Editing Philosophy of education (section)

=== Equality ===
A recurrent demand on public education is that all students should be treated equally and in a fair manner.<ref name="RoutledgeEducation"/> One reason for this demand is that education plays a central role for the child's path and prospects in life, which should not be limited by unfair or arbitrary external circumstances.<ref name="StanfordEquality">{{cite web |last1=Shields |first1=Liam |last2=Newman |first2=Anne |last3=Satz |first3=Debra |title=Equality of Educational Opportunity |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equal-ed-opportunity/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |date=2017 |access-date=2024-05-31 |archive-date=2024-05-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240531092734/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equal-ed-opportunity/ |url-status=live }}</ref> But there are various disagreements about how this demand is best understood and whether it is applicable in all cases. An initial problem concerns what is meant by "[[Social equality|equality]]". In the field of education, it is often understood as [[equality of opportunity]]. In this sense, the demand for equality implies that education should open the same opportunities to everyone. This means, among other things, that students from higher social classes should not enjoy a competitive advantage over others.<ref name="StanfordPhilosophyOfEducation"/><ref name="StanfordEquality"/> One difficulty with this demand, when understood in a wide sense, is that there are many sources of [[educational inequality]] and it is not always in the best interest to eliminate all of them. For example, parents who are concerned with their young children's education may read them bedtime stories early on and thereby provide them with a certain advantage over other children who do not enjoy this privilege. But disallowing such practices to level the field would have serious negative side-effects.<ref name="StanfordEquality"/> A weaker position on this issue does not demand full equality but holds instead that educational policies should ensure that certain factors, like [[Race (human categorization)|race]], [[native language]], and [[disabilities]], do not pose obstacles to the equality of opportunity.<ref name="RoutledgeEducation"/>

A closely related topic is whether all students, both high and low performers, should be treated equally. According to some, more resources should be dedicated to low performers, to help them get to an average level, while others recommend a preferential treatment for high performers in order to help them fully develop their exceptional abilities and thereby benefit society at large.<ref name="BritannicaPhilosophyOfEducation"/><ref name="StanfordPhilosophyOfEducation"/><ref name="RoutledgeEducation"/> A similar problem is the issue of specialization. It concerns the question of whether all students should follow the same curriculum or to what extent they should specialize early on in specific fields according to their interests and skills.<ref name="BritannicaPhilosophyOfEducation"/><ref name="StanfordPhilosophyOfEducation"/>

[[Marxism|Marxist]] critiques of the school systems in [[Capitalism|capitalist]] societies often focus on the inequality they cause by sorting students for different economic positions. While overtly this process happens based on individual effort and desert, they argue that this just masks and reinforces the underlying influence of the preexisting [[Social class|social class structure]].<ref name="RoutledgeEducation"/><ref name="Cole2019">{{cite journal |last1=Cole |first1=Mike |title=Marxism and Educational Theory |journal=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education |date=25 January 2019 |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.105 |isbn=978-0-19-026409-3 |url=https://oxfordre.com/education/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264093-e-105 |language=en |access-date=31 May 2024 |archive-date=12 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211112000118/https://oxfordre.com/education/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264093-e-105 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Hickox1982">{{cite journal |last1=Hickox |first1=M. S. H. |title=The Marxist Sociology of Education: A Critique |journal=The British Journal of Sociology |date=1982 |volume=33 |issue=4 |pages=563–578 |doi=10.2307/589362 |jstor=589362 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/589362 |issn=0007-1315}}</ref> This is sometimes integrated into a wider Marxist perspective on society which holds that education in capitalist societies plays the role of upholding this inequality and thereby reproduces the [[Capitalist mode of production (Marxist theory)|capitalist relations of production]].<ref name="Hickox1982"/><ref name="Cole2019"/>

Other criticisms of the dominant paradigms in education are often voiced by [[Feminism|feminist]] and postmodern theorists.<ref name="BritannicaPhilosophyOfEducation"/> They usually point to alleged biases and forms of discrimination present in current practices that should be eliminated. Feminists often hold that traditional education is overly man-oriented and thereby oppresses women in some form.<ref name="Noddings2009">{{cite book |last1=Noddings |first1=Nel |title=The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education |date=30 October 2009 |url=https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195312881.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195312881-e-028 |language=en |chapter=Feminist Philosophy and Education |access-date=31 May 2024 |archive-date=1 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220101041026/https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195312881.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195312881-e-028 |url-status=live }}</ref> This bias was present to severe degrees in earlier forms of education and a lot of progress has been made towards more [[gender-equal]] forms of education. Nonetheless, feminists often contend that certain problems still persist in contemporary education. Some argue, for example, that this manifests itself in the prominence given to cognitive development in education, which is said to be associated primarily with [[masculinity]] in contrast to a more [[Femininity|feminine]] approach based on emotion and intuition.<ref name="Noddings2009"/><ref name="BritannicaPhilosophyOfEducation"/> A related criticism holds that there is an overemphasis on abilities belonging to the [[public sphere]], like [[reason]] and [[Objectivity (science)|objectivity]], in contrast to equally important characteristics belonging to the [[private sphere]], like [[compassion]] and [[empathy]].<ref name="BritannicaPhilosophyOfEducation"/>