Values education in a democratic society

Abstract

A democratic society requires a degree of consensus on values. But it is argued that the model of values education as the transmission of certain predetermined values is inadequate in a democracy, since for several reasons the transmission of predetermined values can itself be undemocratic. Education for individual autonomy in matters of values is also, by itself, inadequate. Each generation needs the resources by which it can work out its own interpretation of democratic values. What is also needed, then, is an education in a common language of discourse — which can be drawn primarily from philosophy — which will facilitate public debate.