In this article, I offer a response to Adam Swift's book, "How Not to be A Hypocrite: School Choice for the Morally Perplexed Parent", by developing some reflections on the nature, value and limits of parental partiality. I address two main issues. First, I consider the issue of how we should interpret the character and value of parental…

I reply to the more philosophical critiques of "How Not to Be a Hypocrite" (2003), published in this volume of "Theory and Research in Education". Against Elizabeth Anderson, I claim that unequal chances are unfair, and unfairness is bad, but acknowledge that its badness can be outweighed by other values. Distinguishing principled from empirical…

Summarising the arguments of "How Not to Be A Hypocrite: School Choice for the Morally Perplexed Parent" (Routledge Falmer 2003), the article discusses three questions. The first is whether parents who disapprove of elite private schools to such an extent that they would vote to ban them are acting hypocritically or inconsistently with…

This paper takes issue with Swift's argument for the claim that parents who affirm equality of opportunity can justifiably buy advantageous private schooling if it is necessary to ensure educational adequacy for their children. We advance a number of reasons of justice and morality that support the view that egalitarian parents ought to accept a…

This article examines the arguments and underlying assumptions of Adam Swift's book on "How Not to Be a Hypocrite." It argues that, although there is much that is commendable and fascinating in the book, it might have benefited from a more sociological approach to the middle class. While the book is designed to capture and argue with the anxieties…