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- Title
Self-respect, Self-esteem, and the School: A Democratic Perspective on Authority.
- Authors
White, Patricia
- Abstract
The article discusses the democratic perspective of schools. The democratic conception of selfrespect, which underlies the argument of this article, is based on a conception of oneself as a moral person with certain moral rights, one of which is to be treated as an equal, and moral duties, with responsibility for one's actions. Democratic communities have certain expectations of their citizens. They want them to be confident, independent-minded, willing to stand up for what they believe, able to challenge any incipient emergence of authoritarianism, and quick to act on infringements of the rights of themselves or others-especially those of vulnerable minority groups. Democracies need protesters and whistle-blowers in the best U.S. tradition of democratic dissent. Submissiveness, subservience, passive acquiescence, must all be accounted political vices in a democratic community whatever their value in authoritarian and hierarchical organizations. This must be so given the rationale for democracy, which rests on the necessity for the control of power in the interests of both individual and collective welfare and especially, on moral autonomy.
- Subjects
SCHOOLS; SELF-esteem; DEMOCRACY; ORGANIZATIONAL behavior; EDUCATION; AUTHORITY; POLITICAL autonomy; PUBLIC institutions
- Publication
Teachers College Record, 1986, Vol 88, Issue 1, p95
- ISSN
0161-4681
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/016146818608800108