Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy
An argument for ``liberalism with spine'' that commands attention for its deft historical analysis and nuanced reasoning. Macedo (Constitutional Law and Politics/Syracuse Univ.) makes a strong case for what he calls civic liberalism, a ``tough-minded'' dedication to democratic institutions and virtues. Civic liberalism stresses the ``degree of moral convergence'' necessary to preserve a society that permits great (though not limitless) cultural and religious diversity. Public policies, especially those related to public schools, should shape citizens predisposed to mutual respect, critical reasoning, and other virtues of public life. Such citizen-formation, Macedo asserts, has ``unavoidable non-neutral consequences for the religious beliefs and ways of life that flourish in our regime''notably those of the fundamentalist Christians who, in Mozert v. Hawkins, tried unsuccessfully to have their children remain in public school while opting out of a reading program that exposed them to other religious views. Macedo's writing can be ponderous and repetitious. But he is more often engrossing, as his trenchant analysis illuminates court cases (including Mozert); the history of American schools; the influence of American liberalism on Catholicism; and political thinkers from Locke to Rawls. Some aspects of Macedo's argument are weaker than others: He criticizes disfavored world-views like fundamentalism as ``totalistic'' without showing how any world-view, including his, can be anything but that. And despite his repeated disavowals of anti-Catholic prejudice, his phrase ``the Catholic question'' unpleasantly echoes the old ``Jewish question.'' On the whole, however, Macedo embodies the kind of citizen he wants to shape: self-critical, respectful of opponents, and giving and demanding reasons based on shared experience. A serious, though not unproblematic, answer to the question of how to preserve a common civic life in an era of pluralism.  --Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.