ABSTRACT
The title of this chapter seems to suggest that there are some tensions between “democratic schooling” and the “demandsof religion.” Some of these tensions are explicitly identified by James Anderson in a critical review of my second book, in which I defend religious schools and a system of educational pluralism (Thiessen 2001). It is well and good to defend reli-gious schools from a philosophical point of view, Anderson maintains, “but what will be the structures by which we govern whether a religious school sufficiently addresses its liberalizing role, especially in ways that might threaten its religious mission?” (Anderson 2003: 108). And then this ques-tion: “How will the public arena respond to the support of schools which teach strict gender roles and gender hierarchy? The current private-public accommodation to diversity allows but does not support certain departures from the common denominators” (108–9). And finally, this reminder: “The recent global events make the American public even more sensitive to the dangers of sectarianism: the appeal of liberal, tolerant, public arenas free of particularist commitments seems on the rise” (109). The mood today, says Anderson, seems taken with the search for unity. It would seem, therefore, that there are still some hard questions that need to be faced by my defense of religious schools and educational pluralism.
