Desert,liberalism and justice in democratic education

Abstract

Liberal democratic education, as advocated in recent accounts of citizenship education or civic education, is often seen as incompatible with moral education or character education rooted in specific views regarding the virtues. This contrast relies on well established philosophical differences between liberal views of justice and democracy, on the one hand, and views that ground justice in desert or virtue, on the other. I begin by arguing that the latter contrast is misguided and once it is given up, the former contrast does not seem plausible any more. An alternative view of democratic education as a kind of character education, which draws on ideas from John Dewey’s ideas about democracy, is suggested.