Abstract
Democratic Discord follows Levinson and Fay’s first volume, Dilemmas of Educational Ethics. While the two volumes differ in their focus – Democratic Discord homes in on particular ethical challenges posed by expressly political disagreement – the format is largely the same. Each chapter presents a case study, followed by six commentaries from academics, educators, students, legal experts, and activists. The eight cases in this volume present dilemmas associated with the teaching of particular democratic values, as well as issues such as civil disobedience, physical and virtual safety, separate schooling, political speech by teachers, and pathways to racial justice. While all the cases – and most of the commentaries – center on the United States, a few commentaries explicitly focus on other national contexts, including Singapore, Australia, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. This adds a welcome global dimension to questions of democratic disagreement, although the focus does remain on the US context.
The cases raise questions about the nature of political speech, along with questions about the appropriateness of sacrificing speech and association rights in the interests of safety or learning. For example, the meaning of ‘political speech’ and of what topics should be considered controversial is nicely complicated by a case presented in Chapter 7 ( ‘Politics, Partisanship, and Pedagogy’). The authors describe how 10th-grade social studies teachers at Northern High School decide on a controversial topic for an upcoming school debate. As the teachers consider the content of the debate, they disagree on what should (and should not) be addressed.
The authors’ goal is twofold: First, they wish to prompt and scaffold collaborative engagement on matters of political disagreement, particularly among school professionals, those preparing to be school professionals, and students more generally. Second, they wish to generate, rather than close off, further conversation and ethical inquiry. I found these goals most clearly manifest in one of the commentaries from Chapter 3 ( ‘School Walkouts and Civil Disobedience’). Being generally in support of student walkouts as a form of civic dissent, student commentators Boisvert, Bonds-Harmon, Gumbs, Mixon, and Baraf complicated my views on this form of political exercise, notably through their questioning of whether administrator and teacher support could actually undermine the aims of this type of political expression. Does being excused from class to attend a walkout depoliticize the action? Does a lack of disciplinary action undermine the walkout as an act of civil disobedience? As the authors note, ‘We don’t need permission from an elder to exercise our rights’ (p. 54).
I appreciate Levinson and Fay’s efforts to advance the field of educational ethics and to equip educational professionals and students with a set of rich, realistic cases from which to develop and exercise deliberative competencies. I offer two comments to guide readers and with the hope of advancing this important work. The dilemmas that Levinson and Fay have chosen to focus on are genuine, realistic, and appropriately specific or general, depending on the case. While some cases tell the story of a teacher, administrator, or student from the perspective of that individual, other cases offer a more general view on a particular issue. For example, in Chapter 5 (‘Eyes in the Back of Their Heads 2.0’), the legal, political, and technological terrain of digital surveillance in schools is described. The focus is on the various kinds of technology and on the concerns of parents, students, and school personnel when such technology is used. Chapter 9 (‘Talking Out of Turn’) focuses on legal and political implications of teachers’ speech, describing particular cases in which teachers have faced disciplinary action for expressive conduct, and asking questions about the degree to which K-12 teachers should enjoy academic freedom, if at all (p. 245).
The authors likely included a variety of formats and case types to help readers see the values in tension. However, this approach presents some limitations. In particular, the narrative cases offer insight into some of the emotional aspects of the dilemmas by focusing on particular characters and the struggles they face. In doing so, they provoke readers’ identification with the dilemma in a way that is useful for deliberation. Conversely, the more generalized cases read as more emotionally and interpersonally distant. This may be somewhat less useful as a deliberative tool. Some of the commentaries that follow the more general cases contain critiques of the presentation of the case itself, which could allow readers to avoid discussion of the difficult values contained within it.
Like their first book, Levinson and Fay emphasize phronetic inquiry – ‘an approach that synthesizes theory and practice by combining philosophical insight, social scientific analysis, and practical expertise’ (p. 6). In addition to advancing a critical, empirically engaged approach to educational ethics more generally, this method of grounded ethical reasoning is also nicely mirrored in Levinson and Fay’s editorial selection of commentaries, which shows an impressive effort to represent a diverse set of perspectives on a single case, generated both from expertise and experience. The commentators appear to represent a range of intersectional identity positions from which ethical reasoning takes place, although only some authors choose to explicitly voice their identities. Plascencia-Castillo, commenting on collaboration between schools and law enforcement agencies in Chapter 4 (‘The Price of Safety’), has this to say: ‘As I read this case, I could not ignore the resonance with my own experience, bringing with it ghosts of the past. I learned that there is immense value in listening to such ghosts’ (p. 108–109).
This explicit attention to the role of identity in ethical reasoning is notable, not least because normative questions about the role of identity in good ethical reasoning are themselves the subject of democratic disagreement. I found the asymmetrical visibility of identity – where the privileged vantage point is rarely named – to be both challenging and provocative. It was provocative because it forced me to grapple with questions about the role of commentators’ identities in my assessment of their epistemic status. Although Levinson and Fay do acknowledge that ‘[i]dentities matter’ (p. 5–6), a more explicit discussion of this normative terrain would be welcome, particularly as this book offers so much as a teaching tool. Such a discussion might have structured a set of considerations for readers less familiar with academic conversations surrounding the role of identity in democratic deliberation.
While reading this book, one is reminded about how fragile and elusive democratic deliberation and civic learning can be. Democratic Discord’s needed optimism about the promise of schools will surely be of great interest to philosophers of education, ethicists, educational professionals, and students.