Educating in Respect: Against Neutral Discourse as a Norm for Respectful Classroom Discussion

Abstract

Since 2014, British schools have been required to ‘actively promote’ the value of ‘mutual respect’ to the children in their care. This is relatively unproblematic: liberals are agreed that good citizenship education will involve teaching mutual respect. However, there is disagreement over how ‘respect’ should be understood and what it should imply for norms of respectful classroom discussion. Some political liberals have indicated that when engaging in discussion in the classroom, students should provide only neutral reasons to defend their views. This paper provides a number of arguments against this claim. For example, I argue that this norm relies on a distorted understanding of what it is to respect others and that it stifles the development of civic and epistemic virtue in the next generation of citizens. Even from within the perspective of political liberalism, there are good reasons to favour critical discussion of non-neutral reasons. Education policy should therefore accord greater priority to discussion of students’ actual motivating reasons than to discussion constrained by a norm of neutral discourse.

Religious Education – reform, not abolition: A reply to Matthew Clayton and David Stephens

“…There are, after all, numerous good reasons for why a political liberal should value a subject that exposes children to different conceptions of the good. 7 In Easton (2018), I give a number of reasons for why someone who endorses the AR should also endorse discussion of and engagement with a diversity of (religious and non-religious) conceptions of the good as a part of the compulsory curriculum. For example, it contributes to the development of civic virtues that reasonable people should value in future citizens, such as honesty and candour.…”

“…For example, it contributes to the development of civic virtues that reasonable people should value in future citizens, such as honesty and candour. It is through conversations with others about their differing conceptions of the good that children can grasp the reality and permanence of deep disagreement, and this understanding is required for genuine respect and tolerance (Easton, 2018: 201). Critical discussion of different views and their respective justifications also aid with the development of epistemic virtues, and a part of what it is to be a good citizen is to be able to distinguish between plausible and implausible reasons (Easton, 2018: 205).…”

“…Neufeld and Davis, 2010) say that exposing children to other conceptions of the good should not be a part of compulsory education, because that would promote moral autonomy, which is too perfectionist an aim for the political liberal (Neufeld, 2013: 784, 789). I have argued elsewhere that the position Clayton and Stephens take is a consistent position, because moral autonomy is developed as a by-product of promoting other, neutrally justifiable goods (Easton, 2018: 209).…”