Equality of Educational Opportunity
Keywords:
Education, equality, flourishingAbstract
It is widely accepted that educational opportunities for children ought to be equal. This thesis follows from two observations about education and children: first, that education significantly influences a person’s life chances in terms of labor market success, preparation for democratic citizenship, and general human flourishing; and second, that children’s life chances should not be fixed by certain morally arbitrary circumstances of their birth such as their social class, race, and gender. But the precise meaning of, and implications for, the ideal of equality of educational opportunity is the subject of substantial disagreement (see Jencks 1988). This entry provides a critical review of the nature and basis of those disagreements.
References
Alexander, Larry A., 1985, “Fair Equality of Opportunity: John Rawls’ (Best) Forgotten Principle”, Philosophy Research Archives, 11: 197–208. doi:10.5840/pra19851111
Anderson, Elizabeth S., 1999, “What Is the Point of Equality?”, Ethics, 109(2): 287–337. doi:10.1086/233897
–––, 2007, “Fair Opportunity in Education: A Democratic Equality Perspective”, Ethics, 117(4): 595–622. doi:10.1086/518806
–––, 2010, The Imperative of Integration, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Arneson, Richard J., 1999, “Against Rawlsian Equality of Opportunity”, Philosophical Studies, 93(1): 77–112. doi:10.1023/A:1004270811433 Arneson, Richard and Ian Shapiro, 1996, “Democratic Autonomy and Religious Liberty: A Critique of Wisconsin v. Yoder”, in Political Order (Nomos 38), Ian Shapiro and Russell Hardin (eds.), New York: New York University Press, pp. 365–411.
