a crucial role in anti-racist education itself. Students could learn of the pain experienced by those who are bullied in connection with their physical attributes. Older students could be taught about how both individuals and groups seek recognition, about aspects of the processes and politics involved, and about the links with individual and with group feelings of worth. This should be part of a wider programme, many elements of which of course already exist in schools in the developed world: an explicitly ‘anti-lookist’ curriculum seems very unlikely to be constructive. Students could examine how different aspects of a person may become involved in recognition, and begin to question which of these are fundamental to their true worth. They could also learn how value

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judgments about physical appearance are tied, often ephemerally to the practices of a particular culture. Personal, social, moral and citizenship education could embrace such issues. Drama and literature would also seem to have obvious potential here.

CONCLUSION

Interpersonal relationships infected by lookism are seriously flawed. Its profile grows with the increasing significance of image in so-called developed societies. Learning to treat each other and to value both each other and ourselves as persons of fundamental significance and importance rather than as the contingent owners of appearances underpins moral development, and as such deserves a distinctive place in educational provision. The Common School seems an especially appropriate context for such learning, and I have argued that anti-lookist education of various kinds could offer an indirect way into some of the key issues underlying traditional forms of discrimination such as racism and sexism. The pain of those who have unbalanced perceptions about their appearance, linked in extreme cases to mental health conditions such as anorexia and strongly negative views of their own worth should weigh heavily with us when we consider the importance of using education to combat lookism. Anti-lookist education could make a notable contribution to the functioning of a healthy liberal democracy in which every individual citizen is properly respected as the possessors of a unique moral value.

REFERENCES Aristotle (1984) The Complete Works of Aristotle, J. Barnes, ed. (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press). Appiah, K. (2000) Stereotypes and the Shaping of Identity, California Law Review, 88.1, pp. 41–53. Appiah, K. (2005) The Ethics of Identity (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press). Atkins, K. (2000) Personal Identity and the Importance of One’s own body: A response to Derek Parfit, International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 8.3, pp. 329–349. Boxhill, B. (2001) Introduction, in: B. Boxill (ed.) Race and Racism (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Browne, M. and Giampetro-Meyer, A. (2003) Many Paths to Justice: The Glass Ceiling, the Looking Glass, and Strategies for Getting to the Other Side, Hofstra Labor and Employment Law Journal, 21.1, pp. 61–107. Butler, J. (2000) Appearances Aside, California Law Review, 88.1, pp. 55–63. Clay, D., Vignoles, V. and Dittmar, H. (2005) Body Image and Self-Esteem Among Adolescent Girls: Testing the Influence of Sociocultural Factors, Journal Of Research On Adolescence, 15.4, pp. 451–477. Cooley, C. H. (1902) Human Nature and Social Order (New York, Scribner’s). Darwall, S. (1977) Two Kinds of Respect, Ethics, 88, pp. 36–49. Fay, B. (1996) Contemporary Philosophy of Social Science: A Multicultural Approach (Oxford, Blackwell). Foot, P. (1978) Virtues and Vices (Oxford, Blackwell). Gelman, S. (1992) Commentary, Human Development, 35, pp. 280–285.

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Gelman, S. (2003) The Essential Child: Origins of Essentialism in Everyday Thought (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Hammermesh, D. and Biddle, J. (1994) Beauty and the Labour Market, The American Economic Review, 84.5, pp. 1174–1194. Harvey, J. (1990) Stereotypes and Group-claims: Epistemological and Moral Issues, and Their Implications for Multiculturalism in Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 24.1, pp. 39–50. Haslam, N., Bastian, B. and Bissett, M. (2004) Essentialist beliefs about personality and their implications, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, pp. 1661–1673. Haydon, G. (2006) Respect for persons and for cultures as a basis for national and global citizenship, Journal of Moral Education, 35.4, pp. 457–471. Jones, P. (2006) Equality, Recognition and Difference, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 9.1, pp. 23–46. Judge, T. and Cable, D. (2004) The Effect of Physical Height on Workplace Success and Income: Preliminary Test of a Theoretical Model, Journal of Applied Psychology, 89.3, pp. 428–441. Lovegrove, E. (2003) Bullies Fuel Anxiety Over Looks, Times Educational Supplement, January 10th, p. 9. McLaughlin, T. (1992) The Ethics of Separate Schools, in: M. Leicester and M. J. Taylor (eds) Ethics, Ethnicity and Education (London, Kogan Page). Mclaughlin, T. (2000) Citizenship Education in England: The Crick Report and Beyond, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 34.4, pp. 541–570. McLaughlin, T. (2003) The Burdens and Dilemmas of Common Schooling, in: K. McDonagh and W. Feinberg (eds) Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies: Teaching for Cosmopolitan Values and Collective Identities (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Negrin, L. (1999) The Self as Image: A Critical Appraisal of Postmodern Theories of Fashion, Theory, Culture and Society, 16.3, pp. 99–118. Parekh, B. (2000) Rethinking Multiculturalism (Basingstoke, Palgrave). Piper, A. (2001) Two Kinds of Discrimination, in: Bernard Boxhill (ed.) Race and Racism (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Post, R. (2000) Prejudicial Appearances: The Logic of American Anti-Discrimination Law, California Law Review, 88.1, pp. 1–40. Raz, J. (2001) Value, Respect and Attachment (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Sandel, M. (1984) The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self, Political Theory, 12.1, pp. 81–96. Taylor, C. (1995) Philosophical Arguments (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press). Tiggemann, M., Gardiner, M. and Slater, A. (2000) I Would Rather Be Size 10 Than Have Straight A’s: A Focus Study Group of Adolescent Girls’ Wish To Be Thinner, Journal of Adolescence, 23.6, pp. 645–59. Twine, R. (2002) Physiognomy, Phrenology and the Temporality of the Body, Body and Society, 8.1, pp. 67–88.

20 In Place of a Conclusion: The Common School and the Melting Pot J. MARK HALSTEAD THE COMMON SCHOOL, CULTURE AND RELIGION

In his lead chapter to this volume, Richard Pring has argued persuasively that the common school is based on the key (liberal) values of social justice, equality and respect for persons (Pring, Chapter 1, p. 3). Of course, this has not always been the case historically. Walter Feinberg reminds us that although the common school at its inception was intended to bring a culturally diverse population together into a unified sense of American citizenship, the population was by no means treated with equal respect. Indeed, he says, cultures were ‘evaluated in terms of their closeness to or distance from the ideal’ (Feinberg, Chapter 6, p. 91). Western and northern Europeans needed little assimilation, but southern and eastern Europeans had many more adaptations to make, and the ‘cultural deficiencies’ of the Asians, Native Americans and ‘Negroes’ put them virtually beyond the pale. Similarly, Rob Reich reminds us that it was the perceived injustice in the common school system that led to the creation of separate Catholic schools in the USA and elsewhere. Insofar as the common school was a melting pot at all at this stage, it was a very selective melting pot whose ingredients were tightly controlled in order to ensure the continuing cultural dominance of those with most power. ‘Things seem different today,’ muses Feinberg laconically (ibid.). It is true that there are many values that do not remain static over time, and the concept of the common school has evolved to a stage where it is more about inclusion, fairness and non-discrimination. The aim may still be to create citizens with common values and shared loyalties, to ensure that the American part is more important than the other part of any hyphenated identity citizens may have, but this aim now applies to all citizens. This shared loyalty and feeling of common national identity enables citizens to face economic and social challenges that occur in the broader society in a spirit of cohesion and co-operation. As Meira Levinson notes, the underlying principle of equality of respect for all citizens has led many to assume that multicultural education and the common school share key goals. Both appear to be directed towards respecting diversity, developing understanding between cultures and groups, helping children from all backgrounds to achieve their potential, and preparing all children for life in a multicultural society by encouraging The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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them to take on those shared values that are necessary for citizens to hold in common. However, the first paradox of the common school surfaces here. The common school claims to be based on a respect for diversity and the equal treatment of all. If it seeks to develop a common set of loyalties to the state and a common sense of citizenship, this will not be perceived as a problem by those groups who are happy to assimilate into the broader society, but may be problematic for those whose sense of loyalty to their current faith or culture is strong, especially if there are tensions or disagreements between the values of the minority community and those of the larger society. The common school may be perceived by the latter as promoting one set of loyalties (to the state) at the expense of another set of loyalties (to a religion, for example). This is exactly what the melting pot demands: that minorities be willing to shed their existing loyalties and take on new ones. Even the Swann Report into the education of children from ethnic minority groups argued that those groups ‘cannot in practice preserve all elements of those cultures and lifestyles unchanged and in their entirety’ (House of Commons, 1985, p. 5), though it calls for respect and support for ‘the essential elements of the cultures and lifestyles of different ethnic groups’ (ibid., my italics). All minorities recognise that some give and take is needed if they are to live successfully in a multicultural society where many people do not share their fundamental beliefs and values. However, what is ironical is that those who are most willing to assimilate into the broader society are expected to give least, whereas those who want to preserve a bigger component of their existing loyalties (such as religious beliefs) within their new identity are under pressure to make most concessions. Before we examine this problem in more detail, however, we must first look more closely at the development of and justifications for the common school. If the development of commitment to a set of shared values and a unified sense of citizenship is the first goal of the common school, a second goal centres on the ironing out of disadvantage and the provision of equal opportunities. This may take the form of equalising educational provision for boys and girls, for example. In Britain the abandonment of the tripartite system of education (which allocated children to grammar schools, secondary modern schools or technical schools on the basis of academic tests at the age of eleven) and the introduction of comprehensive schooling in the 1960s and 1970s were designed to iron out educational inequalities in terms of wealth, social class and ability. As Harry Brighouse points out, the comprehensive ideal brought many advantages, such as contact between the social classes and the recognition that academic ability is not fixed for life by the age of eleven. This aspect of the common school is perhaps best understood in terms of its opposites— the private school (which gives educational advantages to the wealthy and to those of higher social class); the grammar school (which selects children unfairly and privileges the most academically able—or perhaps merely those who have regular private tuition—while relegating the rest to

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a less stimulating, less challenging form of education); the single-sex school (which advantages people on the basis of gender, or at least assumes the educational significance of gender differences); and the Special School (which isolates those with particular disabilities or behavioural problems from mainstream schools). However, it is clear that there are many inequalities still to be ironed out. These include the inequalities in relation to neighbourhood schools (pupils in inner-city schools may suffer from multiple disadvantage and at the same time be less well funded than pupils in more affluent areas) and inequalities in terms of levels of achievement that are gender-based (girls outscore boys in virtually every school subject), ethnicity-based (Chinese and Indians score highest, and Blacks and Pakistanis score below national averages) and religious-based (statistics are not even kept here, but it is clear that Muslim children underachieve compared to those from other faiths) may reflect other deep-seated inequalities of provision. Once again, however, it is in the domain of religion that the most serious problems occur in terms of the comprehensive ideal. The common school is often contrasted with the faith school, which (it is claimed) creates divisions in society and which may encapsulate children in a certain cultural or religious framework. The common school, by contrast, should (at least, according to David Carr and Kevin Williams) provide neutral teaching about religion, usually from a sociological or phenomenological perspective. Britain has always had a different way of dealing with religion in schools from the United States with its strict separation of Church and State: the British approach is not to abandon religious education, but to put it to educational use. Ken Strike provides a useful checklist of what is and is not acceptable in a liberal society in terms of teaching about religious beliefs and attitudes. As society has become more multicultural, so has religious education in Britain, which now includes teaching about six major world faiths. The common school may acknowledge two main purposes for such teaching. First, it encourages cross-cultural respect and understanding, and thus fulfils one of the goals of Citizenship education. Second, it may (though perhaps only in a minimal way) support the developing religious identity of children from minority faiths. The difficulty with the first of these is, on the one hand, that a multiplicity of faiths can only be taught from a neutral point of view (they can’t all be right!), and so the hidden messages that come across to children may be that religious neutrality is superior to religious commitment, and, on the other hand, that the principle of free choice means that individuals should not only make up their own minds about religion but should also construct their own religion, perhaps fusing elements from different faiths in an original way. The problem with these messages is that they tend to undermine long-standing religious traditions, especially when the question arises whether it should be the role of the common school to transmit any given faith, to seek to change it radically, or to provide children with an escape route from religion. The role of the common school in potentially undermining faith will be discussed more fully later.

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JUSTIFICATIONS FOR THE COMMON SCHOOL

There are four main justifications for the common school. The first is the symbolic value of having all children in a given area (irrespective of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, disability, language, nationality or other defining characteristic) attending the same school. In Levinson’s words (though she does also express some misgivings about this claim), common schools stand as ‘public symbols of our civic commitment to diversity, mutual respect, social justice, equality and solidarity’ (Levinson, Chapter 8, p. 134). They symbolise society’s recognition of children’s common humanity, and of children’s equal right to respect and recognition. Such symbolic recognition may be a highly important counterbalance to some of the negative experiences that are commonplace in the lives of many people from minority communities. Second, the common school as it is defined in the West serves the interests of the liberal state well—by preparing children for citizenship, developing a sense of national identity, facilitating cross-cultural understanding and developing children’s commitment to the shared values without which the state could not function. Indeed, the values typically associated with the common school in the West—including personal autonomy, critical openness and free critical debate, the autonomy of academic disciplines, equality of opportunity, rational morality, the celebration of diversity, the avoidance of indoctrination and the refusal to side with any definitive conception of the good—are clearly based on the fundamental liberal values of justice, equality and rationality (Halstead, 1996, pp. 17ff), and the same values also support education for citizenship and democracy (Halstead and Pike, 2006). Liberal belief in the celebration of diversity and the fact that ‘no one set of religious beliefs can be shown to be objectively true’ (McLaughlin, 1984, p. 76) goes hand in hand with the practice in the common school of adopting a neutral, ‘phenomenological’ approach to the teaching of religion (see the chapters by Carr, Strike and Williams in this volume). Indeed, the links between the values of liberal education and the values of the common school are so strong that it is often assumed, as Hanan Alexander reminds us, that the only justifiable form of schooling in the liberal state is the common school and, conversely, that the common school must be liberal. Nevertheless, the common school often takes a non-liberal form in other countries. In the Islamic world, for example, schooling may be common in the sense that a single form of schooling is designed to meet the needs of all children (for all Muslims are equal in God’s eyes), but the common experience given to all children may be a deeply religious one, with the aim of ensuring that all equally become good Muslims. This raises three key questions. Does the worth of the common school lie in the fact that it offers equal provision to all, or does it lie in its capacity to promote shared values and serve the interests of the state? And does the common school, in spite of its rhetoric about welcoming diversity, actually promote cultural conformity to a set of national or cultural values, whether liberal, Islamic, communist or whatever? Finally, does the common school serve the interests very well

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of those migrants who want to assimilate fully into a western society, but less well those of migrants who want to combine the economic well-being available in their new country of residence with continuing loyalty to their traditional culture and way of life? The third main justification for the common school lies in the common educational experience that it gives all children, irrespective of gender, social class, race, ethnicity, appearance, wealth, faith, disability, language, accent or sexuality. The aim is to give all children an equal start in life and an equal opportunity to fulfil their potential and become autonomous individuals. It is also to ensure that the privileges of birth are not reinforced at school, that options are not foreclosed prematurely, and that the cultural encapsulation of children is prevented by exposure to broader horizons, greater openness and more freedom of choice. Ruth Cigman reminds us that the common school is an inclusive school offering unconditional respect to all children, and Andrew Davis, Lorella Terzi, Kevin McDonough and Harry Brighouse respectively affirm that there is no longer scope for discrimination on the basis of looks, disability and special educational needs, sexual identity or socio-economic status. Finally, through its openness to children from a wide diversity of backgrounds and its commitment to respecting difference, the common school helps to prepare children for life in a multicultural society by providing practical experience of living and working side by side. Robin Barrow articulates the common sense view that ‘practice at living in a diverse community from an early age will . . . lead to ease at so living’, whereas ‘unfamiliarity very often contributes to fear or resentment of the unknown’ (Barrow, Chapter 4, p. 60). However, it is clear that the practical experience of living together is valuable only if the school makes it so. Proximity may simply give children more opportunities to engage in bullying or social exclusion. School policies may themselves give positive or negative messages about recognising and respecting difference, which children may pick up and absorb through the mechanisms of the hidden curriculum. Thus, where schools refuse children the freedom to wear symbolic clothing or other symbols of religious commitment, this may be justified in terms of letting children leave their differences outside the school gate and providing a ‘sanctuary apart from the rest of society’ (Williams, Chapter 11, p. 171), but it may be perceived by the children themselves as oppressive, because it denies them the freedom to express their own commitments and loyalties openly. The problem may be seen, for example, in the case of an English multicultural secondary school that organises a two-day stay at an activity centre for its new pupils in their first few weeks at the school. The aim is to give them a chance to get to know each other, to form friendships and to learn to interact on practical tasks, but since this event has been organised during Ramadan this year, the Muslim pupils are effectively excluded from the activity. The result is that they feel isolated and marginalised, not full members of the school community, that they do not have the same opportunities as other pupils to form new friendships and that they tend to form a clique that interacts mainly with other Muslims. This seems very close to the early days of the common

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school (as mentioned at the very start of the chapter), where some groups were welcomed into, and felt completely at home in, the cultural melting pot of the common school but other groups (such as the Native Americans, the Asians and the Blacks) were largely excluded. We cannot avoid the question whether things have really improved since those early days.

BURDENS AND DILEMMAS OF THE COMMON SCHOOL

McLaughlin notes that by their very nature common schools face a number of significant ‘burdens and dilemmas’ (McLaughlin, 2003). These include such central tasks as: balancing the differing demands of unity and diversity; developing a shared sense of belonging as citizens while simultaneously respecting the different cultural backgrounds of individual students; and striving to maintain inclusion without allowing that very principle to submerge diversity. As an example, he mentions the difficulty faced within common schools of balancing the legitimate demands of homosexuals for ‘civic respect’ with the right of individuals to criticise homosexual practice as morally unacceptable from within a non-public perspective such as Catholicism or Islam (p. 138). In this section, I shall highlight some of the difficulties that arise for common schools in relation to the liberal principles on which, ultimately, they are based. If we accept that liberalism has its origin in the tensions that exist between the principle of freedom and the principle of equality (Halstead, 1996, p. 18), then one of the burdens facing the common school is finding a balance between these two principles, as Brighouse points out. To put it another way, if Pring is right in linking the common school with the key (liberal) values of social justice, equality and respect for persons, where does this leave the value of freedom? How does the principle that all children should be treated equally sit with the freedom of parents to spend money as they choose on their own children? Do parents have the right in principle to choose to buy privilege for their children by sending them to non-common schools? Should parental choice be limited to preferences about school size or pedagogical approach, as Levinson (1999) suggests, or is this too ‘cramped’ a view of parental choice (Reich, Chapter 13, p. 214)? If parents are free to hold particular religious or cultural beliefs, should they not be free to choose a school for their children in line with those beliefs? Behind the wish to exercise such freedom there does not necessarily lie the desire to cocoon children within a particular culture; there may simply be a desire to provide consistency and stability in children’s education and family life, or to provide a consistent set of primary loyalties (to use Mary Healy’s terminology), until they are old enough to make decisions for themselves. Indeed, in some cases the initiative to choose particularist schooling may come from the children themselves. Another freedom that children may demand is the right to give free expression to their own particular religious or other commitments and ways of life—for example, by wearing the Islamic headscarf or choosing a ‘queer’ lifestyle. Dianne Gereluk and Kevin McDonough have

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respectively provided persuasive arguments in this volume for taking such rights claims seriously. Another burden facing the common school is the task of clarifying the sense in which it is underpinned by the principle of equality. For many, the implication is that the common school provides a level playing-field for children in terms of educational or career opportunities, so that no-one is unfairly treated because of their gender, race, language, ethnicity, sexuality or other irrelevant consideration. Brighouse puts it more simply: ‘every child should have an equally good education’ (Brighouse, Chapter 5, p. 74). But even here the meaning is far from clear. Does it involve providing the same teaching and learning experiences for everyone, or providing differentiated experiences? If it is the former (the equality of opportunity approach), this guarantees unequal outcomes for individuals because not everyone has the same potential; perhaps this is only equality at all in the formal anyone-can-become-President-of-the-United-States sense. If it is the latter (the equality of outcome approach), it is not clear why this needs the common school at all. The common school provides identical learning experiences for boys and girls in many western countries, but girls outperform boys in almost all assessments, irrespective of subject, ethnicity or other factors. Outcomes can be equalised between boys and girls, it seems, only by offering provision that is differentiated in some way. In this case, the equality that underpins the common school is one of equal concern for different needs, and it is clear that sometimes such concern could be expressed better in different institutions. But perhaps the equality is merely symbolic equality (‘equality in God’s eyes’), and then schools have to ask whether it actually helps children who are blatantly unequal—in terms of ability, wealth, social class, and on many other measures—to be treated as if they really were equal in life. Pring reminds us that, for some people at least, the assumptions of equality that lie behind the common school can be counterproductive, undermining the pursuit of intellectual excellence. One of the dilemmas of common schooling is knowing what to teach and how to teach it, and significant disagreements exist on some of these matters. Even in this volume, opposing viewpoints have been expressed by Robin Barrow and Michael Fielding over the question of whether setting by ability is acceptable within the common school. Barrow further argues that ‘our concern for equality and indeed a common schooling does not lead to the conclusion that all should pursue a common curriculum throughout their schooling’ (Barrow, Chapter 4, p. 62). Reich, on the other hand, argues not only for a common curriculum but for one that goes beyond the minimum; he claims that a minimal common curriculum is likely to be perceived as boring, badly motivating and inadequate as a preparation for autonomy. But an expanded common curriculum is problematic in a number of ways. For example, who chooses its content, and according to what criteria? Strike argues that schools can endorse as authoritative the ‘well established results of scholarship’ and the ‘core norms of liberal democratic societies’ but must avoid endorsing any religious or anti-religious view, though individuals should be free to express (or rebut) such views (Strike, Chapter

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12, p. 197). How far can an expanded common curriculum support a diverse population? It is clear that the larger the common core, the less space is left in the curriculum for material that supports the cultural identity of minorities and the greater the likelihood that some of the common core may conflict with the beliefs and values of minority cultures. A further dilemma is how to avoid injustice when the common school is a neighbourhood school serving either a single minority community (there are about 20 schools in Bradford alone where the school population is over 95 per cent Muslim) or else a mixed inner city population united only by common bonds of poverty, discrimination, social exclusion, alienation and disadvantage. If children live in ghettoised communities and attend the local neighbourhood school, this kind of cultural concentration is inevitable unless they are bussed out of the inner cities to suburban schools (a system tried and rejected in England over thirty years ago: see Halstead, 1988, pp. 37–9) or the ghettoisation itself is broken down. But in the current circumstances the question arises whether a commitment to the common school should ensure that neighbourhood schools deliver a common teaching and learning experience even if they are populated entirely by children from ethnic minorities whose needs may be quite different from the needs of children in the broader society? Or does the principle of respecting difference cash out into a differentiated provision that is more in line with the cultural beliefs and values of the local community, even if these are not the same as the shared values of the broader society? Many parents might prefer the curriculum to be divided up more evenly between, on the one hand, activities that encourage children to develop an understanding of citizenship and a commitment to the shared values of the broader society, and, on the other, activities that enrich and deepen their sense of attachment to their own faith and community culture. But could a school still be considered a common school if, in response to local needs, it offered a different curriculum from what is offered elsewhere? This again raises the fundamental question of what makes the common school. Is it about ironing out disadvantage, providing equal opportunities and paying equal attention to the needs of the children who attend, or is it about teaching children together irrespective of their beliefs, values and cultural background? Or is it about preparing them equally for citizenship in a multicultural society and ensuring that they assimilate the shared values that are the basis for citizenship in western liberal societies?

RESPONDING TO CULTURAL DIFFERENCE

One of the most important functions of any school, including the common school, is to transmit culture to the next generation. The process may be conscious and planned (as in the attempt by Hirsch, 1987, to spell out what knowledge is required for ‘cultural literacy’ in the USA) or unconscious and, hence, largely ignored in statements of educational aims. But from what has been written so far, it is clear that the biggest challenge currently

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facing the common school is to know what culture can justifiably be transmitted in contemporary multicultural societies. As we have seen, there is a tension between the role of the common school in developing shared values, a shared culture and a shared sense of citizenship, on the one hand, and respecting and celebrating a diversity of cultural beliefs, values and practices, on the other. In this section I shall explore whether the very structure of the common school militates in some ways against the wishes of some minority groups to preserve their own distinctive cultural values and loyalties, and to transmit these across the generations. To put it another way, is there something of the melting pot about the way that the common school operates in the West, forcing minorities to accept a radical shift in their own identity? I shall take the case of the Muslims in England as my main example to illustrate these points in the remainder of the chapter. One problem faced by Muslims in the West is that their own primary loyalty is to a religious faith and to the culture that has grown up around it, whereas the primary loyalty of most westerners is to the ‘imagined community’ of the nation state (Anderson, 1991). The common school, reflecting the majority culture, takes for granted the nation state’s primary claim on people’s loyalty, but this assumption can be experienced as oppressive to Muslims. In terms of schooling, they do not necessarily want to go to school exclusively with fellow Muslims, but they want a form of schooling that does not undermine their primary loyalty. So can the common school ever satisfy this requirement? Between the two extremes—of total assimilation, on the one hand, and ‘unrestricted freedom to follow their own customs and religious practices, be governed by their personal law and receive education in their language and cultural tradition’, on the other (Lustgarten, 1983, p. 101)—lie a number of midpoints, typically expressed in metaphors, that try to articulate a justifiable response on the part of public institutions like the common school to the issue of the relationship between cultural minorities and the broader society (cf. Halstead, 2007). The phrase ‘the melting pot’ has been used so widely that its metaphorical meaning—of different immigrant nationalities and cultures losing their individual identity as they blend and merge into a new American culture—is more readily understood than its literal meaning—of a crucible in which different metals are melted together. Implicit in the metaphor is the idea that small minorities may be almost totally transformed (or ‘liberated’, or ‘submerged’) in the resulting compound, whereas the dominant culture will be affected in only a minor way. Other metaphors place less emphasis on acculturation. The ‘cultural mosaic’ or ‘cultural patchwork’ both suggest that the cultural identity of the minority group is not transformed by the majority culture but is able to retain its original culture and appearance, though what is important is its contribution to the overall picture of national culture. Nevertheless, pots have to be broken to make a mosaic, and material cut up to make a patchwork. The metaphor of ‘mainstream culture’ is also widely used, with its implication that there are many small streams or tributaries as well as the main river; but again the implicit message is that when the tributary comes into contact with

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the mainstream culture it is drawn into the main current and its distinctive identity lost. In none of the metaphors considered so far do minority groups have the freedom to retain their original identity intact in a multicultural society. The comparison of a multicultural society to a ‘tossed salad’, on the other hand, draws attention to the enrichment that each culture can offer the others: ‘each ingredient remains recognisable within the salad, but each very subtly contributes to the overall ambience: the dominant flavours are muted, but no flavours are lost’ (Saunders, 1982, p. 13). Finally, the ‘multicultural park’ in which a thousand flowers bloom implies that different cultures are appreciated for their own sake, while at the same time contributing to the plan, shape and design of the broader society (Roth, 1999). Nevertheless, some flowers will thrive easily in the park while others will get overgrown and die unless they are tended with care. Which of these metaphors captures most effectively the current situation relating to the culture of minorities like western Muslims in the common school? I want to argue that even though the melting pot metaphor has now gone out of fashion in academic circles, because of the belief that it is no longer necessary to become assimilated or to abandon one’s cultural heritage in order to be accepted as a citizen in British or American society, the common school continues to operate along lines that have much in common with the melting pot. In fact, there is perhaps something inevitable about this. Before we look at specific examples, we need to bear in mind the processes by which culture is transmitted in schools. First, it may occur consciously and intentionally through the formal curriculum, through subjects like English, History, or Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE). Secondly, it may occur equally intentionally, if less commonly made explicit, through school rituals and practices such as saluting the flag and celebrating Thanksgiving Day in the USA, or singing hymns and wearing poppies for Remembrance Day in the UK. Thirdly, it may also go on unconsciously and unintentionally through the hidden curriculum— through school ethos and policies, the example set by teachers, the resources selected for use in the classroom and many other unintended sources of informal learning. Taken together, these three processes can exert a powerful influence on children’s cultural learning in schools. Let us look more closely at each in turn. First, how much has the formal curriculum of the common school changed as a result of the fact that Muslim children now make up between five and six per cent of the school population in England? Clearly the Religious Education syllabus has changed to include a certain amount of teaching about Islam as well as other world religions, and there is the potential to include an Islamic dimension in History, Art and other subjects, though my own research suggests that this rarely happens in practice. Almost certainly the cultural content of the school curriculum has changed less than five per cent in response to the growing number of Muslim children in English schools. But since culture is not usually taught directly, but picked up through the teaching of mainstream subjects, the effect of this is that 95 per cent of the cultural influences to which Muslim children are exposed in the common

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school on a daily basis are not based on Islamic values. This does not, of course, imply that they are being forced to shed their old way of life and accept an alien set of cultural values; much depends on how strong the original values are, how resistant to transformation and change, and how much reinforcement they are given outside school. Nonetheless, the influence is constant over an extended period of time, at an age when children are most receptive to such influence, and it may be experienced as pressure to change. The example of Sex Education illustrates the wide difference that exists between Islamic and western values, and the transformative potential of teaching the topic from an exclusively western perspective. The values underpinning current approaches to Sex Education in England (personal freedom of choice plus the avoidance of infection and unwanted pregnancy) are very different from Islamic values in this area (purity, chastity, modesty and the avoidance of temptation). Even a bland phrase like ‘responsible sexual behaviour’ may be interpreted very differently: to a Muslim, it may mean not being unaccompanied in the same room as a member of the opposite sex, but in the broader society it may mean no more than always using a condom when having sexual relations. Second, with regard to school rituals and practices, it seems reasonable to assume that if the common school has policies aimed to demonstrate respect towards Muslim children (for example, by providing prayer facilities for the midday prayer, allowing them to wear school uniform and sportswear that respects Islamic teaching about modesty and decency, providing halal food for school meals, allowing leave of absence for Muslim festivals and so on), these will set an example of respect for the faith among non-Muslim children and will strengthen the identity of the Muslims. But much depends on whether the policies are treated as formal requirements that must be carried out in obedience to government guidelines or as an expression of the underlying principle of respect for Islamic ways of life. If it is the former, then the underlying principles may not even be understood, and it is likely that the few formal ‘concessions’ to Islamic identity will be far outweighed by deep-seated assumptions about the normality and superiority of British cultural traditions and values. Hence raffle tickets may be sent home with Muslim children as a way of fund-raising for the school even though raffles are considered to be a kind of gambling that is forbidden in Islam. Schools no longer require all children to sing ‘Onward Christian soldiers’ in assemblies, but the activities that do go on in assemblies continue to expose Muslim children to un-Islamic values on a daily basis. As I write this, my daughter is gathering together the ingredients she has been told to bring in for her cooking lesson tomorrow at her multicultural school in the north of England. The ingredients include sausage meat, even though the class has several Muslim children for whom any contact with pork products is totally unacceptable. They can only take advantage of the opportunities offered by this lesson by compromising their religious and cultural values. Third, with regard to the hidden curriculum, it is clear that there are many occasions in the school day where Muslim children come face to face with cultural experiences and expectations at variance with those of

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their family’s. Their family may teach them to spit out any phlegm that accumulates in the back of their nose, whereas the teacher may say this is dirty and to use a handkerchief or tissue. The peer culture also plays an important part in the learning that takes place through the hidden curriculum, and many Muslim parents are worried about the influence of non-Muslim peers on the spiritual and moral development of their children, particularly in the areas of drugs, alcohol, dating and sexual experimentation. Once again the cultural assumptions in cross-cultural friendships may put pressure on Muslim children to conform to practices that go against their own deep-seated beliefs and values.

CONCLUSION

The cumulative effect of all this is not just that Muslim children in England are being prepared for British citizenship, but that they are being exposed on a daily basis to a set of cultural expectations that differ very significantly from those they have been brought up with at home. Does it matter? Why should it be perceived as a problem by many Muslims? First, it is not what many Muslim parents want. This takes us back to the issue of parental choice, and whether parents should be free to choose an education for their children that is in line with their own beliefs and values. Second, the cultural differences have deep religious roots, and relate to Muslims’ primary identity and loyalties. Third, if the cultural values of the home and the school are so different, Muslim parents worry that their children may be pulled in different ways and that this will produce unnecessary tensions, conflicts and damage to their children’s development. Most Muslim parents accept a certain amount of cultural change, and expect that a new British Muslim identity will emerge in their children’s generation that combines twin loyalties—to nation and to religion. But the fundamental religious values must not be undermined or eroded. Instead of the common school acting as a kind of melting pot that fundamentally reconstructs the cultural identity of minorities like Muslims, it would be more acceptable to many Muslims to provide a form of schooling that is more evenly balanced in developing a British Muslim identity. Such a school would reinforce their existing religious and cultural beliefs and the values of the home, but at the same time provide a strong induction into British citizenship. It is unlikely that this could be achieved either by independent Muslim schools (which may devote inadequate time to citizenship) or by the common school as currently conceived (since this would erode Islamic identity). The more promising possibilities include multi-faith schools, where the religious ethos would support the identity of Muslim children and the diversity would prepare them for citizenship of a multicultural nation, or state-funded Islamic schools that are required to teach the National Curriculum, which could make co-operative links with other faith schools. Such schools would be common in the sense of accepting children from all ability levels, all social classes, all ethnic groups and all national and linguistic backgrounds, and they would aim to

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generate tolerance and cross-cultural understanding. At the same time they would support a commitment to British citizenship, because the children would be proud to be citizens of a country that recognises and respects their faith in practical ways. To end on a starker note, Muslim youngsters in England (and elsewhere in the West) are feeling gradually alienated from the broader society, particularly because of a string of recent policies and initiatives that appear to be directed against them. Muslims are increasingly being associated with terrorism in the media and in the popular imagination. Universities are being encouraged to monitor their Muslim students, Muslims are being disproportionately targeted by stop-and-search policies, mosques are being urged to teach citizenship (why not churches and synagogues?), Islamophobic articles in the press are now widespread and seem to be considered quite acceptable, and any criticisms by Muslims of British foreign policy or policing policy are taken to be an indication of sympathy for terrorism. In such near hysterical circumstances, it would not be surprising if the cultural expectations of common schooling (which may be benign in their attempt to protect children’s rights to become full citizens and not to be trapped in a particular culture) are perceived as an attempt to subjugate and coercively assimilate Muslim children. The greater the perception of pressure towards cultural conformity, the greater, most likely, will be the resistance; the increase in wearing the hijab and other overt expressions of Islamic identity in the West may need to be understood in this light. Liberalism allows space for such counter-discourses to spring up, but (as events in Algeria and Palestine illustrate) it does not always like the consequences. In such a climate, it is hard to be optimistic about the possibility of greater cohesion between communities and of greater crosscultural respect and understanding in the years to come. REFERENCES Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities (London, Verso). Halstead, J. M. (1988) Education, Justice and Cultural Diversity (Lewes, Falmer Press). Halstead, J. M. (1996) Liberal Values and Liberal Education, in: J. M. Halstead and M. J. Taylor (eds) Values in Education and Education in Values (London, Falmer Press). Halstead, J. M. (2007) Multicultural Metaphors, in: K. Roth and I. Gur-Ze’ev (eds) Education in the Era of Globalization (Dordrecht, Spinger). Halstead, J. M. and Pike, M. A. (2006) Citizenship and Moral Education (London, Routledge). Hirsch, E. D. (1987) Cultural Literacy (Boston, MA, Houghton Mifflin). House of Commons (1985) Education for All (The Swann Report) (London, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office). Levinson, M. (1999) The Demands of Liberal Education (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Lustgarten, M. S. (1983) Liberty in a Culturally Plural Society, in: A. Phillips Griffiths (ed.) Of Liberty (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). McLaughlin, T. H. (1984) Parental Rights and the Religious Upbringing of Children, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 19.1, pp. 75–83. McLaughlin, T. H. (2003) The Burdens and Dilemmas o Common Schooling, in: K. McDonough and W. Feinberg (eds) Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies (New York, Oxford University Press). Roth, H. I. (1999) The Multicultural Park (Stockholm, Skolverket). Saunders, M. (1982) Education for a New Community, New Community, 10.1, pp. 64–71.

Index ability-based selection 62–6, 69 11 plus examination 2, 61 Ackerman, Bruce 191, 214 Ainscow, Mel 280 Alamo Elementary School, San Francisco 129 Amish community 99, 119–20, 146, 242 Anderson, Benedict 242, 330 Anderson, Elizabeth 230, 258, 259 Appiah, Anthony 130–1, 313 Aristotle 159–60, 162–3, 314, 317 Armstrong, Derrick 287–8 arts 163–4 assessment 50 associationism 17 autism 276, 282–3 autonomy 35, 110, 216, 272 human flourishing and 109–12 liberalism and 112–15, 294–5 rational 108–9 Ball, Stephen 72, 239 Banks, James 131–4 Barrow, Robin 146–7 benevolence 232 Berlin, Isaiah 33, 116 Bloom, Alex 44–52 Bode, Patty 125, 133 brand loyalty 243–4 Brighouse, Harry 109–12, 115–16, 254, 261, 293, 299 Brighouse, Tim 76 Britain Britishness 143 common school in 172–3 religious perspectives 31 segregation 136 British Columbia 64–5 Buber, Martin 118 ‘burdens of judgment’ 113, 114 Butler, J. 316, 317 Callan, Eamonn 219

28, 31, 37,114, 212, 218,

capability 256 equal participation in society and 256–9 equality in education and 259–63 educational entitlement 263–7 threshold levels 262, 263, 266, 268–9 Catholic Schools 16, 210, 212–13, 220 see also faith schools; religion Centre for Studies in Inclusive Education (CSIE) 274 choice see autonomy, school choice civic engagement 129 civic loyalty 239–40, 249 class see economic class clothing Chapter 9 passim, 316 cross-gender 298 Islamic 141–4, 149, 152, 172 symbolic 198–9 common curriculum 9–10, 31, 62–3, 328–9 competition 51 between schools 245 comprehensive ideal 23–5, 75–8 minimal and maximal interpretations of 29–33 scope of 31–3 values underlying 33–6 comprehensive liberalism 113 Confederate flag 148–9 constructivism 160–2 Countesthorpe Community College, Leicestershire 50, 53 creationism 197–8, 201–2 curriculum 28, 171, 331–3 common curriculum 9–10, 31, 62–3, 328–9 queer futures and 301 religious education and 168–9 Daunt, P. E. 29–30 Dawkins, Richard 169 Day of Silence 198–9 Day of Truth 198–9 democratisation of knowledge deprivation 13–14 desegregation 82–3

The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal: A Defence by Richard Pring with Complementary Essays. Edited by Mark Halstead and Graham Haydon © 2008 the Authors. ISBN: 978-1-405-18738-1

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justice without desegregation 83–5 Dewey, John 1, 3–5, 8, 11–12, 106 difference principle 268 disabled children educational entitlement 263–7 future possibilities 296 resource distribution 255–6, 263–4, 267–9 see also inclusion disadvantaged children resources for 85 see also disabled children; poverty; socio-economic segregation; special educational needs discrimination 25, 309–14 non-discrimination 25, 34, 35 see also lookism; queerness issues disruptiveness 57 disruptive symbolic clothing 149–51 distinction 57–69 ability-based selection 62–6 distinct educational institutions 66–8 distributive principle 74 dress codes see clothing economic class 102–3 see also poverty; socio-economic segregation educational entitlement 262–3 with disabilities/special educational needs 263–7 egalitarianism 11, 74, 82, 85, 256 England see Britain equality 2–3, 34–5, 74–5, 79, 255 capability equality in education 259–63 equal consideration 295–7 equal opportunities 225–30, 262, 263–4, 269 participation in society 256–9 resource distribution and 255–6, 263–4 value of education 30 see also justice evolution 197–8, 201–2 exit 239, 244–5, 246–7, 249 faith schools 14–18, 24, 26, 67–8, 69, 120–1 loyalty and 248 see also religion fee-paying schools 66–7

Feinberg, Joel 146 France common school in 172–3 dress codes 141, 142, 143, 144–5 religious issues 31, 171–2 culture and 177–8 epistemological status of religious studies 179 laic˙ite´ principle 171–2, 173–7, 179–80, 181–3 religious illiteracy 177–81 school role in religious education 178–9 teaching of literature and 183–5 Franck, Thomas 239–40 French Revolution 54 futurity 294–5 future possibilities 279–83, 295–7 Gaita, Raimond 288 Galston, William 33, 121, 211–12 gay rights 198–9 Glazer, Nathan 79–80 Glover, Jonathan 97, 105, 242 Gray, John 33, 109, 115–16 Gutmann, A. 191, 211, 215, 270 Halsey, A. H. 3, 75–6 Harvey Milk School, New York 300 Haydon, Graham 147, 306–7, 318 Hirschman, A. O. 243, 244 homosexuality 292 see also gay rights, queerness issues Hume, David 159 humiliation 273–6, 280, 284 identity 91, 98, 103–5, 219, 241–2, 248, 307–8, 310–11 civic 247 corporate 245 cultural 329–30, 334 Islamic 333–4 national 104–6, 209, 322, 325 religious 100, 183, 247, 324, 332–3 sexual 112, 292–4, 298–9 inclusion 24–5, 272–89 concept of possibility and 279–83 concept of reality and 283–7 decent society and 273–6 inclusive classroom issues 63–5 self-respect and 277–9

Index Inclusion UK 272 indoctrination 67–8 Inglis, Fred 43–4 Islam 329–34 see also clothing, Islamic; identity, Islamic Israel 213 Jewish tradition(s), culture 15–16, 100–1 Jones, P. 307–8, 310, 317 Kant, Immanuel 35, 59, 110, 115, 159, 195, 277–8, 317–8 Kozol, J. 72–3, 79 Labaree, D. F. 244, 246–7 labelling 275–6 laic˙ite´ principle 171–2, 173–7, 179–80, 181–3 context 174–7 definition 173–4 Levinson, Meira 112, 113–16, 214 liberal state 112–15, 217–19 legitimisation 112–14 liberalism 108–9, 112–13, 210–13 autonomy and 294–5 communitarian 121 comprehensive 113 faces of 115–18 political 113 queer theory and 291–2, 300–4 universal 116–17 liberty 34, 35–6 liberty principle 267–8 parental choice and 80–2 Lilla, M. 189–90 literature 163–4 teaching of 183–5 Locke, John 115, 190, 195 logos 164 lookism 25, 308–9 common schools and 318–20 stereotyping and 314–18 loyalty 96, Chapter 15 passim, 323, 326, 330 McConnell, Michael 215–16 Macedo, S. 114, 126,190, 211, 219 MacIntyre, Alasdair 163–4, 295–6

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McLaughlin, Terence 26–7, 126, 182, 184, 213, 218, 318 Macmurray, J. 47, 53 Margalit, A. 273, 275, 289 marketisation 238–9, 246–7, 249–50 Mayo, Chris 291–3, 300–1, 302, 303–4 Midgely, Mary 164, 181 Mill, John Stuart 113, 192 multicultural education 24, 124–5 as instrument for common schooling 131–4 challenges 136–8 common schooling as instrument for 125–31 common schooling expressing the multicultural ideal 134–6 definitions 125, 132–4 goals of 133 Murdoch, Iris 161, 286 narrative 162–6 liberal education and 164–6 neo-liberalism 52–3 Netherlands, dress codes 144 Neusner, Jacob 15–16, 18 neutrality 108–9, 116, 181–3 Newman, John Henry 11, 164 Nieto, Sonia 125, 133 Nussbaum, Martha 45, 47, 257, 262, 298–9 Oakeshott, Michael 11–12, 116–17 offensive symbols 145–8 Oldenquist, A. 240, 241 Oliver, Mike 287, 288 opportunities 260–1 equal opportunities 225–30, 262, 263–4, 269 for well-being 257–8 parental choice see school choice Parsons, Talcott 6 Philips, Trevor 143 Pierce v. Society of Sisters 220–1 Plato 230–1 pluralism 33, 208–9 common schooling and 208–14 arguments against common schools 14–17 legitimisation of the liberal state and 112–14

338

Index

normative significance of 209–14 educational choice and 214–17 value-pluralism 33–5, 116–17 see also difference; diversity positivism 283–4 post-positivist paradigm 283–4 poverty 13–14, 73 see also disadvantaged children; socioeconomic segregation private schools 66–7, 69, 81–2, 213 moral argument for 224–36 Putman, Robert 129 queerness issues 291–4 equal consideration 295–7 family and 297–300 liberalism and 291–2, 300–4 queer identity 292–4, 298–9 queer recognition 293 racism 319 radical traditions of state education 41–3, 53–4 prefigurative practice 43–52, 54 rational autonomy see autonomy Rawls, John 35, 86, 113–14, 116, 186, 190–1, 193–6, 208, 210–12, 216–7, 226, 230, 235–6, 267–8, 304 Raz, Joseph 113, 306–7 reality 283–7, 288 reasonable accommodation 142–3, 151 religion 9–10, 111, 324 culture and 177–8 engagement 189, 194–203 Great Separation 189–90 interfaith relations 60–1 neutrality 181–3 religious dialogue in the public square 191–2 school as sanctuary 171–2 teaching of literature and 183–5 see also Islam; Jewish traditions, culture religious education 157–8 constructivist turn 160–2 creationism 197–8 discomforts of 166–8 epistemological status 179 narrative turn 162–4 non-confessional approach 158–60, 166–7

religious illiteracy 177–81 policy response 179–81 role of the school 178–9 school curriculum and 168–9 teaching the Bible 199–201 see also faith schools resource distribution 255–6 disabilities/special educational needs and 255–6, 263–4, 267–9 disadvantaged children 85 distributive justice 273 respect 34, 35, 306–8, 322–3 educating for 318–20 inclusion and 279, 280, 288 see also self-respect Ricoeur, Paul 53 Rousseau, J.-J. 110 Rutherford, Jonathan 53 Sacks, Jonathan 9, 15, 118 St. George-in-the East Secondary School, Stepney, London 44–52 democratic structure 47–9 school choice 24, 36, 72–3, 84, 261 common schooling and 207–8, 209, 217–21 liberty and 80–2 marketisation and 238–9, 246–7, 249–50 moral argument for 224–36 normative significance of pluralism and 214–17 proxy choices 261 secularism 158 see also religion; religious education segregation 1, 136, 284 desegregation 82–5 socio-economic 72–3, 78–9, 85–6 see also inclusion; selection selection 84 11 plus examination 2, 61 ability-based 62–6, 69 see also segregation self-respect inclusion and 277–9 injuries to 276, 277, 279 Sen, A. 256–7, 258–61 setting 62–3, 68–9 sex education 332 sexual identity 292–4, 298–9 see also queerness issues

Index Simon, Brian 42–3, 51, 53 Sinclair, Jim 274, 276 Sleeter, Christine 124 Smith, Adam 231–5 socio-economic segregation 73–4, 85–6 educational injustice and 78–82 see also disadvantaged children special educational needs educational entitlement 263–7 resource distribution and 255–6, 263–4, 267–9 see also inclusion special schools 273, 275 see also autism, inclusion Stenhouse, L. 10, 168 stereotyping 307, 309–14 lookism and 314–18 Stout, Jeffrey 190 streaming 62 Swift, Adam 81, 224–30 symbolic clothing see dress codes symbolic violence 96 Tawney, R. H. 2, 8, 75 Taylor, Charles 16, 119, 307, 315 Thomson, Godfrey 13 Todorov, Tzvetan 183 Tomasi, J. 114, 216

Twine, Richard

339

314

uniform policies see clothing United Kingdom see Britain United States 3, 126 culture issues 91–2, 98–9, 132 dress codes 146 education issues 191 creationism 197–8 gay rights 198–9 teaching the Bible 199–201 religious perspectives 31, 176, 189–90 religious dialogue in the public square 191–2 segregation 136 universalism 272, 273, 276, 278–83 see also inclusion value-pluralism 33–5, 116–17 voice 239, 244–5, 247 Walzer, Michael 143–4 Warnock, Mary 281 Weaver, Tony 47 well-being 257–8 White, John 294–5 Whitty, Geoff 83 Wittgenstein, L. 161, 285 Wright, Nigel 42