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This paper criticizes mainstream philosophical justifications for paternalism in children's education, highlighting their exclusion of students labelled with intellectual disability. Most philosophical justifications of paternalism presume "able-mindedness" -- that is, they presume that learners possess the potential to develop capacities of rationality and autonomy considered normal -- and normatively superior -- for adults. Prioritizing these able-minded norms obscures educationally worthwhile communicative, reasoning, and behavioural capacities that diverge from able-minded norms, but which nevertheless express forms of rational and epistemic agency that are educationally beneficial. The paper argues that able-mindedness therefore constitutes a conceptually impoverished basis for educational paternalism. A number of harmful educational implications of able-minded educational paternalism are explored and a more promising and inclusive avenue for justifying educational paternalism is briefly outlined.

In Canada, several universities have recently implemented course requirements in Indigenous studies as a condition of graduation, while others are considering following suit. Policies making Indigenous course requirements (hereafter ICRs) compulsory have caused considerable controversy. According to proponents, a main purpose of ICRs is to address historical wrongs and to foster a more complete understanding of the ongoing relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens. According to critics, making such courses compulsory effectively imposes illiberal restrictions on university students and faculty by limiting the epistemic aim of free inquiry, while wrongly prioritizing concern for the welfare of one social group over others. In this essay, we propose a liberal-democratic justification for ICRs that addresses these two worries about the ideals that may underwrite these courses. We argue that ICRs can be justified in liberal-democratic terms insofar as they foster knowledge of what John Rawls refers to as "the constitutional essentials" and remediate civic forms of what Miranda Fricker refers to as "epistemic injustices." Universities, we claim have highly plausible role responsibilities to promote the civic epistemic aims identified by Rawls and Fricker, which are especially weighty due to the power university degrees confer, as part of the formation of a "democratic elite." We then defend this line of argument against objections based on academic freedom by arguing that universities have reasons, internal to the search for truth, to champion the political aims we identify.

Why do society and the courts so readily recognize university and college teachers' academic freedom but just as readily deny primary and secondary school teachers the same right? To investigate this question, this article considers teachers' work in light of the standard justifications for granting academic freedom in higher education: that academic freedom is essential to promoting the capacity for critical reflection and the reliable transfer of disciplinary knowledge. Considering that society calls on teachers to play a key role in advancing both of these educational and social goods, the article argues that granting academic freedom in higher education, while denying it for primary and secondary teachers, appears to be a double standard. The claims to academic freedom typically reserved for university professors, we show, also apply to the work of primary and secondary teachers. There are significant differences between teaching in the higher education sector as opposed to the compulsory education sector. School teachers work with a conscripted clientele of minors and are therefore rightly subject to more stringent norms of public accountability. These differences notwithstanding, the concept of academic freedom, the article concludes, is a potentially powerful source of leverage for addressing concerns about the erosion of teachers' professional autonomy and for increased teacher involvement in the elaboration and management of the regulatory frameworks that govern their work.

This article considers the question of whether policies that propose to forbid public officials, most notably teachers, from wearing religious clothing in the classroom can be justified by political principles of secularism--specifically, the principle of state neutrality and the principle of state autonomy from religious influence. Two prominent arguments on behalf of an affirmative answer to this question are identified and evaluated, ultimately casting doubt on the cogency of prohibitionist arguments. The claim is then advanced that secular principles are most compellingly understood in educational contexts as principles of professional ethics--that is, as grounds for teacher reflection. To support this claim, we conclude by presenting two scenarios in which teachers face difficult decisions about whether to wear or remove an otherwise obligatory religious symbol. In this discussion, the importance of balance considerations of religious conscience with the value of public trust is emphasized.

The main thesis we want to defend in this article is that learning about nationalism from a historical, sociological, and normative point of view constitutes one important, but rather neglected, dimension of a good citizenship education. Although the debate about nationalism and education has received considerable attention from political and educational philosophers in recent years, the dispute has mainly focused on the question of whether public schools can legitimately promote nationalist sentiments, that is, patriotism. However, in this article, we wish to shift the focus away from the question of promoting patriotism and toward the question of the role that teaching about the phenomenon of nationalism and about specific nationalist movements can play in reinforcing liberal and democratic civic values and principles. We argue that such teaching can indeed play an important role and that this is true regardless of whether one views patriotism as a civic virtue or not and regardless of whether the aim of promoting patriotism in schools is legitimate or not. (Contains 4 notes.)

In this essay, Bruce Maxwell, David Waddington, Kevin McDonough, Andree-Anne Cormier, and Marina Schwimmer compare two competing approaches to social integration policy, Multiculturalism and Interculturalism, from the perspective of the issue of the state funding and regulation of conservative religious schools. After identifying the key differences between Interculturalism and Multiculturalism, as well as their many similarities, the authors present an explanatory analysis of this intractable policy challenge. Conservative religious schooling, they argue, tests a conceptual tension inherent in Multiculturalism between respect for group diversity and autonomy, on the one hand, and the ideal of intercultural citizenship, on the other. Taking as a case study Quebec's education system and, in particular, recent curricular innovations aimed at helping young people acquire the capabilities of intercultural citizenship, the authors illustrate how Interculturalism signals a compelling way forward in the effort to overcome the political dilemma of conservative religious schooling. (Contains 51 footnotes.)

This paper focuses on an especially urgent challenge to the legitimacy of the common school ideal--a challenge that has hardly been addressed within contemporary debates within liberal philosophy of education. The challenge arises from claims to accommodation by queer people and queer communities--claims that are based on notions of queerness and queer identity that are seriously underrepresented within contemporary liberal political and educational theory. The paper articulates a liberal view of personal autonomy that is constituted by a conception of practical reasoning rooted in thick communal experiences. It is argued that common schools concerned with equal concern for the autonomy of all children must attend to the specific communal requirements needed to developing the autonomous practical reasoning of queer children--requirements for what is termed a sense of "futurity". Five practical recommendations for common schools are briefly outlined. The paper concludes with some reflections on the divergent and convergent interests of queer theory and liberalism, and considers some possibilities for a partial reconciliation of the two theoretical perspectives.