School choice is most often viewed through the lens of provision: most of the debate on the issue searches for desirable ways to offer vouchers, scholarships or other tools that provides choice as a way to achieve equality and/or freedom. This paper focuses on the consumer side of school choice, and utilises behavioural economics as well as ethnographic and network studies to consider ways to structure choice which respond to actual cognitive and social processes of choice. These empirical studies give scholars and policy‐makers who grapple with school choice a perspective that should affect the principled design of these programs as well as their execution. The paper considers the ways in which actual choice processes should affect current visions of school choice. It concludes with recommendations concerning the design of choice sets and the accessibility of information regarding choice, which together can assist school choice policies in better fulfilling their promise of equality and freedom.
The expectation that schools resuscitate civic virtues and create a vibrant civic and public sphere competes with a more powerful contemporary demand on schools, namely, that they generate equal opportunity and mobility, especially for poor and minority youth. This equal opportunity is framed solely in the context of grades on standardized tests. The effort to improve the educational achievement of youth from underserved communities is undertaken through strict behavior management practices, particularly in charter networks that are seen as more successful. These, I suggest, pose the risk of undermining the opportunity students have to develop and practice civic virtues. I raise the possibility that schools teach different kinds of civic virtue to different kinds of children.The common story today about civic virtue is one of decline, and the common story about schools is one of crisis. From MacIntyre's After Virtue (1984) to Bellah's Habits of the Heart (1985) and to contemporary debates on American public values and the state of its youth, the prevailing story is one that laments the loss of civic virtue. Schools are seen by many as one of the culprits of this decline, but they are also charged with reversing it and once again generating a virtuous public who can elevate the level of public engagement and participate in a productive democratic discourse.In this article I suggest that the expectation that schools resuscitate civic virtues competes with a more powerful demand on schools, namely, that they generate equal
Tensions around open expression at universities in the United States and around the world arise mainly from two sources. Campus members increasingly call to restrict hurtful and hate-based speech, and demand silencing, ‘cancelling’ or ‘de-platforming’ outside speakers and campus members who espouse extreme ideological views. At the same time, public and political actors from outside the university attempt to undermine its independence by demanding greater voice to conservative speakers, in an effort to rebalance the ideological makeup of the university. Inclusive freedom – an approach that focuses on ways to promote both open expression and an inclusive climate in contemporary universities – is presented as a theoretical and a practical response to these tensions. Inclusive freedom is anchored in the university’s core mission, bounded by its educational and research goals, and reflects a practical commitment to allowing everyone to participate in an open exchange, which starts from all participants recognising their equal standing and dignity.
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