Abstract
A solution is proposed to the problem of how schooling may both accommodate diversity and adhere to universal principles of value and reason. The answer lies in an educational theory that presupposes a distinction between individual or group ways of living and a political arrangement. Once there is a realization of the limits on the kinds of lives that may be selected, there are good reasons for aligning with others in order to gain certain goods. I argue that in such an arrangement, a rule of reciprocity would be selected as the governing principle that allows for the greatest liberty for all. This political construct accommodates both universal principles and particular cultural beliefs.Approaches to the problem of pluralizing education that privilege the particular over the universal fail because their demands for equality are premised on universal principles. Liberal regimes also are not wholly adequate because of the belief requirements for their political agreements and for the character of their social institutions.Educational pluralism is constitutive of the deliberative process of developing warranted beliefs that take into account all the evidence available not just that of the culturally or socially powerful. That such a model meets the demands of pluralism is evidenced in that it is consistent with the respective prudential considerations of the cultural groups that are involved in deliberation.