Education is a contested topic, and not just politically. For years scholars have approached it from two different points of view: one empirical, focused on explanations for student and school success and failure, and the other philosophical, focused on education's value and purpose within the larger society. Rarely have these separate approaches been brought into the same conversation. "Education, Justice, and Democracy" does just that, offering an intensive discussion by highly respected scholars across empirical and philosophical disciplines. The contributors explore how the institutions and practices of education can support democracy, by creating the conditions for equal citizenship and egalitarian empowerment, and how they can advance justice, by securing social mobility and cultivating the talents and interests of every individual. Then the authors evaluate constraints on achieving the goals of democracy and justice in the educational arena and identify strategies that we can employ to work through or around those constraints. More than a thorough compendium on a timely and contested topic, "Education, Justice, and Democracy" exhibits an entirely new, more deeply composed way of thinking about education as a whole and its importance to a good society.

Danielle Allen is the UPS Foundation Professor of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. She is author of Why Plato Wrote, The World of Prometheus, and Talking to Strangers, the last published by the University of Chicago Press. Rob Reich is associate professor of political science with courtesy appointments in the Department of Philosophy and the School of Education at Stanford University. He is coeditor of Toward a Humanist Justice and the author of Bridging Liberalism and Multiculturalism in American Education, the latter published by the University of Chicago Press.