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…

The author wishes to thank Barry Bull for his excellent and stimulating paper, and he would like to pose five questions or points for his consideration in response. In preface to his first question, the author wants to say that he finds cogent and persuasive the discussion in the section "Issues for Political Liberalism in Higher Education" of…

Democracy is often theorized as a form of political association grounded in shared meanings, common experiences, and convergent interests among the associated individuals. Because differences and divergences seem to stand in the way of commonality and consensus, the coexistence of a plurality of meanings, experiences, interests, languages,…

This article focuses on developing a progressive philosophy of praxis that challenges, what the author argues is, a post-racial resistance to teaching about racial injustice. Post-racial resistance to teaching can lead to forms of enlightened racism and sexism in the classroom. In this essay, the author develops and extends the use of the metaphor…

The English Enlightenment philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) is one of the most prominent figures in the development of liberal Anglo-American political thought. Locke's writings had a significant influence on the American Revolution and founding principles of the United States in fundamental ways. The author argues that Locke's influence is…

In this paper, the author outlines what No Child Left Behind policy might mean first in personal then in philosophical terms. First, the author will trace a bit of Obama's own educational development: how he was first set on a personal educational journey and how, proceeding along with that journey, he eventually came to successfully elicit "us"…

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…

In the last decade, educational researchers and scholars have turned new attention to the theory and practice of community organizing as a method for addressing education injustices. While there are diverse traditions of community organizing work, by far the most influential model in US contexts is that of Saul Alinsky, whose "Rules for Radicals"…

The term "globalization" is relatively new. Alfred E. Eckes, Jr. and Thomas W. Zeiler credit Theodore Levitt for coining the word in 1983 in an article in the Harvard Business Review. In a short time, other authors adopted the term. Thomas Freidman, for example, used the phrase to define the 1990s. Freidman claimed that the world had entered a new…