On moral education through deliberative communication

Abstract

John Dewey’s masterpiece Democracy and Education, from 1916, is clearly far removed from the dominant tendencies of current education policy in the western world, with their emphasis on the narrow accountability of the New Public Management. Nevertheless, his book still challenges those tendencies and sets forth criteria for citizenship and moral education for democracy as ‘a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience’. According to Dewey, the measure of the worth of activities in schools is the extent to which they are animated by a social spirit, a spirit that can be actively present only when certain conditions are met. How can we understand and characterize these conditions in today’s schools, and to what extent are they desirable by different forces? I will move between these two questions using texts by Dewey and others on moral education, exploring communicative strategies that have inspired my own writing. In particular, I will present and discuss my own proposal of deliberative communication, and briefly relate it to the challenge from agonism, the ‘realities’ of educational policies and the status of moral and citizenship education in Sweden and the US today.

Keywords:

• moral education
• deliberative communication
• John Dewey
• Democracy and Education
• Jürgen Habermas
• agonism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. What goes on in schools is of course just one part of moral socialization as a whole, a part that might proceed in close parallel or more or less in contradiction to socialization outside of schools. The weight and importance of school activities are thus also dependent on what goes on outside schools, but here and now we cannot do more than be aware of that fact, while still concentrating on the potential of schools to bring about change.

2. This field—the discussion between deliberation and agonism—is one that is growing very rapidly, and there are many aspects that could be discussed. What I am doing here is simply highlighting some of the crucial issues, at the same time as I want to stress that I see more similarities than differences between the two approaches. In my view, the differences are, in many respects, overstated by Mouffe. I also think it is necessary to distinguish between two levels in this discussion, namely its implications on a societal level and on a classroom level; in the present text, I am mainly interested in the classroom level of discussion (although I consider my response applicable at the societal level as well).

3. Ruitenberg (2009, p. 269) goes so far as ‘to propose that a radical democratic citizenship education would be an education of political adversaries’.

4. However, this aspect has to be analysed situationally (by the teacher). There are of course occasions where passion has to be brought in, if the school class is indifferent towards touching on problems and conflicting views.

5. However, note my fourth characteristic of deliberative communication, which stresses the possibility of questioning authorities, including the teacher.

6. I have attempted to distinguish passion from commitment, but here we have an alternative. Primarily, though, it persuades me that the difference between agonism and deliberative communication (at least as I understand them) is not that great; rather, they are fairly close to each other, the main differences having to do with whether the focus is on identity or the problem considered, and the appropriateness of each approach for use in the classroom.

7. As already pointed out, I find many of Mouffe’s characterizations of Habermas flawed and unjust.

8. Cf. in particular, my fifth characteristic of deliberative communication.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tomas Englund

Tomas Englund is a professor in the School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, Örebro University, 70182 Örebro, Sweden; E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests centre on curriculum theory and didactics, curriculum history, political socialization and citizenship education, and the philosophical aspects of education. He directs the Education and Democracy research Environment and is co-editor of the research journal with the same name (in Swedish Utbildning & Demokrati).