View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by PhilPapers Homeschooling, freedom of conscience, and the school as republican sanctuary: An analysis of arguments repre- senting polar conceptions of the secular state and reli- gious neutrality P. J. Oh Master’s Thesis in Educational Leadership Fall Term 2016 Department of Education University of Jyväskylä 2 ABSTRACT Oh, Paul. 2016. Homeschooling, freedom of conscience, and the school as re- publican sanctuary: An analysis of arguments representing polar conceptions of the secular state and religious neutrality. Master's Thesis in Educational Leadership. University of Jyväskylä. Department of Education. This paper examines how stances and understandings pertaining to whether home education is civically legitimate within liberal democratic contexts can depend on how one conceives normative roles of the secular state and the religious neutrality that is commonly associated with it. For the purposes of this paper, home education is understood as a manifestation of an educational phi- losophy ideologically based on a given conception of the good. Two polar conceptions of secularism, republican and liberal-pluralist, are ex- plored. Republican secularists declare that religious expressions do not belong in the public sphere and justify this exclusion by promoting religious neutrality as an end in itself. But liberal-pluralists claim that religious neutrality is only the means to ensure protection of freedom of conscience and religion, which are moral principles. Each conception is associated with its own stance on whether exemptions or accommodations on account of religious beliefs have special legal standing and thereby warranted. The indeterminate nature of religion and alleg- edly biased exclusion of secular beliefs, cited by some when denying religious exemptions, can be overcome by understanding all religious and conscientious beliefs as having equal standing as conceptions of the good. Analysis of court documents from the Uwe Romeike et al asylum case are guided by these understandings, and relationships among themes are explored. In summary, any stance regarding home education may depend on one’s view of secularism, particularly in relation to whether one views religious neu- trality as a means to ensure protection of freedom of conscience or an end in itself. Keywords: homeschooling, education policy, freedom of conscience, value plu- ralism, diversity, secularism, human rights, nation-building 3 CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 6 2 BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE ....................................................... 13 2.1 Home education as a social movement.....................................................14 2.2 Significance, particularly for educational leaders .................................. 16 2.3 Some objections to the parental right to direct their children’s educa- tion..................................................................................................................23 2.4 Background on the home education situation in Germany...................27 2.5 Reasoning behind home education .......................................................... 29 2.5.1 Ideological consideration 1: Home education as a form of civil disobedience ................................................................................................ 33 2.5.2 Ideological consideration 2: Home education as value-rational action............................................................................................................. 33 2.6 Summary of key points in this section ..................................................... 34 3 SECULARISM: ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS AND VARIATIONS ...... 37 3.1 Moral pluralism as an essential component of liberal democratic socie- ties...................................................................................................................41 3.2 Protection of freedom of conscience is an essential characteristic of sec- ularism .......................................................................................................... 43 3.3 What religious liberty is (and what it is not)........................................... 45 3.3 Secularism comes in two “tensile strengths” .......................................... 47 3.4 Summary of key points in this section ..................................................... 52 4 RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS AND ACCOMMODATIONS ...................... 54 4.1 Accommodations compensate and correct for unintended biases of general norms ..............................................................................................54 4.2 Opposition to the accommodations and exemptions based on religious beliefs ............................................................................................................55 4.3 The significance of the impact of religious beliefs on one’s moral iden- tity .................................................................................................................57 4.4 Are religious beliefs worthy of special consideration? .........................58 4.5 Summary of key points in this section......................................................60 5 SUBJECTS AND FRAMEWORKS OF ANALYSES ..................................... 61 5.1 The Research Topic/Subject and Approach/The Context of the Study ..................................................................................................................63 5.2 Research Methods ....................................................................................... 64 5.2.1 Documents analysed ........................................................................ 65 5.2.2 Provenance of documents ................................................................ 67 5.3 Data Analysis ............................................................................................... 67 5.4 Reliability of the study ............................................................................... 74 4 5.5 Ethical considerations ................................................................................. 76 6 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ......................................................................77 6.1 Analyses 1-9 ................................................................................................. 77 6.1.1 Analysis 1: Themes pertaining to conceptions of the good....... 77 6.1.2 Analysis 2: Themes constituting reasons of conscience or religion ..................................................................................................................78 6.1.3 Analysis 3: Themes pertaining to moral identity ....................... 80 6.1.4 Analysis 4: Themes constituting value-rational action .............. 80 6.1.5 Analysis 5: Themes related to civil disobedience ....................... 81 6.1.6 Analysis 6: Themes related to conceptions of secularism ......... 82 6.1.7 Analysis 7: Themes pertaining to justifications for state policies and actions pertaining to home education .............................................. 86 6.1.8 Analysis 8: Themes related to appeals to ideals of tolerance, pluralism and civic integration ................................................................. 90 6.1.9 Analysis 9: Does the state see itself as having a perfectionist or protectionist role? ........................................................................................ 91 6.2 Summary of key findings and discussion ............................................... 93 6.3 Generalisability and limitations ................................................................ 96 6.4 Applicability of research results ............................................................... 98 7 CONCLUDING REMARKS ............................................................................100 7.1 Religion versus moral identity ................................................................ 102 7.1.1 The distinction between religion and moral identity, and an analogy to illustrate. ................................................................................. 103 7.1.2 Each person is an autonomous moral agent capable of formulat- ing religious beliefs apart from religious institutions.......................... 106 7.2 The essential role of dialogue in ethical leadership ............................. 107 7.3 Are some “republican” secularists exploiting the indeterminate dis- tinction between public and private spheres? ...................................... 109 7.4 Does the hierarchy of the republican sanctuary want to give us new guardians? Do they want to be our guardians? ...................................111 7.5 Secularism is itself religious, some say...................................................113 7.6 Tolerance, pluralism, and integration on whose and what (under- standing of the) terms?....... ...................................................................... 114 7.7 A summary of the aims, rationale and concepts explored in this pa- per....... ......................................................................................................... 122 7.8 Challenges for further research ............................................................... 125 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................130 APPENDIX A: Descriptions of the court documents..........................................141