What is the purpose of public education in liberal-democratic societies? Is it to promote a national identity, to champion certain values, or to encourage a respect for difference? Are such goals suitable to the increasing cultural diversification of nations and the ongoing globalization of the world? And how should liberals respond when parents demand that children be exempt from classes that conflict with their beliefs or fight for state-supported religious education on the basis of group rights? These are just some of the questions taken up in this rich collection of essays. Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies brings together prominent political philosophers and educational theorists to discuss some of the most contentious educational policy issues confronting liberal-democratic states today. With a philosophical rigor often missing from such debates, the authors in this collection provide insight into the complex legal and moral issues at stake, locate the debates in historical and philosophical context, and present ethical arguments and curricular recommendations that advance dialogue. Read together, these essays defend the liberal state against charges that public education undermines parental authority and threatens cultural integrity, and they make a strong case for state involvement in education.

These arguments are advanced from a variety of theoretical perspectives entailing somewhat different policy recommendations, and thus the collection is divided into three sections. In the first, scholars take up broad themes, such as the meaning of liberalism or cosmopolitanism. In the second and third sections, we get the “dialogue” promised by the editors: Scholars in Section 2 argue for accommodating difference, while those in Section 3 urge restraint on the part of the state. More a disagreement about degrees of accommodation, these essays share far more than not.

In their introductory essay, Kevin McDonough and Walter Feinberg suggest that a philosophy of “affiliation liberalism” undergirds the essays that follow. Affiliation liberalism rejects the kind of “hyperliberalism” associated with unencumbered sovereignty and embraces the insight that individuals are shaped by their cultural and religious affiliations. Affiliation liberals, however, remain committed to a strong notion of autonomy, believing that individuals are not so embedded as to make choice impossible. While not all authors explicitly identify as “affiliation liberals,” many, like Joseph Dunne, do acknowledge the significant role that “collective heritage” plays “in defining who one is,” yet reject the idea that such affiliations dictate future choices (p. 96).

Developing such autonomy, “the agency to remake … connections according to [one's] own judgments,” is one of the central educational goals of the liberal-democratic state (p. 210). In a comprehensive essay drawing on Kant and Aristotle, K. Anthony Appiah argues that autonomy is a moral good that the state is obligated to maximize. Autonomy, allowing individuals to make their own choices about how they live, requires exposure to alternative ways of life and the development of a capacity for critical self-reflection and a respect for difference. Since children are not born fully autonomous, the state should help cultivate their autonomy through education, teaching children skills, knowledge, and values, such as learning about one's local community in relation to global issues, participating in debates, or learning to listen carefully.

While all the scholars seem to agree that cultivating autonomy is of critical importance, some specifically highlight the importance of promoting a cosmopolitan orientation among children. In a very original argument, Melissa Williams links the development of autonomy to an understanding of “citizenship as shared fate.” This notion of citizenship, less static or state-centric than “citizenship as identity,” acknowledges that the past and present shape who we are and how we interact, and that our futures are inextricably intertwined. Education for the citizenship of shared fate requires teaching students the capacity for “enlarged thinking” or “an ability to see oneself in relation to different others [that] requires encounters with actual and immediate diversity” (p. 240). Jeremy Waldron offers examples of how education already promotes such citizenship, while Harry Brighouse illuminates the dangers of education for patriotic attachment alone. Their essays suggest that cultivating cosmopolitan citizenship requires appreciating the extent to which the legal, economic, and cultural practices in which we are already engaged are intertwined, such that good national citizenship often coincides with good global citizenship.

The exposure to alternative lifestyles and beliefs championed here is precisely what many parents and groups object to, leading to the claim that public education threatens group identity. Shelley Burtt's provocative essay suggests that such arguments have validity. Children do not need to go to public schools in order to become good citizens; “comprehensive education” can serve this purpose just as well. In fact, a comprehensive education that seeks to inculcate the “worldview, personal commitments, and moral understandings” of parents and religious communities may promote autonomy better than do secular schools (p. 179). By encouraging children to turn inward—to ask questions such as “What sort of person am I? and why?”—comprehensive education enables the development of virtues, such as practical reason, moral courage, and imaginative empathy (p. 204). Thinking independently does not necessarily emerge from exposure to different ways of living, a marketplace of ideas, or an external orientation to choosing. It may just as readily emerge from looking inward.

Of course, as Burtt acknowledges, not all comprehensive educations are equally concerned with promoting autonomy. What is to be done under such circumstances is the focus of Section 3. Here we find justifications for “tilting the playing field in favor of liberalism” (p. 385). Robert Reich and Susan Okin remind us that the accommodation of group difference often places individual freedom and equality in jeopardy. The right of exit meant to protect individuals from such perils is often inaccessible to children and women, or entails such significant costs as to make it an unattractive option. These essays thus caution against the uncritical accommodation of difference while defending state-supported educational constraints. “[T]aking a stand against discrimination and for other basic liberal values” by mandating attendance or certain courses of study is not necessarily “illiberal,” argues Stephen Macedo (p. 428).

Or is it? So nuanced and far-reaching are the arguments in favor of the cultivation of autonomy, whether in the realm of secular or comprehensive schooling, that one wonders who could possibly disagree. The addition of strong arguments from nonliberal perspectives would go a long way toward creating the productive dialogue sought by the editors. Additionally, more careful policy analysis and recommendations would be needed to satisfy those wondering about how such education can be promoted, given budgetary constraints, the need for teacher training (an issue briefly mentioned by Terence McLaughlin), and new Bush administration policies. This latter criticism is somewhat unfair, given that the conference upon which the book is based was held prior to the Bush administration and that the collection is meant as a work of philosophy rather than policy.

Indeed, as such, the collection is a resounding success, contributing to scholarly debates in a wide range of fields and providing a valuable classroom resource for those interested in the intersection of theory and policy. Anyone new to the debates about education in a multicultural society or liberalism's place in a cosmopolitan world will find some of the most important statements on these issues, as well as a detailed, if somewhat disjointed, review of the literature on these subjects in this text. Scholars interested in educational policy will find more than a few recommendations to mull over, while those interested in liberalism will be forced to consider the educational implications of their own philosophical commitments. The philosophical depth of this collection, the very careful attention paid to the meaning of terms and the assessment of counterarguments, is one of its great treasures. The voices collected here exhort us to move beyond political sound bites that suggest stark difference to identify those principles upon which we already agree. It is from here, they suggest, that we can begin to craft educational policy for the new millennium.