The role of critique in the Anglophone analytical tradition of philosophy of education is outlined and some of its shortcomings are noted, particularly its apparent claim to methodological objectivity in arriving at what are clearly contestable positions about the normative basis of education. Many of these issues can be seen to have a long history within European, and especially German, philosophy of education. In the light of this the discussion moves on to a consideration of similarities and contrasts between the (...) Anglophone and German-inspired deployment of the concept of critical rationality in philosophy of education. The claims to objectivity of the Anglophone tradition are contrasted with a more self-conscious concern for social justice and improvement in other European traditions, which has been followed more recently by a greater scepticism concerning the potential of critique for delivering social justice and improvement in education. This has parallels with the growing Anglophone disillusion with ‘classical’ analytic philosophy of education. This in turn has resulted in a greater awareness of the limitations of critique: its ideological character, its rootedness in specific contexts, its own potential dogmatism and its ambiguities. The various contributions to this volume are briefly described and related to each other. (shrink)

This paper argues that the modern curriculum of academic subject disciplines embodies a rationalist conception of pure, universal knowledge that does little to cultivate, humanise or form the self. A liberal education in the classical humanist tradition, by contrast, develops a personal culture or paideia, an understanding of the self as a social, political and cultural being, and the practical wisdom needed to make judgements in practical, political and human affairs. The paper concludes by asking whether the old liberal curriculum, (...) traditionally centred on the humanities and the disciplines of grammar and rhetoric, can be recovered in the modern age. (shrink)

This paper examines Michael Young's 1958 dystopia, The Rise of the Meritocracy. In this book, the word 'meritocracy' was coined and used in a pejorative sense. Today, however, meritocracy represents a positive ideal against which we measure the justice of our institutions. This paper argues that, when read in the twenty-first century, Young's dystopia does little to dislodge the implicit appeal of a meritocratic society. It examines the principles of education and administrative justice upon which meritocracy is based, suggesting that (...) since 1958 those principles have changed. Young's warning no longer has any effect on us because the meritocratic system it warns us against has been transformed. (shrink)

Two short paragraphs, 42 and 43, in the White Paper, Excellence in Schools , published in July 1997, announced the UK government's intention to educate for citizenship: Schools can help to ensure that young people feel that they have a stake in our society and the community in which they live by teaching them the nature of democracy and the duties, responsibilities and rights of citizens.

Summary In her highly publicised polemic, All Must Have Prizes (1996), Melanie Phillips launches a scathing attack upon the British educational establishment and various facets of policy and practice during the past three decades. She is especially critical of progressivism and approaches to teaching and learning supposedly predicated upon relativist principles (e.g. multicultural education). Our own research on primary?school children's constructions of British identity (Carrington, B. & Short, G. (1995): What makes a person British? Children's conceptions of their national culture (...) and identity, Educational Studies, 21, pp. 217?238) is singled?out for criticism. We begin this paper with a rejoinder to Phillips. Among other things, we take issue with her defence of an assimilationist approach to the curriculum. In the second part of the paper, we present the findings of a recently completed case?study of 12? and 13?year?olds? constructions of their national identity, which replicates the earlier work (criticised by Phillips) with 8? to 11?year?olds. We show that the young adolescents, in common with their counterparts in primary schools, tended to adopt a pluralist viewpoint. Once again, there was an almost complete dearth of comments that were racist or nationalistic. We conclude by briefly exploring the policy implications of the findings. [1] Paper presented to the 1997 Conference of the Association for Moral Education: The Voices of Care and Justice?enhancing dialogue among theorists, researchers and practitioners, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA. (shrink)

Doubts have been expressed about the virtue of toleration, especially in view of what some have seen as its complicity with a morality of anything goes. More rigorous arguments have been provided by Peter Gardner and Harvey Siegel against the relativism evident in certain versions of multiculturalism and in the new religious studies. This article examines their arguments. While it recognises the cogency of these arguments, it suggests that their concentration on matters of belief and mistaken belief is apt to (...) divert attention from what is most important with regard to questions of toleration in these areas of experience. In order to illustrate this, remarks of Wittgenstein on religion and on understanding other cultures are considered. In contrast to the standard analysis of toleration, where toleration is seen as a response to an object that arouses disgust or disapproval, the value and the limitations of an easy-going tolerance are examined. This is related to bearing witness and knowledge-by-acquaintance. In the final section attention is turned to aspects of the curriculum that may have an unexpected relevance to toleration and the multicultural society. (shrink)

In this article, I explore a new reason in favor of precollegiate philosophy: It could help narrow the persistent gender disparity within the discipline. I catalog some of the most widely endorsed explanations for the underrepresentation of women in philosophy and argue that, on each hypothesized explanation, precollegiate philosophy instruction could help improve our discipline's gender balance. Explanations I consider include stereotype threat, gendered philosophical intuitions, inhospitable disciplinary environment, lack of same-sex role models for women students in philosophy, and conflicting (...) “schemas” for philosophy and femininity. I argue that, insofar as some combination of these hypothesized explanations accounts for some portion of the underrepresentation of women in philosophy, those of us concerned to make things better have reason to participate in and promote efforts to share philosophy with younger students. (shrink)

This article focuses on Manuel Castells's claim that the information age announces major changes in stratification and, accordingly, in social and political mobilization. His assertion that informational labour displaces generic labour in informational capitalism is examined in terms of its conceptual and historical accuracy, and questions are raised about the notion of meritocracy embedded in his depiction of informational labour. The idea that the network society is characterized by `a faceless collective capitalist' is also called into question by evidence of (...) the persistence of a propertied class. Finally, Castells's analysis of the emergence and significance of identitybased mobilizations is examined. (shrink)