Who is keeping watch to warn when policies and practices become essentially the same as those used in previous eras to justify the destruction of human beings? This question is asked by author Jessica Heybach, as she describes the etymological roots of the word "neutrality," the social function of teacher as neutral, and its relationship…

In this paper, the author contends that the ability to create a political realm is dependent upon one's state of freedom. She questions what it means to be free and whether assumptions of the definitions of this concept are always good or beneficial. After discussing some of the known theories about freedom, she states that schools are some…

In light of the importance and the potential danger of education during childhood for politically liberal societies, the author has devoted much of his professional career to thinking about and formulating the moral principles that should govern such a society's educational institutions. However, this task cannot be accomplished for all such…

In this article, William Ayers constructs his Phil Smith Lecture as a call to action. Grounded in democratic principles of equality and social justice, the author invokes a liberal conception of human worth and the universal right to educational opportunity. The author critiques the passivity of the American polity in the face of Barack Obama's…

John Dewey defines democracy as a form of associated living "in which the interests of a group are shared by all its members, and the fullness and freedom with which it interacts with other groups." Few would argue that people with disabilities have been among the most excluded, the least able to share in the fullness and freedom of "associated…

The growing diversity of school populations in the present education milieu raises issues of treating difference along multiple lines of the social, political and economic well being of children. Difference is here defined as politically significant group identities to which the author refers as cultures or identity groups. Political liberal…