Supplement for the
Fifth Class
Copyright © 2026 Bruce W.
Hauptli
I. Questions From Last Time.
II. Left Over from Chapter III: 88-94 Democracy Within Schools:
88 While the professionalism of teachers can safeguard against repression
and discrimination, a truly democratic education requires that the students
also be allowed to play a role in their education.
89 Students who are predisposed neither to
participation nor to learning present the greater challenge to a democratic
conception of teaching because their negative attitude toward schooling can
readily reinforce a purely disciplinary method of teaching: teachers assert
their authority, first to produce order, and then to funnel a body of knowledge
into students.”
89-93 But highly committed and professional
teachers can adopt participatory strategies which can reach such students:
92-93 Although we lack enough evidence to say
how much internal democracy [within schools] is necessary to cultivate
participatory virtues among students, the low levels of political participation
in our society and the high levels of autocracy within most schools point to
the conclusion that the cultivation of participatory virtues should become more
prominent among the purposes of primary schooling, especially as children
mature intellectually and emotionally, and become more capable of engaging in
free and equal discussion with teachers and their peers.
93 She cites Dewey’s Lab School as an exemplar here.
94 However, she contends, a democratic
school cannot be a democracy. The role
of such schools is to prepare future
citizens for democratic citizenship.
Were they fully ready for citizenship, being students in school would no
longer be appropriate.
III. Chapter Four: The Limits of Democratic Authority:
We began the last class by discussing pp. 95-97. I’ll leave the central point here, but we don’t need to review them in our discussion today.
95 The democratic purposes of primary schooling constrain as well as empower democratic communities, but not in the name of parental choice, liberal autonomy, or conservative virtue. The principles of nonrepression and nondiscrimination limit democratic authority in the name of democracy itself. A society is undemocratic—it cannot engage in conscious social reproduction—if it restricts rational deliberation or includes some educable citizens from an adequate education. Nonrepression and nondiscrimination are therefore intrinsic to the ideal of a democratic society, as parental choice, liberal autonomy, and conservative virtue are not.
95-96 We value democracy not primarily as a pure process that defines what is just, nor as a perfect process that guarantees justice (defined by some nonprocedural standard). Rather because it is the best way by which we can discover what a community values for itself and its children.
97 The Chapter examines three pairs of policies which raise the problem of repression in public schools: banning and approving books, teaching creationism and civics, and sex education and sexist education. It then goes on to discuss private schools, separating moral from religious education, restraining the limits that might be placed on democratic education.
Banning and Approving Books:
99-101 She discusses how book banning is generally repressive, and any policies or decisions to engage in such bans must be the result of deliberative democratic procedures. Similarly, with textbook control situations!
101 The most effective means of avoiding direct repression may therefore be indirect: to restructure the process by which democratic decisions are made rather than to constrain decisions after they have been made. Restructuring the process rather than constraining its outcomes is likely to have the additional unintended advantage of furthering the education of adults, while they further the education of children.
Teaching Creationism and Civics:
102 The religions that reject evolution as a valid scientific theory also reject the secular standards of reasoning that make evolution clearly superior as a theory to creationism. Only by putting religious faith above reason can someone believe that the entire fossil record….
103 The case for teaching secular but not religious standards of reasoning does not rest on the claim that secular standards are neutral among all religious beliefs. The case rests instead on the claim that secular standards constitute a better basis upon which to build a common education for citizenship than any set of sectarian religious beliefs—better because secular standards are both a fairer and a firmer basis for peacefully reconciling our differences.
104-105 Public schools can avoid even indirect repression and still foster what one might call a democratic civil religion: a set of beliefs, habits, and ways of thinking that support democratic deliberation and are compatible with a wide variety of religious commitments. Americans have long viewed the study of history and government as a way of inculcating democratic virtues in citizens.
Sex Education and Sexist Education:
Gutmann first talks about sex education (107-111), and then goes on to discuss sexist education (111-115).
108 Teaching about sex is…not the same as teaching sex, just as teaching about religion is not the same as teaching religion. The most ardent advocate of the separation of church and state could consistently admit a course of comparative religion in the public-school curriculum. The distinction between teaching sex and teaching about sex is considerably harder….
110 She considers sex education with a provision of exempting students who (or whose parents) are opposed.
111 Gutmann uses “sexist education” “…to characterize a specific set of educational practices: those that serve, often unintentionally, to restrict the quality or quantity of democratic education received by girls (or women) relative to that received by boys (or men).”
Note that here she refers to “educational practices” where at other times it is “education,” “educational theories.”
112-115 She discusses statistics in the hiring of primary vs. secondary teachers, and statistics regarding administrators and the apparent discriminatory practices.
115 The educational rationale for breaking sex stereotyping implicates not only the authority structure but also the curriculum of schools. Because most discussions of sexism in education concentrate on the curriculum, I have focused on the authority structure. Breaking sex stereotypes in the curriculum is equally important but simpler to justify. It should be obvious that no democratic principle prevents teachers from paying more attention to women in history and literature from adopting gender-neutral language. The practical obstacles that stand in the way of curricular reform make it even more important that we discover as many principled ways as possible to overcome sex bias in schooling.
Private Schools:
115 In this section she addresses the question “is access to private schools a necessary or desirable limit on democratic control over primary Education?” The question of private schooling leads, naturally, to a discussion of whether dissenting parents should be able to exempt their children from some elements of the public schooling.
116 Only in a state of families is it natural to assume that parents have an exclusive right to control the education of their children regardless of democratic will.
117 She argues that while sometimes private schools can siphon off wealthier students from public schools, more than two-thirds of private students attend catholic schools, and so “…a better alternative to prohibiting private schools would be to devise a system of primary schooling that accommodates private religious schools on the condition that they, like public schools, teach the common set of democratic values.”
117-120 This accommodation can be broadened but where a religion espouses racial discrimination or repression a line is be crossed: “because the requirements of racial nondiscrimination and religious nonrepression conflict is this case, democratic principles permit but do not require legislatures to constrain fundamentalist along with all other schools to racial nondiscrimination.”
Dissent within Public Schools:
122 Public schools would more effectively teach democratic values…if they were willing to exempt some children from practices to which their parents object as long as those practices do not require public schools to be discriminatory or repressive…By such selective accommodation, schools may be able to teach both the moral value and the principled limits of democratic dissent without elevating conscientious refusal into a constitutional right of children or of parents acting on their children’s behalf.
123 By respecting conscientious dissent within these principled limits, public schools can offer a valuable lesson in democratic toleration, and also obtain the allegiance of some dissenting minorities. Private schools provide the option for exiting for intense dissenters as well as an incentive for public schools to become more tolerant of internal dissent even when they are not legally obligated to do so.
Separating Moral from Religious Education and Limiting Limits:
126 Philosophers as wise as Plato and Rousseau were (I am convinced) wrong. How then can philosophers justify constraining democratic or parental authority over education to do what is right? If there is a compelling answer to this question, an answer with the authority to compel citizens and parents to educate children against their convictions but not for the sake of preserving democratic and parental freedoms, it will take someone wiser than Plato or Rousseau to discover it.
To be clear here, Gutmann contends that a democratic state can pace limits on civil and parental educational authority if they are necessary to preserve democratic freedom.
I greatly appreciate comments and corrections
Email: hauptli@fiu.edu
Last revised on 02/27/26