NEGOTIATING THE SACRED IV:
TOLERATION, EDUCATION AND THE CURRICULUM

1-2 September 2007
Old Canberra House
Australian National University

Speakers and abstracts

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Such institutions and societal outlooks cannot be secured unless they find widespread support in the attitudes of individuals. Therefore we need to pay particular attention to the formation of the individual in addressing the problems created by intolerance in our society and the ways that we respond to the wider world. Since the development of the individual is the business of education, much depends upon the cast of our educational systems and the social dispositions and ways of thinking that they promote.

In considering this issue, I develop a line thought from Locke that was taken up by many other writers and eventually came to fruition in the educational philosophy of John Dewey. Viewed from this perspective, educating for tolerance in schools comes down to a combination of two things. First, we need to develop an inquiring outlook in students, so that they are questioning and open-minded in the ways that they approach the problems of life and society; and secondly, we must develop the social disposition of students to engage constructively with each other and provide them with the practical means to do so.

On this analysis, we cannot effectively educate for tolerance without reforming our current educational practices, many of which unwittingly help to sustain intolerant attitudes and habits of thought. I briefly address these needs in school education under four headings: the underutilization of open intellectual questions and questioning; the prevailing concern with problems that have unique right answers; the emphasis upon individual rather than collaborative learning; and misguided approaches to values education.

Biographical information
Associate Professor Cam is currently President of the Asia-Pacific Philosophy Education Network for Democracy. Philip Cam has written several books related to philosophical inquiry for children, some of which have been widely translated, and he is the author of many articles on related aspects of education. He has edited a series of books for UNESCO. His latest collection is Philosophy, Democracy and Education (UNESCO, 2003). He has also published in philosophy of mind, with reference to the work of Dennett, Fodor, and Searle.

Educating for Autonomy: More on the Case of God v John Rawls
Professor Susuan Mendus, Political Philosophy, University of York, UK

One of the core values of liberal societies is autonomy, and one of the main aims of education in liberal societies is (or is said to be) to promote autonomy. However, recent political disputes, such as French ‘headscarves’ affair (l’affaire du foulard), raise questions both about what autonomy is and about its relationship to religious faith. In this paper I will take the ‘headscarves’ case as my starting point and use it to examine the ways in which liberalism understands religion, and the ways in which it might interpret its own demand to educate for autonomy. My central questions will be: ‘How can the values of liberalism be reconciled with religious conviction?’ and ‘What role can education play in attaining a rapprochement?’

Biographical information
Susan Mendus was Morrell Fellow in Toleration at York from 1985 to 1988, and from 1995 to 2000 she was Director of the Morrell Studies in Toleration Programme. She was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 2004. Her areas of interest include contemporary and historical problems in political philosophy; theories of toleration; feminist theory; political integrity, political philosophy and literature. Her publications include: ‘Innocent before God: Politics, Morality and the Case of Billy Budd’ in Philosophy (2006); ‘Choice, Chance and Multiculturalism’, in Paul Kelly (ed.) Multiculturalism Reconsidered, Polity Press (2002); and ‘Tolerance and Recognition: Education in a Multicultural Society’, Journal of Philosophy of Education (1995) 29(2). Professor Mendus delivered the 2007 Freilich Foundation lectures on the theme of “Religious Toleration in an Age of Terrorism”.

Religious values in public education in America: A continuing battleground
Professor James T. Richardson, Professor of Sociology and Judicial Studies, University of Nevada, USA
(co-authored with Janice R. Russell, Doctoral student in Social Psychology, University of Nevada, Reno)

We will present a broad historical overview of the battles over inclusion of religious values in American public education over the last century of so, focusing on the way this continual battle over values in the public schools illustrates the growing pains of an increasingly pluralistic society. Highlighted with be the major conflict between Protestant and Catholic values early on, and how they have affected the development of public education in its inception. Various fronts in this battle that will be discussed include use of the Bible and prayer in classrooms and public support for private religious schools, as well as such issues as requirements for patriotic displays in public schools (the flag salute cases). In more recent times the major battles have been over sex education in the schools and particularly over the teaching of evolution. We will pay special attention to the tortured jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court that has developed over the inclusion of religious values in public education, with discussion of specific key legal cases in the various areas covered in the presentation. Some comparison with European concerns will be made. We will also comment on what theoretical approach, if any, might best explain American jurisprudence in this area will also be covered.

Biographical information
James T. Richardson is Director of the Judicial Studies Program, a faculty member of the Interdisciplinary Social Psychology Doctoral Program and Professor of Sociology at the University of Nevada, Reno. His research interests include all aspects of new religious and other social movements, including particularly recruitment and participation, but also organisational and defensive strategies, and religion and social control. His latest book is Regulating Religion: Case Studies from Around the Globe (Kluwer, 2004), and some of his most recent publications are ‘The Sociology of Religious Freedom’ (Sociology of Religion, 2006) and ‘Religion, Constitutional Courts, and Democracy in Former Communist Countries’ (The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2006). He also published on treatment of minority religions in Australia and New Zealand.

ABSTRACTS AND SPEAKERS
(Alphabetical order by speaker)

Should the state instil the virtue of tolerance?
Peter Balint

There seems to be three potential aims of including tolerance in the education curriculum. The first is to foster and maintain a society where people’s differences are not the cause of arbitrary discrimination. The second is to foster the necessary social cohesion to hold a society together and to help support a welfare state. The third is to ensure that citizen’s lives go better by behaving in more morally virtuous ways. The first two aims are entirely justified from a liberal perspective, the third, however, is much more questionable. Unless the moral virtue of tolerance is strictly necessary to achieve the first two aims, then it amounts to an unjustified teaching of a comprehensive doctrine. ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we were all nicer to each other’ is not a sufficient justification in itself for using state power.

Yet there is still the question of whether instilling the virtue of tolerance is both the best and most just way of achieving less arbitrary discrimination as well as the necessary amount of social cohesion. It is this question that the paper focuses on. Firstly, it argues that much of what passes as teaching the virtue of tolerance is in fact teaching respect of difference, which is far from the same thing and brings a whole host of other problems with it. And secondly, it argues that both tolerant practices and social cohesion have the potential to arise out less virtue-based approaches to education, for example, instilling a common sense of equal citizenship.

Biographical information
Peter Balint is a Lecturer in Politics at the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy. His research interests are in political theory. He is currently enrolled in a PhD at UNSW focussing on multiculturalism, in particular the concepts of respect and toleration. He is a founding member of The Global Justice Network, and editor of Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric.

Moral education: can a ‘common values’ approach halt the slide from tolerance to relativism?
Carol Collins and Sue Knight

Recently, the Federal government has moved to implement a framework for Values Education in Australian Schools, suggesting that a number of factors, such as the move away from religion and the growth of multiculturalism have caused teachers and schools to shy away from values education for fear of indoctrination. The result, it is claimed, is a ‘values vacuum’ within our public schools; one which must be filled in order that education meet the goal of developing students’ ‘capacity to exercise judgement in matters of morality, ethics and social justice’ (National Goals for Schooling in Australia). The Federal framework takes the form of a set ‘Common Australian Values’. This ‘common values’ approach is held to provide a basis for moral decision making which both is independent of religious authority and averts a descent into relativism: the shared values come to define the limits to tolerance.

We argue that the framework fails, as must any ‘common values’ approach. Either religious authority is simply replaced by the authority of the chosen values, or the approach slides into relativism.

Biographical information
Carol Collins teaches and researches in the fields of social and environmental education, ethics and Philosophy for Children, in the School of Education, University of South Australia. Her recently completed doctoral research focussed on the development and evaluation of a dialogue-based educational programme designed to foster logical and ethical thinking, and which fits within the existing ‘Society and Environment’ curriculum. More generally, her work is concerned with the development of evaluativist thinking across all levels of schooling including teacher education contexts. Dr Collins has served for many years as chair of the South Australian Association of Philosophy in the Classroom, is co-editor of Critical & Creative Thinking: The Australasian Journal of Philosophy in Education, and is actively involved in the newly formed Ethics Centre of South Australia.

Sue Knight has a PhD in philosophy from Adelaide University and teaches and researches in the fields of ethics and Philosophy for Children in the School of Education, University of South Australia. Her focus is on teaching all branches of philosophy in primary and secondary schools. At present she has a special interest in ethical inquiry, the teaching of reasoning skills and values education. Her areas of specialisation within philosophy are metaphysics and the philosophy of science. Dr Knight was the founding chair of the South Australian Association for Philosophy in the Classroom, and inaugural chair of the Senior Secondary Assessment Board of South Australia, Philosophy Advisory Committee. She is co-editor of Critical & Creative Thinking: The Australasian Journal of Philosophy in Education and is active in the newly formed Ethics Centre of South Australia.

The value-ladenness of educational epistemology – How can we come to know the world disconnect us from the world we come to know
Ronald S. Laura and Amy K. Chapman

According to what might be termed ‘the dominant paradigm of educational epistemology’ the objectivity of scientific knowledge ensures that what we know is value-free, as is the technology which derives from it. The idea here is that what we come know is neither good nor bad, but rather value-neutral. It is how people use knowledge and the technological innovations to which it gives rise which determines its moral status.
However, part of this problem is that so much of educational research is spent addressing the issues surrounding how teachers can effectively transmit knowledge that far too little research is undertaken on what knowledge is and especially on its impact on how we relate to the world around us and to each other.

On the conventional presumption that knowledge is in any case value-free there is little sense of personal responsibility on the part either of those who ‘discover’ it or of those who teach it, to worry about whether what they discover or teach as knowledge is truly worth discovering or teaching at all. Having failed to make these issues explicit and explore them philosophically, we have, as a society, become woefully ignorant of the foundational values which define the context for teaching and learning.

We shall discuss in this paper the concept of ‘transformative subjugation’ as a neglected dimension of the problem of value-ladenness associated with educational epistemology.
This concept of ‘transformative subjugation’ can be defined in that what we claim to know, implicitly, is defined by the capacity of what is ‘known’ to provide us a power advantage over the world in which we live. From this, the orthodox educational view that knowledge is neither good nor bad in itself can be exposed for the illusion it is.
In the light of the ideological dimensions of the presumption of knowledge encoded as power, we shall argue that there exists within the educational curriculum a conceptually endogenous bias in favour of an epistemology, not only of control, but of subjugation, and that subjugation is itself a value term which has monumental ramifications for the way in which education actually informs and shapes the very foundations of socio-cultural values.

Given that the primary form of knowledge which underpins the curriculum is driven by our obsession as a culture with power and dominance, much of the technology which follows from it will be designed and deployed in ways that allow us to restructure the world so that it suits our interests. This being so, our interactions with nature and the cultural determinants of the value we place upon it, are subsumed under our technological attempts to reconstruct the world to make it oblige more readily to submit to our will.
The epistemology of power enshrined within it is a fundamental presumption of the value of power and dominance, and the underpinning of an ideological posture which aggrandizes gratuitously the freedom human kind has to desacralise and denigrate the earth as a resource for our own ends. Along with society’s commitment to the technologisation of nature is the value of the process of transformative subjugation which emerges from it. This value is now ensconced within the curriculum, not explicitly, but covertly as a feature of the hidden agenda which defines the more general goals of education itself. If our technological interventions are implicitly designed to deconstruct the ‘living world’ so that its components can be used to fabricate a far more synthesised , chemicalised and inert world of predictable outcome, then the hidden agenda of education is on this occasion, in desperate need of critical reflection and assessment.

Biographical information
Ronald S. Laura was born in Boston and educated at the Universities of Harvard, St John’s College Cambridge and Brasnose College Oxford, where he completed his Doctoral Studies. He is currently Professor of Education at the University of Newcastle Australia and a Perc Fellow of Harvard University. In addition to in excess of 200 scholarly articles, he had also published 30 books including Empathetic Education (1999), Surviving the High Tech Depersonalisation Crisis (2002) and Integrating Eastern and Western Traditions in Health (2004). He teaches in both the faculties of Education and Arts, offering subjects in the Philosophy of Education, Philosophy of Medicine and Public Health.

Amy K. Chapman was born in Newcastle, New South Wales. She is a qualified journalist and teacher currently teaching English Literature in the New South Wales Catholic Education System. She has completed a Bachelor Arts and Bachelor Teaching (Hon). She is also currently writing her Doctoral thesis: ‘A Critical Exploration of the Epistemological Foundations of Mental Health and their Implications for Reconceptualising the Importance of the Role of Teaching in the Enhancement of the Mental Health of Adolescents’.

Faith based schools and social capital: Catholic schools and the aspirational middle class
Margaret Freund

Faith-based schools are one of the fastest growing areas in Australian education, and what characterises these schools is the explicit intention to base the school on a particular faith tradition (Independent Schooling in Australia, 2006). Australian education is unique when compared to other similar societies such as the UK, the US or NZ where religious schools are either included within the state system or fully private and reliant on private fees. Faith-based schools in Australia are almost fully funded by State and Commonwealth governments (Watson 2004) yet are largely independent in terms of governance and curriculum. This paper argues that as Australian society becomes more secular, religiosity is seen in instrumental terms of social and economic capital and social advantage, and faith-based schools are also positioned and understood through discourses of the market, values and a rhetoric of ‘choice’, where aspects of schooling such as discipline and order are identified as providing social capital. Based on ethnographic research in two Catholic primary schools, one in the aspirational suburbs of Sydney’s north-west, the other in a gentrifying suburb in the inner city, I examine the ways that Catholic schools in particular, are identified as providing social and economic capital and opportunities for social mobility rather than dogma or certainty.

Biographical information
Dr Margaret Freund is currently a Lecturer in the School of Education, University of South Australia where she teaches and researches in the areas of sociology and philosophy of education. Some of the research for this paper was conducted as part of her PhD research at the University of Sydney, and later through a University of Sydney, Research and Development Grant.

Religious schools and the promotion of civic virtue
Andrew Long

As recent publications by Dawkins, Harris, Onfray and Hitchens attest, the notion that religion is inherently intolerant and the cause of division is particularly current and commonplace. The divisive nature of private schools, the vast majority of which were founded by religious traditions, has been an assumption in the public discussion of recent years concerning Federal Government funding. This paper proposes that religious schools may have an important contribution to make in promoting civic virtue, not by playing down their particular traditions but from within them. It will claim that the Lutheran tradition has the intellectual resources to subvert the contemporary notions of ‘secular’ and ‘religious’, to develop an educational vision that is inclusive rather than exclusive and that allows educational institutions using a this methodology to be loyal to their religious foundations but also to the need, demands and requirements of being state funded ‘public’ institutions in a liberal democratic society.

Biographical information
Andrew Long is a Research Assistant at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) in Canberra. He has research interests in the areas of social and political philosophy, religion in the public sphere, and philosophy of education. Before joining CAPPE he taught Religion, Philosophy and History at a secondary school in Adelaide. He has degrees in Philosophy and History, and Theology and Education, and is currently a Masters student at Monash University.

Tolerance, relativism and dogmatism
Sarah Lublink Daley

When teaching an undergraduate philosophy course, one encounters many kinds of students, including those who announce that everything is relative, dogmatic religious believers, and those who fall somewhere in the middle. For many students, entering university is the first time that they discover just how much religious pluralism exists even within their own country. This realization can have varied effects on students, and can pull them toward relativism or toward dogmatism, or toward a kind of hybrid where relativistic claims are made in order to protect dogmatic beliefs. I will argue that teachers in the context of the undergraduate philosophy classroom ought not to promote student relativism, and ought to actively work against it. Many authors have assumed this and have written about how best to take up the task, but I intend to defend the assumption that relativism should be challenged. In this light I will argue that promoting tolerance does not require leaving student relativism unchallenged, and suggest that the reverse may actually be true: challenging student relativism may be conducive to promoting tolerance.

Biographical information
Sarah Lublink Daley is a Ph.D. Candidate in Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. She is currently completing a dissertation entitled ‘Critical Thinking, Indoctrination, and the Duties of Philosophers as Ethics Teachers,’ in which she considers the duties philosophy teachers have with regard to teaching students to critically examine their moral beliefs.

Religion, education and civil society: A sociological perspective
Lawrence J. Saha

There are many factors that are related to the political development of young people. We know that parents and the school are two of the most powerful, and that the peer group and the media are two others. On the other hand, active involvement in a religion or church, for example through religious practices or a church group, is recognised as important for general socialisation to adulthood, but religion or a church is not often regarded as an important factor in learning about politics. Yet, it does make sense to ask whether a young person’s religious beliefs or religious behaviours are related to his or her political beliefs and behaviour. This question becomes more important when we broaden the notion of political to include phenomena such as tolerance, the belief in human rights, political freedoms, and the belief in social justice. Collectively we can refer to these as elements of civic culture and key components of a civil society.

In this paper I will discuss findings from a number of surveys conducted on senior secondary school students about their stance regarding aspects of civic culture. The focus will be on the impact of both education and religion on a range of attitudes and behaviours related to civic culture. In the end, I will discuss whether or not religion, and its interaction with education, does produce more active citizens, and does or does not contribute to the maintenance of civil society.

Biographical information
Lawrence J. Saha is Adjunct Professor in the School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. His areas of interest are the sociology of education, collective behaviour and social movements, and social psychology. He is currently co-chief Investigator for a four-year ARC Link funded project, the Youth Electoral Study (YES), and is editor of the international journal Social Psychology of Education. He is former Dean of the Faculty of Arts, and is currently Vice-President of the Research Committee of the Sociology of Education, the International Sociological Association.

Tolerance and empathy: Exploring contemplative methods in the class-room
Padmasiri de Silva

A philosopher discussing issues pertaining to ‘Diversity and Relativity’ observes: ‘Tolerance and respect are virtually important in the increasingly multicultural, global environment in which we live today. They are important not only because our self-interest is promoted by being able to work, trade, and live with diversity within a global economy, but because people deserve respect for their individuality, which includes their religions, family and cultural traditions’ (Mike W. Martin). He says that tolerance and respect are needed to avoid ethnocentricism. In the context of education trends today ‘empathy’ is the skill to be cultivated and then tolerance would be a natural ally. Daniel Goleman discussing the gulf between Us and Them says that ‘it is the silencing of empathy’ that generates this gulf.

While reason and argument may back the case for tolerance, it is by the development of ‘contemplative education’ in the schools that we could build up a real base for the cultivation of empathy. We need to foster the habit of deep listening. In our academic culture most listening is critical listening. It has been observed that we pay attention long enough to develop a counter argument. When we critique the student’s or the colleague’s writings we mentally grade them. Deep, open ungrudging reception of the other person has great deal of empathy and what is present before the listener is not merely an argument but a person. Secondly, we have developed a whole culture of techniques focused on speed, accuracy, rigour and certainty, extending its hegemony not only to education and work but also the way we spend our leisure and even our kids at play. But we also need a less deliberative and a more slow and intuitive approach to deal with situations more intricate, shadowy and at times seeming paradoxes. In this world of speed and certainty, at least in a discipline like counselling, there is a context to slow down, relax, listen and respect the flow of life. ‘Flow’ is a state in which people are so absorbed that nothing else matter. Developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi the notion of ‘flow’ is a new model in education.

The great success of contemplative methods has opened up space for contemplative education in the classroom. Jon Kabat-Zinn, a pioneer in developing contemplative education observes: ‘When you are grounded in calmness and moment-moment awareness, you are most likely to be creative and to see new options, new solutions to problems. It will be easier to maintain your balance and sense of perspective in trying circumstances’. Thus contemplative education is not merely a training to do a trade but a training for life. I see tolerance and empathy as natural allies and a pedagogy and a curriculum that fosters empathy would also foster tolerance.

Biographical information
Padmasiri de Silva (Ph.D in Comparative Philosophy, University of Hawaii; Advanced Diploma in Counselling, Sophia College, Perth) is currently a Research Associate of the Department of Historical Studies and Center for Religion at Monash University. He was formerly Professor and Head/Philosophy and Psychology, Peradeniya University, Sri Lanka. He held visiting positions at the University of Pittsburgh, National University of Singapore and University of Waikato. His publications include, Introduction to Buddhist Psychology, Environmental Philosophy & Ethics in Buddhism, Buddhism, Ethics & Society and a book to be released in September 2007, Explorers of Inner Space.

What knowledge for understanding? Addressing ignorance of Islam in Australian schools
Joel Windle

This paper addresses the implications of a recent national study (Windle and Ata, forthcoming) showing Australian secondary students are generally ignorant about Muslims and Islam, and few believe that schools are filling the gaps in their knowledge. While non-Muslim students agree that Muslims are not well accepted in Australia, only a quarter of students surveyed believe that schools should teach more about Muslims. This points to a failing in current approaches to managing cultural diversity, which focus on sensitive and inclusive teaching styles rather than on curriculum content. In the Victorian setting, the Department of Education provides no information or resources specific to Islam or Muslims, and cultural diversity is operationalised as linguistic diversity, with no reference to religion. Knowledge of Islam and Muslims primarily enters the curriculum in response to media reports of conflict, or as part of encouragement of diverse classroom perspectives. This approach is particularly problematic when a diversity of perspectives is not represented in the classroom or where negative stereotypes are merely repeated. This paper addresses the questions of what kinds of knowledge might best equip students to engage with Islam as it exists and is discursively represented in Australian society and globally, where in the curriculum this knowledge might be located, and what pedagogies and partnerships might be adopted to promote it.

Biographical information
Joel Windle is lecturer in culture and pedagogy at the Faculty of Education, Monash University. He has recently completed a comparative study of the school experiences of second-generation migrants in Australia and France and has published on constructions of Islam and sexuality in French nationalism and on the cultural dynamics of educational inequalities. Joel has previously taught in both countries and his research interests focus on the mobilisation of religion and ethnicity in contexts of educational and social disadvantage.