Getting the measure of measurement: global educational opportunity

Although measurement is widely misused in education, it is indispensable in addressing the problems of injustice in global educational opportunity. Considering how the case can be made for legitimate use of measurement in normative analysis and argument, we explore ways in which metrics have featured in the formulation of theories of justice, with particular attention to resourcist and capabilities approaches. We then consider three means of addressing global inequality and defend a reconstruction of the public sphere in which objective measures of justice, deliberatively constructed, could supersede prevalent assumptions about measurement

Philosophical approaches to educational research: justice, democracy and education

In this case study we show how methods of philosophical interpretation can illuminate fundamental questions about the complementary concepts of justice and democracy in education. Globalisation prompts rethinking of basic ethical and political concepts. So, drawing on the idea of philosophical interpretation as reflective equilibrium, we set out to resolve tensions between the key concepts and assumptions of current theoretical positions and the demands and constraints imposed by contemporary global political, ethical and educational issues. We show how liberal feminism can accommodate diversity and inclusion, cosmopolitan justice as a form of universal inclusion can be sensitive to varying global circumstances, and cosmopolitan democracy and justice require both redistribution of educational goods and the education of citizens for participation in cosmopolitan institutions. Working within an analytical framework influenced by Rawlsian liberalism but drawing on a feminist and cosmopolitan reconstruction, we argue that fostering justice and democratic institutions depends crucially on education

Educating for a just world without gender

In this article we examine Okin’s ideal of a ‘gender-free society’ and its relations to central educational values and practices. We suggest that this ideal pervades her work on the family, culture and, more recently, her focus on the developing world, and gives her liberal feminist stance its radical bite. We contrast this ideal with the more standard notion of gender-neutrality (non-discrimination) and argue that Okin’s more demanding concept (going beyond equal access to positions, benefits and opportunities as currently defined, to insist on the critical overhauling of the systems that determine them) far better accords with requirements of justice. We then go on to explore the contribution to a ‘gender-free society’ of construing women’s rights as human rights which Okin saw as crucial to countering threats against gender equality from competing claims of both multiculturalists and economic development theorists. We consider implications for education (including schooling) arising from the commitment to bring about a ‘gender-free society’