- See “A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge,” in Gordon C. Lee (ed.), Crusade Against Ignorance: Thomas Jefferson on Education ( New York : Teachers College, Columbia University , 1961 ).
- For example, A. V. Judges concludes a historical summary on “The Meaning of Equality in Education,” with the statement that “the pragmatic position supporting equality has received less attention from educational theorists than it deserves.” He further credits the arguments of the utilitarian “philosophic radicals” as having “demonstrated that the mark of all things they exposed as biased and obsolescent was social inefficiency, a detraction from well-being.” In Paul Nash (ed.), History and Education ( New York : Random House , 1970 ), Ch. 6, p. 186 .
- The argument that providing equal opportunities forestalls discontent with the class structure of society (see John H. Schaar, “Equality of Opportunity and Beyond” in J. R. Pennock and J. W. Chapman (eds.), Nomos IX: Equality [New York: Atherton, 1967], Ch. 13) is, I think, contrary to historical experience. Elsewhere I have attempted to show that equal opportunity is a value which exacerbates class tensions within a society, demand for it being a recurrent motive of social revolutions. (“Equal Opportunity and/or Social Revolution,” in W. Richard Stephens (ed.), Proceedings of the 1970 Annual Meeting of the Ohio Valley Philosophy of Education Society, published for the Society by Indiana State University).
- My good friend, Marvin Grandstaff (“Integration and Educational Privilege”), in David W. Beggs III and S. Kern Alexander (eds.), Integration and Education [Chicago: Rand McNally, 1969] gives a strong argument in support of the functional nature of societal moves to achieve equal opportunity which parallels an earlier position of my own (“Equality, Justice, and Desegregation,” Proceedings of the Twenty-First Annual Meeting of the Philosophy of Education Society, 1965, pp. 101–106), viz., that symbolic communication is a necessary concomitant of the higher forms of human reason and it is therefore in the interest of a democratic society to promote the widest possible degree of communications across categories of race, religion, socio-economic class, sex, etc. I now believe that it has been shown that American society is insufficiently democratic at the level of individual attitudes to promote unrestricted communication of this kind. In other words, the kind of society which Americans wish to preserve does not require such a degree of communication. It does, however, I hope to show, require equality of opportunity.
- Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 1954 , footnote 11.
- Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 37, 1896 .
- James S. Coleman , et al., Equality of Education Opportunity ( Washington : U.S. Government Printing- Office , 1966 ).
- Melvin Lerner , “All the World Loathes a Loser,” Psychology Today , 5 , 51 ff ( June , 1971 ).
- Melvin Lerner , “The Desire for Justice and Reaction to Victims ” in J. Macaulay and L. Berkowitz (eds.), Altruism and Helping Behavior ( New York : Academic Press , 1970 ), p. 207 .
- Ibid. , p. 208 .
- Taken from a preliminary manuscript of the author .
- Consult, for example, the essays in J. Macaulay and L. Berkovvitz (eds.), Altruism and Helping Behavior ( New York : Academic Press , 1970 ).
- See G. C. Homans , Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms ( New York : Harcourt, Brace , 1961 ).
- Equality and the Meaning Structure of the Social World,” in Collected Papers II ( The Hague : Martinus Nijoff , 1964 ), pp. 226 – 273 .
- Op. cit., p. 275. Schutz adds the caveat, “the term 'objective meaning' is obviously a misnomer, in so far as the so-called 'objective' interpretations are, in turn, relative to the particular attitudes of the interpreters and, therefore, in a certain sense, 'subjective'.”
- Ibid. , p. 272 .
- Ibid. , p. 273 .
- See, for example, Herbert Kohl , 36 Children ( New York : New American Library , 1967 ).
- See, for example, Myron Lieberman , “Equality of Educational Opportunity,” in B. Othanel Smith and Robert Ennis (eds.), Language and Concepts in Education ( Chicago : Rand McNally , 1961 ).
- Schutz, op. cit., pp. 270–271.
- The plan of the Jefferson County, Kentucky Board of Education involved closing the Newburg Elementary School, whose previous enrollment had been predominantly Negro, at the beginning of the school year 1971–72.
The Educational Forum
Volume 37, 1973 - Issue 3