The Demands of Liberal Education
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| Author | Meira Levinson |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Citizenship, liberalism, autonomy (psychology) |
| Published | 1999 (Oxford University Press) |
| Pages | 250 |
| ISBN | |
| 370.11 | |
| LC Class | LC1091.L38 |
The Demands of Liberal Education is a 1999 political philosophy book by Meira Levinson that establishes a liberal political theory of children's education that fits the mutual needs of the state and its diverse citizenry. She writes that the intent of a liberal education—an education that follows from a liberal society's values—is to maximize the autonomy of individual children through increasing their capacity for liberty. Levinson argues autonomy as a right to children. The book, published by Oxford University Press, aims to address a lacuna between educational policy and liberal political theory.
Levinson advocates for a weak perfectionist state that can promote thick autonomy while accepting citizens who do not agree. She argues for public schools "common" to all citizens and "detached" from individual citizen or community values, and argues for a constitutional mandate to this end.
Reviewers recommended the book for public educators as an important contribution to liberal theory. Their common criticism was based around practical applications and the imposition of autonomy as a value, e.g., her contemporary examples of national civics education, how citizens who disagreed with the focus on autonomy could be accommodated, and how a weak perfectionist state could defend marginalized group interests in a public school setting.
In The Demands of Liberal Education, Meira Levinson sets out to write a "coherent liberal political theory of children's education" that establishes how education can mutually satisfy the conflicting interests of the state and its diverse citizenry. "Liberal education" is defined as the type of education that follows from a liberal society's values. Levinson writes that the intent of liberal education is to maximize individual autonomy in successive generations, particularly by "cultivating the 'capacity' to exercise liberty". Autonomy and its cultivation is the primary moral aim of liberal education. Levinson argues from a liberal political philosophy rather than from a philosophy of education, and contends that a broad liberal education best equips for individual autonomy and thus creates the best republic.
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