When inclusion excludes: liberalism, Confucianism, and the Parkfield Community School protests

Abstract This article examines the 2019 Parkfield Community School protests in Birmingham as a case-based philosophical analysis in the moral and relational limits of liberal inclusion within public education. It critically engages Abeera Khan’s analysis of securitized liberalism, which shows how Muslim parental dissent was pathologized and rendered unintelligible within dominant civic discourses. At the same time, it draws on Nora Hämäläinen’s model of moral renegotiation, which highlights the affective and temporal complexities of ethical disagreement. While Hämäläinen offers a compelling alternative to procedural liberalism, her framework still presumes the presence of discursive and affective equality—conditions that were structurally absent at Parkfield. To respond to this gap, the article turns to Confucian relational ethics, proposing that virtues such as rén (consummate conduct), chéng (sincerity), and xìn (making good on one’s word) offer a deeper account of the cultivated moral capacities necessary for enduring disagreement. Situating Confucianism not as a replacement but as a critical supplement to liberalism, the article reimagines inclusion in education not as consensus, but as sustained ethical presence—made possible through relational attunement and moral cultivation.