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Swift, A. (2003). How not to be a Hypocrite: School Choice and the Morally Perplexed Parent. New York: Routledge, 189 pp.
How not to be a hypocrite ... when making educational choices for your child raises an interesting thesis: Can parents who normally advocate for public only education justify opting out of the comprehensive school system ( public education in the United Kingdom ) and send their children to schools they would also vote to abolish? At first glance, perhaps it is an easy judgment - or is it?
We are lead through the moral dilemma of British parents who, as Swift suggests, face the real world constraints of seeking the best education for their child and the related value conflicts associated with such an individual choice (as a parent /my child) versus their otherwise sense of collective social equity and justice (as a citizen/my society). This value conflicted moral perplexity seeks non-hypocritical solutions which might allow such parents to choose private or elite school alternatives for their children even though they would otherwise see this as a social injustice.
Interestingly Swift starts his book by giving his answer drawing this conclusion.
I think there are lots of ways in which parents can, without hypocrisy or inconsistency, send their children to schools they would vote to abolish. ...Parents may actually be justified in sending their children to the kind of school they would prefer not to exist. So parents don't necessarily have to choose between principle and practice, (p. xiii)
So one might ask why read any further? I guess, as is often said, "the devil is in the details." For that reason the reader needs to see if this conclusion can be substantiated for these morally perplexed parents and under which conditions. In this light Swift guides the reader through a wide range of choices using the various rules and justifications which suggest continuing the reading.
Swift gives a detailed discussion and analysis of possible scenarios in the two parts of this book. Part I, "Choosing the School Roles," centres around parental and educational issues which define the rules under which parents make their...