Common Faith: Education, Spirituality and the State

The notion of spiritual development has been part of the legislative framework of education in England and Wales since 1944. Its use in the legislation implies the belief that there is an important dimension of state education connected with, but extending beyond, personal development and the promotion of values. This book is an exercise in the practical philosophy of education and consequently, explores certain ideas and policy ideals, throwing light on the logical relations between them.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Introduction. Part 2 Spirituality, religion and education: the politial dimension and the spiritual dimension; distinctiveness, consensus and language; Ofsted, signals of transcendence and religion; the ambiguity of transcendence and the educational importance of "spirituality". Part 3 Agency, experience and common spirituality: Dewey, religion and religiosity; beyond Dewey - religiosity and scientism; beyond Dewey - instrumentalism and tradition; towards a less partial account of human agency; MacIntyre, Taylor and the importance of narrative unity; Taylor on agency, articulation and the inescapability of frameworks; Kekes, weak inescapability and pluralism; agency, experience and a common conception of spirituality. Part 4 Culture, politics and education: introduction; Haldane, Christian communitarianism and state education; Newby, White and secular approaches to education; Macedo, civic education and the culture of liberal democracy; social democratic liberalism, cultural interventionism and education; a look forward. Part 5 Varieties of liberalism, public values and education: three cultural justifications for liberal civic education; Rawls, impartial liberalism and the extent of civic education; Rawls' political liberalism and the attempt to justify the "regrettable" effects of the SDL approach to civic education; perfectionist liberal approaches to personal education; Raz, human well-being and the educational importance of autonomy; the development of autonomy and pluralism; the development of autonomy, cultural attachment and autonomy driven schooling; autonomy, transcendence and the language of spirituality. Part 6 Experience, realism and spiritual development: spiritual development and the educational inevitability of evaluation; a map of possible policy assumptions; the experiential approach; the non-realist approach; instrumentalism and spiritual development; the presuppositions of theological non-realism and the notion of transcendence; critical realism, transcendence and liberalism; realism, transcendence and virtue. Part 7 Pluralism and the limits of common schooling: introduction; liberalism, universalism and procedural imperialism; the politics of pluralism and the ideology of pluralism; the paradox of pluralist education; the politics of civic pluralism; conservatism and the conservation of civil society; conservatism and civic pluralism; conservatism and commonality; pluralism, conservatism and the common school. Part 8 Conclusions.