Mitja Sardoč’s interview with John White discusses a neglected aspect of the educational goal of equipping learners to lead a life of autonomous well-being – trying to ensure that they have adequate options from which to choose worthwhile activities and relationships. Following a brief account of the nature of autonomous well-being, White outlines and critiques Joseph Raz’s views on the adequacy of options in general as well as an earlier inadequate approach of his own to this topic in relation to the school curriculum. He then picks up and critically discusses Eamonn Callan’s curricular suggestions about how to open up a range of options. Drawing on both these discussions, the interview then leads to a threefold proposal about how schools and other agencies could go about providing the adequate range required. The last two short sections underline the wider changes needed in society if the work of these educational institutions is to bear fruit.
There is hardly any concept in modern political thought that is more complex and controversial than that of toleration. The complexity of the foundations, nature and the value of toleration and the controversiality of the status, the justification and the limits of toleration raise a number of questions concerning the basis of toleration in a diverse pluralist polity. As the existing literature on this topic clearly exemplifies (e.g. Dees, persistence of the moral and conceptual objections against toleration confirm that several issues associated with the traditional doctrine of toleration and the possibility conditions of toleration remain contested.This special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory brings together eight papers that examine in detail a number of issues related to the status, the justification and the limits of toleration on the one hand and the intricate relationship between toleration, respect and recognition of diversity in education on another. In the opening contribution to the Toleration, Respect and Recognition in Education special issue Colin Macleod discusses in detail the normative complexity of the different interpretations of toleration as it applies to education in democratic communities. His examination of the different ways in which controversies around toleration in educational contexts arise, together with the analysis of the main factors that are relevant to interpreting the meaning of toleration in the context of education, highlight the basic elements a successful account of toleration applied to public education must negotiate. In his contribution to this special issue Sune Laegaard identifies different forms of interpretation of both toleration and recognition and then proceeds with a discussion of the compatibility between different conceptions of toleration and recognition of diversity characteristic of contemporary multicultural societies. He first differentiates between different understandings of toleration, respect and recognition and then proceeds with an examination of the relationship between these three forms of engagement with diversity in the educational context. In his paper, Peter Jones explores various difficulties associated with the circumstances and the possibility conditions of toleration on the one hand and the challenges recognition of diversity poses to its advocates in a society which is plural in its cultures and traditions. His discussion of the limits we are confronted with, by juxtaposing toleration and recognition of diversity as mutually exclusive alternatives and a close examination of the different possibilities offered by the interpretation of the complementary relationship between
In this interview, Dr. Amy Gutmann discusses the legacy of her book Democratic Education after 30 years since it was first published. After presenting some of the main ideas from Democratic Education, Dr. Gutmann emphasises the importance of both democratic education and democratic deliberation as central elements of public education in a plurally diverse polity. She then discusses a range of other educational issues including access to education as key to individual opportunity and social development (from both personal and scholarly perspectives) and the civic minimum goals of education in a democracy. Throughout the interview, Dr. Gutmann also presents a number of examples of how ideas and ideals central to her teaching and scholarship have been put into practice during her tenure as President of the University of Pennsylvania. The interview concludes with a reflection on some of the most pressing challenges facing education today.
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