Education Between State Markets and Civil Society

<p>*How should education be organized in pluralistic and multicultural societies?<br> *What are the roles in education of civil society markets governments and the family?<br> *How can the idea of the civil society help to reorient education policy discussions that are sometimes stuck in either-or juxtapositions of market versus government or individualism versus communitarianism?<br> *What are some of the traditions of civil society--across countries and across history--that educators and policymakers today can revive or build on?<br><br> These questions are at the center of this book. Its goal is to understand how we can accommodate cultural ethnic and religious pluralism in a political and conceptual framework that is sufficiently flexible to combine choice with equity a commitment to a shared civil and political culture with openness to exploring and affirming the distinct ethnicity race creed or culture of different groups.<br><br> To address these questions the authors take up the notion of the <i>civil society</i> an idea that has experienced a popular and scholarly revival in recent years as numerous citizens action groups political philosophers and social scientists make the case that only a democratic civil society can sustain a democratic state. The implications of this development for education have to date been very little explored. This book is a step toward addressing this gap.<br><br> Going beyond simple juxtapositions of market versus government in education reform the book as a whole develops an integrative perspective informed by the idea of the civil society. It combines current policy issues with a look at their historical development and evaluates U.S. educational policy in the context of a range of international cases. The authors--education scholars sociologists economists historians and philosophers-- explore from diverse disciplinary political and philosophical points of view the potential of the civil society and civic associations for education. At the same time they share the hope that a thorough reconsideration of the role of the state the market and the civil society will help to energize ongoing experiments with charter schools voucher schemes and a variety of other plans to increase educational and school autonomy.</p>