Abstract
The republican political tradition, which originated in Ancient Rome and picked up by several early-modern thinkers, has been revived in the last couple of decades following the seminal works of historian Quentin Skinner and political theorist Philip Pettit. Although educational questions do not normally occupy the center stage in republican theory, various theorists working within this framework have already highlighted the significance of education for any functioning republic. Looking at educational questions through the lens of freedom as non-domination has already yielded important insights to discussions of political education. However, consideration of the existing republican educational discourse in light of the wide range of issues discussed in Pettit’s recent works reveals that it suffers from two major lacunae. First, it does not take into consideration the distinction (and deep connection) between democracy and social justice that has become central to Pettit’s republicanism. Thus, the current discussion focuses almost exclusively on education for democratic citizenship and hardly touches upon social justice. Second, the current literature thinks mainly in terms of educating future citizens, rather than conceiving of students also as political agents in the present, and of school itself as a site of non-domination. This paper aims at filling these voids, and it will therefore be oriented along two intersecting axes: the one between democracy and justice, and the other between future citizenship in the state and present citizenship at school. The resulting four categories will organize the discussion: future citizens and democracy; future citizens and social justice; present citizens and democracy; present citizens and social justice. This will not only enable us to draw a clearer line between the civic republican and liberal educational theories, but also make civic republican education a viable alternative to current educational approaches.
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Notes
The republican tradition discussed here must not be conflated with the worldview of the Republican Party in the US, or with most versions of contemporary French republicanism.
The critical pedagogy approach went even further in its criticism of the liberal principle of neutrality, arguing that no curriculum—not only in civic education—can ever be politically and ethically neutral. See Apple (1990).
Colin Macleod (2015, 456–469) has recently argued that the ideal of non-domination falls short of providing educational justice with a fully adequate theory, since it does not entail the commitment to securing the same range of choices to all children. Our aim in this article is not to argue that civic republicanism can support all aspects of educational justice, only that its support is favorable to that of prevalent liberalism.
Adam Swift (2003, 23–25) also understands that education is a positional good, but in his liberal frame of reference this dissociated education from freedom.
The family is not discussed here not because it is not potentially a site of domination but because the means to remedy such domination are probably very different from the political ones that can be derived from Pettit.
For a very similar claim, regarding the possible participation of students in deliberation over school curriculum, see Hopkins (2015).
France, of course, is the obvious example here. See Honohan (2006, 201).
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This research was supported by The Open University of Israel’s Research Fund (Grant No. 47633).
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Snir, I., Eylon, Y. Civic Republicanism and Education: Democracy and Social Justice in School. Stud Philos Educ 36, 585–600 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-016-9538-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-016-9538-z