What should the aims of education policy be in the United States
and other culturally diverse democracies? Should the foremost aim
be to allow the flourishing of social and religious diversity? Or
is it more important to foster shared political values and civic
virtues?
Stephen Macedo believes that diversity should usually, but not
always, be highly valued. We must remember, he insists, that many
forms of social and religious diversity are at odds with basic
commitments to liberty, equality, and civic flourishing. Liberalism
has an important but neglected civic dimension, he argues, and
liberal democrats must take care to promote not only well-ordered
institutions but also well-ordered citizens. Macedo shows that this
responsibility is incompatible with a neutral or hands-off stance
toward diversity in general or toward the education of children in
particular. Extending the ideas of John Rawls, he defends a "civic
liberalism" that supports the legitimacy of reasonable efforts to
inculcate shared political virtues while leaving many larger
questions of meaning and value to private communities.
Macedo's tough-minded liberal agenda for civic education offers
a fundamental challenge to free market libertarians, the religious
right, parental rights activists, postmodernists, and many of those
who call themselves multiculturalists. This book will become an
important resource in the debate about the reform of public
education, and in the culture war over the future of
liberalism.
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