I argue that Rawlsian liberals should consider cardinal virtue habituation as a legitimate form of moral education and citizenship education in publicly funded schools. In "Political Liberalism," Rawls acknowledges that a liberal government can and should promote certain virtues or traits of moral character in citizens, but only those…

To speak of democracy is often to speak less of a fact than of a hope. In his introduction to "Democracy in America," Alexis de Tocqueville admitted that '… in America I saw "more than" America; I sought the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices and its passions, in order to learn what…

From the first co-operative trust school at Reddish Vale in Manchester in 2006, the following decade would witness a remarkable growth of 'co-operative schools' in England, which at one point numbered over 850. This paper outlines the key development of democratic education by the co-operative schools network. It explains the approach to democracy…

This paper, while not presenting a general discussion of authority in education, attempts to uncover some of the anomalies, paradoxes and tensions in the concept. It will argue for a revaluation of authority as an educational virtue, as a form of participatory guidance that is an aid to growth. The paper intends to help provoke continued debate…

This article explores the context for the accompanying suite of papers on creating and sustaining democratic spaces in education. Prompted by the centenary of Summerhill, the internationally famous democratic school founded in Suffolk, England, in 1921, by A.S. Neill, this collection of papers explores and broadens out the central questions at the…

My aim in this paper is to draw the attention of educational theorists to the pedagogical arguments that Plato puts forward in his account of imperfect political systems ("Republic," VIII and IX)--viz. his discussion of timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny. I present Plato's account of political systems and argue that the…

The central objective of Dewey's Democracy and Education is to explain 'what is needed to live a meaningful life and how can education contribute?' While most acquainted with Dewey's educational philosophy know that 'experience' plays a central role, the role of 'situations' may be less familiar or understood. This essay explains why 'situation'…

Statues are in the news. Controversies are swirling around the slave trader and philanthropist Edward Colston in Bristol, Confederate generals, soldiers and leaders in the United States, and the sculpture in honour of Mary Wollstonecraft in Newington Green in North London. In some cases, the attacks have been physical as well as verbal, and such…

This paper traces the changing status of the school as a counter culture in the anthropological and historical literature, in particular from the moment when compulsory mass schooling assumed the function of ideological state apparatus in the post-revolutionary 19th century West. It then focuses attention on what may be called the New School,…

This article examines the concept of 'radical otherness' from the perspectives of John Rawls' political liberalism and Chantal Mouffe's agonistic pluralism, and studies the relevance of these approaches to contemporary citizenship education. In this context, the notion of 'radical otherness' refers to such ethical, political or religious doctrines…

The distinguished US philosopher Elizabeth Anderson, who teaches at the University of Michigan, answers questions put to her by John White about educational aspects of her work in moral and political philosophy. She begins by describing her indebtedness to Dewey in his views on developing students' capacities for intelligent enquiry and as…

Can Dewey's Moral Principles in Education throw light on a contemporary policy issue in education, namely the privatisation of education through the establishment of academy schools in England? The article first considers what the policy entails, in terms of its conception of education as a market commodity. The next section suggests an…

As conceived by founders Matthew Lipman and Ann Margaret Sharp, Philosophy for Children is a humanistic practice with roots in the Hellenistic tradition of philosophy as a way of life given to the search for meaning, in American pragmatism with its emphasis on qualitative experience, collaborative inquiry and democratic society, and in American…

The Common School should promote a sense of the distinctive worth of all human beings. How is the respect thus owed to every individual to be properly understood? This familiar question is explored by discussing "lookism", a form of discrimination on the grounds of appearance. The treatment is located within a wider analysis of stereotyping.…

This article reviews "John Dewey and Our Educational Prospect, A Critical Engagement with Dewey's Democracy and Education," edited and spearheaded by David T. Hansen, with contributions by Gert Biesta, Reba N. Page, Larry A. Hickman, Naoko Saito, Gary D. Fenstermacher, Herbert M. Kliebard, Sharon Fieman-Nemser and Elizabeth Minnich. This…