ABSTRACT
The views about freedom which a society holds have important implications for the way children are brought up and educated. In our society, however, the relationship between what is claimed about the value of liberty and what actually goes on in our schools, homes and communities is less close than it might be, and this is due, I suggest, to the exclusion of children from membership of our society, and the often arbitrary distinction commonly drawn between what is thought to be right for them and what is claimed to be right for adults. In most discussions on how we should live, what people should be allowed to do, and which values should govern our dealings with each other, children are largely forgotten. I believe this enables us to cherish a false view of ourselves as a society of free independent individualists, owing little or nothing to anyone else, and we sustain this view partly because we do not think of children as being part of that society.
