Freedom and Authority in Modern Educational Theory

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the question of freedom and authority as it relates to the formal education of children in schools. My focus will be narrow, largely ignoring many of the important conceptualanalytic problems inherent in the use of the two terms. Instead, I will concentrate on issues suggested by the preference of professional educators for educational theories which appear to support granting more or less freedom for the child, or authority for the teacher. I will argue that the preference among educators for either freedom or authority is one of a cluster of logically related preferences which are essentially methodological or procedural in nature, and that such a set of preferences is relatively superficial, unstable, and, in fact, unimportant in comparison with other relevant aspects of a personal belief system. To elucidate and support this argument, I refer to a conceptual-analytic model of modern educational theories (that is, theories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries), and to the results of a recent University of Alberta study of student and teacher attitudes toward education. In conclusion, I suggest that if the issue of freedom and authority is to acquire genuine theoretical significance, it must be viewed not merely in a procedural and pedagogical context, but rather in relation to the content of education, and to the ultimate metaphysical, epistemological, perhaps even theological beliefs and commitments which that content implies.