The practical power of appeals to patriotism implies that patriotism in one form or another is here to stay. As such, arguments for the repudiation of patriotism cannot avoid seeming a bit utopian or ethereal. Practically speaking, we cannot repudiate patriotism and still have effective functioning states. To that end, political philosophers…

Should patriotism be considered a legitimate part of schooling in a democracy? This question has been contested in the scholarly literature as well as by policy-makers for decades. Terrorism and conflict exacerbate this debate by adding a sense of urgency to both the demand to love thy country and the concern for individual freedom. In this…

Ben-Porath sees patriotism as involving attachment to fellow citizens as part of a shared fate community. Wingo places shared values at the center of patriotism. Miller argues that political ties to fellow nationals stemming from participation in imposing laws and policies on them will also generate obligations to non-nationals (especially the…

Philosophers of education disagree on how the question of the moral status of homosexual acts should be tackled in the classroom. Some argue that the question should be taught as a controversial issue, that we should present rival moral positions as even-handedly as possible; others maintain that we should actively promote the view that homosexual…

Immoral excesses of American foreign policy are so severe and so deep-rooted that American patriotism is now a moral burden. This love, which pulls toward amnesia, wishful thinking and inattention to urgent foreign interests, should be replaced by commitment to a global social movement that seeks to hem in the American empire. Teachers can advance…

Does the unequal participation of non-traditional students in higher education indicate social injustice, even if it can be traced back to individuals' choices? Drawing on luck egalitarian approaches,this article suggests that an answer to this question must take into account the effects of unequal brute luck on educational choices. I use a…

In his influential book "Dialogues with Children" (1984), Gareth Matthews presents strong evidence that children as young as six can and should engage in philosophical discourse. His findings form the basis of this article, a theoretical and practical guide for parents and teachers seeking respectful and creative ways to encourage children to…

In this article, I propose an inclusive model of citizenship, drawing both on empirical data collected on "constructions" of citizenship in the English citizenship education policy process, and also developing certain themes raised in the politico-philosophical literature on citizenship. This model consists of two main components: the concept of…

This article discusses the implications of some current philosophical thinking about groups, culture and the politics of identity (exploring the views of Anthony Appiah, Amartya Sen and Nel Noddings, among others) for education generally, and for issues of classroom organization in particular. My basic thesis is that, when we understand the…

The teaching of evolution in US public schools continues to generate controversy. One argument for including creationism in science classrooms is based on the goal of facilitating student autonomy. Autonomy requires that students be exposed to significant alternatives, it is argued, and religious creation stories offer a significant alternative to…

Michael J. Apple's book constitutes, among many other things, an ambitious rethinking of what will be necessary to make the ideal of egalitarian public schooling more appealing to those parents who have, in recent years, found their beliefs and criticisms most readily responded to by various "conservative modernizers" and other enemies of public…

The aim of this article is to reflect on and explore questions of truth and objectivity in the sociology of educational knowledge. It begins by reviewing the problems raised by the social constructivist approaches to knowledge associated with the "new sociology of education" of the I970s. It suggests that they have significant parallels with the…

In this article we present an instrument to be used by students and professors to evaluate classroom dialogue. We begin with an explanation of the classroom community of inquiry and why we value it as a pedagogical approach. We then describe our different reasons for evaluating classroom dialogue--including institutional, professional and…

In this article we describe our experiences in developing and expanding a philosophy in the schools program in Long Beach, California. We point to similarities and differences between our program and other philosophy for children programs, and describe the concerns and growing pains our program has experienced in its first seven years of…

Do cultures differ with respect to judgments of rationality? If so, does it follow that rationality is culturally specific, or that cultures have their own "rationalities"? If so, does it further follow that the philosophical status or worthiness of multiculturalism as a social value or ideal varies from culture to culture? In this article I…