What has happened to the democratic intellect? The neglect of knowledge in Scottish educational policy
The ideals of liberal education used to be at the heart of Scottish educational democracy. All agreed that education should enable and encourage people to think for themselves on the basis of evidence and reason, and that the best means to that end was immersion in the inherited structures of knowledge. Yet these ideas are now regarded in Scottish policy as quaintly old fashioned. Why? What relationship does this change have to Scotland’s merely average educational performance by global standards? Does liberal education, grounded in systematic knowledge, still have any role to play in a democratic society?
223rd Lecture Series Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow
Date: Wednesday 05 March 2025
Time: 19:30 - 21:00
Venue: Charles Wilson Building, Lecture Theatre 201
Category: Public lectures
Speaker: Professor Lindsay Paterson University of Edinburgh
Lindsay Paterson is Professor Emeritus of education policy in the School of Social and Political Science at Edinburgh University. He has written and taught on education, social mobility, politics, and statistical method. His most recent book is Scottish Education and Society since 1945 (Edinburgh University Press, 2023, pbk February 2025). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2004, and a Fellow of the British Academy in 2013.