This essay by Suzanne Rosenblith and Benjamin Bindewald is motivated by the question of how do those who value civic liberalism give the religiously orthodox a reason to engage in pluralist democratic deliberations in a manner that does not allow intolerance to undermine the foundations of liberal democracy. Introducing the idea of tolerance as mutuality -that is, a will to relationshipthe authors argue, strikes a balance between those theories that are too demanding of the religiously orthodox and those that are not exacting enough. Applying the principle of tolerance as mutuality to the special space of public schools allows for a new way to conceptualize civic education in pluralist democracies.In Political Liberalism, philosopher John Rawls asks the very basic question of how, given deep difference in ideological perspectives, we as a society are to get along. 1 This question is especially relevant as it applies to public schools situated in contemporary pluralist democratic societies, where educators are tasked with fostering in students a shared civic identity while refraining from undermining their cultural and religious commitments. Cultural and, in particular, religious pluralism present public schools with considerable challenges, many of which manifest as tensions between civic aims of education and religious orthodoxy. An important question for pluralist democratic societies, then, is "How should schools respond when civic aims of education conflict with orthodox religious commitments?" A related and equally challenging (but somewhat overlooked) question for liberal theorists is "How do those who value civic liberalism give the religiously orthodox a reason to engage in pluralist democratic deliberations without offering up a form of blanket inclusion that allows intolerance to undermine the very foundations of liberal democracy?" Addressing these two vexing questions is the central purpose of the present work.Philosophers have long attempted to address the first of these difficult questions. Some, in the spirit of Rawls's political liberalism, have argued that public schools should remain as neutral as possible on matters of cultural and religious 1. John Rawls, Political Liberalism: Expanded Edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). EDUCATIONAL THEORY Volume 64 Number 6 2014
In view of the United Nations’ (UN’s) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for education (SDG4), this study explored how information and communications and media technology (ICMT) access and uses for learning have influenced students’ perceived success during the COVID-19 pandemic era and the differential effects of ICMT access and use on underrepresented minority (URM) and non-URM students. This study applied structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis using data from students who experienced online transition in one large public university in the United States. The results showed that ICMT uses for learning benefitted URM students but lack of ICMT access had a negative effect on online learning among URM students. We discussed the implications of these findings in the context of online education, digital inclusion, and the UN’s SDG4.
The question motivating this paper is whether or not there can be standards governing the evaluation of truth claims in religion. In other areas of study -such as physics, math, history, and even value-laden realms like morality -there is some widespread agreement as to what constitutes good thinking. If such a standard existed in religion, then our approach to teaching religion would need to change. This paper, however, is a prelude to examining such a question. In it, we briefly explore whether or not religion should even be included in public education. After concluding that it should be, we then look at whether we should pursue questions of truth in discussing religion or whether truth should be bracketed. If matters of truth are bracketed, what is lost? If questions of truth are pursued in our public school classrooms, what standards of evaluation should be applied to them?
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.