Rule violations are expected in schools, and assessments of the severity of those violations and the appropriate disciplinary responses are a significant aspect of educators’ responsibilities. While most educators and policy makers reject rule violation as a permissible behavior in schools, is such a categorical rejection always a suitable response, and are there circumstances that might merit an alternative response? In this article, A. C. Nikolaidis and Winston C. Thompson argue that under unjust circumstances, noncompliance with school rules may be permissible and even desirable. Building on a contractual framework placing systemic injustice at the center of inquiry, they show that under unjust conditions schools forfeit their ability to hold students accountable for role-dependent violations.
Click here to access this article.
A. C. Nikolaidis (
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0047-1008) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Educational Studies and a Distinguished University Fellow at The Ohio State University. His dissertation develops a normative framework of education justice to guide research, policy making, and practice. His areas of interest are philosophy of education, feminist epistemology, moral and political philosophy, and education policy. Nikolaidis’ work has appeared in the
Journal of Curriculum Studies,
Educational Theory,
Philosophy of Education, and
Studies in Philosophy and Education. As a former Fulbright grantee, he studied Philosophy and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Winston C. Thompson (
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6474-0778) is an associate professor in the Departments of Educational Studies and Philosophy (by courtesy) at The Ohio State University. His work on justice and the role of education in a pluralistic, democratic society has appeared in
Educational Theory,
Philosophy of Education,
Teachers College Record,
Journal of Philosophy of Education,
Educational Philosophy and Theory, and
Studies in Philosophy and Education. A former Fellow-in-Residence at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, Thompson is currently working on issues at the intersection of education ethics and public life.