Using key writings in the sociology of consumption and consumerism and analyses of the nature of postmodern society, this paper considers how parents decide upon a secondary school and the nature of their engagement with the education market.

Using key writings in the sociology of consumption and consumerism and analyses of the nature of postmodern society, this paper considers how parents decide upon a secondary school and the nature of their engagement with the education market.

ABSTRACTIs the question ‘will you regret it if you do this?’ helpful when people face difficult life decisions, such as terminating a pregnancy if a disability is detected or deciding to become a parent? Despite the commonness of the question in daily life, several philosophers have argued lately against its usefulness. We reconstruct four arguments from recent literature on regret, transformative experience and the use of imagination in deliberation. After analysis of these arguments we conclude that the prospect of regret (...) remains a useful deliberative heuristic, provided four conditions are fulfilled. If the prospect of regret is arrived at via reflection on one’s values, in a non-coercive context, when well-informed about factual circumstances, and in a process of self-commitment, the question of what one will regret is a helpful device to get in touch with one’s deepest concerns that give reasons to act in a particular way. (shrink)

In the last two decades the Israeli educational system has undergone major changes which have transformed it from a state-controlled, overly bureaucratic and almost fully state-financed system into a decentralized, partly locally controlled and increasingly privately financed system. Advocates of this transformation of the educational system appeal to the ideal of parental choice. They argue that the implementation of parental choice programs in education shows more respect to the children and their unique talents, take their self-realization (...) seriously and promotes equal opportunities in education. The ideal of parental choice is also upheld in relation to value of cultural pluralism. Supporters of educational autonomy advocate the restructuring of schools in a way allowing them to develop a unique climate and curriculum consistent with respective communities and parents' preferences. The aim of this paper is to assess critically the changes that Israeli educational system has undergone against the background of the principle of equal educational opportunities. The main claim of the paper is that these changes undermine this principle. It will be argued that these changes actually cater mainly to the educational interests of middle and upper middle classes in Israeli society. (shrink)

Researchers are working to derive sperm from banked testicular tissue taken from pre-pubertal boys who face therapies or injuries that destroy sperm production. Success in deriving sperm from this tissue will help to preserve the option for these boys to have genetically related children later in life. For the twin moral reasons of preserving access and equity in regard to having such children, clinicians and researchers are justified in offering the option to the parents of all affected boys. However, some (...) parents may wish to decline the option to bank tissue from their boys because the technique may seem too unfamiliar or unusual, but over time people may become more comfortable with the technique as they have done with other novel assisted reproductive treatments. Other parents may wish to decline the option because of moral or religious reasons. A prominent natural law theory holds, for example, that the ARTs that would be involved in using sperm derived from banked tissue to produce a child are morally objectionable. Some parents might not want to bank tissue in order to shield their son from using ARTs they see as objectionable. Clinicians and researchers should respect parents who wish to decline banking tissue, but parents should ordinarily embrace choices that protect the possible interests their sons may have as adult men, including the wish to have genetically related children. (shrink)

Patricia White; The New Right and Parental Choice, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 22, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 195–199, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.

This is the story of North Carolina parent choice advocates' push for the creation and expansion of choice policies in the state. The exploration of the politics, ideology, and interests surrounding parent choice in this conversation includes but also stretches beyond the most frequently discussed choice policies of charter schools, school vouchers, and tuition tax credits. Here, Lewis makes the argument that parents push for these policies are closely akin to parents' rejection of busing and redistricting (...) policies in Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Raleigh-Durham, parents' advocating for the state-support of home-schooling options across the state, and parents' pushing for the expansion of magnet and intradistrict choice options. He shows how central to parents' advocacy for all of these policies lies a more foundational desire to reconceputalize public schooling, with parents having much more individual control over how public funding is used for the education of their children. (shrink)

I shall argue that where a coercive public health policy is backed by a clear medical consensus, appropriately reconsidered in the light of claims of doubters, there is sometimes a moral obligation on the part of the public to defer to the experts. The argument will be geared to the continuing controversy in the UK over the safety of the measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine. vaccine.

This paper traces the development of parental rights to accept or to refuse treatment for a defective newborn infant in the United Kingdom and in the United States of America; its main purpose is to explore the common trends from which an acceptable policy may be derived. It is probable that the British law on parental decision-making in respect of infants suffering from Down's syndrome is to be found in the civil case of In Re B rather than (...) in the criminal case of R v Arthur. United States court decisions are strongly influenced by constitutional law and reflect the right to personal privacy. The position on each side of the Atlantic seems very similar but this similarity includes a sense of uncertainty as to legal responsibility. There is a case for agreed guidelines and a suggested format is offered for consideration. (shrink)

In this paper we carefully study the problem of liberty as it applies to school choice, and whether there ought to be restricted liberty in the case of homeschooling. We examine three prominent concerns that might be brought against homeschooling, viz., that it aggravates social inequality, worsens societal conflict and works against the best interests of children. To examine the tensions that occur between parental liberty, children's interests, and state oversight, we consider the case of homeschooling in the (...) Dutch context. (shrink)

This article presents arguments that reframe the discussion on vaccination ethics. The correct starting point for discussions on vaccination ethics is not what society owes parents, but rather what society owes children. Drawing on the justice theory of Powers and Faden, two conclusions are defended by presenting and defending a set of arguments. First, a just society is obligated to protect its children against serious vaccine‐preventable diseases such as measles through adequate levels of vaccination. Second, this obligation of the just (...) society rests on identifiable individuals and institutions: parents, healthcare professionals, government, and vaccine producers have important obligations in this regard. This removes vaccination out of the realm of individual or parental discretion, and situates it in the realm of societal obligation. Children are owed vaccination, society is obligated to provide it. If parents cannot or will not provide it, society ought to respond. (shrink)

This paper reports completeness results for dyadic deontic logics in the tradition of Hansson’s systems. There are two ways to understand the core notion of best antecedent-worlds, which underpins such systems. One is in terms of maximality, and the other in terms of optimality. Depending on the choice being made, one gets different evaluation rules for the deontic modalities, but also different versions of the so-called limit assumption. Four of them are disentangled, and compared. The main observation of this (...) paper is that, even in the partial order case, the contrast between maximality and optimality is not as significant as one could expect, because the logic remains the same whatever notion of best is used. This is established by showing that, given analogous properties for the betterness relation, the same system is sound and complete with respect to its intended modelling. The chief result of this paper concerns Åqvist’s system F supplemented with the principle of cautious monotony. It is established that, under the maximality rule, F + is sound and complete with respect to the class of models in which the betterness relation is required be reflexive and smooth . From this, a number of spin-off results are obtained. First and foremost, it is shown that a similar determination result holds for optimality; that is, under the optimality rule, F + is also sound and complete with respect to the class of models in which the betterness relation is reflexive and smooth . Other spin-off results concern classes of models in which further constraints are placed on the betterness relation, like totalness and transitivity. (shrink)

Although parental choice of secondary schools is a subject of considerable public and academic interest, there has been relatively little research on the extent to which choice is undermining the traditional role of geographically defined school catchments. This paper, therefore, uses data provided by a case-study local education authority to examine the nature and scale of pupil flows across catchment boundaries. It does so by adopting a form of Geographic Information System as the principal research tool. The (...) results show over a third of Year 7 pupils moving to schools other than their catchment comprehensive. Interestingly, the inner-city catchments were the most permeable: by contrast, children in middle class and rural areas were the least likely to enter a school outside their local area. (shrink)

Imagine a genetic counselor working with a young couple pregnant with their first child. The explosion of genetic knowledge and technology in recent years is complicating this professional relationship as a host of new choices brings a few clients with atypical needs. This couple is deaf. They seek not to avoid a child with their disability but rather to assure that the child too will be deaf—a child to share their culture and perspectives on the world. If prenatal diagnosis indicates (...) that the prospective child would be hearing, they intend to terminate the pregnancy and try again. So, how should the counselor respond to this request for services? Does a traditional deference to parental autonomy in reproductive matters require that we respect such decisions by informed couples? More broadly, what are the concepts by which society will guide policy in this new and sensitive domain? (shrink)

To most people outside the relevant laboratories and operating rooms, xenotransplants and artificial organ transplants are bizarre. While the bizarre scares many away and angers others, Lesley A. Sharp approached it and asked, What behooves medical research to take organs out of pigs and primates and design organs out of metal and plastic and use them to replace failing organs in humans? Sharp attended years of conferences, visited countless hospitals and laboratories, and interviewed engineers, scientists, and surgeons to explore the (...) choices and implicit values of decision‐makers in alternative transplantation. The Transplant Imaginary: Mechanical Hearts, Animal Parts, and Moral Thinking in Highly Experimental Science is a rich resource for philosophers who wish to expound on the morality of implanting nonhuman animal and mechanical organs into humans. The author's thorough ethnographic survey of xeno‐ and biomechanical transplant research leads well into two lines of questioning. First, how ethical is the pursuit of alternative transplant? Second, what is essential for transplant researchers to do their jobs ethically? (shrink)

In this commentary I assess the possible harms to a fetus with trisomy 18 of continued life. I argue that, although there is good reason to avoid subjecting infants to major surgery and prolonged intensive care where there is little chance of benefit, doctors should support and engage honestly with parents who decide to continue their pregnancies. We should ensure that infants with trisomy 18 have access to high quality palliative care.

Newborn screening is the programme through which newborn babies are screened for a variety of conditions shortly after birth. Programmes such as this are individually oriented but resemble traditional public health programmes because they are targeted at large groups of the population and they are offered as preventive interventions to a population considered healthy. As such, an ethical tension exists between the goals of promoting the high uptake of supposedly ‘effective’ population-oriented programmes and the goal of promoting genuinely informed decision-making. (...) There is, however, a lack of understanding with regard to how parents experience the tension between promoting uptake and facilitating informed choice. This paper addresses this issue, and data are presented to show how aspects of the timing, presentation of information and procedural routinisation of newborn screening serves to impact on the decisions made by parents. (shrink)

The present research examined how a preference for influencing the mate choice of one’s offspring is associated with opposition to out-group mating among parents from three ethnic groups in the Mexican state of Oaxaca: mestizos (people of mixed descent, n = 103), indigenous Mixtecs (n = 65), and blacks (n = 35). Nearly all of the men in this study were farmworkers or fishermen. Overall, the level of preferred parental influence on mate choice was higher than in (...) Western populations, but lower than in Asian populations. Only among the Mixtecs were fathers more in favor of parental influence on the mate choice of children than mothers were. As predicted, opposition to out-group mating was an important predictor of preferred parental influence on mate choice, more so among fathers than among mothers, especially in the mestizo group—the group with the highest status. In addition, women, and especially mestizo women, expressed more opposition to out-group mating than men did. (shrink)

In this article, I examine a case involving an equity-minded parent caught in a quandary about which school to select for her child, knowing that her decision may have consequences for others. To do so, I heuristically construct a fictional portrait and explore the deliberative process a parent might have through a dialogue taking place among ‘friends’, where each friend personifies a different set of ethical considerations. I then briefly consider two competing philosophical assessments but argue that neither position helpfully (...) assists in resolving the quandary. To conclude, I ask the provocative question whether parental motives – but also their school choices – actually matter if the inequitable outcomes seem to remain unchanged. (shrink)

Although previous work has linked parent autonomy support to the development of children’s executive function skills, the role of specific autonomy-supportive behaviors has not been thoroughly investigated. We compiled data from four preschool-age samples in the Midwestern United States to examine three relevant autonomy-supportive behaviors and their associations with child EF. We coded parent autonomy-supportive behaviors from a 10-min interaction between parent and child dyads working on challenging jigsaw puzzles together. Children completed a battery of EF. Overall, child EF was (...) most consistently correlated with the offering choice subscale. Additionally, only the offering choice subscale predicted child EF while controlling for the other autonomy support subscales and child age. These results suggest that parent provision of choice is an especially relevant aspect of autonomy-supportive parenting and may be important to the development of EF in early childhood. Future research should directly measure children’s experience with choice and how it relates to emerging EF. (shrink)

(2011). Life and Death Choices in Neonatal Care: Applying Shared Decision-Making Focused on Parental Values. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 35-36.

Parental decision making is necessary for contracting medical interventions that require personal risk–benefit evaluation, and for overseeing matters of education. In the nineteenth century, exemptions from obligatory vaccination were granted for religious and conscientious reasons. Then and today, religion and moral values play marginal roles in vaccine hesitancy and denialism. Rather, the key values invoked by vaccine hesitants and denialists are liberty and pluralism. Neither is compatible with limiting adolescents’ choice. Because vaccination does not require assessment of personal (...) medical risks, because it does not need to occur within the sphere of the doctor–patient relationship, and because the risk involved is within the range of their daily activities, adolescents have the right to free access to vaccination without legal requirement of parental involvement. Drawing on the development of Common Law, and on the development of respect for personal conscience in the history of ideas, this paper does not promote an argument that grants public health an overriding moral power. Rather, this paper rejects the presumption that vaccination of adolescents might involve a conflict between parental authority and public health. Free access to vaccination is compatible with the law and ethics of adolescents’ evolving autonomy in relation to healthcare. (shrink)

In “Where Is the Sin in Synecdoche?” (2005) Adrienne Asch and David Wasserman criticize the choice to use prenatal testing (PNT) to determine disability. Notwithstanding the multiple meanings, motives, and circumstances behind people’s reproductive choices, Asch and Wasserman argue that individual choices to reject impaired potential offspring should be the subject of moral scrutiny, since they are likely to be the result of synecdoche—“the uncritical reliance on a stigma-driven inference from a single feature to a whole future life” (181). (...) Such synecdochal choices, they argue, assume that in virtue of impairment, the future child in question would be “incapable of [the] intimacy and community” involved in family.. (shrink)

There have been calls for mandatory vaccination legislation to be introduced into the UK in order to tackle the national and international rise of vaccine-preventable disease. While some countries have had some success associated with mandatory vaccination programmes, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health insist this is not a suitable option for the UK, a country which has seen historical opposition to vaccine mandates. There is a lack of comprehensive data to demonstrate a direct link between mandatory vaccination (...) legislation and increased uptake. While there are examples whereby there has been an improvement, some studies suggest that comparable results can be obtained by strongly recommending vaccinations instead. The RCPCH insist that healthcare workers are ideally placed to engage and inform parents to make every interaction a ‘vaccine opportunity’. This paper calls for a principled, rational approach to interpretations of autonomy which underpin parental informed consent. MacLean’s concept of mutual persuasion could be a vehicle to ensuring parents are suitably informed of both the material risks associated with vaccine choices and to consider the rationality of their decisions, while ultimately upholding parental autonomy. It is argued that this, alongside infrastructural improvement, could create a more sustainable, long-term improvement in childhood vaccination rates in the UK than mandatory vaccination. (shrink)

Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein define a nudge as “any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people's behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.” Much has been written about the ethics of nudging competent adult patients. Less has been written about the ethics of nudging surrogates’ decision‐making and how the ethical considerations and arguments in that context might differ. Even less has been written about nudging surrogate decision‐making in the context (...) of pediatrics, despite fundamental differences that exist between the pediatric and adult contexts. Yet, as the field of behavioral economics matures and its insights become more established and well‐known, nudges will become more crafted, sophisticated, intentional, and targeted. Thus, the time is now for reflection and ethical analysis regarding the appropriateness of nudges in pediatrics. We argue that there is an even stronger ethical justification for nudging in parental decision‐making than with competent adult patients deciding for themselves. We give three main reasons in support of this: (1) child patients do not have autonomy that can be violated (a concern with some nudges), and nudging need not violate parental decision‐making authority; (2) nudging can help fulfill pediatric clinicians’ obligations to ensure parental decisions are in the child's interests, particularly in contexts where there is high certainty that a recommended intervention is low risk and of high benefit; and (3) nudging can relieve parents’ decisional burden regarding what is best for their child, particularly with decisions that have implications for public health. (shrink)

The study aimed to examine the impact of parental influence and media richness on gender stereotypes and career decisions among students at the secondary level in Pakistan. The sample size was 200 students, selected through a simple random sampling technique from government and private schools. Four questionnaires were used to gather data. The data was analyzed quantitatively using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. Regression analyses were used to investigate the impact of parental influence on gender stereotypes (...) and media richness influence on gender stereotype beliefs. Furthermore, parental, media, and gender stereotype behavior all have a significant impact on students’ career choices. On the scale of the parental influence and media richness, no significant gender differences were found. It is concluded that parental influence has a greater effect on students’ gender stereotyping behavior and career choices. (shrink)

Health institutions recommend that young infants be exclusively breastfed on demand, and it is widely held that parents who can breastfeed have an obligation to do so. This has been challenged in recent philosophical work, especially by Fiona Woollard. Woollard’s work critically engages with two distinct views of parental obligation that might ground such an obligation—based on maximal benefit and avoidance of significant harm—to reject an obligation to breastfeed. While agreeing with Woollard’s substantive conclusion, this paper (drawing on philosophical (...) discussion of the ‘right to rear’) argues that there are several more moderate views of parental obligation which might also be thought to ground parental obligation. We first show that an obligation to breastfeed might result not from a general obligation to maximally benefit one’s child, but from what we call ‘choice-specific’ obligations to maximise benefit within particular activities. We then develop this idea through two views of parental obligation—the Dual Interest view, and the Best Custodian view—to ground an obligation to exclusively breastfeed on demand, before showing how both these more moderate views fail. Finally, we argue that not only is there no general obligation to breastfeed children, but that it is often morally right not to do so. Since much advice from health institutions on this issue implies that exclusive breastfeeding on demand is the best option for all families, our argument drives the feeding debate forward by showing that this advice often misrepresents parents’ moral obligations in potentially harmful ways. (shrink)

It has been argued that, when there is a probable imminent risk of loss of children’s fertility, their parents should take active steps to preserve their reproductive potential if possible – or even that children have a right to such interventions being undertaken on them on their behalf, as an expression of their right to an open future. In this chapter, I explore these proposals and some of their implications. I place the discussion of fertility preservation for children into the (...) more general context of the choices that parents might have to help keep their children’s future reproductive (and parenting) choices open. I discuss the role of desert and fairness in arguments for fertility preservation and their relevance for framings of infertility in general, as well as the relation between having a (slight) possibility to reproduce and becoming a parent. (shrink)

_How not to be a hypocrite: _the indispensable guide to school choice that morally perplexed parents have been waiting for. Many of us believe in social justice and equality of opportunity - but we also want the best for our kids. How can we square our political principles with our special concern for our own children? This marvellous book takes us through the moral minefield that is school choice today. Does a commitment to social justice mean you have (...) to send your children to the local comprehensive - regardless of its academic results? Is it hypocritical to disapprove of private schools and yet send your child to one? Some parents feel guilty but shouldn't. Others should feel guilty but don't. Read _How Not to be a Hypocrite_, then answer the questionnaire, and work out where you stand on this crucial issue. (shrink)

_How not to be a hypocrite: _the indispensable guide to school choice that morally perplexed parents have been waiting for. Many of us believe in social justice and equality of opportunity - but we also want the best for our kids. How can we square our political principles with our special concern for our own children? This marvellous book takes us through the moral minefield that is school choice today. Does a commitment to social justice mean you have (...) to send your children to the local comprehensive - regardless of its academic results? Is it hypocritical to disapprove of private schools and yet send your child to one? Some parents feel guilty but shouldn't. Others should feel guilty but don't. Read _How Not to be a Hypocrite_, then answer the questionnaire, and work out where you stand on this crucial issue. (shrink)

Should parents aim to make their children as normal as possible to increase their chances to “fit in”? Are neurological and mental health conditions a part of children’s identity and if so, should parents aim to remove or treat these? Should they aim to instill self-control in their children? Should prospective parents take steps to insure that, of all the children they could have, they choose the ones with the best likely start in life? -/- This volume explores all of (...) these questions and more. Against the background of recent findings and expected advances in neuroscience and genetics, the extent and limits of parental responsibility are increasingly unclear. Awareness of the effects of parental choices on children’s wellbeing, as well as evolving norms about the moral status of children, have further increased expectations from (prospective) parents to take up and act on their changing responsibilities. -/- The contributors discuss conceptual issues such as the meaning and sources of moral responsibility, normality, treatment, and identity. They also explore more practical issues such as how responsibility for children is practiced in Yoruba culture in Nigeria or how parents and health professionals in Belgium perceive the dilemmas generated by prenatal diagnosis. (shrink)

Wir diskutieren ethische Probleme der medizinischen Behandlung intersexueller Kinder. Gefragt wird nach dem Stellenwert von Elternwünschen nach eindeutiger Geschlechtszuweisung sowie nach den Konfliktfeldern, die zum einen zwischen konkurrierenden Wunschvorstellungen der Eltern und der behandelnden Ärzte, zum andern zwischen Kindeswohl und Kinderrechten entstehen können. Gegenwärtig wird Neugeborenen mit anatomisch uneindeutigem Genital trotz unsicherer Prognose über die Behandlungsergebnisse oft noch ein Geschlecht zugewiesen und operativ erstellt. Dieses Vorgehen ist von verschiedenen Seiten ethisch heftig kritisiert worden. Kipnis u. Diamond forderten 1998 im „Journal (...) of Clinical Ethics“ ein Moratorium für alle nicht vital indizierten geschlechtskorrigierenden Eingriffe. Diese Forderung orientiert sich am Interesse des zukünftigen Erwachsenen, betont dessen prospektive Autonomie und klammert den Elternwunsch aus. Dieses „Modell des antizipierten Konsenses“ kann jedoch mit Bezug auf Neugeborene und Kleinkinder bedeutsame Aspekte des Eltern-Kind-Verhältnisses nicht angemessen erfassen. Im Aufsatz werden Argumente angeführt, die es aus Sicht einer Ethik der Elternschaft rechtfertigen, ethische Entscheidungen auf der Basis eines beziehungsorientierten Modells zu treffen. In unserem Modell fallen Elternwünsche ethisch ins Gewicht. (shrink)

Defends a theory of social justice for education from within an egalitarian version of liberalism. The theory involves a strong commitment to educational equality, and to the idea that children's rights include a right to personal autonomy. The book argues that school reform must always be evaluated from the perspective of social justice and applies the theory, in particular, to school choice proposals. It looks at the parental choice schemes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and in England and Wales, (...) and argues that they fall short of the requirements of justice, but that not all such schemes must do so. It elaborates an abstract voucher scheme that would combine choice with justice, and offers ways by which actual choice‐based reform can be modified to meet the requirements of justice. (shrink)

Madole & Harden develop some good ideas about how to understand genetic causality more clearly, but they frame the benefits of behavior genetics research at a largely collective level, focused on the pros and cons of different ways to engineer the gene pool or social behavior. This neglects the individual benefits of hereditarian insights for mate choice and parenting.

Wir diskutieren ethische Probleme der medizinischen Behandlung intersexueller Kinder. Gefragt wird nach dem Stellenwert von Elternwünschen nach eindeutiger Geschlechtszuweisung sowie nach den Konfliktfeldern, die zum einen zwischen konkurrierenden Wunschvorstellungen der Eltern und der behandelnden Ärzte, zum andern zwischen Kindeswohl und Kinderrechten entstehen können. Gegenwärtig wird Neugeborenen mit anatomisch uneindeutigem Genital trotz unsicherer Prognose über die Behandlungsergebnisse oft noch ein Geschlecht zugewiesen und operativ erstellt. Dieses Vorgehen ist von verschiedenen Seiten ethisch heftig kritisiert worden. Kipnis u. Diamond forderten 1998 im „Journal (...) of Clinical Ethics“ ein Moratorium für alle nicht vital indizierten geschlechtskorrigierenden Eingriffe. Diese Forderung orientiert sich am Interesse des zukünftigen Erwachsenen, betont dessen prospektive Autonomie und klammert den Elternwunsch aus. Dieses „Modell des antizipierten Konsenses“ kann jedoch mit Bezug auf Neugeborene und Kleinkinder bedeutsame Aspekte des Eltern-Kind-Verhältnisses nicht angemessen erfassen. Im Aufsatz werden Argumente angeführt, die es aus Sicht einer Ethik der Elternschaft rechtfertigen, ethische Entscheidungen auf der Basis eines beziehungsorientierten Modells zu treffen. In unserem Modell fallen Elternwünsche ethisch ins Gewicht. (shrink)