Professors

Schedule

Tuesday
From 13:30
to 15:00
Thursday
From 13:30
to 15:00

 

Course purpose

System of compulsory education is now widespread all over the world, but there is striking diversity concerning the goal of school system itself. This diversity is expressed e.g. (i) in the degree of plurality of the school contents (binding effect of national curricula, acknowledgement of home schooling, conditions on approved private schools, etc.), (ii) in the way of treating religious and moral issues in the schools, and especially (iii) in the importance of nationalistic moments.

Purpose of this course is to acquire and develop (a) fundamental knowledge about different models conceptualizing public school system, (b) ability for policy analysis concerning school system of the home country, (c) comparative perspective needed in the future conceptualizing school system better fit to the globalized society.

Course contents

No one can rationally deny the importance of the right to education now. But it is not easy to establish common criteria about proper contents of school education which should be guaranteed universally. Especially, people differ on what kind of democratic skill should be treated as binding educational contents. Furthermore, cultural systems differ also in the extent to which prevailing moral notion should be transmitted in the name of integrating effect of school system.

In this course, some basic conceptions about aims of public education are introduced, namely (i) normative, (ii) democratic, (iii) economic, and (iv) socially integrating functions of school system. On the basis of these conceptions, characteristic features of each public school system can be analyzed.

Students are first provided with introductory knowledge of school law theories. On the basis of that, they are invited to national report analyzing basic structure of home country school system. Afterwards some topics of school law are treated, such as degree of plurality, religious issues, and nationalistic moment. Through discussion about such issues, ability to proper problem resolution in the conflict of educational interest should be cultivated.

Teaching and evaluation methods

This course consists of lecture, national reports by students, and discussion. After the general introduction, lectures about historical and comparative models are given. These lectures are supplemented within a week by discussion time in which every student give short national reports. In the latter half of the course, actual problems are treated, either introduced by the lecturer on judicial cases in several countries or introduced in the form of extended national report by participating students. At the end of the course, students are expected to give up the final report proposing way of resolving national and global problems and guarantee a peaceful coexistence of people with different beliefs and cultures.

Evaluation shall be done according to contributions each student made in the form of (short/extended) national report and participation in discussion as well as final report.

This course is open to all students without limitation on the bases of major and previously acquired knowledge.

Evaluation

(1) 20% contribution to discussion

(2) 30% national report presented aurally and/or paper-based during the semester

(3) 50% written final report (including the core contents of presentation in (2) and supplemented by global comparison, analytical evaluation thereof and future perspectives)

Bibliography

Amy Gutman, Democratic Education, Rev. ed., Princeton: Princeton University Press 1999.

Stephen Macedo, Diversity and Distrust, Harvard University Press 2003.

Kevin McDonough and Walter Feinberg (ed.), Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies, Oxford University Press 2003.

 

Venice
International
University

Isola di San Servolo
30133 Venice,
Italy

-
phone: +39 041 2719511
fax:+39 041 2719510
email: viu@univiu.org

VAT: 02928970272