The communitarian challenge to liberal social and educational theory

Abstract

One of the traditional arguments for public schooling is that modern technological democratic societies need to replace the particularistic values of the family and the local community with the more universal values of the larger society. In the family or the local community feelings of love or loyalty determine the distribution of material and symbolic resources, in advanced technological societies the ideals of competence and achievement are supposed to determine this distribution (see Dreeben, 1968). This argument held special ideological force during the 19th and much of the 20th century when the United States was undergoing both technological and population changes. Public schools were thought to have an essential role in realizing the ideal of equality of opportunity by providing children from traditional communities with the attitudes and skills that they needed to compete in a modern society. Although the argument clearly overlooked race bias in the school, as well and gender tracking in both the school and the family, the ideals presented have played an important role in liberal educational reform through both conservative and progressive iterations.

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