| dc.description.abstract | This research arises out of the belief that curricular materials selection does not
adequately align with children's educational rights. I defend the position that the
child's interest in an education for open-mindedness, in particular, is integral to her
roles as an autonomous person who will govern the course of her own life and as a
citizen in a liberal democracy. In order to make good choices in both capacities, the
child must be capable of seeing beyond her presently held beliefs and values to other
options, and must be capable of subjecting those current beliefs and values to critical
scrutiny. I argue that the willingness and ability to entertain seriously views other than
one's own presumes the possession of the virtue of open-mindedness.
The nurturance of the virtue of open-mindedness must correspond to
developmental theory. This would suggest that the early years of relatively
unsophisticated rational capacities would be marked by the inculcation of beliefs and
values fundamental to the virtue of open-mindedness; in later childhood, the
development of open-mindedness will require engagement of the critical faculties
through confrontation with challenging and controversial ideas. The virtue of openmindedness
is so central to autonomous personhood and democratic citizenship, I
contend, that it is a vital interest which merits the ascription of a moral right to
children. An acknowledgement of the morally egalitarian nature of children and parents
leads me to say that the child's moral right to an education for open-mindedness preempts
even the parental right to direct the education of one's child, as the former right
is more fundamental to personhood. This moral right is not only the ground of moral
duties on the part of others, I suggest, but is also the impetus to hail a corresponding
legal right. I conclude that the child's right to an education for open-mindedness, while
currently a legal orphan, can find a constitutional home in section 7 of the Canadian
Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the right to life, liberty and security
of the person, and section 2, which protects the fundamental freedoms of conscience,
religion, thought, belief, opinion and expression. | en_US |
