childism and minority cultures in school
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12957/childphilo.2024.81824Keywords:
childism, school, minority education, democratic education , equalityAbstract
While inequality between children and adults characterizes practically every aspect of contemporary society, school is considered a paradigmatic site of adult domination. Childist critiques tend to point to school as a place where adultism is not only conspicuous but also (re)produced. In this article, however, it is argued that the public school, obviously founded by adults for adult purposes, has an important childist dimension. Although it is based on a clear distinction between adult teachers and child students, school can problematize key adultist norms and promote a more age-equal society. This does not imply that exiting schools are necessarily childist, but rather that a certain understanding of the school, which emphasizes its social-democratic significance, can uncover its childist aspects and build on them when reimagining public education. The conception of the school in which the article focuses is presented in Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons’ 2013 book In Defence of the School: A Public Issue. Although the authors do not refer directly to childism (or child equality), and are clearly writing from an adultist perspective, I argue that the public school they describe does have a childist dimension: it challenges one of the root causes of adultism: considering children the property of their parents. Nevertheless, Masschelein and Simons’ conception of the school raises a problem of its own, which also has a childist aspect: the concern that uniform schooling supervised by the state will be detrimental to minority and indigenous groups, imposing a culture and identity determined by adults. The second part of this article addresses this concern, arguing that genuine school education can be key not only to preserving but also to revitalizing minority cultures and identities by allowing the students to bring their “newness” into the encounter with the cultures and identities of their families.
Downloads
References
Abebe, T. (2023). Refusals for liberating childhood from the trap of schooling? Childhood, 30(2), 109–115. https://doi.org/10.1177/09075682231163917
Abebe, T., & Biswas, T. (2021). Rights in education: outlines for a decolonial, childist reimagination of the future – commentary to Ansell and colleagues. Fennia - International Journal of Geography, 199(1), 118–128.
Arendt, H. (1958). The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Arendt, H. (1961). The crisis in education. In H. Arendt, Between Past and Future: Six Exercises in Political Thought (pp. 173–196). New York: Viking Press.
Arendt, H. (2003). Reflections on Little Rock. In H. Arendt, Responsibility and Jundment (pp. 193–213). New York: Schocken Books.
Aristotle. (2004). Nicomachean Ethics (R. Crisp, Ed. & Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Benforado, A. (2023). A Minor Revolution: How Prioritizing Kids Benefits Us All. New York: Crown.
Biswas, T. (2023). Becoming good ancestors: A decolonial, childist approach to global intergenerational sustainability. Children & Society, 37(4), 1005–1020.
Biswas, T., & Wall, J. (2023). Childist theory in the humanities and social sciences. Children & Society, 37(4), 1001–1004.
Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1990). Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. Translated by Richard Nice. London: Sage.
Bowen, J. R. (2006). Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bowskill, M., Lyons, E., & Coyle, A. (2007). The rhetoric of acculturation: When integration means assimilation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 46(4), 793–813.
Briggs, L. (2020). Taking Children: A History of American Terror. Oakland: University of California Press.
Brighouse, H. (2002). Modest defence of school choice. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 36(4), 653–659.
Burman, E. (2023). Child as method and/as childism: Conceptual–political intersections and tensions. Children & Society, 37(4), 1021–1036.
Callan, E. (1997). Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Feinberg, W. (2007). Culture and the common school. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 41(4), 591–607. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9752.2007.00590.x.
Firestone, S. (2003). The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Graeber, D., & Wengrow, D. (2021). The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Haberman, B. D. (1994). What is the Content of Education in a Democratic Society? Journal of Philosophy of Education, 28(2), 183–190.
Halstead, J. M. (2007). In Place of a Conclusion: The Common School and the Melting Pot. The Common School and the Comprehensive Ideal, 41(4), 322–334. doi: 10.1002/9781444307313.ch20
Hodgson, N., Vlieghe, J., & Zamojski, P. (2018). Manifesto for a Post-Critical Pedagogy. Santa Barbara: Punctum Books.
Holt, J. (2021). Teach Your Own: The Indispensable Guide to Living and Learning with Children at Home. New York: Hachette.
Horst, C., & Gitz-Johansen, T. (2010). Education of ethnic minority children in Denmark: Monocultural hegemony and counter positions. Intercultural Education, 21(2), 137–151. doi: 10.1080/14675981003696271.
Hunt, P. (1991). Criticism, Theory, and Children’s Literature. Cambridge, Mass.: Basic Blackwell.
Illich, I. (2000). Deschooling Society. London: Marion Boyars Publishers.
Levinson, M. (2002). The Demands of Liberal Education. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Masschelein, J. (2015). Why We Are in Need of Pedagogical Sciences (as Design Sciences) A Few Brief Notes. Pedagogía y Saberes, 43, 91–100.
Masschelein, J. (2018). An Educational Cave Story (On Animals That Go to “School”). In P. Smeyers (Ed.), International Handbook of Philosophy of Education (pp. 1185–1200). Berlin: Springer.
Masschelein, J., & Simons, M. (2013). In Defence of the School: A Public Issue (J. McMartin, Trans.). Leuven: E-ducation, Culture & Society Publishers.
McAndrew, Ma. (2013). Fragile Majorities and Education: Belgium, Catalonia, Northern Ireland, and Quebec. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Merry, M. S. (2005). Cultural coherence and the schooling for identity maintenance. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 39(3), 477–497. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9752.2005.00449.x.
Merry, M. S. (2013). Equality, Citizenship, and Segregation: A Defense of Separation. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mill, J. S. (2003). On Liberty (D. Bromwich, & G. Kateb, Ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press.
Nozick, R. (1989). The Examined Life. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Reich, R. (2007). How and Why to Support Common Schooling and Educational Choice at the Same Time. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 41(4), 709–725.
Rollo, T. (2022). Beyond Curricula: Colonial Pedagogies in Public Schooling. In S. D. Styres & A. Kempf (Eds.), Troubling Truth and Reconciliation in Canadian Education (pp. 121–140). Edmonton: University of Alberta Press.
Rotlevy, O. and Snir, I. (2024) 'Affirming educative violence: Walter Benjamin on divine violence and schooling', Ethics and Education, 19(1), pp. 59-75. doi.org/10.1080/17449642.2024.2304510
Scott, J. W. (2007). The Politics of the Veil. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Simpson, L. B. (2011). Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back. Peterborough: Arbieter Ring.
Simpson, L. B. (2014). Land as Pedagogy: Nishnaabeg Intelligence and Rebellious Transformation. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 33(3), 1–25.
Snir, I. (2016). Re-politicizing the scholastic : school and schoolchildren between politicization and de-politicization Re-politicizing the scholastic: school and schoolchildren. Ethics and Education, 11(2), 117–130. doi: 10.1080/17449642.2016.1160522
Wall, J. (2006). Childhood Studies, Hermeneutics, and Theological Ethics. Journal of Religion, 86(4), 523–548.
Wall, J. (2008). Human Rights in Light of Childhood. International Journal of Children’s Rights, 16(4), 523–543.
Wall, J. (2019). From childhood studies to childism: Reconstructing the scholarly and social imaginations. Children’s Geographies, 20(3), 257–270. doi: 10.1080/14733285.2019.1668912.
Walzer, M. (1984). Spheres of Justice. New York: Basic Books.
Williams, K. (2007). Religious Worldviews and the Common School: The French Dilemma. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 41(4), 675–692.
Young-Bruehl, E. (2013). Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children. New Haven: Yale University Press.