Report

Family and state in education: What role for parent’s rights?

Think tank: Civitas

Author(s): Professor Anthony O'Hear OBE

November 30, 2022

This report from UK think tank Civitas looks at the issue of parental rights in education from a philosophical perspective.

This essay from Anthony O’Hear (professor of philosophy at the University of Buckingham) explores the issue of parental rights in education from a philosophical perspective, starting with the work of Plato and Aristotle before looking at more contemporary challenges. The 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states in unequivocal terms that ‘parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children’. In the UK, the British Parliament passed a landmark Education Act in 1944 which stated that ‘pupils (are) to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents’. Anthony O’Hear examines the reasons why both documents are correct in placing parental rights in educational matters above those of the state. He argues that it is no longer clear that parental rights are recognised in practice in many places, nor is there is any general understanding of why they should.