Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemEducation for social justice? Reflecting critically on the epistemic commitments that drive education in liberal democratic societies( 2023-11)In the Enlightenment tradition, the equality of all and the right to liberty are assumed to be universal, natural principles. Affirming these principles may lead to a pragmatic toleration of different, competing values. This toleration, in turn, can be understood to lead to the claim that there are no universal, morally binding values. The second position contradicts the claim that liberty and equality encapsulate universal truths. An unexamined commitment to liberty, equality, and toleration features in discussions in the public sphere in liberal democratic societies, contributing to political disagreements, and perhaps explaining why injustices prevail: Our failure to interrogate and defend the truth claims we subscribe to prevents us from participating in productive discussions about how we can live together. Education is inherently political, inculcating values and influencing the way ideas are discussed in the public sphere. Addressing the tension, and perhaps incoherence, between the universal values of freedom and equality, and the value pluralism implied by the toleration principle, is therefore a matter of urgency for educational theorists. The original contribution of this thesis is to recommend that a critical-hermeneutical interrogation of the epistemic commitments that inform public debate ought to precede decision-making, and that this interrogation will lead to robust, provisional truth claims that offer a coherent framework for education to attend to disagreements that hinder progress towards social cohesion and justice.