Professional Bio

Michael S. Merry is professor of philosophy in the department of Child Development and Education. Before entering the strange world of academia, he spent years as a laborer in a warehouse, a brickyard, a concrete plant, a waste management company, and also worked as a landscaper, a dishwasher, a roofer, a truck driver and a nighttime security officer. Well into his twenties, he then received a broad education in the humanities in Atlanta, Chicago, Leuven and New York. Later still, after some years of teaching, he earned his doctorate by combining philosophy and educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Over the years he has been visiting fellow at several universities, including Bristol University, New York University and Brown University.

Though he writes on a wide variety of issues, and often through a comparative-international frame, he specializes in any of the following:

• educational injustice, both institutional and non-institutional;
• the historical and philosophical foundations of education;
• the cultural and economic features of social exclusion;
• state paternalism and the class-based biases of family intervention;
• the politics and epistemology of academic research;
• the geography of neighborhood and school segregation;
• the legitimacy problems of citizenship and civic education;
• both religious and secular forms of indoctrination;
• the ethics of teaching and school quality monitoring;
• ethical questions related to parenting and childrearing; 
• alternative education in its manifold forms, particularly of a communitarian sort.

He also is a frequent contributor to political debates in Dutch, Belgian and other international media on a wide range of subjects. His social criticism has appeared in the pages of De Morgen, NRC Handelsblad, The Progressive, Bij Nader Inzien, Trouw, De Volkskrant, Philosophie, Het Parool, Knack, Quillette, Sociale Vraagstukken, Joop and Scienceguide, among others. He also has been featured in interviews for the De Groene Amsterdammer, Folia, Phronesis, Didactief, Knack, Algemeen Dagblad, Verus and AT5, among others.

Books authored

(2020)  Educational Justice: Liberal ideals, persistent inequality and the constructive uses of critique. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

(2013)  Equality, Citizenship and Segregation: A defense of separation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

(2007)  Culture, Identity and Islamic Schooling: A philosophical approach. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Books edited

(2016) Maussen, M., Vermeulen, F., Bader, V., & Merry, M.  Religious Schools in Europe: institutional opportunitities and contemporary challenges (London: Routledge)

(2012) Merry, M, Oulali, I, Steutel, J. & Levering, B. Segregatie in onderwijs en samenleving (Amsterdam: SWP).

(2010) Merry, M. & Milligan, J.  Citizenship, Identity and Education in Muslim Communities: essays on attachment and obligation (New York: Palgrave Macmillan)

Selected Publications

Self-determination on indigenous terms: Tribal colleges as institutional site of healing and resilience. Tribal College and University Research Journal 8: 41-63 (with Cynthia Lindquist).  https://collegefund.org/research/tcurj/

When should the patriot abandon their country? Public Affairs Quarterly 39 (3): 260-282. (with Alfred Archer).  https://www.press.uillinois.edu/journals/?id=paq

Can schools and libraries curb the functional illiteracy crisis? Insights from the Netherlands. Critical Studies in Education. Online Early (with Rianne van Melik). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508487.2024.2418105?src=exp-la

Majority-minority educational success sans integration: A comparative-international view. The Review of Black Political Economy 50 (2): 194-221 (with Orhan Agirdag). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00346446221120825

Educational inequality and state-sponsored elite schools: The case of the Dutch gymnasium. Comparative Education 56 (4): 522-546 (with Willem Boterman). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03050068.2020.1771872

Can schools fairly select their students? Theory and Research in Education 16 (3): 330-350 (with Richard Arum). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1477878518801752

Community, virtue and the white British poor. Dialogues in Human Geography 6 (1): 50-68 (with David Manley & Richard Harris).  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2043820615624603

The relevance of cosmopolitanism for moral education. Journal of Moral Education 40 (1): 1-18 (with Doret de Ruyter).  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057240.2011.541762

Can schools teach citizenship? Discourse 41 (1): 124-138. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01596306.2018.1488242

Risk, harm and intervention: The case of child obesity. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 17 (2): 191-200 (with Kristin Voigt).  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11019-013-9531-z

Should the homeless be forcibly helped? Public Health Ethics 12 (1): 30-43 (with Bart van Leeuwen). https://academic.oup.com/phe/article/12/1/30/4944889

The public library as social Infrastructure: A Dutch illustration. Social and Cultural Geography 24 (5): 758-777 (with Rianne van Melik).  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14649365.2021.1965195

Should the state fund religious schools? Journal of Applied Philosophy (24) 3: 255-270. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-5930.2007.00380.x

Equality, self-respect and voluntary separation. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 15 (1): 79-100. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13698230.2010.528239

What is an appropriate educational response to controversial historical monuments? Journal of Philosophy of Education 55 (3): 484-497 (with Anders Schinkel).  https://academic.oup.com/jope/article/55/3/484/6821509

Indoctrination, moral instruction and non-rational beliefs. Educational Theory 55 (4): 399-420.  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-5446.2005.00002.x-i1

Libertarian bioethics and religion. Bioethics (18) 5: 385-405. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2004.00406.x

Educational justice and the gifted. Theory and Research in Education (6) 1: 47-70. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1477878507086730

Access to all of my publications can be found here:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael-Merry-3

Inaugural lecture