This essay by Suzanne Rosenblith and Benjamin Bindewald is motivated by the question of how do those who value civic liberalism give the religiously orthodox a reason to engage in pluralist democratic deliberations in a manner that does not allow intolerance to undermine the foundations of liberal democracy. Introducing the idea of tolerance as mutuality -that is, a will to relationshipthe authors argue, strikes a balance between those theories that are too demanding of the religiously orthodox and those that are not exacting enough. Applying the principle of tolerance as mutuality to the special space of public schools allows for a new way to conceptualize civic education in pluralist democracies.In Political Liberalism, philosopher John Rawls asks the very basic question of how, given deep difference in ideological perspectives, we as a society are to get along. 1 This question is especially relevant as it applies to public schools situated in contemporary pluralist democratic societies, where educators are tasked with fostering in students a shared civic identity while refraining from undermining their cultural and religious commitments. Cultural and, in particular, religious pluralism present public schools with considerable challenges, many of which manifest as tensions between civic aims of education and religious orthodoxy. An important question for pluralist democratic societies, then, is "How should schools respond when civic aims of education conflict with orthodox religious commitments?" A related and equally challenging (but somewhat overlooked) question for liberal theorists is "How do those who value civic liberalism give the religiously orthodox a reason to engage in pluralist democratic deliberations without offering up a form of blanket inclusion that allows intolerance to undermine the very foundations of liberal democracy?" Addressing these two vexing questions is the central purpose of the present work.Philosophers have long attempted to address the first of these difficult questions. Some, in the spirit of Rawls's political liberalism, have argued that public schools should remain as neutral as possible on matters of cultural and religious 1. John Rawls, Political Liberalism: Expanded Edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). EDUCATIONAL THEORY Volume 64 Number 6 2014
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