Abstrakti
This dissertation in political philosophy develops an institutional stance on social justice. Justice is the “first virtue of social institutions” . However, despite their centrality to political theorizing, there is no consistent conception of ‘institutions’ in political philosophy. This work aims to fill this conceptual gap for the part of the school.
The school is a crucial institution of social justice, because along the family, it serves as the main medium for the intergenerational transmission of wealth, social status and cultural capital. Schools have often contributed to keeping up the status quo—but they also possess enormous potential for levelling down material and social inequalities. However, the school provides a tricky study case for political theories because it is deeply interconnected with many “fuzzy” everyday dimensions of life, such as care, nurture, intimacy, and love. Therefore, in this dissertation, schools are theorized as standing between the two moral environments of the private and the public. The private and public perspectives come together at schools, and sometimes collide, for two main reasons. The first reason concerns the school’s distributive tasks in reproducing or levelling social disparities. The second reason concerns the legitimacy of educational aims in morally and socially pluralistic society. A central moral and political question concerning the school is thus, which kind of institutional arrangements and structures would best counteract injustices, be legitimate in its purposes, and thus advance social and educational justice.
The dissertation consists of four journal articles and an introductory chapter. The main theoretical framework of this dissertation is Rawlsian political and educational philosophy combined with the feminist critique provided by Susan Okin and Iris Young. Of the modern theories of justice, John Rawls’ lifework is by far the most influential and has served as a starting point for many considerations of educational justice as well. It has proven to resist time, but, at the same time, it requires re-reading and complementing. Importantly, his theory reinterprets the division between public justice and private moralities. It also suggests an institutional division of moral labour between them—to which educational institutions pose a challenge. The methodology of this dissertation is “case-based”. Thus, in addition to theories of justice, it also considers the school and educational activities from varied perspectives that involve insights from theories of social ontology and metaphysics of gender as well as a body of empirical evidence.
The theoretical aim of this dissertation is twofold. On one hand, it develops a theory of the school as a just social institution. The underlying idea is that the school is not only a medium to conciliate children’s, parents’, and the state’s or other citizens’ interests, but that the context has implications for how these central conceptions should be understood. As an institution, the school has a specific normative purpose which is to deliver educational content that is not only instrumental but something of intrinsic value. Basic formal education is an intrinsically valuable collective good that ought to be equally available for every child. This nature and purpose of education has implications for how children’s interests and rights should be understood in relation with their parents and other people in this specific institutional context as well as for the desired organizational form of schools and school systems. These topics will be considered in the dissertation articles I and II.
On the other hand, theories of justice are considered through the institutional lenses of the school. It is asked how these theories should be modified to better accommodate children and their education. This will be the topic of the articles III and IV. It is claimed that as far as the politically liberal scheme allows for the institutional contextualization of justice, it is also possible to accommodate educational institutions within the theory.
The school is a crucial institution of social justice, because along the family, it serves as the main medium for the intergenerational transmission of wealth, social status and cultural capital. Schools have often contributed to keeping up the status quo—but they also possess enormous potential for levelling down material and social inequalities. However, the school provides a tricky study case for political theories because it is deeply interconnected with many “fuzzy” everyday dimensions of life, such as care, nurture, intimacy, and love. Therefore, in this dissertation, schools are theorized as standing between the two moral environments of the private and the public. The private and public perspectives come together at schools, and sometimes collide, for two main reasons. The first reason concerns the school’s distributive tasks in reproducing or levelling social disparities. The second reason concerns the legitimacy of educational aims in morally and socially pluralistic society. A central moral and political question concerning the school is thus, which kind of institutional arrangements and structures would best counteract injustices, be legitimate in its purposes, and thus advance social and educational justice.
The dissertation consists of four journal articles and an introductory chapter. The main theoretical framework of this dissertation is Rawlsian political and educational philosophy combined with the feminist critique provided by Susan Okin and Iris Young. Of the modern theories of justice, John Rawls’ lifework is by far the most influential and has served as a starting point for many considerations of educational justice as well. It has proven to resist time, but, at the same time, it requires re-reading and complementing. Importantly, his theory reinterprets the division between public justice and private moralities. It also suggests an institutional division of moral labour between them—to which educational institutions pose a challenge. The methodology of this dissertation is “case-based”. Thus, in addition to theories of justice, it also considers the school and educational activities from varied perspectives that involve insights from theories of social ontology and metaphysics of gender as well as a body of empirical evidence.
The theoretical aim of this dissertation is twofold. On one hand, it develops a theory of the school as a just social institution. The underlying idea is that the school is not only a medium to conciliate children’s, parents’, and the state’s or other citizens’ interests, but that the context has implications for how these central conceptions should be understood. As an institution, the school has a specific normative purpose which is to deliver educational content that is not only instrumental but something of intrinsic value. Basic formal education is an intrinsically valuable collective good that ought to be equally available for every child. This nature and purpose of education has implications for how children’s interests and rights should be understood in relation with their parents and other people in this specific institutional context as well as for the desired organizational form of schools and school systems. These topics will be considered in the dissertation articles I and II.
On the other hand, theories of justice are considered through the institutional lenses of the school. It is asked how these theories should be modified to better accommodate children and their education. This will be the topic of the articles III and IV. It is claimed that as far as the politically liberal scheme allows for the institutional contextualization of justice, it is also possible to accommodate educational institutions within the theory.
Alkuperäiskieli | englanti |
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Myöntöpäivämäärä | 23 huhtik. 2024 |
Julkaisupaikka | Helsinki |
Kustantaja | |
Painoksen ISBN | 978-951-51-9631-6 |
Sähköinen ISBN | 978-951-51-9632-3 |
Tila | Julkaistu - 2024 |
OKM-julkaisutyyppi | G5 Tohtorinväitöskirja (artikkeli) |
Tieteenalat
- 611 Filosofia