Common Schools for Civic Equals: on the goods of common schooling

Join Dr. Philip Cook, University of Edinburgh, as he discusses common schools for civic equals.

In his talk, Dr. Cook will argue that children are owed, as a matter of justice, a distinct category of goods in their experience of schooling – goods of common schooling. Children are owed these goods on the basis of interests they share in common with adult citizens, namely: children’s interests as civic equals (which are interests distinct from their interests as minors or future adults). Children’s participation in social cooperation leads to legitimate entitlements to social advantages. Children’s entitlements to social advantages are vulnerable to the discretion adults have over children’s lives. This vulnerability leads to responsibilities on adults to provide institutions to protect the conditions of children’s social cooperation. Schools are the most feasible institution to protect children’s entitlements to social advantages as civic equals. The goods of common schooling secure for children the civic goods to which all citizens are entitled: membership of institution that is public in accountability and just in its rules of membership. The conceptual distinctions he introduces expand our taxonomy of children’s interests in matters of justice and clarify conceptions of goods in matters of justice in education and schooling.

Philip Cook is a Senior Lecturer in political philosophy at the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. He has a special interest in childhood and justice. In previous work he has argued for child enfranchisement and against prohibitions on child labour. His current research focuses on education, schools, and social justice.

This event is hosted by the Okanagan School of Education, the Department of Economics, Philosophy and Political Science, and the Centre for for Constitutional Law and Legal Studies.