Should Muslim headscarves be banned in French schools? d i a n n e g e r e lu k Roehampton University, UK a b s t rac t The recent ban of ‘conspicuous’ religious symbols in French state schools has received international attention, especially the uncertainty of whether Muslims will comply with the ban. The issue, however, raises a number of philosophical dilemmas regarding toleration in a liberal democracy, the notion of a ‘neutral’ public space in state schools and the protection of girls’ rights in traditional communities. I examine each issue accordingly and argue that the French state is unjustified in banning religious symbols.
k e y w o r d s autonomy, individual rights, neutrality, pluralism, religion, toleration
introduction Th e r e c e n t F r e n c h government’s ban of all conspicuous religious symbols in French state schools has refuelled a contentious debate about religion and its place in schools. The justification for the ban is the claim that there should be a strict separation between church and state, known in French as laïcité. The legislation applies to the restriction of all religious symbols in the public sector. This article focuses on the ramifications it has on children and schools, and in particular, the issue of Muslim headscarves (the hijab). While the legislation has similar ramifications for other faiths, national and international debate has centred on the Islamic faith. Defenders of the ban claim the following: France has historically had a strict separation of church and state, briefly following the French Revolution, and subsequently reflected in legislation in 1905. In recent years this legislation has been applied when a number of Muslim girls were expelled for wearing the Theory and Research in Education Copyright © 2005, sage publications, www.sagepublications.com vol 3(3) 259–271 ISSN 1477-8785 DOI: 10.1177/1477878505057427
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Theory and Research in Education 3(3) hijab in 1989 and during various periods in the 1990s. Defenders point to a policy of neutrality inside the boundaries of the school. The protection of individual rights plays out in the context of Muslim practices. Muslim girls may be vulnerable as members of a hierarchical tradition and may thus warrant certain protection, provided by the state, to ensure their capacity to become free and equal persons. Some initial surveys indicate that close to 50 per cent of Muslim women are in favour of the prohibition, which raises suspicion that at least some Muslim women may see the state as an ally in their pursuit of gender equality (Economist, 2004). However, reservations about the legislation abound. The implementation of laïcité is often applied in the prohibition of schools providing religious instruction. Historically, laïcité did not apply to individuals wearing religious symbols to schools. Only in 1937 was a law put in place that prohibited the wearing of ostentatious religious symbols (Gutmann, 1996). Even so, the law has thus far only extended to ‘conspicuous’ religious symbols such as the hijab, with little consensus on other forms of religious symbols, such as small crucifixes or yarmulkes. Second, the nature of the increasing pluralist society in France does not necessarily warrant the curtailment of other individuals’ rights. In a pluralist society, reasonable doctrines should be allowed under the principle of toleration. Finally, the practice of wearing headscarves should not automatically assume that Muslim girls’ autonomy will be compromised. One of the rationales given for wearing headscarves is to protect girls from sexual harassment and, more generally, having girls viewed as sexual objects. Furthermore, some, especially older, girls are capable of making judgements about these matters for themselves, so that the law is a restriction of their freedom. These issues question several philosophical dilemmas regarding toleration in a pluralist society (Rawls, 1993, 2001), special protection for minority groups through collective rights (Kymlicka, 1989, 1995) and concerns about internal practices in faith groups that may inhibit vulnerable members (Moller-Okin, 1999; Gutmann, 2002). I argue that France has taken an unreasonable stance and is unwarranted in prohibiting girls from wearing headscarves. I will address these concerns accordingly.
t o l e rat i o n i n a p lu ra l i s t s o c i e t y One question is whether laïcité infringes on individual rights to freedom of association and freedom of religion. Let one assume that banning adults from wearing religious symbols in public institutions is an infringement of basic human rights. The specific enforcement of laïcité on children and their attendance in state schools raises three points for consideration: first, whether the state is justified in banning religious symbols to protect children’s future [260]
Gereluk: Should Muslim headscarves be banned? autonomy; second, whether parents have the right to raise their children in a particular way; and third, whether a child’s future autonomy requires exposure to different ways of life. Each point calls into question the limits of toleration, the balance of parents’ rights to raise their children and the state’s obligation to protect children, and children’s capacity to develop informed judgements about how they wish to lead their life. Liberal political theorists are not of one mind concerning the limits of toleration in a pluralist society. John Rawls (1993: 59), for instance, does not provide clear criteria in distinguishing what is reasonable and unreasonable, and instead remains fairly and purposefully ambivalent on the matter. Conversely, he contends that states should heed caution before restraining doctrines that may be unreasonable, ‘otherwise our account runs the danger of being arbitrary and exclusive’ (1993: 59). Doctrines, according to Rawls, may be unreasonable in two ways: (1) there is ‘a present or foreseeable threat of serious injury, political, economic, and moral, or even of the destruction of the state’ (1993: 354); and, (2) that the particular doctrine ‘proposes to use the public’s political power – a power in which all citizens have an equal share – forcibly to impose a view affecting constitutional essential about which many citizens as reasonable persons . . . are bound to differ uncompromisingly’ (Rawls, 2001: 183). In neither case would the state suggest that Islam poses a serious threat to the state, nor that they are trying to impose a view forcibly on other citizens. Some people may argue that the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 in the USA reflect the Islamic faith and thus pose a serious threat to the state. But of course, Islam itself is, like all religions, diverse; taking the actions of fundamentalist Islamic organizations such as the Taliban as exemplifying the Islamic faith would be similar to suggesting that the IRA exemplifies Catholicism. Terrorist actions are obviously not to be condoned nor ignored. Stating that Islam is ‘unreasonable’ is a burdensome position to take – one that has the requisite consequence of banning a group – not simply the certain practices that we deem unacceptable. Another interpretation of Rawls, however, might suggest that the case is not so clear-cut. While Rawls’ definition of reasonable doctrines offers a wide scope of permissible doctrines, he does have a stronger conception when he guarantees individuals’ primary rights through the political conception of the person. Rawls posits three ‘fundamental intuitive ideas’ as the basis of his entire theory, particularly the crucial idea of citizens being free and equal persons possessed of the capacity to develop and exercise a conception of the good (Rawls, 1993: 178). Developing one’s capacities to make informed judgements about how to lead one’s life is a fundamental concept in liberal aims of education. If the French state believed that either the exposure of symbols in [261]
Theory and Research in Education 3(3) schools would compromise children’s future autonomy, or children who wore the religious symbols were being compromised in their ability to develop and exercise their capacity for a conception of the good, the ban might be justified. If we consider Rawls’ criteria for the reasonableness of doctrines, banning religious symbols in state schools is not justified. State intrusion onto children’s and families’ ways of life through the restriction of religious symbols goes beyond the parameters of protecting the state from unreasonable doctrines. The issue of the state’s role in protecting children’s primary interests, however, may be more contentious. If there is a concern that children’s primary interests may be compromised by their upbringing, then the state may be justified in restricting various religious traditions, as a way of allowing children to exercise and develop a capacity for a conception of the good. If, for instance, the French state was particularly concerned about girls being forced to wear a hijab by their parents, the state may be concerned that those girls may be compromised in their ability to make informed judgements about how they wish to lead their life. Yet, according to Muslim tradition, wearing the hijab is a voluntary act of religious observance. Further, unlike the crucifix, which is generally thought of as a religious symbol, the hijab is often considered to be an integral part of the Islamic way of life (similar to the yarmulke in Orthodox Judaism). If the state believes that the hijab is a symbol of oppression for women, the state has not explicitly used this argument to support the ban. The religious doctrines in question – that of Christian, Judaism and Islam – do not prima facie fall under the liberal notion of an unreasonable doctrine. It is the burden of the state to demonstrate otherwise, which it has failed to do. While the ‘unreasonable doctrine’ argument does not provide the French state with a justification to ban religious symbols, the suggestion that it is appropriately balancing the rights of parents to raise their children in a particular way with that of the state’s obligation to guarantee children’s future autonomy may have more promise. The Yoder and Mozert cases exemplify how this tension is played out between state protection and parents’ wishes to limit their children’s exposure to different ways of living, which I do not wish to reiterate here (see Peshkin, 1986; Reich, 2002). I believe that this is not the issue in this case because what is happening is not a case of the parents restricting children’s exposure to different ways of living, but of the state’s restriction on exposure of religious symbols in public institutions. I do, however, wish to focus on the potential damage that this ban could have on children’s future autonomy. I will start with the assumption that one of the aims of a liberal education is to facilitate a child’s capacity to develop and exercise a conception of the [262]
Gereluk: Should Muslim headscarves be banned? good; simply put, to develop children’s future ability to make informed decisions about how they wish to lead their lives.1 Given that children will learn and adopt many of the customs and traditions of their parents, and their parents’ local communities, children will be inducted into a particular way of life prior to even entering school. This induction into a particular community is not necessarily bad, and in many ways, provides children with their parents’ values and customs that may be inherently important to them both in the present and in the future. However, schools provide a unique opportunity to expose children to different ways of living that may broaden the child’s experiences from the familial setting to the broader public sphere. Meira Levinson (1999: 62, 144) aptly points out that schools provide a public space in which children can be distanced from the commitments and values to which they are accustomed both at home and in their community. In one way, schools provide a space in which children can begin to realize the commitments of which they are a part; in another way, they can be exposed to different backgrounds and values brought by other children to the school. Trying to negate children’s different religious backgrounds at school compromises this ideal environment in which children can develop their capacity for autonomy. This leads to a second concern. If the school maintains its ‘neutral’ status2 as a secular institution, parents may send their children to private schools. Harry Brighouse (2005) conjectures this in the context of contrasting US and UK stances of faith schooling. The first potential concern is similar to Levinson’s in that schools provide a way in which to expose children to different ways of life by being around children who come from different communities and subject to different doctrines. The second concern is that parents who decide to send their children to private schools will create more homogenous settings in both public and private institutions; children who attend secular schools may not have opportunities to be around other children who hold religious views; conversely, children who attend private faith schools will not be exposed to children who may be atheist or agnostic. However, it is conceivable that parents who hold strong religious beliefs may still choose to send their children to state schools so long as schools provide some minimal concessions to respect their faith. However, forced to make a decision of severely compromising their own faith, parents may choose a private school and create further divisions between them and the public culture of that society (Brighouse, 2005). This is not a far-fetched conjecture. In the UK, for instance, Muslim parents who cannot find single-sex schools for their adolescent girls are often tempted to send them back to Pakistan during this period of their life (Halstead, 1993). Similarly, in the USA, growing numbers of fundamentalist Christians segregate themselves from mainstream society by establishing their own physical communities and schools. Policies that push [263]
Theory and Research in Education 3(3) religious parents into private schools may limit schools’ ability to develop children’s future autonomy. Now this may be less of a concern from the point of view of the French government. As it stands at present, there is currently one Muslim private school that was established in 2003 in Lille called Lycée Averroes (Michaud, 2003). However, the main option for Muslims who wish to leave the secular state system is to enroll their children in Ecoles Confessionel, which are most often Catholic private schools. In their eyes, it is a lesser evil: a school that believes in a higher Being, rather than the total exclusion of religion in state schools. In all three cases, the French state does not have a strong position to justify the ban. I acknowledge that this is not a position that the French government has used, so I now turn to the issue of neutrality and the protection of the secular state in France.
n e u t ra l i t y a n d p r o t e c t i n g t h e f r e n c h way o f l i f e While the diversity argument does not bode well for justifying the ban of religious symbols in state schools, the idea of neutrality might support it. Unlike the USA, where the separation of church and state is based on a notion of neutrality of equal inclusion – that meaning, all conceptions of the good are accommodated in schools (at least in theory) – the French state bases its notion of neutrality on equal exclusion. This means that students and teachers are to shed their private conceptions once they enter the school as public equals (for a more comprehensive and comparative account of the American and French models, see Levinson, 1999: 116–30; Judge, 2004). The principle behind the notion of ‘equal exclusion’ is that a ‘secular and national ideal is the very substance of the Republican schools and the foundation of its duty of civic education’ (Levinson, 1999: 124). The principles of neutrality date back to the French Revolution and the subsequent breaking up of the clerical monopoly on education; in its stead the newly formed secular Republic wished to create an ideal of equal citizenship under the ideal of egalité. The hope was that people would unite under a defined national character within the public space of France. However, assuming a notion of equal exclusion by detaching one’s private conceptions within public institutions is not actually what occurs for all. By embracing a civic secular tradition over religious conceptions, the state creates a default non-neutrality of secularism. The notion of neutrality is defeated in its acceptance of secularism over other conceptions of the good. Further, the ideal of equal exclusion fits conveniently with Christian ideals, unlike the Jewish or Islamic faiths. For instance, holidays coincide with Christian [264]
Gereluk: Should Muslim headscarves be banned? holidays, and individuals from the Christian faith do not have a conflict on the day of their worship being on Sundays. It is much easier for Christians to uphold their faith without seriously compromising their beliefs than it is for non-Christians. It is easy for the French state to enforce a supposed ‘neutral’ state education system, which also falls alongside Christian calendar practices. Those who follow non-Christian faiths may be placed in more compromising positions – challenging their practices and their faith. There also seems to be an undertone of distrust of Islamic traditions. Under the proviso of neutrality, state schools have been strict in enforcing the ban of the hijab. Yet, bans of small crucifixes and small yarmulkes are inconsistently enforced, with many state schools turning a blind eye to similar religious symbols. This raises a worrisome question of why some religious symbols are not being prohibited, while other religious symbols are being strictly banned. One possibility is that the increase of Muslim immigrants to France creates a concern about protecting the secular (and Christian) French way of life. Approximately 5 million Muslims currently live in France. The ban on religious symbols was rarely enforced until 1989, when the headmaster of a school barred girls who wore the hijab from entering. The girls would be permitted to wear a scarf that covered their head and neck, but not the face, in the school ground, but would be required to take it off when they entered the school. After three months of standoff, the girls gave in, and followed the terms laid down by the school of when they could wear the hijab. This particular incident raised the profile of a larger national debate over the right to express their private conceptions in the public sphere. The second incidence occurred in 1993, when four girls were banned from wearing the hijab. This time, however, as a sign of support, 700 girls began wearing the hijab support that peaked with 2000 girls wearing the hijab (Levinson, 1999: 126). During the autumn term of 1994, 68 girls were suspended from school for wearing the hijab. A change of policy in the spring of 1995 from the Conseil d’État rescinded its decision to ban the hijab, and stated that the hijab was not necessarily an ostentatious religious symbol. The issue escalated up until the latest legislation made in February 2004, whereby a strict enforcement of laïcité in the public sector is now in force. Unlike the issue of wearing the hijab in schools, such volatility has not erupted in the case of children from other faiths. It leads one to speculate why there is such a strict policy on the ban of hijab whereas other religions have faced lesser enforcement. Whether the events of September 11th have influenced other countries’ nervousness about Muslims is difficult to ascertain, yet have the events of September 11th been a catalyst for legislation such as laïcité, toward less toleration, in the hopes of preserving democracy? The USA, for [265]
Theory and Research in Education 3(3) instance, has introduced much more invasive legislation that breaches the privacy of individuals in the name of security. Why should not one consider that the French legislation of laïcité is a form of legislation that attempts to secure the civic republican sentiment in France? We see similar issues arising in The Netherlands, which previously had very generous immigration policies. Yet, the large number of Muslims entering the country has raised concern about whether such immigration patterns could drastically change the progressive way of Dutch life. The rise in popularity of Fortuyn, a reactionary candidate for the Dutch elections (who was subsequently assassinated prior to the election), was in part due to his strong antiimmigration policies (particularly anti-Islamic immigrants) and a preservation of the Dutch way of life. The immigration of Muslims to France (and to The Netherlands) raises an important issue about whether groups have a fundamental right to protect their collective identity – in this case the French way of life. Kymlicka (1989) argues that individuals have a primary right to have access to cultural membership. Specifically, (1) that cultural membership has a more important status in liberal thought than is explicitly recognized – that is, that the individuals who are an unquestionable part of the liberal moral ontology are viewed as individual members of a particular cultural community, for whom cultural membership is an important good; and (2) that members of minority cultural communities may face particular kinds of disadvantages with respect to the good of cultural membership, disadvantages whose rectification requires and justifies the provision of minority rights. (1989: 162)
Kymlicka suggests that to ensure this, external protection for cultural communities is acceptable in order that they can be sustained and fostered within the larger plural society. Does Kymlicka’s argument hold in the case of France and the French way of life? Does the constraint of banning all religious symbols preserve the French civic republican nature of the public sphere? On the one hand, preserving the French way of life, through both the secular public sphere and the French culture, may warrant certain constraints to uphold that way of life. On the other hand, the Muslim community is not in the majority, and constraining their right to association of religion may curtail their own cultural rights. There is a further, and difficult, question concerning what constitutes the ‘French’ way of life. Any time we begin to try to label or identify an individual or a group of people by certain criteria of what it means to be ‘black’, ‘woman’, ‘Chinese’, ‘American’, ‘English’, and so forth, we begin to make judgements or distinctions, overgeneralize or label – all of which put individuals within or beyond the boundaries of that particular identity (Gutmann, [266]
Gereluk: Should Muslim headscarves be banned? 2002). At times, individuals find strength in belonging to a particular group, and at others, are hostile at being categorically and, perhaps unwillingly, lumped into a group. In trying to define a group we, ‘tend to treat cultural groups as monoliths – pay[ing] more attention to differences between and among groups than to differences within them’ (Moller-Okin, 1999: 12). Defining what is meant by being French creates similar dilemmas and tensions. Does being French mean drinking wine and eating pâté? Is it determined by skin colour, or by linguistic competence? Is it defined by location? I am not trying to be facetious here, but am trying to make the point that it is not clear that there are definitive criteria for what constitutes a French person, and setting up such criteria leads us along a dubious path. It is not within the scope of this article to settle this dilemma. To do so would require investigation of whether the Muslim community has threatened the French way of life either through the actual numbers of Muslims living in France, or through changing the nature of public policy in the country. However, if I were to guess, I would think that the French are threatened at present neither by a growing Muslim community, nor by their influence on public policies in the country to a degree that would warrant constraining external members’ rights in order to protect a collective minority. Unless stronger empirical evidence suggests that religious groups (and particularly the Islamic faith, which seems to be receiving the strictest enforcement) are threatening the French way of life, the argument of collective rights does not hold much sway. In any case, I am not convinced that the ‘traditional’ French way of life (as is stereotyped), should be an ossified construct, but rather may evolve and include non-Christian ways of living. While preserving the French way of life does not appear to be a strong defence of laïcité, protecting individual rights, and especially children’s rights offers the strongest argument for enforcing laïcité. I turn to the issue of protecting individual rights in this final section.
i n t e r na l f a i t h p rac t i c e s a n d c h i l d r e n ’s r i g h t s One of the strongest arguments for constraining certain internal faith practices is that of protecting individual basic rights. One apparent reason for this constraint is that basic fundamental rights of an individual are arguably necessary for a person’s wellbeing. Without basic fundamental rights individuals are significantly constrained in their ability to lead the life of their own choosing. If individuals are denied access to schooling, maltreated, oppressed or unable to voice their opinions and concerns, they have little hope of being able to change the circumstances of which they are a part. In Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? Susan Moller-Okin (1999) argues that whereas advocates of group [267]
Theory and Research in Education 3(3) rights focus on protecting practices and ideologies within the public sphere, these protections spill over to shield non-innocent practices within the private sphere. By accepting the practices of certain groups as simply a part of their tradition or belief system, we may abandon those who are vulnerable (usually women and children) within the entrenched roles of power in an established hierarchical community or tradition. This has particular resonance in the case of the hijab. The concern is that dominant members of a community may hold considerable and undue pressure over vulnerable members of a community – in this case, women and, in particular, girls. The Islamic faith attracts warranted suspicion with respect to practices directed at women and girls. From an outsiders’ perspective, the hijab may be seen as a form of oppression; Muslim girls being unable to choose whether they wish to cover their heads. We can point to numerous narratives to illustrate this concern. In Azar Nafisi’s (2004) account of the oppression of women in Tehran where she taught as an English lecturer after the early days of the Iranian revolution, she recounts how the hijab stood as more than a voluntary symbol of the Islamic faith prior to the revolution, but had evolved into a symbol of oppression and suppression of women’s thoughts and actions. Jan Goodwin’s (1994) research into the lives of Islamic women in 10 Islamic countries tells of similar human rights abuses including physical and mental abuse, inability to own property, inability to receive education or to work and other atrocities that have been imposed on Islamic women and children. Unfair treatment, exploitation and violation of basic human rights of Islamic women and children strike at the core of basic fundamental principles of equality and liberty. From more fundamentalist Islamic perspectives, the hijab is not a form of oppression, but is a vital component of being an Islamic woman. Muslims argue that they recognize the importance of established differences in the roles of boys and girls, albeit both vitally essential and equal in status (Halstead, 1993: 63). These roles are not seen as hierarchical between men and women, but rather are advocated as complementary to the relationship between husband and wife in Muslim society. Muslim girls and boys are not allowed to intermingle outside the extended family once they reach puberty. For Muslims, adolescence is a period in life where girls and boys are particularly vulnerable, and one in which proper guidance from the family is essential to their development. Any exposure to sexual relationships, ranging from sexual harassment to premarital relations, is potentially very damaging. In one way, the hijab is significant in covering the girl, not as a sign of oppression, but for the girl to be seen as a human being rather than as a sexual object. In France, the rise in girls’ wearing of the hijab also seems to indicate a [268]
Gereluk: Should Muslim headscarves be banned? voluntary act of support, rather than a sudden mandatory change within the Islamic communities in France. While one can easily point to anecdotes of girls being forced to wear the hijab, other incidents indicate girls’ decision to wear the hijab. It is difficult to know whether girls’ decisions to wear the hijab are reached independently and by their own informed judgement. Whether adults apply pressure, or whether pressure is felt from the larger Muslim community, is difficult to ascertain. The issue here is whether wearing the hijab does compromise girls’ future autonomy as adults. Two considerations seem to be relevant at this point. The first is whether the banning of the hijab will protect those girls, for whom pressure is placed on them by their family or communities. The second is whether by banning the hijab we do a disservice to those fundamentalist families who may in fact force the girls to wear the hijab. By pushing them away from state schools, the state exacerbates the problem with those girls potentially dropping out of school. Let me consider both in turn. If we knew that banning the hijab in state schools did deter parents from forcing their daughters to conform, and more importantly, if we knew that these same parents did not withdraw their daughters from school as a result from the policy, then the justification for laïcité would seem to hold under the ‘basic rights’ principle. However there is no reason to believe that this is the case. The concern is that there is the potential for fundamentalist parents to withdraw their daughters from schools as a result of the policy. If this is the case we must balance the two: whether the ban of the hijab is a sufficient deterrent for parents to abide by the policy; or whether it will cause parents to withdraw their children. Given the two possible scenarios, the potential for parents to withdraw their daughters from state schools seems to be a much greater disadvantage for those daughters than if they are currently being forced to wear the hijab. Access to education is a strong indicator of a person’s future autonomy and jeopardizing that opportunity for those girls would be far worse than the internal pressures that they face in their private lives. Given this predicament, justification of the ban on religious symbols based on the principle of protecting individual basic rights may have the unintended consequence of creating worse circumstances for those girls’ future autonomy.
c o n c lu s i o n The bold legislation of laïcité has raised a number of philosophical issues about the way in which we reconcile collective interests and individual rights in liberal societies. Defining the limits of toleration in a pluralist society is relevant in this case, as is protecting collective interests both from that of the French perspective and from the Muslim minority in France. Finally, attempting to [269]
Theory and Research in Education 3(3) protect children’s basic rights becomes much more complex when we hypothetically play out the potential consequences. In the light of the considerations I have advanced it is difficult to justify the French government’s action. The French context does not warrant the constraint of ostentatious religious symbols. The fervour with which the French government and some particular heads of school have enforced this policy concerning the hijab, suggests a particular intolerance to Muslims. It also jeopardizes the wellbeing and autonomy of the girls it is apparently trying to protect, by risking a serious backlash among Muslim parents against public schooling. Such legislation takes a hard line that comes dangerously close to, and perhaps oversteps, the reasonable limits of liberal principles that are supposedly at the heart of France. ac k n ow l e d g e m e n t I would like to thank Ron Best, Michael Hand, Jo Peat and, in particular, Harry Brighouse, for their comments and suggestions.
note s 1. I am not going to belabour this point in this article. For an articulated and wellargued stance, see Brighouse (2000). 2. I will address the issue of neutrality in the following section.
ca s e s Mozert v. Hawkins County Board of Education (1987) 827 F.2d 1058. Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) 406 U.S. 205 (U.S.S.C.).
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b i o g ra p h i ca l n o t e d i a n n e g e r e lu k is Senior Lecturer at Roehampton University, London, UK. Her forthcoming book, Education and Community (2006), considers how Rawls is useful in developing a philosophical conception of community for discerning and promoting particular types of communities that we may wish to foster in education policy and practice. Correspondence to: Dianne Gereluk, School of Education, Froebel College, Roehampton University, Roehampton Lane, London, SW15 5PJ, UK. [email:
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