Three lines of argument are central to this book: that Plato's views as expounded in the Republic indicate that he was a utilitarian; that utilitarianism is the only acceptable ethical theory; that these conclusions have significant repercussions for education. Throughout the book the exposition of utilitarianism and the interpretation of the Republic are closely linked. The author assesses the nature of recent Platonic criticism and provides a critical summary of the Republic. He expounds and defends utilitarianismn and examines in greater depth the consequences for education of accepting a utilitarian position, showing how, for example, from this standpoint such key terms in educational debate as 'autonomy' and 'self-development' must be reassessed as educational objectives.

This introduction to Plato’s philosophical and educational thought examines Plato’s views and relates them to issues and questions that occupy philosophers of education. Robin Barrow stresses the relevance of Plato today, while introducing the student both to Plato’s philosophy and to contemporary educational debate. In the first part of the book the author examines Plato’s historical background and summarizes the Republic. Successive chapters are concerned with the critical discussion of specific educational issues. He deals with questions relating to the impartial distribution of education, taking as a starting point Plato’s celebrated dictum that unequals should be treated unequally. He examines certain methodological concepts such as ‘discovery-learning’ and ‘play’ and also raises the wider question of children’s freedom. He looks critically at the content of the curriculum and discusses Plato’s theory of knowledge and attitude to art. Finally Robin Barrow discusses Plato’s view of moral education and the related problem of what constitutes moral indoctrination

John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism is a philosophical defense of utilitarianism, a moral theory stating that right actions are those that tend to promote overall happiness. The essay first appeared as a series of articles published in Fraser’s Magazine in 1861; the articles were collected and reprinted as a single book in 1863. Mill discusses utilitarianism in some of his other works, including On Liberty and The Subjection of Women, but Utilitarianism contains his only sustained defence of the theory. In this Broadview Edition, Colin Heydt provides a substantial introduction that will enable readers to understand better the polemical context for Utilitarianism. Heydt shows, for example, how Mill’s moral philosophy grew out of political engagement, rather than exclusively out of a speculative interest in determining the nature of morality. Appendices include precedents to Mill’s work, reactions to Utilitarianism, and related writings by Mill.

This book addresses the question 'What should be taught in schools and why?'. The book begins by stressing the way in which such a question should be approached and goes on to offer a comprehensive and stringent critique of a variety of principles for the selection of curriculum content, with particularly important sections on deschooling and the hidden culture curriculum theory. The final chapter contains the positive curricular recommendations, with virtually every candidate for curriculum time examined and assessed in respect of its educational worth.

​From antiquity to the present, schools of some form have, in one way or other, been involved in the material and symbolic reproduction of societies. Such diachronic resilience, along with the synchronic omnipresence of schooling often makes schools appear as natural, self-evident and unavoidable. This naturalization of schooling is then extended to its modern specification as compulsory in a universalist fashion. This book does not only seek to explore what is left of older debates on compulsory education in the years’ hindsight but also to associate the discussion of schooling with new theoretical developments and new emphases. It contains a first part, which operates, primarily, at the conceptual and justificatory level and reserves a, more or less, qualified welcome to a revisited notion of compulsory. And it supplements this first part with a second, more applied one that focuses on specific aspects of compulsory schooling and/or education. From Luther down to John Stuart Mill and John Dewey, compulsory education has been heralded either as a vehicle of social coordination and individual well-being, or as a vehicle of democratization and progress, or as a means for protecting the rights of the young and of society, and so on and so forth. But there have also been periods of challenge and denaturalization of compulsory education, producing a range of interesting and spirited debates not only on matters of educational legality but also on matters that boil down to broader philosophical questions about the self and the world. Without neglecting the lasting significance of older debates, argumentation over schooling, its character and its scope can be recast in the light of current philosophical educational debates. Given the fact that failure adequately to mine such connections leads to a lack in philosophical-educational engagement with one of the most central pedagogical practices of the contemporary world, namely, the school, the book aspires to remedy this lack and to put together work that addresses those connections through the highly original and innovative work of its contributors. The subtext in all contributions is a vision of educational transformation in one way or other. All chapters (from the most theoretical to the most practice-related) promote a version of a recast or redirected compulsory schooling.