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In the context of much thought today about social diversity and multicultural education, one especially intriguing issue is, "Can the Liberal State Support Cultural Identity Schools?" Kevin McDonough has been wrestling with this issue at least since he prepared a 1994 dissertation on it, with special reference to Indian schools. His most recent article appeared in the August 1998 American Journal of Education (vol. 106, no. 4), 463-99.
Many kinds of cases come up in any full consideration of the issue. These cases include black-male schools (e.g., the academies in Detroit) and schools which are aimed at fostering (uncritically) certain conceptions of particular ethnic identities but with little or no truly multicultural component. McDonough offers a finely nuanced set of arguments for distinguish ing various types of cases and for supporting or rejecting state support for each type.
Much depends, as he shows, on which of several definitions of the modern "liberal" state one adopts. (We live in such a democratically ordered state, generally defined over against "conservative" states of the past and present that are essentially run by monarches and/or aristocratic elites. Thus, today, North American "liberal" polity is diversely viewed along a scale from politically and/or socially and/or economically ultra"conservative" standpoints to ultra"liberal" ones.)
McDonough's contribution lies especially in his reasoned contention that "strong" cultural identity schools are rarely to be justified in any way that displays an adequate sense of social reality in North America or holds a corresponding set of reasoned principles. As a temporary measure (e.g., in weighing whether the state should support or allow a school on an Indian reservation that is bent on transmitting only certain values identified with a particular tribe versus whether any greater value could be obtained by a decision to bus children outside the reservation in places where they are very likely to be subject to unequal treatment or by placing multicultural and other requirements on the school), even a strong cultural identity school might`be acceptable, but the usual case on most "liberal" views-defined in the broad sense-would be one based on requirements that, in effect, enable students to think out and make judgments regarding their own familial or ethnic tradition.
He points out, convincingly in my view, that very few traditions in any...