In this book I argue that school integration is not a proxy for educational justice. I demonstrate that the evidence consistently shows the opposite is more typically the case. I then articulate and defend the idea of voluntary separation, which describes the effort to redefine, reclaim and redirect what it means to educate under preexisting conditions of segregation. In doing so, I further demonstrate how voluntary separation is consistent with the liberal democratic requirements of equality and citizenship. The position I (...) defend is not opposed to integration but rather is a justified response to the daily experience of frustration and disappointment with a system that has failed members of marginalized groups for too long. I argue that most voluntary separation experiments in education, far from being motivated by a sense of racial, cultural or religious exclusion, are in fact driven among other things by a desire for a quality education, not to mention community membership and self respect. As such, voluntary separation represents a morally robust pragmatic strategy that is able to answer liberal challenges concerning involuntary stratification, ethnocentrism and democratic deliberation. (shrink)

La neutralité bienveillante est parfois considérée comme la seule politique linguistique compatible avec l’impératif de neutralité de l’État libéral. Un argument en faveur d’une telle position est celui de la coïncidence entre l’équilibre des choix individuels et l’optimalité des résultats. Nous démontrons que la présence d’échecs de marché empêche cette coïncidence sur le marché linguistique et que des interventions étatiques, dont la nature demeure à préciser, sont alors nécessaires pour rétablir cette coïncidence.Benign neglect is sometimes considered the only language policy (...) available for a neutral liberal state. An argument supporting this position is the coincidence of choices equilibrium and results optimality. We show that market failures on the linguistic market breaks this coincidence and therefore that some state interventions are legitimate even from a laisser-faire framework. (shrink)

Whether Aboriginal people should have special educational rights is a question that has simmered and occasionally boiled over during the past four decades. This dispute remains largely unresolved due to perceived tensions that exist between liberal values and minority rights. Will Kymlicka attempts to resolve this conflict by claiming that the liberal concept of autonomy can be used as a starting point for minority rights. However, there are several questions that are inadequately answered in his theory. Namely, why is autonomy (...) so important? What is the significance of a particular culture? Should a liberal society support cultures that are illiberal? In response to these questions I will demonstrate that the liberal concept of autonomy requires that adequately restrictive cultures be protected. From this it is possible to develop a cohesive theory of minority rights that can be used to defend Aboriginal control of formal education. (shrink)

This article traces recent trends in British politics, liberal political theory and human rights law in order to demonstrate why the right of exit – made famous in the political theory of multiculturalism by Chandran Kukathas – may be able to mediate tensions between them. I argue that the right of exit is an insufficient test for consent because some cultures may render some members incapable of effectively exercising their autonomy. I use empirical evidence drawn from legal cases and social (...) science in conjunction with a philosophical account of agency as fundamentally ‘relational’ to unpack and defend this controversial claim. Understanding agency in relational terms sheds light on precisely how oppressive culturally permitted relationships can simultaneously constitute some individuals’ primary identities while serving to harm those very same individuals in the process. This account of agency and culture also avoids both the liberal assumption of a sovereign self and also any essentialism or reification of culture. I suggest that for an individual to have the capacity to effectively use of the right of exit, they must be able to conceive of themselves as an agent, which includes having a sense of their own moral worth and the ability to imagine the possibility of living a different kind of life. (shrink)

Although there was never a consensus about multicultural policies for immigrants, at the beginning of this new millennium, multiculturalism found itself in cloudy water. Within a short period, politicians Merkel, Cameron, and Sarkozy all informed us that multiculturalism had failed. While this political statement drew many objections—How could these politicians claim we should abandon multiculturalism, given that multiculturally conscious notions of justice and their concomitant laws and policies for immigrants have never even been implemented in their respective countries? —political and (...) philosophical critique of multiculturalism have nonetheless become more vigorous (Vertovec and... (shrink)

En este trabajo se defiende la tesis de que el liberalismo de corte individualista ha sido insuficiente como modelo teórico político para realizar el ideal liberal de libertad individual y, sobre esa base, se argumenta que lo determinante a la hora de realizar el ideal de libertad individual es la relación entre cultura y libertad. El liberalismo, sin que por ello ignore que hay culturas, se enfoca decididamente en el individuo y en su libertad. En ese desconocimiento relativo de la (...) diversidad cultural, concretamente del papel que la cultura juega frente al ideal de libertad individual, el liberalismo se ha conducido a un callejón sin salida: uno en el que esa relativa ignorancia afecta su propio ideal de libertad individual. (shrink)