Session Information
23 SES 05 A, Managerial Accountability and its Effects on School Education
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper analyzes the challenges embedded in the conflict between the right to accessible education, which implies a prohibition on discriminatory practices in school admission, and the right to adaptable education, which accommodates children’s cultural affiliations (UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1999, para 6).
The prominent justification that lies within this conflict relates to children’s rights. The right to equal access to education is intertwined with human dignity (UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education, 1960, Art. 1), as discrimination has been shown to have a negative impact on the self-efficacy and social-emotional growth (see review in American National Association of School Psychologists, 2009). However, similar considerations justify the right to adaptable education, which provides children with a sense of belonging and contributes to caring relationships within the school (MackMullen, 2007). The tension between these justifications is circumstantial. In most cases, applicants to religious schools identify with the school ethos. Thus, their rejection not only derogates their right to accessible education but also their right to adaptable education.
The conflict between accessible education and adaptable education concerns parental rights as well. These rights have profound moral justifications relating, inter alia, to the prominent role of parenting in individuals’ self-definition and moral choice (Davis, 1994), and to the physical and emotional work associated with caring for children (Warnick, 2014). However, in the case of religious schools’ admission these arguments may apply both to parents of the school applicants as well as to parents whose children are already enrolled in the school. All members of a minority culture are entitled to shape and revise the prevalent norms and values (Okin, 1999).
A related argument concerns the interrelationship between children’s rights and parental rights. The general assumption is that parents pursue the best interest of their children, whom they love and nurture (Guggenheim, 2005). This assumption lays at the core of various cases pertaining to the relationship between religious parents and the secular state, such as an exclusive focus on religious studies in Haredi schools (Author, 2015a), negative messages towards certain human rights in Islamic schools (Hills, 2015), or limiting schooling to eight grades in Amish schools (McAvoy, 2012). In all of these cases, the parental decisions addressed the potential derogation of their own children’s right to acceptable education. However, in the case of school admission policies, parental decisions may also involve discriminating against other children.
Another kind of justification concerns societal interests. Accessible education contributes to democracy, as it encourages integration among children originating from different cultural backgrounds (see Minow, 2011). This concern is crucial in fragmentized multicultural societies (Walzer, 1995). Yet, some scholars argue that faith schools are not necessarily divisive (see Wright, 2003) and that direct cross-cultural contact does not guarantee positive intergroup relations (Burtonwood, 2003).
In light of the above, the paper shows that a normative analysis cannot fully capture the tension between accessible and adaptable education in admission policies to religious schools. Thus, it offers a socio-legal lens, as will be further elaborated in the methodological section.
The main scholarly contribution of this paper is to the literature exploring the social impact of admission policies to religious schools (e.g. Allen & West, 2009; Dwyer & Parutis, 2013). In addition, it enriches the literature examining the interrelations of education policies and practices (e.g. Ball, Maguire, Braun, & Hoskins, 2011; Levinson, Sutton, & Winstead, 2009), by focusing on the complex context of religious schools, in which state laws compete with religious and cultural norms. This paper may also be of interest to scholars focusing on the intersection of equality and ethnicity in education.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Allen, R., & West, A. (2009). Religious schools in London: School admissions, religious composition and selectivity. Oxford Review of Education, 35(4), 471–494. American National Association of School Psychologists (2009). Racism, prejudice, and discrimination. http://www.nasponline.org/about_nasp/positionpapers/RacismPrejudice.pdf Ball, S. J., Maguire, M., Braun, A., & Hoskins, K. (2011). Policy actors: Doing policy work in schools. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32(4), 625–639. Ball, S. J. (2015). What is policy? 21 years later: Reflections on the possibilities of policy research. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 36(3), 306–313. Burtonwood, N. (2003). Social cohesion, autonomy and the liberal defence of faith schools. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 37(3), 415–425. Davis, P. C. (1994). Contested images of family values: The role of the state. Harvard Law Review, 107, 1348–1373. Dwyer, C., & Parutis, V. (2013). ‘Faith in the system?’ State-funded faith schools in England and the contested parameters of community cohesion. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 38(2), 267–284. Guggenheim, M. (2005). What‘s wrong with children’s rights? Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Harris, N. (2007). Education, law and diversity. Oxford: Hart Publishing. Hills, P. W. (2015). A normative approach to the legitimacy of Muslim schools in multicultural Britain. British Journal of Educational Studies, 63(2), 179–196. Levinson, B. A. U., Sutton, M., & Winstead, T. (2009). Education policy as a practice of power: Theoretical tools, ethnographic methods, democratic options. Educational Policy, 23(6), 767–795. MackMullen, I. (2007). Faith in schools? Autonomy, citizenship, and religious education in the liberal state. Princeton: Princeton University Press. McAvoy, P. (2012). ‘There are no housewives on Star Trek’: A reexamination of exit rights for the children of insular fundamentalist parents. Educational Theory, 62(5), 535–552. Minow, M. (2011). Confronting the seduction of choice: Law, education, and American pluralism. Yale Law Journal, 120, 814–848. Okin, S. M. (1999). Is multiculturalism bad for women? J. Cohen, M. Howard & M. Nussbaum (Eds). Princeton, Princeton University Press. UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1999). General comment no. 13. UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education (1960). Walzer, M. (1995). Education, democratic citizenship and multiculturalism. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 29(2), 181–189. Warnick, B. (2014). Parental authority over education and the right to invite. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 53–71. Wright, A. (2003). Freedom, equality, fraternity? Towards a liberal defence of faith community schools. British Journal of Religious Education, 25(2), 142-152.
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