Piet Van Der Ploeg

In pleas for the recognition of cultural minority rights, claims to educational authority often figure as concrete examples. The right to educational authority is said to be an exemplary minority right. This is striking, for of all minority rights this is one which is impossible to justify. Difficulties invovled in recent attempts to reconcile cultural minority rights with liberal democracy demonstrate that educational minority rights in particular cannot be justified without underestimating civic and liberal risks and ignoring the complicated nature of the relationships between communities and ‘their’ children and between parents and ‘their’ children.

ABSTRACTAccording to many governments and educationalists, education should aim to develop dispositions conducive to political participation and solidarity, because democratic citizenship presupposes participation and solidarity. But there are radically different views on the nature of good citizenship. We examine the implications of this dissensus for citizenship education. Education, we contend, should involve and develop autonomy and open-mindedness. We argue that this requires a more critical approach than is possible when political participation and solidarity are conceived of as goals of education.

In pleas for the recognition of cultural minority rights, claims to educational authority often figure as concrete examples. The right to educational authority is said to be an exemplary minority right. This is striking, for of all minority rights this is one which is impossible to justify. Difficulties invovled in recent attempts to reconcile cultural minority rights with liberal democracy demonstrate that educational minority rights in particular cannot be justified without underestimating civic and liberal risks and ignoring the complicated nature of the relationships between communities and ‘their’ children and between parents and ‘their’ children.