Does indoctrination still matter?

For at least half a century there has been a broad consensus that indoctrination is a pernicious form of miseducation and a distinctive vice of teaching. In recent years a number of educational theorists have sought to cast doubt on this view. They suggest that the attention traditionally given to the threat of indoctrination, and the anxiety induced by it, are significantly misplaced. Here Michael Hand distinguishes three forms of indoctrination scepticism – the impossibility objection, the unavoidability objection and the desirability objection – and argues that all three miss their mark. A fourth challenge to the standard view – the third party objection – does not downplay the threat of indoctrination but does deny that it is a distinctive vice of teaching. Hand contends that this objection too is unpersuasive and concludes that the standard view is the correct one.