Josh Corngold | University of Tulsa (original) (raw)
Book Chapters and Encyclopedia Entries by Josh Corngold
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education, 2021
Besides being protected by the First Amendment, the right of students and faculty to express diff... more Besides being protected by the First Amendment, the right of students and faculty to express different ideas and opinions—even discomfiting ideas and opinions—is central to the academic mission of schools, colleges, and universities. Two familiar arguments articulated by John Stuart Mill underscore this point: First, the dynamic clash of contrary ideas offers the best prospect we have of arriving at the “whole truth” about any complex subject. Second, unless it is subject to periodic questioning and critique, any established and received bit of wisdom “will be held in the manner of a prejudice with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.”
These arguments notwithstanding, heated debates persist as to the proper bounds of free speech in educational institutions dedicated to open inquiry and the examination of multiple viewpoints. Two distinct positions provide us with a useful framework for analyzing many of these debates. The libertarian position rejects regulation of campus speech—except in extreme cases of speech that invade the rights of individuals or small specific groups of people—while instead championing a maximally free marketplace of ideas. The liberal democratic position, however, proposes that, in the interest of scholarly objectivity and rational autonomy, verbal interaction that denigrates or stigmatizes others on account of ascriptive characteristics such as gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation should be constrained in higher education. Adherents to the libertarian position oppose the implementation of campus hate speech codes on the grounds that such codes violate First Amendment principles and are not an effective bulwark against prejudice, discrimination, and inequality. Adherents to the liberal democratic position support narrowly tailored speech codes that formally sanction slurs, “fighting words,” and the like, but they generally believe that most of the work of regulating abusive speech should occur through the informal enforcement of new “norms of civility” on campus.
Although these two positions constitute a major fault line in debates over campus speech, they do not capture the range of standpoints taken by participants in the debates. To cite one noteworthy example, some scholars, in the name of what they refer to as “an affirmative action pedagogy,” call for broader restrictions on speech (particularly classroom speech) than either the libertarian or liberal democratic positions endorse.
Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks: Philosophy: Education, 2017
This chapter brings philosophical analysis—as well as insights from empirical research—to bear on... more This chapter brings philosophical analysis—as well as insights from empirical research—to bear on the question of what students should learn about sex, given the stark realities of sexual violence in contemporary American society. The central argument is that school-based sex education should, in a developmentally appropriate way, prepare students to make their own informed and unmanipulated decisions about their sexual lives, consistent with the right of others to do the same. The first part of the chapter articulates why sex education should aim to promote students’ autonomy and describes what this will entail in terms of learning objectives for students. The second part takes up the more specific and related question of what schools and colleges should teach students about sexual consent.
Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy, 2014
The question of whether individuals should be permitted to wear religious dress and symbols on pu... more The question of whether individuals should be permitted to wear religious dress and symbols on public school grounds has garnered a great deal of attention from political and educational theorists in recent years. It is a question that raises a host of thorny philosophical issues—about the rights of cultural minorities in free and diverse societies, about the plausibility of state neutrality with regard to different conceptions of the good, about the scope of parents’ rights in the educational realm, about children’s prospective interest in personal autonomy, about the civic purposes of schooling, and so on.
Books by Josh Corngold
Educating for Democracy reports the results of the Political Engagement Project, a study of educa... more Educating for Democracy reports the results of the Political Engagement Project, a study of educational practices at the college level that prepare students for responsible democratic participation. In this book, coauthors Anne Colby, Elizabeth Beaumont, Thomas Ehrlich, and Josh Corngold show that education for political development can increase students’ political understanding, skill, motivation, and involvement while contributing to many aspects of general academic learning.
Edited Journal Issues by Josh Corngold
Refereed Articles by Josh Corngold
Educational Theory, 2013
Perhaps no other part of the school curriculum generates as much controversy and on such a consis... more Perhaps no other part of the school curriculum generates as much controversy and on such a consistent basis as sex education. Recent polling data from the United States, Canada, and Britain point to a broad consensus among citizens of those countries that schools should offer some form of sex education. But exactly what should be taught, when, and how are matters of intense and ongoing debate.
Educational Theory, 2013
How should common schools in a liberal pluralist society approach sex education in the face of de... more How should common schools in a liberal pluralist society approach sex education in the face of deep disagreement about sexual morality? Should they eschew sex education altogether? Should they narrow its focus to facts about biology, reproduction, and disease prevention? Should they, in addition to providing a broad palette of information about sex, attempt to cover a range of alternative views about sexual morality in a ‘‘value-neutral’’ manner? Should they seek to impart a ‘‘thick’’ conception of sexual morality, which precisely articulates how individuals should lead their sexual lives? In this essay, Josh Corngold cautions against the adoption of each of these various approaches. He argues that schools should instead adopt an ‘‘autonomy-promoting’’ approach, which will aim to empower students, cognitively and emotionally, to exercise sovereignty over their own sexuality.
Theory and Research in Education, 2012
This article offers a critique of Harry Brighouse’s ‘autonomy-facilitating education’, which aims... more This article offers a critique of Harry Brighouse’s ‘autonomy-facilitating education’, which aims to enable students to reflect critically on their lives and society without disposing them to do so. Because it is ‘character-neutral’, this kind of education purportedly avoids some of the controversy surrounding autonomy-promotion. At the same time, it allegedly equips students to withstand common pressures and influences which jeopardize their prospective autonomy. Yet, as I argue here, autonomy-facilitating education cannot live up to the promises Brighouse makes for it. As the case of sex education exemplifies, students need more than a toolbox of rational skills to overcome persistent threats to their autonomy. They need access to an autonomy-promoting education that attends to their cognitive and psychosocial development.
Journal of Educational Controversy, 2012
There is no denying that educational institutions have an important role to play in preparing stu... more There is no denying that educational institutions have an important role to play in preparing students for (hopefully meaningful) work and economic self-sufficiency, and that this contributes to the economic health of the nation as a whole. But to conceive of the goals of education in exclusively, or even primarily, economic terms does a disservice to children, and to the world they will inhabit as adults. Schooling in a free and diverse society should be about much more than job preparation; it should be about equipping children to lead flourishing lives, in which career success is but one element, and to participate as civic equals in democratic decision-making.
Studies in Philosophy and Education, 2011
This paper offers a critique of the “democratic state of education” proposed by Amy Gutmann in he... more This paper offers a critique of the “democratic state of education” proposed by Amy Gutmann in her influential book Democratic Education. In the democratic state of education, educational authority is shared among the state, parents and educational professionals; and educational objectives are geared toward equipping future citizens to participate in what Gutmann calls “conscious social reproduction”—the collective shaping of the future of society through democratic deliberation. Although I agree with some of Gutmann’s broad recommendations for civic education, I have misgivings about the centrality that she gives to conscious social reproduction in her theory of education. I argue that in focusing so intently on the facilitation of conscious social reproduction, Gutmann’s theory makes insufficient room for the basic interests of individual children, and in particular, their prospective interest in autonomy. Gutmann’s considered position on sex education policy—specifically, her willingness to allow local communities to deny their children access to sex education—exemplifies the shortcomings of her theory. Ultimately, her democratic state of education fails to acknowledge the fundamental moral importance of individual flourishing, and the contribution that education can and should make to it.
Philosophy of Education 2005
The vast literature on toleration has done little to clarify this “philosophically elusive concep... more The vast literature on toleration has done little to clarify this “philosophically elusive concept.” In an effort to make it more effective in resolving “hard cases of contemporary pluralism,” some moral and political philosophers have tried to expand the conceptual domain of toleration. In effect, they not only associate, but conflate toleration with a host of other virtues and approaches to diversity. Such tendencies are symptomatic of either an ignorance of or an intentional effort to dispense with the definitive negative aspect of toleration. This essay is intended to serve as a reminder of this negative aspect and the conceptual limitations that it places on toleration.
Response Essays and Book Reviews by Josh Corngold
Philosophy of Education, 2014
Philosophy of Education 2010
Philosophy of Education 2009
Philosophy of Education 2006
Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2005
ABSTRACT The Blackwell Companion and Blackwell Guide to the philosophy of education, edited respe... more ABSTRACT The Blackwell Companion and Blackwell Guide to the philosophy of education, edited respectively by Randall Curren and by Nigel Blake, Paul Smeyers, Richard Smith and Paul Standish, are potentially field-defining volumes. The present essay moves back and forth between the two books to assess the overall impression they provide of the ‘state of the art’. Whilst both texts can be criticised for failing to engage sufficiently with non-philosophical work on education, these are otherwise estimable volumes, containing many fine essays that can be read with profit.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education, 2021
Besides being protected by the First Amendment, the right of students and faculty to express diff... more Besides being protected by the First Amendment, the right of students and faculty to express different ideas and opinions—even discomfiting ideas and opinions—is central to the academic mission of schools, colleges, and universities. Two familiar arguments articulated by John Stuart Mill underscore this point: First, the dynamic clash of contrary ideas offers the best prospect we have of arriving at the “whole truth” about any complex subject. Second, unless it is subject to periodic questioning and critique, any established and received bit of wisdom “will be held in the manner of a prejudice with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.”
These arguments notwithstanding, heated debates persist as to the proper bounds of free speech in educational institutions dedicated to open inquiry and the examination of multiple viewpoints. Two distinct positions provide us with a useful framework for analyzing many of these debates. The libertarian position rejects regulation of campus speech—except in extreme cases of speech that invade the rights of individuals or small specific groups of people—while instead championing a maximally free marketplace of ideas. The liberal democratic position, however, proposes that, in the interest of scholarly objectivity and rational autonomy, verbal interaction that denigrates or stigmatizes others on account of ascriptive characteristics such as gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation should be constrained in higher education. Adherents to the libertarian position oppose the implementation of campus hate speech codes on the grounds that such codes violate First Amendment principles and are not an effective bulwark against prejudice, discrimination, and inequality. Adherents to the liberal democratic position support narrowly tailored speech codes that formally sanction slurs, “fighting words,” and the like, but they generally believe that most of the work of regulating abusive speech should occur through the informal enforcement of new “norms of civility” on campus.
Although these two positions constitute a major fault line in debates over campus speech, they do not capture the range of standpoints taken by participants in the debates. To cite one noteworthy example, some scholars, in the name of what they refer to as “an affirmative action pedagogy,” call for broader restrictions on speech (particularly classroom speech) than either the libertarian or liberal democratic positions endorse.
Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks: Philosophy: Education, 2017
This chapter brings philosophical analysis—as well as insights from empirical research—to bear on... more This chapter brings philosophical analysis—as well as insights from empirical research—to bear on the question of what students should learn about sex, given the stark realities of sexual violence in contemporary American society. The central argument is that school-based sex education should, in a developmentally appropriate way, prepare students to make their own informed and unmanipulated decisions about their sexual lives, consistent with the right of others to do the same. The first part of the chapter articulates why sex education should aim to promote students’ autonomy and describes what this will entail in terms of learning objectives for students. The second part takes up the more specific and related question of what schools and colleges should teach students about sexual consent.
Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy, 2014
The question of whether individuals should be permitted to wear religious dress and symbols on pu... more The question of whether individuals should be permitted to wear religious dress and symbols on public school grounds has garnered a great deal of attention from political and educational theorists in recent years. It is a question that raises a host of thorny philosophical issues—about the rights of cultural minorities in free and diverse societies, about the plausibility of state neutrality with regard to different conceptions of the good, about the scope of parents’ rights in the educational realm, about children’s prospective interest in personal autonomy, about the civic purposes of schooling, and so on.
Educating for Democracy reports the results of the Political Engagement Project, a study of educa... more Educating for Democracy reports the results of the Political Engagement Project, a study of educational practices at the college level that prepare students for responsible democratic participation. In this book, coauthors Anne Colby, Elizabeth Beaumont, Thomas Ehrlich, and Josh Corngold show that education for political development can increase students’ political understanding, skill, motivation, and involvement while contributing to many aspects of general academic learning.
Educational Theory, 2013
Perhaps no other part of the school curriculum generates as much controversy and on such a consis... more Perhaps no other part of the school curriculum generates as much controversy and on such a consistent basis as sex education. Recent polling data from the United States, Canada, and Britain point to a broad consensus among citizens of those countries that schools should offer some form of sex education. But exactly what should be taught, when, and how are matters of intense and ongoing debate.
Educational Theory, 2013
How should common schools in a liberal pluralist society approach sex education in the face of de... more How should common schools in a liberal pluralist society approach sex education in the face of deep disagreement about sexual morality? Should they eschew sex education altogether? Should they narrow its focus to facts about biology, reproduction, and disease prevention? Should they, in addition to providing a broad palette of information about sex, attempt to cover a range of alternative views about sexual morality in a ‘‘value-neutral’’ manner? Should they seek to impart a ‘‘thick’’ conception of sexual morality, which precisely articulates how individuals should lead their sexual lives? In this essay, Josh Corngold cautions against the adoption of each of these various approaches. He argues that schools should instead adopt an ‘‘autonomy-promoting’’ approach, which will aim to empower students, cognitively and emotionally, to exercise sovereignty over their own sexuality.
Theory and Research in Education, 2012
This article offers a critique of Harry Brighouse’s ‘autonomy-facilitating education’, which aims... more This article offers a critique of Harry Brighouse’s ‘autonomy-facilitating education’, which aims to enable students to reflect critically on their lives and society without disposing them to do so. Because it is ‘character-neutral’, this kind of education purportedly avoids some of the controversy surrounding autonomy-promotion. At the same time, it allegedly equips students to withstand common pressures and influences which jeopardize their prospective autonomy. Yet, as I argue here, autonomy-facilitating education cannot live up to the promises Brighouse makes for it. As the case of sex education exemplifies, students need more than a toolbox of rational skills to overcome persistent threats to their autonomy. They need access to an autonomy-promoting education that attends to their cognitive and psychosocial development.
Journal of Educational Controversy, 2012
There is no denying that educational institutions have an important role to play in preparing stu... more There is no denying that educational institutions have an important role to play in preparing students for (hopefully meaningful) work and economic self-sufficiency, and that this contributes to the economic health of the nation as a whole. But to conceive of the goals of education in exclusively, or even primarily, economic terms does a disservice to children, and to the world they will inhabit as adults. Schooling in a free and diverse society should be about much more than job preparation; it should be about equipping children to lead flourishing lives, in which career success is but one element, and to participate as civic equals in democratic decision-making.
Studies in Philosophy and Education, 2011
This paper offers a critique of the “democratic state of education” proposed by Amy Gutmann in he... more This paper offers a critique of the “democratic state of education” proposed by Amy Gutmann in her influential book Democratic Education. In the democratic state of education, educational authority is shared among the state, parents and educational professionals; and educational objectives are geared toward equipping future citizens to participate in what Gutmann calls “conscious social reproduction”—the collective shaping of the future of society through democratic deliberation. Although I agree with some of Gutmann’s broad recommendations for civic education, I have misgivings about the centrality that she gives to conscious social reproduction in her theory of education. I argue that in focusing so intently on the facilitation of conscious social reproduction, Gutmann’s theory makes insufficient room for the basic interests of individual children, and in particular, their prospective interest in autonomy. Gutmann’s considered position on sex education policy—specifically, her willingness to allow local communities to deny their children access to sex education—exemplifies the shortcomings of her theory. Ultimately, her democratic state of education fails to acknowledge the fundamental moral importance of individual flourishing, and the contribution that education can and should make to it.
Philosophy of Education 2005
The vast literature on toleration has done little to clarify this “philosophically elusive concep... more The vast literature on toleration has done little to clarify this “philosophically elusive concept.” In an effort to make it more effective in resolving “hard cases of contemporary pluralism,” some moral and political philosophers have tried to expand the conceptual domain of toleration. In effect, they not only associate, but conflate toleration with a host of other virtues and approaches to diversity. Such tendencies are symptomatic of either an ignorance of or an intentional effort to dispense with the definitive negative aspect of toleration. This essay is intended to serve as a reminder of this negative aspect and the conceptual limitations that it places on toleration.
Philosophy of Education, 2014
Philosophy of Education 2010
Philosophy of Education 2009
Philosophy of Education 2006
Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2005
ABSTRACT The Blackwell Companion and Blackwell Guide to the philosophy of education, edited respe... more ABSTRACT The Blackwell Companion and Blackwell Guide to the philosophy of education, edited respectively by Randall Curren and by Nigel Blake, Paul Smeyers, Richard Smith and Paul Standish, are potentially field-defining volumes. The present essay moves back and forth between the two books to assess the overall impression they provide of the ‘state of the art’. Whilst both texts can be criticised for failing to engage sufficiently with non-philosophical work on education, these are otherwise estimable volumes, containing many fine essays that can be read with profit.