Conceptions of individual and collective rights in education

Abstract

The distinction between individual and collective rights has received considerable attention in some fields. In education studies, however, while collective rights are referred to and discussed in some quarters, relatively little attention has been paid to fundamental questions about these rights or to the implications of recognizing certain educational rights as collective rather than (or as well as) individual. This study attempts to bridge that theoretical gap. At the same time, there are questions about how school leaders think about rights and the individual/collective distinction. Hence, in addition to a broad theoretical investigation, this thesis makes an empirical investigation of how school leaders conceive of individual and collective rights and other closely related matters. Both the theoretical and empirical elements of the study are in service of understanding what might justify the recognition of collective rights in education and the possible implications of doing so. To this end, four Norwegian high-school leaders were interviewed. The interviews were structured around pupils’ rights, as represented in the Norwegian Education Act (1998). The leaders were asked to consider familiar rights, such as the right to a good physical and psychosocial environment, in both individual and collective terms, and to discuss their thinking in relation to these rights in their own leadership practice. The theoretical portion of the study finds that there are some difficulties with existing treatments of collective rights, at least given certain plausible philosophical assumptions. In particular, the structure of groups leaves the potential for rights to be exercised in a way that is divorced from the interests of their individual members. This may mean that groups are ill-suited to be bearers of rights. There may be a further problem of treating the well-being of groups, as distinct from that of their members, as a ground for moral concern. An examination and analysis of the empirical data reveals a nuanced picture. The experience of the interviewed leaders suggests that balancing individual and collective concerns may require addressing rights and other matters relating to fair practice in explicitly collective terms. Whatever the theoretical investigation may reveal about rights themselves and their justification, there are important implications that follow from how rights are thought of and talked about by school leaders.