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Article Excerpt
I find that the separation of the church and the
state is one of the most beautiful inventions of modern times (Pierre Pettigrew, Foreign Minister, 2005, commenting on the same-sex marriage debate in Canada).
Introduction
In April 1997 the Board of Surrey School District in British Columbia enacted a resolution declining to approve three books portraying same-sex parents. This decision, made in response to religious objections from local parents, meant that the books could not be used as part of the family life education curriculum in Kindergarten and Grade One classrooms within the District's 99 elementary schools. It prompted a prolonged and often heated debate in a province where schools are required by statute to 'be conducted on strictly secular and non-sectarian principles'. Concerns over the legality of the resolution were referred to the courts, with a final decision being handed down by the Supreme Court of Canada in December 2002.
This article reviews the 6 years of controversy that surrounded the Surrey School Board's actions, and the ways in which the issues raised were framed and resolved by the courts. It suggests that geographical categories--in particular, the distinction between public and private--are central to cultural and legal conflict over religion's place in the curricula and governance of public schools. It also employs the concept of 'culture war'--developed by Hunter (1991)--to help make sense of stakeholder positions in the 'three books' debate.
The content, purpose and methods of public education are matters of widespread interest. Public schools have been characterized as 'the primary institutional means of reproducing community and national identity for succeeding generations' (Hunter 1991, 198), in part because they are places in which most children 'are compelled ... [to] undergo a decade and more of group socialization' (Bocking 1995, 227). Since at least the mid-nineteenth century, they have been seen as vital tools for instilling shared values, and a common identity, in children from diverse backgrounds. However, the place of religion within public schools has been an enduring point of controversy, including in Canada (Clark 1968, Dickinson and Mackay 1989; Sweet 1997; Smith and Foster 2000). In spite of this prominence, geographers have had little to say about the issue of religion in schools (but see Merrett 1999), possibly reflecting a wider disciplinary wariness of issues with significant legal dimensions (Blomley 2002).
Today, secular public education in Canada, as well as other Western nations, especially the United States, is being challenged by conservative stakeholders, and in particular by evangelical Christians. The latter's objections are numerous and wide ranging, but often centre on the claim that Christian ethics, beliefs and practices are excluded from the classroom, while secular and humanist ideas pervade every aspect of instruction. These values are said to subvert the rights of parents to instil Biblical morality, lead children away from God and constitute state sponsorship of a metaphysical code. Such claims, this article notes, challenge the liberal-secular state, which has sought to protect itself from the transcendent claims of religion through 'the two-fold strategy of secularizing politics and privatizing religion' (Chaplin 2000, 625-626).
Conflicts such as that sparked by the Surrey School Board's books resolution go to the heart of contemporary debates about the place of religion in public education. This article contends that the public/private distinction--a concept routinely invoked in efforts to order society and space--is critical to understanding what is at stake in these debates, and the broader cultural conflict of which they are part. The claims advanced by stakeholders, and the responses of decision-making institutions such as school boards and courts, are not only cultural and constitutional, but also inherently geographical. Spatial categories and metaphors--including not only public and private, but also related concepts such as place, scale, the boundary, and jurisdiction-are central to the positions advanced and decisions made. These positions and decisions, in turn, have practical ramifications for the organization of material spaces such as the classroom.
Public and Private
An extensive body of research highlights the significance of the public/private distinction to the organization of social and governmental affairs, and to moral and political debate (Arendt 1958; Bobbio 1989; Weintraub and Kumar 1997). In particular, it occupies a central place in legal thought and rhetoric; indeed, much of the 'work' of law can be seen to involve attempts to draw 'bright lines' between spheres of public and private activity (Klare 1982; Walzer 1984). While the distinction may be expressed in abstract terms, it also provides the basis for distinguishing between two primary types of material space: that which is owned by government, typically for the use and benefit of the community at large, and that which is owned by individuals and corporations (Blomley, 2005). Moreover, when the public/ private distinction is invoked in legal reasoning, it may have tangible consequences for social spatialities (Blomley 2002). This article contends that it has significant implications for religion and the spaces of public education, extending previous geographical research in which rights and property boundaries have been central matters of concern (Blomley and Bakan 1992; Delaney 2000; Blomley and Pratt 2001; Collins and Blomley 2003; Blomley 2005).
In discussions of religious liberty and freedom of conscience, the term 'private' is typically equated with the interests of individuals, families, and religious institutions, while 'public' is usually synonymous with governmental authority (hence 'church/state' terminology). Historically, religious freedom secured one of the first spheres of private autonomy, within which individuals were not accountable to the state (Habermas 1989; Mill 1859/1975). This archetypal liberal freedom has been understood to ensure that '[b]elievers are set free from every sort of official or legal coercion. They can find their own way to salvation ... or they can fail to find their way; or they can refuse to look for a way. The decision is entirely their own...' (Walzer 1984, 315). It is generally assumed that religious freedom is secured when the authority of government to interfere in matters of faith is curtailed: liberalism focuses primarily on limiting state power, rather than the potentially coercive actions of private individuals and groups (e.g., those who place undue pressure on others to subscribe to particular beliefs).
This description of religious liberty invokes a particular understanding of the public/private distinction, which Weintraub (1997) labels the liberal-economistic model. It is centrally concerned with questions of jurisdiction: 'with demarcating the sphere of the "public" authority of the state from the sphere of formally voluntary relations between "private" individuals' (Weintraub 1997, 8). While this understanding of the public/private distinction is regularly invoked in everyday discourse, bitter disagreement over the appropriate designation of particular activities (e.g., health care) is often central to public policy debates. Moreover, the liberal-economistic model is but one possible understanding of the public/private distinction: feminists, for example, centre the private sphere on the family, and envision the public sphere as encompassing not only the state, but also the official economy of paid employment, as well as social interaction with strangers (Weintraub 1997).
In debates over the place of religion in public schools, notions of public and private are vehemently contested. In the view of liberal/progressive commentators (see next section), the ideal of the public school as an open, accessible, and socially unifying institution is threatened by the potential (re)introduction of religious influences deemed divisive, exclusive, and destabilizing. It is contended that if schools are to accommodate children irrespective of their varied backgrounds and particularistic ties, they must refrain from imparting religious views (but not arguments or theories based on reason, which are seen as accessible to all). Such claims resonate with the more general liberal notion that religious views may guide the development of the private self, but must not form the basis for organization of the public sphere.
A very different vision is espoused by those who advocate governmental accommodation of religious beliefs and practices. They locate state schools within a public sphere, often constituted at the local level, which encompasses religious believers--most notably religious parents, who are said to have an inherent right to bring their faith to bear in directing the education of their children, and contributing to the rules that govern school space. From this perspective it is the exclusion of religious viewpoints that threatens the openness and inclusiveness of the public school. Indeed, it is argued that religious claims should not be barred from any aspect of governmental decision making.
One of the most common conservative criticisms of secular public education is that it constitutes government indoctrination of a 'captive group of students ... in beliefs and values that will lead them to defect from the teachings of their church and parents' (Baer 1998, 110). This is seen as an inappropriate intrusion by public authorities into the private sphere of faith. It is argued that in order for the (religious) home and the parent-child relationship to be accorded proper respect and protection, the state may not advance hostile or contrary viewpoints in public schools. Moreover, a host of social ills is attributed to children's indoctrination in secular humanist thought, including supposed increases in immorality, disrespect for authority, promiscuity and drug use (Wood 1992, 120). (1)
The perception that secular humanist ideas and values dominate public education, to the detriment of religious values, has prompted claims that constitutional rights are being infringed. It has been contended that the state is promulgating a 'faith' through secular curricula and texts--a claim frequently mobilized in campaigns urging teachers, schools, and administrators to withdraw 'offensive' textbooks (e.g., those depicting same-sex parents), and modify 'inappropriate' lessons and curricula (e.g., those perceived to advance themes contrary to the beliefs of conservative Christians). In seeking such changes, critics aim to reduce or eliminate the 'dissonance' between the values...
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