Religious Schools V. Children's Rights (Paperback)

by James G. Dwyer (Author) "I begin by describing the regulatory environment in which religious schools operate today and then explain what it is about certain religious schools that might..." (more)
Key Phrases: Supreme Court, Free Exercise Clause, Limited Rights Principle (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Take the premise that parochial and especially fundamentalist schools violate and negate opportunities for the whole education of those students they serve; add an overwhelming amount of documentation of the law, studies done, and written works; and reinforce with alarming descriptions of children deprived of the learning skills needed for critical thinking, leading to the "severe repression of their minds." Complement this with forceful arguments that individual state policy should regulate religious schooling to achieve "what children need and are entitled to receive." Such is Dwyer's accomplishment in this serious book, which should be read by anyone making educational decisions. Dwyer (Chicago-Kent Coll. of Law, Illinois Inst. of Technology) contrasts children's rights to a quality education with their right to religious schooling, claiming that the state has a compelling interest in stepping in where schools fail. As serious to the well-being of children as desegregation, Dwyer's ideas deserve to be read. Recommended for academic libraries.?Kay Bowes, Wilmington Inst. Lib., DE
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
Despair over the reported inadequacies of public education leads many people to consider religious schools as an alternative. James G. Dwyer demonstrates, however, that religious schooling is almost completely unregulated and that common pedagogical practices in fundamentalist Christian and Catholic schools may be damaging to children. He presents evidence of excessive restriction of children's basic liberties, stifling of intellectual development, the instilling of dogmatic and intolerant attitudes, as well as the infliction of psychological and emotional harms, including excessive guilt and repression and, especially among girls, diminished self-esteem.

Courts, legal and political theorists, and the public typically argue that families and religious communities are entitled to raise their children as they see fit and that the state must remain neutral on religious matters. Dwyer proposes an alternative framework for state policy regarding religious schooling and other child-rearing practices, urging that the focus always be on what is best, from a secular perspective, for the affected children. He argues that the children who attend religious schools have a right to adequate state regulation and oversight of their education. States are obligated to ensure that such schools do not engage in harmful practices and that they provide their students with the training necessary for pursuit of a broad range of careers and for full citizenship in a pluralistic, democratic society. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Cornell University Press (June 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801487315
• ISBN-13: 978-0801487316
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,602,378 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book rigourously argued., October 22, 1999

By	Harry Brighouse (Madison, WI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Religious Schools V. Children's Rights (Hardcover)

Dwyer exposes in some detail the lack of government regulation in the States of private schools, and documents the harms that some religious schools do to children. He provides detailed arguments against the idea that parents or communities have extensive rights to have their children educated however they want to, and proposes that private schools be subject to reasonably stringent regulation. I wonder if some of the other reviewers allowed their horror at his conclusions to obscure the careful reaosning he gives for those conclusions. I would recommend that especially those people who disagree with Dwyer's secularism read this book, and try to come up with arguments against his concusions: this matter is too important for name-calling to be decisive.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Homeschooling father finds this book an interesting read., November 15, 2000

By	john ciarrone (wellington, ohio United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Religious Schools V. Children's Rights (Hardcover)

Good arguments against any form of "private" education; however, Dwyer unfortunately has an unrealistic view about the value of state certification and regulation. As one who works in the public schools (he apparently has spent very little time in one) and as a homeschooling father, I might be in a better position to cast an opinion on our various education options. And I wish folks like Mr. Dwyer would look at the gross inequities and harmful practices that currently exist in our public school system, which he apparently thinks have been eradicated by the ton of regulations that our state imposes. I'm guessing Mr Dwyer is not a parent, and that his view will change if he does become a father.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Big-Brotherism?, June 20, 2008

By	Kevin Currie-Knight "PhD Student in Education" (Newark, Delaware) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

In "Religious Schools vs. Students Rights," law professor James Dwyer argues that parents should not have the right to send children to religious schools if it can be shown that those schools harm students' temporal interests. In so arguing, Dwyer attempts to make a case what may look like parental 'rights' over offspring are perhaps best viewed as 'privelidges.' The long and short of viewing these as privilidges rather than as rights is so that parents may no longer claim the 'right' to send their children to religious schools without some sort of strict scrutiny by the judiciary (should it be exercised).

While this book is well written, logically laid out, and presents, to me, a better case than I would have thought, I simply have too many objections to consider the conclusion warranted or reasonable.

The first criticism - a large one for me - is that were Dwyer to get what he argues for, this would open up yet another avenue for judges to substitute their judgment for the judgment of private individuals. Dwyer makes repeated references to 'what is in the child's temporal interests.' What he does not make explicitly clear - it would make his case sound less palatable if he did - is that this merely takes the judgment of what the child's interests are away form parents (who presumably have an intimate knowledge of and interest in the child) to judges (who are wholly detached from the child and know him/her via court documents). In a few cases, this objectivity the judge affords may be beneficial, but in most cases, I am not convinced that the judge - who has no vested interest in the child - would make better decisions than parents. Indeed, Dwyer does not make any arguments to this effect, so I am unconvinced.

The second objection also has to do with the 'child's temporal interest.' This is the only interest that Dwyer is willing to consider, and while he makes a persuasive case that government must judge only on secular, not religious, grounds, this does not mean that these are the ONLY grounds that should or can be considered at all (it only means that GOVERNKMENT cannot consider religious arguments). It seems altogether wrong, then, to argue that a child brought up in a deeply religous family has no interests outside of secular ones. When a family is steeped in a religous tradition that teaches certain things, that family will rightly judge being taught those things as part of their education as a very serious interest. (The idea that religous interests may outstrip temporal ones can ironically be seen in the very fact that many parents opt to pay money to send their child to religious schools, when they could attend public ones for 'free.') It is quite an easy thing to mistake secularism for neutrality in the liberal tradition, but to religous folk, it is NOT neutrality at all. Refusing to count religous values (that might be offensive when secularly considered) is taking a side, and judging those values to be unimportant. Dwyer does this every time he refers ONLY to the child's secular interests, ASSUMING that those are the only ones that would matter.

Dwyer also attempts to argue that parents should not have 'rights' over their child, but rather only have privelidges as to raising their children. He suggests that the only real arguments capable of being made for parental rights over children are (a) arguments from tradition; and (b) arguments that 'parents know best.' Of course, neither of those are wholly convincing, but neither are they the only cogent argument possible to defend parental domain. There is also a very big biological argument to be made; in all of the natural world, those who give birth to offspring are considered their guardians. To be charged with the role of guardianship assumes that you will be the protector of the child and will make decisions on behalf of the child (deciding what the child will eat, how to raise the child, etc.) Legally speaking, government does step in when it appears that the guardian is acting cotnrary to the best interests of the child, but when this happens, THE GOVERNMENT TAKES GUARDIANSHIP (the child is placed in foster care, etc.) Thus, to argue that government may interfere in the parents guardianship by deciding where the child may not go to school can be seen as the government accepting some form of guardianship over the child. And I cannot see a better argument for parental rights than the biological one (that Dwyer does not even mention).

My biggest objection, though, is the first. I cannot see how this would not open up another way for government to encroach upon the family unit. Of course, Dwyer points out the numerous cases where government intervenes in parental relationship when the case can be made that harm is coming to the child, but those cases are quite limited to physical damages. In this case, judges could quite plausibly rule that harm is coming to a child because the child is being TAUGHT something that is, to the judge, undesirable (that the sexes are not equal; that humans are born in sin, etc.) I do not see, though, how giving this type of wide discretion to judges would be anything other than giving them the power to decide proper educational theory. And, quite frankly, that seems just another recipe for government meddling. (Remember, government can rate a film 'R,' but cannot prevent parents from allowing their children to see that film with adult supervision. What if they could?)

An interesting book for its arguments, but in my analysis, the arguments are just not as srong as they might be. Perhaps Dwyer should have spent more time on assuaging an understandable concern that his proposal may result in more 'big-brother-ism.'