Mary Tjiattas

Deliberative democracy, diversity and the challenges of citizenship education

For democracies to thrive, citizens have to be taught to be democrats. How do people learn to be democrats in circumstances of diversity and plurality? We address this question via a discussion of three models of deliberative democracy: public reason (as exemplified by Rawls), discursive democracy (as exemplified by Benhabib) and communicative democracy (as exemplified by Young). Each of the three theorists contributes to an account of how to educate citizens by teaching talk. Against a commonly held assumption that the protection of diversity in a pluralist democracy requires a thin conception of citizenship education, we defend a thick conception that simultaneously fosters autonomy and participation without sacrificing tolerance of diversity.

Education and global citizenship

Darrel Moellendorf argues that duties of justice have global scope. We share Moellendorfs rejection of statism and his emphasis on duties of justice arising out of association in Cosmopolitan Justice. Building on Moellendorfs view that there are cosmopolitan duties of justice, we argue that in education they are both negative and positive, requiring redistribution of educational resources and transnational educational intervention. We suggest what kinds of intervention are justifiable and required, the kinds of international structures that could regulate them, and a conception of cosmopolitan citizenship to underpin education for global citizenship.

Educating for a just world without gender

In this article we examine Okin’s ideal of a ‘gender-free society’ and its relations to central educational values and practices. We suggest that this ideal pervades her work on the family, culture and, more recently, her focus on the developing world, and gives her liberal feminist stance its radical bite. We contrast this ideal with the more standard notion of gender-neutrality (non-discrimination) and argue that Okin’s more demanding concept (going beyond equal access to positions, benefits and opportunities as currently defined, to insist on the critical overhauling of the systems that determine them) far better accords with requirements of justice. We then go on to explore the contribution to a ‘gender-free society’ of construing women’s rights as human rights which Okin saw as crucial to countering threats against gender equality from competing claims of both multiculturalists and economic development theorists. We consider implications for education (including schooling) arising from the commitment to bring about a ‘gender-free society’.

Liberal Feminism, Cultural Diversity and Comparative Education.

For multiculturalists who favour a relativist approach, globalization and the increasing interconnectedness of societies pose a threat to cultural diversity. In this paper we show, through an exploration of the work of Martha Nussbaum, that a viable universalist feminism can accommodate a thin and so defensible version of multiculturalism. Nussbaums treatment of culture in relation to womens education and the cultivation of capacities for world citizenship fosters inclusion of norms and traditions from different ways of life, while leaving room for a critical perspective on them. On these grounds, there is considerable scope for cooperation between comparative education and feminist philosophys liberal theorists.

Democratic Inclusion and Lifelong Learning in a Globalising World

Democratic deliberation is a form of lifelong learning that develops capacities for genuine inclusion, especially under conditions of diversity, inequality and nascent democratic institutions and procedures. In an earlier exploration of deliberative democracy as enabling democratic inclusion (Enslin et al. 2001), we considered conceptions of deliberation, suggesting a construal of lifelong learning to meet their demands. Although we will briefly revisit this earlier work, in the present chapter our interest in democratic inclusion shifts from an implicitly assumed context of the nation state to probe the implications of globalisation for democratic inclusion and lifelong learning. These are considerable.

6.6 Philosophical Approaches to Educational Research: Justice, Democracy, and Education

In this case study we show how methods of philosophical interpretation can illuminate fundamental questions about the complementary concepts of justice and democracy in education. Globalisation prompts rethinking of basic ethical and political concepts. So, drawing on the idea of philosophical interpretation as reflective equilibrium, we set out to resolve tensions between the key concepts and assumptions of current theoretical positions and the demands and constraints imposed by contemporary global political, ethical and educational issues. We show how liberal feminism can accommodate diversity and inclusion, cosmopolitan justice as a form of universal inclusion can be sensitive to varying global circumstances, and cosmopolitan democracy and justice require both redistribution of educational goods and the education of citizens for participation in cosmopolitan institutions. Working within an analytical framework influenced by Rawlsian liberalism but drawing on a feminist and cosmopolitan reconstruction, we argue that fostering justice and democratic institutions depends crucially on education.

Getting the Measure of Measurement: Global educational opportunity

Abstract Although measurement is widely misused in education, it is indispensable in addressing the problems of injustice in global educational opportunity. Considering how the case can be made for legitimate use of measurement in normative analysis and argument, we explore ways in which metrics have featured in the formulation of theories of justice, with particular attention to resourcist and capabilities approaches. We then consider three means of addressing global inequality and defend a reconstruction of the public sphere in which objective measures of justice, deliberatively constructed, could supersede prevalent assumptions about measurement.

Interdisciplinary Methodology: The Case of Kitcher's Freud

Abstract The guiding idea of Patricia Kitchers Freuds Dream is that the use of interdisciplinary methodology accounts at the same time for the most central features of Freuds theory of the mind and for its most serious shortcomings. Kitcher proposes to provide an account of Freuds theory that illuminates its interdisciplinary underpinnings. While she indisputably succeeds in providing a subtle and rich reconstruction of Freuds work, her attempt to show up the limitations of interdisciplinary studies does not work. The value of her account is attributable not to the idea that Freuds was a flawed interdisciplinary endeavour but to a contextually and historically sensitive approach that makes explicit and elucidates the norms of explanation at work in his method of theory construction and that takes into account the multifaceted nature of his scientific practice.