PHILOSOPHY of EDUCATION SOCIETY
2009 PAPER ABSTRACTS
ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS FOR CONCURRENT AND GENERAL SESSIONS
PES 2009
Abstract Art as Alternative to Multiculturalist Education
René V. Arcilla
New York University
Abstract
Multiculturalism continues to inspire the civil rights struggle. But how well does it enable humanities teachers to inherit the full range of available works of self-understanding and use them to stimulate their students’ and their own self-understanding? I argue that multiculturalism obscures the significance of abstract art because it requires artworks to operate as vehicles of seemingly immediate representation. We can better affirm the educational value of this non-representational art that stresses its mediums if we understand its works to be valorizing our indeterminate selves and our engagement in an experimental adventure. These works release us from the idealization of cultural identity and encourage us to struggle for a democracy of existential freedom.
Concurrent Session IV: Saturday, March 21 (10:30-Noon)
Respondent: Hanan Alexander (University of Haifa/University of California, Berkeley)
Chair: Deborah Seltzer-Kelly (Southern Illinois University)
On the Weakness of Education
Gert Biesta
The Stirling Institute of Education
Abstract
In this paper I make a case for the weakness of education. I do so in relation to one particular function of education to which I will refer as subjectification. I argue that as long as we think of subjectification as a modification in the realm of being, we reduce subjectification to socialization, i.e., to the production of ‘specimens’ of a more encompassing ‘order.’ The problem with this is that it precludes us from acknowledging the uniqueness of each human being. If this is what matters in education – and I argue that this is what ought to matter – then we need to think of education differently. Whereas strong education operates in the realm of being, weak education operates in a realm, which is ‘otherwise than being’ and ‘beyond essence’ (Levinas). It is only in this other realm that the human subject can manifest itself in its uniqueness and it is because of this that the weakness of education matters.
Concurrent Session VII: Sunday, March 22 (2:00-3:15)
Respondent: Denise Egéa-Kuehne (Lousiana State University)
Chair: Laura DeSisto (Lawrence University)
Becoming Philosophical in Educational Philosophy: Neither Emma Nor the Art Connoisseur
Charles Bingham
Simon Fraser University
Abstract
In this paper, I make a case for philosophy of education’s particular status, its particular philosophical identity. I use the work of Jacques Rancière in order to show the predicament of modernity, and in particular, the predicament of the modern novel. I then liken the novel’s predicament to the philosophical status of philosophy of education. Using this comparison, I contend that philosophy of education is more philosophical than other non-applied philosophies, and, I use the notion of ‘becoming philosophical’ to show how the current state of philosophy of education curriculum, as well as the variety of successful teaching roles taken on by philosophers of education, result from this particular distinctness.
General Session III: Monday, March 23 (9:00-10:30)
Respondent: Chris Higgins (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Chair: Michael Katz (San Jose State University)
Idealism Revisited: Michael Oakeshott’s “Conversation” and the Question of Being-Together”
Trent Davis
York University
Abstract
My primary goal in this paper is to offer a way to think about the framing of communication between philosophers and educators. Starting from René Arcilla’s provocative essay “Why Aren’t Philosophers and Educators Speaking to Each Other?,” I proceed to shift the theoretical perspective of the discussion from pragmatism to idealism, by providing a detailed reading of philosopher Michael Oakeshott’s influential metaphor of “conversation.” In the conclusion I suggest that all philosophers can see themselves as united by the desire to engage in “conversation,” since what they have in common is interest in an intellectual tradition and the effort to achieve greater understanding through the cultivation of wisdom.
Concurrent Session VIII: Monday, March 23 (10:45-Noon)
Respondent: Andrea English (Mt. St. Vincent University)
Chair: Larry Green (Simon Fraser University)
The Teacher’s Gift of Sacrifice as the Art of the Self
Darryl M. DeMarzio
University of Scranton
Abstract
In this paper I attempt to reconcile the apparent tension between self-sacrifice and self-flourishing in the practice of teaching. Starting from Socrates’ account of self-sacrifice that justifies his teaching activity in the Apology, I draw upon Nietzsche and Foucault in order to recast Socrates as a teacher who practices an art of self-formation through the modes of self-sacrifice that his teaching entails. What this move achieves, I suggest, is a better understanding of the relationship between the teacher’s care for others and the teacher’s care of the self. The implication is that teaching is an activity, which is conducive to self-flourishing because of (rather than in spite of) its modes of self-sacrifice.
Concurrent Session III: Saturday, March 21 (9:00-10:15)
Respondent: Haroldo Fontaine (Florida State University)
Chair: David Burns (University of Alberta)
Guarding and Transmitting the Vulnerability of the Historical Referent
Mario Di Paolantonio
York University/ University of Toronto
Abstract
The term spectacle has been varyingly invoked to describe the contemporary condition structuring our attention, as well as our manner of learning and teaching about events. In the wake of the spectacle’s impact on human attention and sensibility, how do we receive and transmit an unpalatable and difficult past? And how might educational sites bestowed with transmitting the past give refuge, meaningfully nourish, and extend historical time to that which exceeds our present concerns? Engaging the recent debates around the pedagogical future of an infamous building in Argentina, which was once used as a clandestine torture centre, the paper discusses the ethics, tensions, and peculiarities of historical transmission in an age of spectacle and information.
Concurrent Session II: Friday, March 20 (2:15-3:30)
Respondent: Jon Levisohn (Brandeis University)
Chair: Paula McAvoy (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
Public Education and the Aesthetic Dimension of
Strauss’s Theologico-Political Problem
Jon Fennell
Hillsdale College
Abstract
The theologico-political problem is central to the work of Leo Strauss. Under this heading, Strauss sharply contrasts the life of revealed religion with the life of philosophical reason and argues that neither is capable of establishing its superiority to the other. The theologico-political problem constitutes a conundrum for western liberal society, especially in relation to the public school: By favoring the life of philosophical reason over that of revealed religion, the public school represents a partisan force in regard to the question of how best to shape the aesthetics of the young. Because the underlying conflict is not susceptible to rational resolution, public education has decided the matter by fiat—by an exercise of will. Can this provocative policy nonetheless be defended?
Concurrent Session VI: Sunday, March 22 (9:00-10:15)
Respondent: Kevin Gary (Goshen College)
Chair: Margaret Manson (York University)
The Moral and Organizational Implications of Cheating in College
Charles Howell
Northern Illinois University
Abstract
Conflicting views of college students’ academic dishonesty are integrated into a more general account of responsibilities of students, faculty, and administrators. Student cheating is diagnosed as an agency problem: a case in which interests of cooperating parties diverge and they do not all share the same information, allowing one or more parties to pursue individual goals at the expense of the common goal. Multi-stage assignments prevent cheating by eliminating information asymmetry, but they are not widely used because they create more work for faculty. By resisting this approach, faculty members effectively encourage cheating, thus creating a moral hazard for students.
Concurrent Session I: Friday, March 20 (9:00-10:15)
Respondent: A.G. Rud (Purdue University)
Chair: Jeff Stickney (OISE/University of Toronto)
From Senge to Habermas: Reconceiving “Discourse” for Educational Learning Organizations
Darron Kelly
Memorial University
Abstract
With more than one million copies in print, Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization remains highly influential in educational administration. Whether one takes seriously the learning organization approach to educational administration, the fact remains that Senge is often granted the status of “guru”, ensuring his sway on many administrators. At issue in the current essay is whether Senge’s conception of “discourse” should be applied to educational practice and policy without being reconceived from a moral and epistemic perspective. My stance is “no”, and in response this essay introduces Jürgen Habermas’s “discourse ethics” as a means of reconceiving Senge’s concept of discourse for educational learning organizations.
Concurrent Session I: Friday, March 20 (9:00-10:15)
Respondent: James Giarelli (Rutgers University)
Chair: Frank Margonis (University of Utah)
The DDI, ESK and ME:
Troubling the epistemology of the dominant discourse on indoctrination via feminist epistemologies of situated knowledges
James C. Lang
OISE/University of Toronto
Abstract
I argue that the vast and dominant discourse on indoctrination has generated more heat than light, as it has failed to provide educators with a clear and effective distinction between indoctrination and acceptable educational practices. I suggest that the shortcomings of the dominant discourse turn on its uninterrogated predication on “mainstream epistemology.” I “trouble” aspects of this epistemology via feminist epistemologies of situated knowledges to reveal it as too narrow and reductionist to adequately deal with the issues, especially in terms of harm. I conclude that epistemologies of situated knowledges offer more useful ways to describe educational epistemological contexts and in the process they also de-centre the discourse on indoctrination to generate a less confrontational and more productive conversation about responsible knowledge production practices.
Concurrent Session VIII: Monday, March 23 (10:45-noon)
Respondent: Barbara Thayer-Bacon (University of Tennessee)
Chair: Liz Airton (McGill University)
Civility, Tact, and the Joy of Communication
Megan J. Laverty
Teachers College, Columbia University
Abstract
In this paper I develop a robust concept of civility that simultaneously establishes civility’s aesthetic-ethical significance while addressing some recent critiques. To do this I draw on the philosophical tradition of Aristotle, David Hume and John Dewey. I begin by rehearsing some ethical and political concerns about civility. I demonstrate that these concerns assume a narrowly conventional sense of civility. I address these concerns by defending a concept of civility that is much more than “being nice no matter what”.
Concurrent Session IV: Saturday, March 21 (10:30-Noon)
Respondent: Cris Mayo (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Chair: Dwght Boyd (OISE/University of Toronto)
On Positive Rights and Duties: What Can “Thin” Universalizability Tell Us About the Moral Content of Educational Policies?
Christopher Martin
Roehampton University
Abstract
In a well-ordered society, goods (such as educational goods) ought to be distributed in a manner consistent with principles of justice. However, if our principles of justice do not tell us something meaningful about the moral features of these goods, there is in fact no justifiable distribution at hand. I argue that the issue involves a failure to understand education as a field of relationships structures be a specific set of moral obligations. In this paper, I intend to provide a preliminary account of such moral obligations through an appeal to ‘thin universalizability’. Thin universalizability aims to establish a validity test for a proposed policy or moral judgement while avoiding the metaphysical or intuitionist presuppositions upon which universalization tests have typically been claimed to rest. I will argue that education is subject to certain rights and duties that may require modification to what is typically recommended by distributive principles.
Concurrent Session VI: Sunday, March 22 (9:00-10:15)
Respondent: Huey-li Li (University of Akron)
Chair: Winston Thompson (Teachers College, Columbia University)
By the People, For the People: Interrogating the Education-Policy-by-Ballot Initiative Phenomenon
Michele Moses
University of Colorado, Boulder
Abstract
The primary purpose of this paper is to question the phenomenon of education policy decisions being made by voters via the ballot initiative process, as evidenced by several recent education-related initiatives that focused on dismantling historic civil rights policies (e.g., affirmative action). In 2008 alone, states faced some 20 education-related initiatives including ones to ban affirmative action, mandate a teacher pay-for-performance system, and eliminate bilingual education. Such initiatives use direct democracy, giving voters the opportunity to decide on education policy issues that were previously decided by education experts and policymakers. I advance the argument that ballot initiatives should be seen as a risky, if not dangerous, way to make education policy related to the rights and opportunities of underrepresented minority students.
Concurrent Session III: Saturday, March 21 (9:00-10:15)
Respondent: Anne Newman (Washington University)
Chair: Sara Stitzlein (University of New Hampshire)
The Courage of Dialogue
Seamus Mulryan
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Abstract
Gadamer’s account of interpretation draws from Aristotle’s concept of phronesis to explain the relationship between the universal of the text and the particular of the interpreter. However, Gadamer does not address the moral dimensions of his theory of hermeneutic experience. Experience in general makes us aware of our the particular finiteness of our understanding, and in the particular case of the hermeneutic experience, we can be made aware of the finiteness of human existence in general through the challenging of enough of our radically held beliefs. Our fear of death comes into play, and the ability to withstand such fear would be courage. Drawing from Aristotle, Paul Tillich, and Chögyam Trungpa, I work to reinterpret courage for the particular situation of Gadamerian dialogue.
Concurrent Session II: Friday, March 20 (2:15-3:30)
Respondent: Dini Metro-Roland (Western Michigan University)
Chair: Avi Mintz (University of Tulsa)
Caring as an Epistemic Relationship: Noddings, Peirce, and Triadic Caring
Peter Nelsen
Appalachian State University
Abstract
Nel Noddings builds her moral framework upon the dyadic relationship between a carer and the cared-for. Unfortunately, in certain cases Noddings’s descriptions of how to respond to a cared-for’s rejection of a carer’s attempts to care leaves those seeking guidance by the ethic of care seemingly left without support for care-based continued action. In this paper, I address such a case – best described as "rejection as an expression of care." I explicate the contours of the problem and, drawing upon the work of Charles Sanders Peirce, I offer a redress that provides guidance from within care theory. I assert that caring involves triadic not dyadic relationships.
Concurrent Session VI: Sunday, March 22 (9:00-10:15)
Respondent: Barbara Stengel (Millersville University)
Chair: Martha Crowley (Teachers College, Columbia University)
Giving Place to Unforeseeable Learning:
The Inhospitality of Outcomes-based Education
Claudia Ruitenberg
University of British Columbia
Abstract
I argue that that “outcomes-based education” fails to give place to unforeseeable learning. Against a backdrop of political, pragmatic and conceptual critiques of outcomes-based education I draw on Jacques Derrida’s work on hospitality to argue that outcomes-based education is, by design, inhospitable. It does not consider education to be charged with giving place to students but with predetermining what learning should take place in educational spaces. Moreover, by standardizing outcomes and assessing the same behaviors and products for each student, outcomes-based education addresses itself to “any” student, to n’importe qui. Thirdly, outcomes-based education offers no basis for teachers’ understanding their indebtedness as guests who have been received into traditions, and their responsibilities as hosts charged with receiving newcomers into these traditions. I conclude by offering the concept of khora, as theorized by Derrida, as an alternative to topos for imagining a hospitable educational space.
Concurrent Session V: Saturday, March 21 (2:15-3:30)
Respondent: Donna Kerr (University of Washington)
Chair: Terri Wilson (Teachers College, Columbia University)
Finding Perfect Pitch: Reading perfectionist narrative with Stanley Cavell
Naoko Saito
Kyoto University
Abstract
How is the philosophy of education to offer a critical framework for rethinking language and the self, and to bridge the private and the public? This paper suggests one possibility through the reinterpretation of Emerson’s contested passage: “Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense: for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost.” A helpful lens through which to view what is at stake here is Stanley Cavell’s idea of Emersonian moral perfectionism and its intersection with his studies of film. The genre of film he identifies as “Hollywood melodramas of the unknown woman” is examined as “perfectionist narrative.” Cavell’s alternative vision of education can awaken the individual to find “perfect pitch” in her own voice. (120 words)
Concurrent Session V: Saturday, March 21 (2:15-3:30)
Respondent: Paul Standish (Institute of Education, University of London)
Chair: Sean Blenkinsop (Simon Fraser University)
Teaching to Save the World
Doris Santoro
Bowdoin College
Abstract
This paper challenges the increasingly common link between social justice education and classroom-generated student activism by showing that such an approach may, in fact, constrain possibilities for social justice itself. I explore an alternative vision for social justice education that entails creating a space for the new, that is, a sanctuary for the activity of thinking.(i) Drawing upon Hannah Arendt’s concept of natality, and her call for us to “think what we are doing,” I offer a pedagogical model that asks social justice educators to “save the world” by holding open a space for the new and truly revolutionary to flourish by jettisoning what we know needs to be done in the name of social justice. This model draws upon Arendt’s thought to develop an image of a liberatory and radical teaching posture for social justice educators. I conclude with an examination of the possibilities and challenges for this kind of teaching.
i. My use of this term comes from Eduardo M. Duarte’s, “The Eclipse of Thinking: An Arendtian Critique of Cooperative Learning” in Mordechai Gordon, Ed. Hannah Arendt and Education: Renewing Our Common World (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001), p. 216.
Concurrent Session IV: Saturday, March 21 (10:30-Noon)
Respondent: Eduardo M. Duarte (Hofstra University)
Chair: Ron Glass (University of California, Santa Cruz)
Moral Education in the “Badlands”
Francis Schrag
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Abstract
My initial argument concludes that parents should refrain from inculcating norms and dispositions suitable for peacetime when ruthless enemies seek to harm their children. Drawing on recent interpreters of Kant, I argue that teaching children to deceive pursuers is consistent with Kantian arguments against lying. I modify the initial argument to take account of the need to inculcate peacetime norms as well, even in wartime. I show that the amended argument, endorsing what looks like a double standard in moral education, has applicability to three contexts: failed states; gang-ridden neighborhoods, and to some degree even ordinary neighborhoods.
General Session II: Sunday, March 22 (3:30-5:00)
Respondent: Audrey Thompson (University of Utah)
Chair: Susan Verducci (San Jose State University)
John Dewey: A Case of Educational Utopianism
Alexander Sidorkin
University of Northern Colorado
Abstract
John Dewey could not overcome non-economic thinking about education.
Dewey assumes that we can expect children to perform any amount of work
in school, only if we select and organize such work properly. This thinking leads to a utopian concept of education, which does take not into account the limits of what schooling can and cannot deliver, and how much we can ask children to do. One prominent consequence of this utopianism is the defense of compulsory public schooling on the grounds of preserving and supporting democracy. A meaningful reform of education will remain impossible without accepting that students will be laborers, and without giving up the idea of government-run universal schooling as the only way to educate the young.
Concurrent Session III: Saturday, March 21 (9:00-10:15)
Respondent: Kurt Stemhagen (Virginia Commonwealth University)
Chair: David I. Waddington (Concordia University)
Exploring Pedagogical Possibilities for a Non-violent Consciousness
Karen Sihra and Helen M. Anderson
OISE/University of Toronto
Abstract
In this paper we explore the role that epistemic humility and Gandhi’s notion of ahimsa (to do no harm) can play in undoing pedagogical violence(s). Harm in a Gandhian context can be seen as both a physical act and a form of consciousness. As a result, we examine the concepts of dysconsciousness, arrogant perception, and normalization through Gandhi’s notion of ahimsa to highlight the need to move away from individualistic conceptions of harm. Ahimsa requires engaging with the other interdependently, extending oneself to the other with humility. We contemplate what less harmful educational practices might look like through an examination of Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violent education. We do not claim that harm can be eradicated in its entirety; instead we suggest that when harm is done, it should be done with the intention of disrupting larger systems of violence.
Concurrent Session VII: Sunday, March 22 (2:00-3:15)
Respondent: Daniel Vokey (University of British Columbia)
Chair: Craig Cunningham (National-Louis University)
Should the Debate about Compulsory Schooling be Re-opened? A Fully Semiotic Perspective
Andrew Stables
University of Bath
Abstract
The paper concerns the criteria that might be employed to judge whether compulsion in education should be extended or withdrawn. It offers four candidate criteria, relating to morality, empowerment, economics and equity, covering conceptions of education as both private and public good. It concludes that justification for extending compulsion cannot easily be made on any of the above grounds, but that the complexity of the issues is such that they should receive more serious consideration than is presently evident in the policy debate.
Concurrent Session II: Friday, March 20 (2:15-3:30)
Respondent: Paul Smeyers (University of Ghent/K.U. Leuven)
Chair: Jeff Thibert (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Constructions of Parents and Languages of Parenting
Judith Suissa
Institute of Education, University of London
Abstract
In this paper I explore some policy discourse on home-school relations and the conceptualization of parenting underlying it. I draw on sociological critiques of the dominant normative view of parenting, alongside a personal example, in order to address the problems with this conceptualization. I argue that the sociological critique does not capture the ethical and conceptual complexity at the heart of the parent-child relationship, nor the sense in which this relationship is infused with educational meaning. Finally, I draw on some philosophical work on the education of the emotions in order to suggest the kind of direction one may take in developing a richer account of being a parent that goes beyond the language of parenting implied by both policy and popular literature on parenting.
Concurrent Session I: Friday, March 20 (9:00-10:15)
Respondent: Josh Corngold (University of Tulsa)
Chair: Trevor Norris (OISE/University of Toronto)
“Somaesthetics,” Education, and Disability
Michael Surbaugh
University of Oklahoma
Abstract
Aesthetic pleasure is a topic missing from the special education literature. Prominent journals in special education make few references to aesthetics or pleasure as part of the recommended curriculum for persons with disabilities. Instead, reams of articles address identification of learning disabilities, curriculum-based assessments, strategies for literacy skills, and mathematical problem solving. Informed by studies of bodily experience from developmental psychology, neurophysiology, and occupational therapy, this paper examines philosophical conceptions of bodily experience in works by John Dewey (1934), Michael Foucault (1986), and Richard Shusterman (1997, 1999, and 2000) and evaluates the possibilities for enhancing the embodied education of persons with even the most significant cognitive and physical disabilities.
Concurrent Session VIII: Monday, March 23 (10:45-Noon)
Respondent: Kevin McDonough (McGill University)
Chair: Bhuvinder Vaid (Simon Fraser University)
From the Courtroom to the Voting Booth: Defending Affirmative Action in Higher Education Admissions
Clifton S. Tanabe
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Abstract
In the context of a growing number of successful, state-level, anti-affirmative action initiatives, traditional legal-based justifications for affirmative action in higher education admissions require more careful examination and critique. In this essay, the author looks carefully at the way the Supreme Court has analyzed affirmative action, and at the use of specialized legal terms of art such as “strict scrutiny” and “compelling state interest.” Ultimately, the author argues that while legally necessary, the reasoning and language used by the Supreme Court to justify race-based admissions programs is not sufficient for defending such programs politically, and therefore a new approach must be adopted by affirmative action proponents.
Concurrent Session V: Saturday, March 21 (2:15-3:30)
Respondent: Jason Blokhuis (University of Rochester)
Chair: Megan M. Boler (OISE/University of Toronto)
Can There Be Pluralism Without Conflict?
Sharon Todd
Stockholm University/Mälardalen University)
Abstract
This paper reworks what pluralism can signify for democratic education by challenging the presupposition that human pluralism can be captured through our appeals to cultural diversity, a politics of difference, or a multiplicity of perspectives alone. Drawing on Arendt, Nancy and Levinas, I flesh out in some detail why it is impossible to speak of pluralism without having a related idea of how conflict emerges in the heterogeneous spaces of human social life. Taking pluralism seriously means reframing democracy in terms that move away from recognition and dialogue toward seeing it as an unending project of dissent and contestation. In seeing pluralism on these terms, then, the question of how to educate for democratic possibility is put into sharp relief.
General Session I: Friday, March 20 (10:30-Noon)
Respondent: Walter Feinberg (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Chair: Kathy Hytten (Southern Illinois University)
The Democracy of the Flesh: Laughter as an Educational and Public Event
Joris Vlieghe, Maarten Simons, and Jan Masschelein
University of Leuven
Abstract
This paper deals with the educational significance of common laughter. In contradistinction to the two more usual approaches towards this phenomenon, which treat it as a didactical tool or as an aspect of the flourishing human life, we try to describe laughter as a corporeal experience which doesn’t allow any longer to upheld fixed identities or hierarchical positions. This has to do with the fact that in common laughter we are exposed to the impersonal and automatic functioning of our flesh. We will furthermore argue that this experience of common laughter is not only important for the realization of set educational aims, but is educational in itself. This has to do with the specific kind of community, which is granted by succumbing to the equalizing force of laughter.
Concurrent Session III: Saturday, March 21 (9:00-10:15)
Respondent: Barbara Houston (University of New Hampshire)
Chair: David Blacker (University of Delaware)
Cosmopolitan Education and its Discontents
Leonard J. Waks
Temple University
Abstract
Samuel Scheffler has distinguished philosophical cosmopolitan theses into those concerned with justice and those concerned with culture. In this paper I focus on the former, considering some leading statements along with prominent critiques and alternatives. I argue that cosmopolitanists such as Martha Nussbaum and David Held, and their postmodernist and feminist critics including Thomas Popkewitz and Sharon Todd, are talking at cross-purposes and failing to join issue. I conclude by indicating some practical tasks to which cosmopolitanists and their critics can both contribute.
Concurrent Session IV: Saturday, March 21 (10:30-noon)
Respondent: Ann Chinnery (Simon Fraser University)
Chair: Amy Shuffelton (University of Wisconsin, Whitewater)
Evolution, Creationism, and Fairness: Equal Time in the Biology Classroom?
Bryan Warnick
The Ohio State University
Abstract
In this paper, I examine the popular idea that each side of a controversial issue should have “equal time” in the classroom as a matter of fairness. Using a Rawlsian framework of analysis, I introduce and defend the principle of curricular fairness: If students are to be taught about a comprehensive belief in compulsory public schools, it must be presented in its strongest form and in a way that offers “serious advocacy” for the position. I then apply this principle to the debate about creationism in public schools. If creationism is presented, the principle straightforwardly implies that it must be presented in its strongest form. However, if creationism is allowed this sort of advocacy, then this also changes what serious advocacy entails for teaching evolution. Generally speaking, the principle of curricular fairness implies that proponents of evolutionary theory should then be allowed to respond to the positive positions of their critics. Moreover, fairness implies that the appropriate response will vary depending on the type of creationism that is presented – i.e., depending on whether creation science, intelligent design, or criticism of evolutionary theory is presented.
Concurrent Session V: Saturday, March 21 (2:15-3:30)
Respondent: Natasha Levinson (Kent State University)
Chair: Jon Dolle (Stanford University)
CONTACT: PES Executive Kurt Stemhagen
804-827-8415; krstemhagen@vcu.edu