Educational Policy for the Pluralist Democracy

Originally published in 1992 Educational Policy for the Pluralist Democracy outlines changes needed in an education system which is forced to adopt to the growing demands of a pluralist society. It highlights modes of interaction at all levels in a school if cultural assimilation is to be achieved. Democracies encounter a serious problem preparing their systems of education to face the combined challenges of fundamental dissent about ideology and purpose, and social, religious and cultural heterogeneity represented by pluralism and multiculturalism. Most have identified the problems as one of choosing between some form of cultural assimilation or integration on the one hand, and some form of separate cultural development on the other. Either way, they have assumed that the state school will teach and inculcate whatever choice the wider society makes. The thesis developed in this book is that forced choice is a false and unhelpful dichotomy in that it ignores a third and desirable choice – whereby the state neither approves nor disapproves pluralism, but does accept it. Considering recent failed attempts to adopt one policy or another, Holmes contends that this third choice makes eminently practical sense, as well as being conceptually appealing.