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    Civic Education and Social DiversityAuthor(s): Amy GutmannSource: Ethics, Vol. 105, No. 3 (Apr., 1995), pp. 557-579Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2382142

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    Civic Education and Social DiversityAmy GutmannHow can civic education in a liberal democracy give social diversity itsdue? Two complementary concerns have informed a lot of liberalthinking on this subject. Liberals like John Stuart Mill worry that "theplea of liberty" by parents not block "the fulfillment by the State ofits duties" to children. They also worry that civic education not beconceived or conducted in such a way as to stifle "diversity in opinionsand modes of conduct."' Some prominent contemporary theorists adda new and interesting twist to these common--concerns. They criticizeliberals like Mill and Kant for contributing to one of the central prob-lems, the stifling of social diversity, that they are trying to resolve.2The comprehensive liberal aim of educating children not only forcitizenship but also for individuality or autonomy, these political liber-als argue, does not leave enough room for social diversity. Would acivic educational program consistent with political liberalism accom-modate significantly more social diversity than one guided by compre-hensive liberalism?3Political liberals claim that it would, and some recommend politicalliberalism to us largely on this basis. This article shows that politicalliberalism need not, and often does not, accommodate more socialdiversity through its civic educational program than comprehensiveliberalism. Section I examines the defining difference between politicaland comprehensive liberalism and suggests why we might expect tofind a significant difference in the accommodation of social diversityby political and comprehensive liberalism through civic education.

    1. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1980), chap. 5, "Appli-cations," pp. 128-29.2. See, e.g., John Rawls, PoliticalLiberalism New York: Columbia University Press,1993), pp. 199 ff.; and Stephen Macedo, "Liberal Civic Education and Religious Funda-mentalism: The Case of God v. John Rawls?" Ethics 105 (1995): 468-96, in this issue.3. This is the theme of Macedo's essay. William Galston, who offers a differentversion of political liberalism, provides a parallel argument in Liberal Purposes: Goods,

    Virtues,and Diversity n the Liberal State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991),pp. 241-56, and also in "Two Concepts of Liberalism," Ethics 105 (1995): 516-34, inthis issue. It is also the suggestion of Rawls, p. 199.

    Ethics 105 (April 1995): 557-579? 1995 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0014-1704/95/0503-1920$01.00

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    558 Ethics April 1995By examining the contested aims of civic education, Section IIexplains why this expectation turns out to be exaggerated. The civiceducational aims of political liberalism do not necessarily entail a sig-

    nificantly greater accommodation of social diversity because those aimsare substantially underdetermined by the defining difference betweenthe two liberalisms. The social diversity accommodated by liberalismdepends as importantly on the strictly political requirements of liberaldemocratic citizenship. We therefore find a remarkable degree of con-vergence between those political and comprehensive liberals who em-brace a demanding view of the political requirements of civic educa-tion. If this demanding view is defensible, then the defining theoreticaldifference between political and comprehensive liberals matters farless than a substantive understanding of what good citizenship entails.Section III examines two test cases of conflict between social diver-sity and civic education (Wisconsinv. Yoderand Mozertv. Hawkins) thathave been invoked by political liberals to demonstrate how and whypolitical liberalism entails significantly greater accommodation of so-cial diversity than comprehensive liberalism. Instead of dramatic dif-ferences between the prescriptions of political and comprehensiveliberalism in these cases, there is a striking degree of convergencebetween those political and comprehensive liberals who embrace asimilarly demanding view of the political demands of civic education.Section IV offers additional reasons for thinking that a demandingconception of civic education is correct. I conclude that the choicebetween political and comprehensive liberalism is misleadingly posedas a choice between different degrees of accommodating social diver-sity through civic education. Because a demanding conception of civiceducation is defensible independently of political liberalism, politicalliberalism is not significantly more accommodating of social diversityjust because it is not comprehensive. A conception of the rights andresponsibilities of liberal democratic citizenship makes at least as largea difference in how much social diversity is accommodated by civiceducation as the choice between political and comprehensive liberal-ism.I. THE CONTRAST BETWEEN POLITICALAND COMPREHENSIVE LIBERALISMLiberalism, on one view, is a distinctively political doctrine. Its princi-ples are limited to politics, and their justification does not depend ontaking a position with regard to competing conceptions of the goodlife. Political liberalism, so understood, is contrasted to comprehensiveliberalism, which, as the name suggests, is a comprehensive moraldoctrine. Comprehensive liberalism offers not only political principlesbut also a conception of the good life, typically as a life of individualityor autonomy, that complements its political principles.

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    Gutmann CivicEducationand Social Diversity 559Political liberalism does not aspire to teach children how to thinkindependently or to live autonomously unless individuality and auton-omy are necessary to good citizenship. Political liberals claim that

    individuality and autonomy are not necessary for good citizenship andthat political liberalism is therefore more accommodating of socialdiversity than comprehensive liberalism, which is committed to teach-ing children to be good citizens and to live (nonpolitically) good lives.By limiting its aspirations to politics, political liberalism allows moreways of life to flourish, namely, those that are incompatible with indi-viduality or autonomy but compatible with good citizenship. It there-fore is a better friend of social diversity than comprehensive liberalism.The friendship is not indiscriminate. Some kinds of social diver-sity-intolerant ways of life, for example-are anathema to politicalliberalism. Civic education should educate all children to appreciatethe public value of toleration. The basic political principles of liberal-ism, those necessary to protect every person's basic liberties and oppor-tunities, place substantial limits on social diversity. Political liberalismdoes not claim to be neutral in its effects on different ways of life. Itsneutrality is limited to its refusal to invoke any particular conceptionof the (nonpolitical) good life, including individuality, autonomy, anddevotion to the divine, as a grounds for justifying liberal principles,including the principles that govern civic education.By blocking repressive and discriminatory practices in any realmthat is properly subject to public intervention, political liberalismrightly (albeit unintentionally) restricts social diversity. These restric-tions often have positive effects on social diversity as well as negativeones. The limits on racial and gender discrimination, for example,enable many people to pursue ways of life that would otherwise be

    closed to them by discriminatory practices at the same time as theyundermine or at least impede some traditional ways of life. Equalopportunity laws open careers to racial minorities and women thatwould otherwise be closed to them. Such limits on diversity that areby-products of a strictly political conception are justified, accordingto political liberalism, even though they place obstacles in the path ofperpetuating some traditional ways of life. These obstacles stem onlyfrom what is necessary for creating ajust society whose citizens respecteach other's basic rights and opportunities.Unlike Millian or Kantian liberalisms, which are comprehensive,political liberalism does not try to cultivate individuality or autonomythrough public education, any more than it tries to cultivate religiousdevotion.4 Private educational efforts at cultivating individuality or

    4. Two contemporary examples of comprehensive liberalism are Joseph Raz, TheMorality of Freedom(Oxford: Clarendon, 1986); Ronald Dworkin, "The Foundations of

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    560 Ethics April 1995autonomy are of course permissible-as are private efforts to cultivatereligious devotion, but liberal governments must try to teach only theskills and virtues of liberal democratic citizenship. (Because all versionsof political liberalism include among the basic liberties those necessaryfor responsible democratic government, the skills and virues to betaught are strictly speaking liberal and democratic.) Liberal democraticskills and virtues are compatible with many but not all secular andreligious ways of life. Civic education, by political liberal lights, oughtto be unfriendly to ways of life, whether religious or secular, thatdepend, for example, on racism or religious intolerance.These limits on social diversity are themselves strictly limited bypolitical liberalism's refusal to invoke any particular conception ofthe good life-even one as commonly associated with liberalism asindividuality or autonomy-to justify any law or public policy. Thisdistinctive and defining feature of political liberalism might appear tomake its civic educational program significantly more accommodatingof social diversity than comprehensive liberalism. This is precisely andunderstandably the claim of some political liberals. But, as we shallsoon see, this defining difference between political and comprehensiveliberalism does not make as much of a difference for the practice ofcivic education in the United States today as political liberals suggest.We can see why by turning our attention to the contested aims ofcivic education.II. THE CONTESTED AIMS OF CIVIC EDUCATIONWhat constitutes an adequate education for liberal democratic citizen-ship? It is this substantive consideration, the content of which doesnot depend on the choice between political and comprehensive liberal-ism, that largely determines the relationship between the claims ofcivic education, made in the name of liberal democratic citizenship,and those of social diversity, often made on behalf of religious orcommunitarian ways of life. Contemporary political liberals-WilliamGalston, Stephen Macedo, and John Rawls prominent among them-differ in their claims concerning the legitimate aims of civic education.Galston defends a more minimalist set of civic virtues than do Macedoor Rawls and, therefore, opens the political door more widely tosocial diversity, or at least to a kind of social diversity that depends onLiberal Equality," in The Tanner Lectureson Human Values, vol. 11, ed. Grethe B. Peterson(Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1991), pp. 1-119. There are of course manymore. For a foundational defense of comprehensive against political liberalism, seeJoseph Raz, "Facing Diversity: The Case of Epistemic Abstinence," Philosophy and PublicAffairs 19 (1990): 3-47. For the relevance of autonomy in assessing laws and publicpolicies, see Gerald Dworkin, TheTheory nd Practiceof Autonomy Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1988).

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    Gutmann Civic Educationand Social Diversity 561not teaching children to respect people who pursue different ways oflife. Galston's interpretation of the civic educational aims of liberalismemphasizes the teaching of toleration and the maintaining of publicorder. Rawls's interpretation of political liberalism, with which Macedoconcurs, also emphasizes teaching "mutual respect" and a sense of"fairness" as basic political virtues.5 Schools cannot teach mutual re-spect without exposing children to different ways of life. Some parentsoppose this exposure because it undermines or at least impedes theirefforts to pass on their own (true or superior) way of life to theirchildren.6 Others claim that exposure in itself conflicts with their reli-gious beliefs.7

    Political liberals like Rawls and Macedo consistently rely on civicreasons for teaching mutual respect-a reciprocal positive regardamong citizens who pursue ways of life that are consistent with hon-oring the basic liberties and opportunities of others-even against thereligious claims of parents. Mutual respect among citizens regardlessof their race, religion, ethnicity, or gender is a fundamental prerequi-site for ajust liberal order. Without mutual respect, members of differ-ent groups are likely to discriminate against each other in many subtleand not-so-subtle ways that are inconsistent with liberal principles.Why is this the case?Consider the principl&of fair equality of opportunity and one ofits core demands, nondiscrimination in hiring. Now imagine a societywhose citizens tolerate but do not respect each other. Citizens abideby the dictum "live and let live" but otherwise try not to associate withpeople from unfamiliar backgrounds. Whites do not have any positiveregard for blacks, men for women, Protestants for Catholics, Jews,and Muslims, and vice versa. Members of these groups have inheritedsignificantly unequal social and economic positions in society. Howeverdemocratic it is in other respects, this society cannot support fair em-ployment practices for all its citizens. A government cannot effectivelyenforce nondiscrimination in hiring in a social context of widespreaddisrespect among members of different races, ethnicities, religions, orgenders. Even the minimalist understanding of fair equality of oppor-tunity as nondiscrimination in hiring is therefore unachievable withoutmutual respect among citizens. Political liberalism does not value mu-tual respect as a nonpolitical virtue-part of what living an open-minded or autonomous life entails-but it still embraces mutual re-

    5. Rawls, p. 122.6. See, e.g., the claims of the Amish parents in Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205at 210-11 (1972).7. See the claims of parents in Mozert v. Hawkins County, 827 F.2d 1058 (6thCir. 1987).

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    562 Ethics April 1995spect as an essential political virtue because it is a practical prerequisitefor nondiscriminatory employment practices.Political liberalism has one compelling reason to teach mutualrespect while comprehensive liberalism has at least two. Political liber-alism's reason is purely civic, rejecting the political relevance of thecommon (comprehensive) liberal ideals of individuality and autonomy,which require a substantial understanding of some ways of life thatare not one's own or one's parents. Although political liberalism rejectsthese ideals as unjustified, sectarian intrusions of a comprehensivemoral perspective into the political realm, it does not therefore rejectteaching mutual respect as well as toleration.Only a conception of political liberalism that neglects the demandsof nondiscrimination can claim that teaching toleration (without mu-tual respect) is sufficient to support social justice. But political liberalsdiffer in their understanding of the demands of civic education becausetheir substantive conceptions of social justice differ. They thereforealso disagree over how much social diversity should be accommodatedby civic education. Political liberals like Rawls and Macedo convergewith the conclusions of many comprehensive liberals on this matter,dissenting from the conclusions of their fellow political liberals likeGalston who suggests that teaching toleration without mutual respectamong people who pursue reasonable conceptions of the good life isenough to constitute a just liberal society.There is a parallel within comprehensive liberalism to the divisionwithin political liberalism over teaching mutual respect in publicschools against parental convictions. The division within comprehen-sive liberalism is differently inspired but also leads to a convergenceof conclusions across political-comprehensive lines. Consider two con-temporary Millian liberals, both of whom are dedicated to cultivatingindividuality in citizens. The first Millian argues against the propo-nents of state-enforced civic education, claiming, as Mill did (althoughof course not in the same social context), that a general state educationtends to mold people to be like one another, rather than to think forthemselves. Better let parents shield their children from different waysof life than let governments impose on all children a similar civiceducation, even if that education is intended to teach children to re-spect a reasonable diversity of opinion or to choose for themselvesamong different ways of life. State-run education, on this view, isbound to create conformity rather than individuality, even if it is explic-itly dedicated to the latter. The claim is empirical, but it is notoriouslydifficult to test.The second Millian comes to the opposite conclusion, rejectingthe empirical claim that state-controlled schooling educates childrenfor more conformity than does parentally controlled education. Sheargues that publicly controlled schools, provided they are sufficiently

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    Gutmann Civic Education and Social Diversity 563decentralized and constitutionally constrained not to indoctrinate ordiscriminate against minorities, should prevail over dissenting parentson the matter of teaching mutual respect. Why? Because decentralizedpublic education, so constrained, is not "a mere contrivance for mold-ing people to be exactly like one another."8 By teaching mutual respectamong people who pursue a wide range of reasonable ways of life,decentralized public schools can aid students in understanding andevaluating both the political choices available to them as citizens andthe various lives that are potentially accessible to them as individuals.In educational practice as in Millian theory, the two kinds of under-standings and evaluations tend to overlap even if they do not perfectlycoincide. It is probably impossible to teach children the skills andvirtues of democratic citizenship in a diverse society without at thesame time teaching them many of the virtues and skills of individualityor autonomy. (I say many because individuality and autonomy placelimits on the extent to which they can be taught. Both entail livingone's life according to one's own best lights because one judges this agood way to live.)9This division within Millian liberalism on civic education parallelsthat within political liberalism, with the effect of allying the first Millianwith the civic educational prescription of Galston's political liberalismand the second Millian with that of Rawls and Macedo. The theoreticalstandards of political and comprehensive liberalism are still signifi-cantly different. The first Millian, for example, sides with Galston butdenies that parents have a right, independent of the social conse-quences, to control the education of their children. It happens tobe the case, given contingent circumstances, that parental control ofeducation is more conducive to individuality and citizenship than ispublicly controlled education. While Galston denies society's legitimateinterest in educating children for individuality, the first Millian affirmsit but concludes that even parents are likely to do a better job (albeitunintentionally) than state-run schools. The first Millian judges theactual threat to individuality and civility of enforced political unifor-mity to be greater than the theoretical promise of teaching mutualrespect in publicly controlled schools.The second Millian disagrees and finds common cause with Rawlsand Macedo, but they too converge for uncommon reasons. TheMillian expects schools not only to support social justice but also tocultivate individuality as far as possible. The Rawlsian supports a civiceducation that teaches mutual respect and therefore understanding of

    8. Mill, chap. 5.9. I offer reasons why moral autonomy in particular can only be incompletelytaught by public schools in Democratic Education (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UniversityPress, 1987), pp. 59-64.

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    564 Ethics April 1995diverse ways of life for purely political reasons. Mutual respect is basicto the creation of an overlapping consensus that is fair to people whoare free to pursue competing conceptions of the good life (consistentwith principles ofjustice). Despite their foundational differences, com-prehensive and political liberals who share the same demanding con-ception of civic education and agree that publicly controlled schoolscan teach mutual respect turn out to be closer together on the issueof accommodating diversity than their metatheoretical allies. Claimsabout the legitimate purposes of civic education and the effectivenessof public schools in carrying out these civic purposes are largely inde-pendent of the choice between political and comprehensive liberalism.To the extent that these claims turn out to be consequential for educa-tional policy, they produce a cross-cutting convergence in recommen-dations for civic education.To be sure, comprehensive liberals share reasons based on thelegitimacy of state support for individuality or autonomy that areunavailable to political liberals. These reasons could count in favor ofstate efforts to teach children about diverse ways of life even in anundemocratic society that has no hope of becoming democratic. Teach-ing children to understand and evaluate other ways of life may bepublicly valued as a way of cultivating individuality, quite apart fromits contribution to democratic education. (The realism of this hypothet-ical is another matter.) Even in democratic societies, the distinctivereason of comprehensive liberalism might make a practical differencein some cases. Suppose we face a controversial case where all thecompeting claims relevant to civic education are indeterminate-wecannot figure out whether -overriding parental choice will be better orworse on balance for citizenship-but the claims relevant to cultivatingindividuality speak (more) clearly in favor or against overriding paren-tal choice. We then would expect greater agreement among compre-hensive liberals than among political liberals. It is not clear whethersuch cases actually exist, however, because of the overlap betweenthose educational practices that are conducive (or hostile) to bothliberal democratic citizenship and individuality. Indeterminacy inthe practices of educating for citizenship is therefore likely to beaccompanied by indeterminacy in the practices of educating forindividuality.These observations do not recommend comprehensive over politi-cal liberalism, but they do call into question the claim that politicalliberalism accommodates significantly more social diversity throughcivic education.1" The difference between comprehensive and political

    10. In light of the convergence between Rawls's political liberalism and our secondMillian liberal, we might also wonder whether political liberalism actually provides a

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    Gutmann Civic Educationand Social Diversity 565liberalism may still be relevant to some public educational practices,but it does not make nearly as much of a difference as some politicalliberals claim, even (as we shall see in Sec. III) in the particular casesthat they cite to support their critique of comprehensive liberalismfor not accommodating enough social diversity. Our understanding ofthe substantive aims of civic education and the relative capacity ofpublic institutions to achieve them turns out to be more consequentialfor resolving actual educational controversies. This understandingcrosscuts our commitment to political or comprehensive liberalism.If we can reasonably agree on teaching not only toleration butalso mutual respect as a substantive aim of civic education, then ourmetatheoretical conceptions of liberalism may turn out to be largely(even if not entirely) beside the point. Political liberals with a de-manding understanding of civic education often ally with comprehen-sive liberals against their fellow political liberals who defend a lessdemanding notion of what civic education entails. To determine howmuch social diversity liberalism should support through civic educa-tion, we need to attend at least as much to the merits of competingsubstantive understandings of civic education as to the merits of politi-cal versus comprehensive liberalism.III. TWO TEST CASESLet's turn now to the two cases that political liberals invoke to supporttheir claim to accommodating more social diversity, Wisconsinv. Yoderand Mozert v. Hawkins CountyBoard of Education."1These are goodillustrative cases because they test the limits of liberalism in accommo-dating the diversity of religious communities, which for reasons ofreligious freedom is the social diversity most valued by political liberal-ism. In the case made famous by the Supreme Court decision in Wiscon-sin v. Yoder,Old Order Amish parents Jonas Yoder, Wallace Miller,and Adin Yutzy objected to a Wisconsin state law that mandated theschooling of all children under the age of sixteen. They claimed aright to exempt their children from schooling after eighth grade. En-forcement of the mandatory schooling requirement, the parents ar-gued, would violate their religious freedom and also destroy their wayof life. In the Mozertcase, a group of fundamentalist Christian parentsclaimed a right to exempt their children from the basic reading curric-ulum of the Hawkins County, Tennessee, school system. The curricu-

    better (or unique) basis for achieving an overlapping consensus in a pluralistic society.Is individuality as Mill understood it really a more sectarian value than the civic valuesto which political liberalism is committed? Perhaps it is, but not because an educationfor individuality is significantly less accommodating of social diversity than the Rawlsianversion of political liberalism.11. See Yoder, 406 U.S. at 205, and Mozert, 827 F.2d at 1058.

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    566 Ethics April 1995lum was designed in accordance with state law to teach not only theskills of reading but also the values and virtues of citizenship. Theparents objected to exposing their children to any ideas that conflictwith their religious beliefs as based on the literal word of the Bible.Our interest in these cases is not one of American constitutionallaw but rather one of liberal democratic theory. Should the value ofcivic education take precedence over support for social diversity, orvice versa? In both cases, liberal democrats recognize significant valuein the unimpeded pursuit of religious ways of life. Were these waysof life without value, there would be no moral problem. Were theyof absolute value, the moral problem would also disappear. Liberaldemocracy is not committed to enabling all valuable ways of life toflourish, no matter what. The dilemma of diversity arises because thevalue of a conscientious way of life apparently comes into conflict withthe terms of fair cooperation among citizens.I say apparently because one possible response to the conflictover civic education criticizes any educational standards that do notaccommodate all the valuable ways of life that actually exist in a society.No liberal, political or comprehensive, defends this relativist responseto diversity, requiring fair standards for civic education to be friendlyto all existing ways of life that are valuable.'2 The civic educationalrequirements of the State of Wisconsin and the Hawkins County Boardof Education failed this relativist requirement. The ways of life ofthe Yoder and Mozert parents are valuable. (Nobody defending thegovernments' positions in these cases argued otherwise.) It does notfollow, however, that the civic educational requirements that impedethese ways of life are therefore unfair on their face or cannot beimposed against the religious convictions of parents. This conclusionwould amount to saying that the value of a religious way of life takesabsolute priority over the civic education of children even though theyare not the mere creatures of their parents, and some religious waysof life, such as that of the Mozert parents, preclude teaching childrento consider the merits of civic values as basic to liberal democracy asthe idea of "the dignity and worth of human beings."'3

    12. I discuss the problems of cultural relativism in more detail in "The Challengeof Multiculturalism in Political Ethics," Philosophyand Public Affairs 22 (1993): 171-206,and "The Challenges of Multiculturalism in Democratic Education," in Public Educationin a Multi-cultural Society, ed. Robert Fullinwider (New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1995), in press.13. The Mozert parents objected to letting their children read a text that describedthe Renaissance belief in the dignity and worth of human beings on grounds that theidea is incompatible with their faith. They generally objected to exposing their childrento any ideas or information with which they disagree on religious grounds unless theideas and information are accompanied by a statement that their religious beliefs arethe only true ones. Information on the Mozert case, compiled from many sources, is

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    Gutmann CivicEducationand Social Diversity 567Any defensible standard of civic education must be committed toprepare children for the rights and responsibilities of citizenship evenover the opposition of their parents. Education, according to Rawls,

    should prepare children "to be fully cooperating members of societyand enable them to be self-supporting; it should also encourage thepolitical virtues so that they want to honor the fair terms of socialcooperation in their relations with the rest of society." The politicalvirtues include "toleration and mutual respect, and a sense of fairnessand civility.""4Civic education should also teach all children "suchthings as knowledge of their constitutional and civic rights ... to insurethat their continued membership [in their parents' religious or culturalgroup] is not based simply on ignorance of their basic rights or fearof punishment for offenses that do not exist."15Rawls's standards are meant to be the minimum necessary tocreating and sustaining a fully just society. They do not require chil-dren to be taught more than is necessary for citizens to share a societywith one another on fair terms. Yet any one of these educationalstandards, taken seriously, impedes some existing (not just hypotheti-cal) ways of life.16 The effective teaching of toleration, for example,typically requires at least a high school education, and yet a high schooleducation is incompatible with the Old Order Amish way of life.'7

    included in Greg Stankiewicz, "The Controversial Curriculum" (case study preparedfor Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton, N.J.,1991).14. Rawls, pp. 199, 122.15. Ibid., p. 199.16. Rawls recognizes this, and consistently argues that standards of justice musttake precedence over diversity. He cites Isaiah Berlin's view that there is no social worldwithout loss. "Ajust liberal society," Rawls writes, "may have far more space than othersocial worlds but it can never be without loss" (p. 197, n. 32). See also Isaiah Berlin,"The Pursuit of the Ideal," in his The CrookedTimberof Humanity (New York: Knopf,1991), pp. 1 1- 19.17. Data from different empirical studies, both national and cross-national, con-verge on the finding that tolerance significantly increases with formal schooling, evenwhen controlling for socioeconomic variables. Recent studies also show that the contentof high school education can make a significant difference in teaching toleration. See,e.g., Clyde Z. Nunn, HarryJ. Crockett, andJ. Allen Williams, ToleranceforNonconformity(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1978); Herbert McCloskey and Alida Brill, Dimensions ofTolerance(New York: Sage Foundation, 1983); Herbert McCloskey and John Zaller, TheAmericanEthos (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984); Paul M. Snidermanet al., "Principled Tolerance and the American Mass Public," BritishJournal of PoliticalScience 19 (1989): 25-46; James L. Gibson, "Homosexuals and the Ku Klux Klan: AContextual Analysis of Political Tolerance," Western Political Quarterly 40 (1987):427-48, "Alternative Measures of Political Tolerance: Must Tolerance Be 'Least-Liked'?"AmericanJournalofPolitical Science36 (1992): 560-77, and "The Political Conse-quences of Intolerance: Cultural Conformity and Political Freedom," AmericanPoliticalScience Review 86 (1992): 338-56; John L. Sullivan, James Pierson, and George E.

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    568 Ethics April 1995Schooling past eighth grade might destroy the Amish's agrarian, separa-tist way of life. We cannot conclude that civic education for Americancitizenship therefore requires no more than eight years of education.It would be a remarkable coincidence if the amount of schooling thata separatist group like the Amish requires to preserve its ways of lifeis just enough to teach their children the skills and virtues relevant toliberal democratic citizenship.An education compatible with the Amish way of life is also incom-patible with an education for individuality or autonomy. But we donot need to proceed beyond political liberalism to determine that thedemands of civic education may take precedence over the religiousfreedom of the Amish parents, as long as we consider Amish childrenfuture citizens of the United States with all the rights and responsibili-ties of other citizens. The religious freedom of adults, by the standardsof political as well as comprehensive liberalism, does not entail a rightto deny their children an education adequate for liberal democraticcitizenship. By shielding their children from worldly knowledge (pastthe eighth-grade level), the Old Order Amish would effectively preventthem from having the basic opportunity available to other children tochoose among the self-sustaining ways of life available outside thesmall Amish community. The Old Order Amish are asking that theirchildren not be prepared "to be fully cooperating members of society."They reject the ideal of liberal democratic citizenship accepted by bothpolitical liberals and comprehensive liberals, which justifies mandatinga high school education even for Amish children.Why, then, is there so much disagreement over how the Yodercase should have been settled? Setting aside any misunderstandings ofthe case, there is an (almost) unique feature of Yoder n the Americancontext that may be morally relevant: the unusually separatist exist-ence of the Old Order Amish and their principled refusal to exercisemany of their rights as well as their responsibilities as American citi-zens. Members of the Amish community typically refrain out of reli-gious conviction from voting, serving in the military, collecting wel-fare, or working outside the community. They are as close to a separatereligious society as such a small group can be and still survive inAmerican society. This unusual feature of the Yoder ase helps accountnot only for why it has rarely been used even by courts as the relevantprecedent for other religious freedom and civic education cases butalso for why liberals have such a hard time agreeing on how the caseshould be resolved. The consequential disagreement among liberalsMarcus, Political Toleranceand AmericanDemocracy Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1982); andJohn L. Sullivan et al., Political Tolerance n Context Boulder, Colo.: Westview,1985). The most recent work of Sullivan demonstrates the significant effects of differentpedagogical methods on teaching toleration in high school settings.

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    Gutmann Civic Education and SocialDiversity 569on how best to resolve the Yodercase once again crosscuts the dividebetween political and comprehensive liberalism. It rests on reasonabledisagreement (fueled by considerable uncertainty about the relevantguiding principles) over how a liberal democratic government can besttreat members of a religious group who, as a matter of both religiousconviction and tradition, live a peaceful and largely separatist exist-ence, eschewing many of the benefits as well as the burdens of Ameri-can citizenship.Both comprehensive and political liberalisms can recognize thatone of the strongest arguments for exempting the Yoder childrenfrom Wisconsin's mandatory-schooling requirement relies on the ex-ceptionalism of the Amish community."8 Neither political nor compre-hensive liberals seriously doubt the reasonableness of requiring chil-dren, whatever their parents' religious convictions, to attend schoolthrough age sixteen. But the Amish are not simply one among manyreligious groups that constitute our multireligious society. Unlike al-most all other religious groups, the Amish have done their best, outof deep conviction, to establish a separate society within Americansociety. They have not asked the government to do much for themother than let them live in peace. In return, they ask only that thegovernment not intrude on their familial, communal, and religiousway of life for the sake of educating their children for full-scale Ameri-can citizenship, individuality, or autonomy. Unlike almost every otherreligious denomination in this country, the Amish have long lived thelife of partial citizens, and have done so out of religious conviction.19As partial citizens, this argument goes, they should be permitted toexercise educational jurisdiction over their children within reasonablebounds that fall short of educating them for liberal democratic citizen-ship, individuality, or autonomy.20

    18. The strongest argument does not succeed in demonstrating that a liberal demo-cratic government must (as a matter of constitutional principle) defer to the demandsof the Amish parents that their children be exempted from a high school education.(I criticize the Court's decision in Wisconsin v. Yoder in "Children, Paternalism, andEducation: A Liberal Argument," Philosophyand Public Affairs 9 [1980]: 338-58.) Buteven defenders of the Yoder decision can recognize that the decision relies upon theexceptionalism of the Amish among religious groups in the United States. In othersocieties, religious separatism may be the rule rather than the exception. For an im-portant and relevant discussion of "group-differentiated citizenship," see Will Kymlicka,"Three Forms of Group-Differentiated Citizenship in Canada" (paper presented atthe Conference for the Study of Political Thought, "Democracy and Difference," YaleUniversity, April 16-18, 1993). Kymlicka notes that although the United States containssome national minorities, it is, with few exceptions, not a multinational but rather amultiethnic state (p. 15). He does not discuss the implications of multinationalism foreducational policy, except to oppose allowing national minorities to pull their childrenout of school before the legally mandated age (p. 22, n. 42).19. Macedo, pp. 471, 472, in this issue.

    20. See Galston, "Two Concepts of Liberalism."

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    570 Ethics April 1995According to this argument, the American government shouldexercise minimal jurisdiction over the Amish community, treating itas a separate, nonthreatening nation within a nation, all the time

    recognizing that Amish education is inadequate for full liberal demo-cratic citizenship, individuality, or autonomy. Making this exceptionto the rule of equipping all children to exercise the full rights andresponsibilities of liberal democratic citizenship rests as uneasily withina political liberalism committed to educating children for citizenshipas it does within a comprehensive liberalism committed to educatingfor individuality or autonomy. Amish education is inadequate for lib-eral democratic citizenship just as it is for individuality or autonomy.Millian and Kantian liberalism offer individuality and autonomy asadded reasons for not exempting Amish children from mandatoryschooling, but we need not invoke the added reasons in order to defendthis conclusion. Political as well as comprehensive liberals can offerprincipled grounds for rejecting the claims of the Amish parents.Amish children are not solely creatures of their religious community.They are also potential citizens and individuals in their own right, andthe separatist commitments of their parents need not prevent a liberaldemocratic state from ensuring that children are educated for fullcitizenship or individuality or autonomy. The strongest arguments inthe Yodercase from liberal principles-both political and comprehen-sive-support a mandatory schooling requirement against the reli-gious convictions of Amish parents. Their religious freedom does notextend to exercising power over their children so as to deny them theeducation necessary for exercising full citizenship or for choosingamong diverse ways of life that lie outside the Amish community.The reasonable disagreement over the Yodercase crosscuts thecommitment to political or comprehensive liberalism. To what degree,if any, should the Old Order Amish community be treated as a separatenation within a nation and, therefore, be granted its own educationaljurisdiction? Neither political nor comprehensive liberalism speaksclearly to this question, which arises only because the Amish are anunusually separatist religious community in the American context.(The Amish parents themselves did not argue their case on groundsof their separate nationhood within a nation, but this fact may not beentirely germane to deciding the Yoder case on moral grounds. Thearguments offered by the Amish were designed to create the strongestlegal case, which is not necessarily the strongest case from the perspec-tive of liberal democratic justice.)Does the choice between political and comprehensive liberalismmake a significant difference in resolving controversies over civic edu-cation where the dissenting parents do not come from a separatistreligious community? As a contrast to the Yoder case, consider theclaims of the Mozertparents, who are not part of a separatist commu-

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    Gutmann Civic Educationand Social Diversity 571nity. They are fundamentalist Christians who fully accept the benefitsand participate in the politics of American democracy. Their religiousconvictions (although not those of their entire congregations or allother fundamentalist Christians) command them not to expose theirchildren to knowledge about other ways of life unless the exposure isaccompanied by a statement that their way of life is true and all theothers are false and therefore inferior. The reading classes in HawkinsCounty schools exposed children to knowledge of different ways oflife, but they did not require children to profess belief in what theyread. Nor did they try to indoctrinate children into any belief or con-vince them that any way of life is (or is not) the singularly true orsuperior one. The Mozertparents rejected the relevance of the distinc-tion between exposure to knowledge and inculcation of belief. Theyclaimed that their children were being taught to believe in a way oflife by being exposed to knowledge of it. They rejected the idea thatschools may teach children to understand and thereby to evaluatedifferent ways of life. They assimilated such teaching to indoctrinationinto false beliefs.Nobody challenged the claim that the reading curriculum of theHawkins County Schools conflicted with the Mozertparents' religiousconvictions and, in this important sense, with their way of life. Thosewho rejected their request for exemption instead considered what acivic education consistent with the parents' beliefs would look likeand concluded that such an education could not possibly satisfy anydefensible liberal democratic standards of civic education. None ofthe parents' objections were aimed at teaching that was explicitly ornarrowly political in nature. The parents objected to teaching childrento make critical judgments, to use their imaginations, and to exercisechoice "in areas where the Bible provides the answer." They objectedto assigning, among other things: (1) a short story describing a CatholicIndian settlement in New Mexico on grounds that it teaches Catholi-cism; (2) a reading exercise picturing a boy making toast while a girlreads to him ("Pat reads to Jim. Jim cooks. The big book helps Jim.Jim has fun.") on grounds that "it denigrates the differences betweenthe sexes" that the Bible endorses; (3) an excerpt from Anne Frank'sDiary of a YoungGirl because Anne Frank writes in a letter to a friendthat nonorthodox belief in God may be better than no belief at all;and (4) a text that describes a 'central idea of the Renaissance as being"abelief in the dignity and worth of human beings" because that beliefis incompatible with their faith.21The parents' objections were directed at an English curriculumthat, by state mandate, was supposed to serve the purpose of civic

    2 1. Stankiewicz.

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    572 Ethics April 1995education, not just education in the skills of reading and writing. Byasking students to use their imaginations and exercise critical judg-ment, for example, schools can help students distinguish between under-standing, respecting, and accepting unfamiliar ways of life not theirown. Citizens are routinely called upon to understand and respect,without accepting, opposing political perspectives. A well-constitutedliberal democracy expects us to exercise criticaljudgment in our will-ingness to take unpopular political positions, respect reasonable pointsof view that we reject, and respect public policies from which wedissent. A civic education that satisfies the Mozert parents' objec-tions-even though they were directed only at an English curricu-lum-would interfere with teaching the virtues and skills of liberaldemocratic citizenship on any reasonable understanding of what liberaldemocratic citizenship entails. Schools that try to teach toleration andmutual respect would be barred from teaching students respect forpeople who pursue ways of life that diverge from those of their parents.They would be barred from teaching students to deliberateabout politics,even if lessons were scrupulously restricted to politicallyrelevant matters,because the virtues that are conducive to political deliberation spill overinto nonpolitical realms. The skills or virtues that enable a person todistinguish between being taught about a Catholic Indian settlement andbeing taught to believe in Catholicism are directly relevant to both a self-governing politics and a self-governing life.Deferring to the demands of the Mozert parents entails rejectingthe liberal teaching of toleration, mutual respect, racial and sexualnondiscrimination, and deliberation whenever any of these political vir-tues are incompatible with the pursuit of some (otherwise law-abiding)way of life. If public schools cannot require students to read aboutthe religious orthodoxy of a New Mexican Indian settlement, or abouta boy cooking, or about Anne Frank's unorthodox religious opinions,or about the dignity and worth of human beings, then liberal democ-racy might as well give up on civic education beyond teaching literacyand numeracy.Proponents of unregulated voucher systems would have liberaldemocracy give up on civic education through schooling. They ofteninvoke support for social diversity as a virtue of vouchers.22 In sodoing, they succumb to the problems of relativism, which we discussedearlier. Unregulated vouchers relieve schools of the responsibility ofcivic education. Relativists lack a convincing answer to the questionof why so much taxpayer money should go to schooling that gives upon the central aims of civic education. If schooling ceases to become

    22. See, e.g., Myron Lieberman, Public Education:An Autopsy(Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press, 1993).

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    Gutmann CivicEducation and Social Diversity 573a compelling public good, then it should be privately rather thanpublicly funded, at least for everyone but parents who cannot affordto educate their children.

    According to political liberalism, civic education teaches childrenthe virtues and skills necessary to deliberate about politically relevantissues but not about any other domains of life. The political liberalargues that to teach children to deliberate about other domains of lifeis sectarian precisely because it is not a prerequisite for sharing politicalsovereignty on fair terms. This is an important argument, which com-prehensive liberals have not yet adequately addressed, but the argu-ment does not show that political liberalism in practice offers any moreaccommodation to the kinds of religious diversity represented in theMozert case, which is supposed to show the difference between politicaland comprehensive liberalism. The only discernible difference turnsout to be different theoretical rationales for denying the parents'claims. Comprehensive and political liberalism come down on the sameside, once again, in this test case.The extensive overlap between the skills and virtues of democraticcitizenship and individuality (or autonomy) helps explain why thisconvergence, despite apparently divergent rationales, is not a merecoincidence. The convergent conclusions reflect the fact that most (ifnot all) of the same skills and virtues that are necessary and sufficientfor educating children for citizenship in a liberal democracy are thosethat are also necessary and sufficient for educating children to deliber-ate about their way of life, more generally (and less politically) speak-ing. It is therefore understandable that there is in liberal politicalpractice little difference between educating for citizenship and educat-ing for individuality or autonomy. Not only are the skills and virtuessimilar, but there is also an extensive overlap between those featuresof our contemporary lives that are politically relevant and those thatare relevant to our choosing a good (nonpolitical) life for ourselves.To say that a feature of life is politically relevant, and thereforelegitimately part of civic education by the lights of political liberalism,is not to say that it should be regulated by government. Considerthe civic educational practice of exposing students to knowledge ofdifferent religious ways of life. Such knowledge is politically relevantnot because government should regulate religious belief (it shouldnot) but rather because citizens need to think about why religiousbelief should not be regulated. What features of people's lives arelegitimately subject to governmental regulation is itself a politicallyrelevant matter for the purposes of civic education. Were we (forexample) to prevent schools from teaching children to deliberate aboutwhat constitutes privacy for the purposes of protecting individual lib-erty from governmental intrusions, we would be restricting delibera-tion about one of the most politically relevant issues in a liberal democ-

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    Gutmann Civic Education and Social Diversity 575regarding features of our lives is relevant and consequential for stateregulation of conduct. We have yet to demonstrate why this samedistinction is relevant for the civic education of children, a majorpurpose of which is to help children distinguish between realms of lifeproperly open to state regulation and those that are not. To educatechildren so they are capable of making suchjudgments surely requiresschools to discuss features of human life, such as religious and moralbeliefs, that are not properly subject to governmental regulation, aswell as those that are. Otherwise any distinction between self-regardingand other-regarding action and its potential political relevance istaught only as dogma and therefore more likely to be held only as such.These arguments for authorizing public education to discussmany features of human life, even those that may be extremely sensi-tive to some parents, are consistent with leaving a lot of room for aprotected realm of parental educational authority. Parental educationbenefits children and it is also a necessary element in the basic freedomof families, which is valuable to both parents and children.25 Whilethese arguments are consistent with a substantial realm of parentaleducational authority, they suggest why it is not deeply partisan torefuse to defer to parental religious convictions when those convictionsconflict with what is reasonably thought necessary for educating chil-dren for liberal democratic citizenship. Public schooling is not deeplypartisan if it aspires to teaching children to think for themselves abouttheir lives, even on issues that have little or no explicit political content,because teaching children to understand different ways of life (orfeatures of different lives) is almost always relevant to politics. Suchteaching is also consistent with a liberal commitment to treating chil-dren as more than the creatures of their parents and families, a com-mitment of political as well as comprehensive liberals.The idea that children have a right to be taught to think forthemselves about their own lives, and not just about politics, is nomore partisan than the idea that parents have a right on the basis oftheir religious freedom to prevent their children from thinking forthemselves about their own lives. It is hard to see how political liberalscan demonstrate that granting parents such an expansive religiousfreedom against expanding the educational opportunities of childrenis more justifiable to all the people-including the children-boundby such a policy. The criticism-of comprehensive liberalism on groundsof partisanship remains unsupported. Both political and comprehen-sive liberalism face the same difficult problem ofjustifying a delibera-tive form of public education to parents with religious convictions and

    25. I defend a substantial realm of parental educational authority in DemocraticEducation, chap. 1.

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    576 Ethics April 1995ways of life that conflict with liberal democratic principles. To retreatfrom this challenge by permitting parents to shield their children fromexposure to competing ways of life is to justify restrictions on the basiceducational opportunities of children in the name of their parents'religious freedom.Political liberals like Macedo would not permit the Mozert parentsto exempt their children from the reading classes, even though thoseclasses do far more than teach civic skills and virtues. The Mozert caseillustrates how little practical difference it makes whether one adoptspolitical or comprehensive liberalism because teaching the skills andvirtues of citizenship challenges entire ways of life that reject thosevirtues. This spillover problem is endemic to any liberal democracy inwhich some citizens conscientiously reject toleration and other politicalvirtues. Neither comprehensive nor political liberalism denies thatthese ways of life have value, but both deny parents the right, evenin the name of religious freedom, to prevent their children from beingtaught toleration of other religions, along with mutual respect anddeliberation among people who pursue many different ways of life.The political virtues of mutual respect and deliberation are evenmore demanding than toleration and have even greater spillover ef-fects outside of the political realm. The spillovers are unintended bypolitical liberalism, but it is not a coincidence that the political skillsand virtues of liberal democracy resemble the personal skills and virtuesof a self-directing or autonomous life. Political liberals distinguishbetween teaching children to live self-directing or autonomous livesand teaching them to reason about political alternatives. If the spillovereffects are typically as great as the Mozert example and our previousdiscussion suggest, then the civic education required by political liber-alism will often be difficult to distinguish from that recommended byMillian liberalism.IV. WHY TEACH MORE THAN TOLERATION?Why should civic education teach more than toleration, understoodas an attitude of live and let live that entails no positive regard amongcitizens? Political and comprehensive liberals agree that toleration isessential for social justice and one of the great historical accomplish-ments of liberal democracies. They also agree that parents do not havethe right to indoctrinate their children any more than does the stateor any other educational agent. Nor do parents have the right to passon their own religious beliefs if that entails exempting their childrenfrom an education for liberal democratic citizenship. My authority asa parent is limited by the fact that my "child is at once a future adultand a future citizen."26Parents may not "impede the acquisition of civic

    26. GaIston, LiberalPurposes, p. 252.

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    Gutmann Civic Education and Social Diversity 577competence and loyalty" or interfere with "basic civic education."27 Sofar, Galston is laying the same groundwork as Macedo and Rawls fora robust defense of teaching mutual respect among a diverse citizenry.If a basic civic education includes teaching children mutual respect,then all liberals can also agree that religious freedom does not takeprecedence over reasonable attempts to go beyond the teaching oftoleration, to trying to cultivate an attitude of mutual respect amongchildren of diverse religious, ethnic, racial, and sexual identities.At issue here is not mere exposure to different ways of life forthe sake of giving children more choices among good lives but, rather,teaching future citizens to evaluate different political perspectives thatare often associated with different ways of life. Should the liberal stateencourage parents to foster strong convictions because, as Galstonsuggests, the greatest threat to children in contemporary liberal socie-ties is that they will believe in nothing very deeply?28 The liberal statedoes not have an interest in fostering strong convictions regardless ofwhether the content of those convictions conflicts with the legitimateaims of civic education. Parental convictions that conflict with teachingchildren civic virtues must be tolerated but they should not be publiclysubsidized by schools. A public commitment to teaching mutual re-spect does not prevent parents from fostering deep religious beliefsin their children. It only sets principled limits on the authority parentsmay claim over their children's public education, even in the name ofreligious freedom.The social stakes for liberal democracy in defending these princi-pled limits are high. Absent mutual respect, citizens cannot be ex-pected to honor the liberal principle of nondiscrimination. Nor canpublic officials, who are accountable to citizens and chosen from theirranks, be expected to demonstrate respect toward different ways oflife. "The need for public evaluation of leaders and policies," writesGalston, "means that the state has an interest in developing citizenswith at least the minimal conditions of reasonable public judgment."29I have suggested that the minimal conditions of reasonable publicjudgment include mutual respect among citizens of differing religions,races, genders, and ethnicities. If the minimal conditions of publicreasonableness in the United States today include a well-reasonedappreciation of the constitutional principle of nondiscrimination, thenliberal democratic governmentmay teach children mutual respect even

    27. Ibid., pp. 254-55, 252.28. Ibid., p. 255.29. Galston notes that parents cannot in practice "seal their children off fromknowledge of other ways of life," but the argument concerns whether they have theright to do so (and the state a duty to let them so do) as far as is possible even if thiscomes at the expense of lessons in democratic deliberation (ibid., p. 253).

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    578 Ethics April 1995against the deeply held religious beliefs of parents. Indeed, democraticgovernments have a duty to do so.But public schools should be careful not to confuse teaching chil-dren the virtue of mutual respect with teaching them either moralskepticism or "skeptical reflection on ways of life inherited from par-ents or local communities."30 Liberal democratic virtues cannot bewell taught without asking children to reflect on competing politicalperspectives, which are often associated with different ways of life, butsuch reflection does not entail either moral or metaphysical skepticism.Reflection on the reasonableness of liberal democratic principles is anantidote to moral skepticism, and reflection on competing politicalperspectives is an antidote to dogmatism. In neither case does liberaldemocratic education require giving up deeply held personal commit-ments except the commitment not to allow one's children to reflecton matters relevant to social justice.The skills of political reflection cannot be neatly differentiatedfrom the skills of evaluating one's own way of life. That is one reasonwhy civic education is so -threatening to some ways of life. It opensthe door wider to the possibility of children criticizing their parents'way of life. It also opens the door equally wide to their understandingthe virtues of their parents' way of life. There is another reason whycivic education threatens some ways of life, a reason that brings usback to the beginning of our discussion of political and comprehensiveliberalism. Civic education should give children the skills and virtuesthat enable them to consider what constitutes fair terms of social coop-eration among citizens. What precisely are the basic liberties and op-portunities of all American citizens? The content of basic liberties andopportunities is controversial. Teaching children to think about socialjustice entails teaching them that it may be reasonable to disagree withtheir parents and teachers-and every other authority-on politicallyrelevant matters. This teaching, which both political and comprehen-sive liberals endorse, is threatening to the moral convictions of manyparents (and teachers and other authorities) and to their way of life,often no less threatening than teaching children about less politicallyrelevant matters.A liberal democracy flourishes only with a tolerant citizenry whoseminds are open to respecting reasonable political viewpoints withwhich they disagree. Mutual respect entails a reciprocal positive regardamong people who advocate morally reasonable but opposing posi-tions in politics.31 When citizens perceive their political opposition

    30. Ibid., p. 253.31. For a defense of this perspective, see Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson,"Moral Conflict and Political Consensus," Ethics 101 (1990): 64-88.

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    Gutmann Civic Education and Social Diversity 579as unreasonable, their commitment to democratic decision making isweakened unless they are confident of political victory. Sometimesthis perception of unreasonableness is correct, but citizens who areeducated to assume that their political position is uniquely reasonableerode legitimate support for liberal democratic government. Liberaldemocratic governments can try to persuade closed-minded citizens torespect reasonable opposition, but the realm of public schooling is ademocratic government's single most powerful and legitimate meansof teaching respect for reasonable political disagreement. Both politi-cal and comprehensive liberalisms can accept this reason for teachingdeliberation and mutual respect as well as toleration. Both liberalismscan also respond to the critique that their conception of civic educationwrongly restricts social diversity. Teaching toleration, mutual respect,and deliberation does not homogenize children or deny the value ofgenuine differences that are associated with diverse ways of individualand communal life. Quite the contrary, teaching these civic virtuessupports the widest range of social diversity that is consistent with theongoing pursuit of liberal democratic justice. The same civic educationalso supports individuality and autonomy, as best they can be sup-ported by any public educational authority.