Departmental Research Seminar with Dr John Tillson

Our departmental research seminar talks will take place on Wednesdays during term time from 15:00 to 16:30, in room 005, 48 Old Elvet, Durham, DH1 3HN.

This week's speaker is Dr John Tillson from Liverpool Hope University.

John is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Education at Liverpool Hope University.

Title: Justifying the Inherent Harms of Educational Standards

Abstract: There are educational standards that we not only hold teachers and schools to, but hold students themselves to. For instance, passing grades as opposed to failing grades; especially in English, maths and science. Educational standards and tests are inherently harmful for those pupils who cannot measure up. They are found wanting in subjects in which success, they are told, really matters. While they might be told we are all moral equals deserving of equal, to take Darwall’s terms, recognition respect, they will inevitably feel – and it will inevitably be communicated – that those who fail by our basic educational standards lack appraisal respect. Lacking appraisal respect, they may then likely lack self-respect. Can this inevitable stigmatic harm be justified to students who cannot measure up to the educational standards we erect?