Abstract
In chapters three to five I focused on central features of the content of the claim that there is within Catholicism a distinctive philosophy of education and of life. It must be acknowledged that there can be no absolute demarcation between the content of a claim and what its adherents believe should follow from it. Nevertheless, I intend to draw out some of the implications of this claim by focusing on various ways that this distinctiveness might be expressed in broad policy issues or in particular practices in Catholic schools. The main aim of the chapter is to explore how the claim to be distinctive coheres with the parallel claim that Catholic education is essentially inclusive. Different meanings of the term ‘inclusiveness’ and its correlative ‘exclusiveness’ will be analysed. I shall indicate in the process some of the factors that have had a bearing on a deepening understanding of and commitment to inclusiveness in education. Then I shall argue that many aspects of inclusiveness are compatible with Catholic principles; that some aspects are essential to such principles, but that other aspects present problems for Catholic educators.1 Some kinds of inclusiveness necessarily follow from a Catholic perspective and are intrinsic to Catholic education. Other aspects are accepted as part of a set of liberal principles that do not depend upon Catholic beliefs, but which do not contradict them either.
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Notes for Chapter 6
For an interesting treatment of inclusive and exclusive forms of secularism in schools, one which contrasts with my treatment of inclusive and exclusive forms of Catholic education, see Graham Haydon, ‘Conceptions of the Secular in Society, Polity and Schools’, Journal of Philosophy of Education,vol. 28, no. 1, 1994, pp.65–75. For a treatment of the open and closed aspects of Catholic school culture, see also Kevin Williams, ’Religion, Culture and Schooling’ in From Ideal to Action,edited by Matthew Feheney, Dublin, Veritas, 1998. Williams argues that one of the most distinctive features of a Catholic school should be its openness. He shows (p.50) that “a Christian school which is clear sighted about its telos does not have to be intolerant, ungenerous and illiberal in its culture.”
J. Quicke, ‘Differentiation: a contested concept’, Cambridge Journal of Education, vol. 25, no. 2, 1995, p. 214.
Code of Practice on the Identification and Assessment of Special Educational Needs,Department for Education and Welsh Office, 1994; Circular 6/94: The Organisation of Special Educational Provision,Department for Education, 1994.
See Robert Stradling and Lesley Saunders, Differentiation in Action,London, NFER/HMSO, 1991, and also National Council for Educational Technology, Differentiation: A Practical Handbook of Classroom Strategies,Coventry, NCET, 1993. Catholic Education Service, Differentiation: A Catholic Response,London, 1997.
Jim Gallagher, Soil for the Seed, Great Wakering, McCrimmons, 2001, p. 100.
There is also a close connection between the notions of reception and inculturation. On inculturation, see chapter four, note 15. For two important studies on ‘reception’, see Frederick Bliss, Understanding Reception, Milwaukee, Marquette University Press, 1994, and Daniel Finucane, Sensus Fidelium: The Uses of a Concept in the Post-Vatican II Era, San Francisco, International Scholars Publications, 1996.
Jim Gallagher, in The Contemporary Catholic School, edited by T. H. McLaughlin, J. O’Keefe and B. O’Keeffe, London, Falmer Press, 1996, p. 292.
John Paul II, Catechesi Tradendae,London, Catholic Truth Society, 1979, section 69, p.92. For the theme of respect for religious freedom in Catholic education, see also The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School,para 6.
Especially forms one to four, seven and eight, as listed in 6.1.2., above.
Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, Catholic Schools and Other Faiths, London, Catholic Education Service, 1996.
Ibid., pp.4, 6.
In particular, Nostra Aetate,on relations with other faiths, Dignitatis Humanae,on religious freedom and Gaudium et Spes,on positive acceptance of the modern world.
Congregation for Catholic Education, Directives Concerning the Preparation of Seminary Educators, Boston, St Paul Books, 1994, p.25. See also Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life, Inter-Institute Collaboration for Formation, Boston, St Paul Books, 1999, p.25. For a careful analysis of differentiation in the school context of religious teaching, see `Le cours de religion, un carrefour?’ by Monique Foket, in L’Enseignement de la Religion au Carrefour de la Théologie et de la Pédagogie, edited by Camille Focant, Louvain-la-Neuve, Peeters, 1994.
Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, Valuing Difference, Chelmsford, Matthew James Publishing, 1998.
S Bishops’Conference of England and Wales, On the Threshold, Chelmsford, Matthew James Publishing, 2000.
For example, anthropology, sociology
psychology and politics.
On inclusivity in ecclesiology, see Dennis Doyle, Communion Ecclesiology, New York, Orbis, 2000, pp. 172–174.
See Owen O’Sullivan, The Silent Schism: Renewal of Catholic Spirit and Structures,Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1997, p.109, on the integration of the feminine for a greater completeness in the church and p.175, on the attitudes prerequisite for ecumenism: tolerance of diversity, a spirit of dialogue, respect for the person, recognition of the role of reception and working in communio (all drawn from Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint.)On the option for the poor, see Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, The Common Good and the Catholic Church’s Social Teaching,Manchester, Gabriel Communications, 1996, paragraphs 12–15. For a direct application of such teaching to education, see Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, The Common Good in Education,Chelmsford, Matthew James Publishing, 1997. The priority to be given to the disadvantaged has been given official status as a core principle in Catholic education. See Principles, Practices and Concerns,p.3, and Learning from OFSTED and Diocesan Inspections,pp.20–21, both Catholic Education Service, 1996.
For examples of feminist theology, see Women’s Voices: Essays in Contemporary Feminist Theology,edited by Teresa Elwes, London, Marshall Pickering, 1992; Feminist Theology: A Reader,edited by
Ann Loades, London, SPCK, 1990; and Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is,New York, Crossroad, 1992. 21Harvey Siegel, ‘What Price
Inclusion?’, Teachers College Record,vol. 97, no. 1, Fall 1995, pp.10, 25. 22/bid.,p.25.
bid., p.14.
Jonathan Sacks, The Persistence of Faith, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991, p. 106.
Matthew 28.18. The Gospels as a whole show Jesus being inclusive of sinners, outcasts, women, people of other races, the unpopular and the sick.
Michael Barnes, SJ, ‘Catholic Schools in a World of Many Faiths,’ in Contemporary Catholic School,p.236.
lbid.
Barnes, Religions in Conversation,London, SPCK, 1989, pp.8, 35.
See Barnes, ibid.,p.49.
See Mike Golby, (unpublished) ‘Communitarianism and Education’ in Papers of Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain Conference, Oxford, 1996, p.152.
Thomas Ogletree, quoted by Lucien Richard in Jeff Astley, Leslie Francis and Colin Crowder (eds),Theological Perspectives on Christian Formation, Leominster, Gracewing, 1996, p. 159.
Nicholas Lash, Easter in Ordinary,London, SCM Press, 1988, pp.258–9. Such an all-embracing approach will be guided, for Lash, by what he calls the ‘identity-sustaining rules of Christian discourse and behaviour’. See pp.259, 271, 272.
See The Ebbing Tide,pp.227–8.
David Pailin, A Gentle Touch,(London, SPCK, 1992), pp.13, 95.
See John Bradford, Caring for the Whole Child, London, The Children’s Society, 1995, p. 37.
Kenneth Wilson, Education, 23 February 1996, p. 12.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Avery Dulles, Models of Church,(Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1974) has provided one of the most influential summaries of a changing ecclesiology.
See Leonard Doohan, The Lay-Centered Church,Minneapolis, Winston Press, 1984, Edmund Hill, Ministry and Authority in the Catholic Church,London, Geoffrey Chapman, 1988 and Terence Nichols, That All May Be One: Hierarchy and Participation in the Church,Collegeville, Minnesota, The Liturgical Press, 1997, for three examples of a less hierarchical emphasis in post Vatican II ecclesiology.
The Sign We Give,a report on collaborative ministry produced for the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, Chelmsford, Matthew James Publishing, 1995, argues (p.20) for inclusiveness to be treated as a central feature of Catholicism.
See, for example, Ut Unum Sint,encyclical of Pope John Paul II, London, Catholic Truth Society, 1995. 43Signe Sandsmark
Religion - Icing on the Educational Cake?’, Religious Education, Vol. 90, No3/4, Summer/Fall 1995, p. 427.
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty,quoted by Tony Jackson, Discipleship or Pilgrimage? The Educator’s Quest for Philosophy,State University of New York Press, 1995), p.143.
John Milton, Areopagitica and other tracts, London, Dent, 1907, p. 22.
Larry May, The Socially Responsive Self,Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1996, pp.17, 18, 22, 41.
Martin Buber, Between Man and Man, London, Fontana, 1974, p. 123.
bid., p.124.
bid., p.128.
Ibid.
Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out, London, Collins/Fount, 1980, p. 81.
bid.
bid., pp.82, 91, 92.
Max van Manen, The Tact of Teaching: The Meaning of Pedagogical Thoughtfulness, London, Ontario, The Althouse Press, 1993.
Thomas Groome, Educating for Life, Allen, Texas, Thomas More Press, 1998, p. 197.
Kevin Williams, ‘The Religious Dimension of Secular Learning: an Irish dilemma’, Panorama, 1996, p. 12.
Ibid.
bid., p.2.
It should be noted that Williams is referring, not to the kind of Catholic schools there are in England and Wales, where they constitute only a minority (about 10% of schools in total), but to the rather different context of Catholic schools in Ireland, where they are the common form of schooling.
Dermot Lane, ‘Catholic Education and the School: Some Theological Reflections’, in The Catholic School in Contemporary Society, Dublin, Conference of Major Religious Superiors, 1991, p. 92.
Examples of the plurality of views within Catholicism include: (1) the practice of contraception, (2) the merits of intercommunion, (3) the standing of the divorced in relation to reception of sacraments, (4) the scope of church authority in relation to theological expression, (5) the relative emphasis to be given to social justice or to spirituality in the life of the church, and (6) the respective weight to be given to local, national and to Roman decisions, for example, in episcopal appointments. Some of these impinge directly on schools and require sensitive handling.
Leela Ramsden (in The Contemporary Catholic School,p.206) quotes from Walsh and Davies’ (1984) collection, Proclaiming Justice and Peace: Documents from John XXIII to John Paul II,London, Collins Liturgical Publications: “Every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, colour, social conditions, language or religion, must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God’s design.”
Elliott Eisner, The Enlightened Eye, New York, Macmillan, 1991.
N. Brennan, ‘Christian Education, Contestation and the Catholic School’, p.10. in Conference of Major Religious Superiors (Ireland), The Catholic School in Contemporary Society, Dublin, Conference of Major Religious Superiors, 1991.
John Langan, ‘Catholicism and Liberalism’, in Liberalism and the Good, edited by R. Bruce Douglass, Gerald Mara and Henry Richardson, New York, Routledge, 1990, pp. 110–111.
Michael Walzer (in Thick and Thin,Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1994) traces the idea of thickness (with regard to interpretations of morality and of life generally) to Clifford Geerti s The Interpretation of Cultures,New York, Basic Books, 1973. Bernard Williams discusses thick concepts of morality in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy,London, Fontana, 1985, pp.129, 140, 143–145. Charles Taylor discusses the problematic nature of frameworks and strong evaluation which feature as central aspects of thick accounts of the good in Sources of the Self Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989. T. H. McLaughlin has discussed thick and thin theories of the good in ‘Values, Coherence and the School’, in Cambridge Journal of Education,Vol. 24, no. 3, 1994, pp.453–470.
See Brian Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1992, pp. 235–7.
On the need for balance between parental rights, children’s rights and the requirements of education, see Eamonn Callan, ‘The Great Sphere: Education against Servility’, Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 31, no. 2, July 1997, pp.221 — 232. On the need for a liberal state to restrict parental rights in the interest of promoting autonomy in students as a necessary foundation for responsible citizenship, see Meira Levinson, The demands of liberal education, New York, Oxford University Press, 1999.
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Sullivan, J. (2001). Inclusiveness and Exclusiveness. In: Catholic Education: Distinctive and Inclusive. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0988-0_6
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