ABSTRACT
I shall approach the question of whether the government should support single-faith schools through the prism of a liberal theory of educational justice. This theory requires, among other things, that children have a substantive opportunity to become autonomous adults; on the liberal view this principle has very high priority in evaluating education policy, outweighing, for example, any parental interest in having a child educated at a school which promotes the parent’s religion. So when addressing state support for faith schools we ask whether they contribute to a child’s right to become autonomous. Many liberals think that they do not. If a child is subject to the same religious influences in the home and in the school, s/he is less likely to gain the necessary resources to reflect critically on what s/he is learning. Especially telling is the complaint that, because children learn a great deal from their peers, a child attending a school in which her peers have the same religious commitments as those of her family and school is profoundly disadvantaged with respect to the ability to become autonomous.
