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The overarching theme of this thesis concerns the possibility of balancing the values of unity and pluralism in education in developed nation states characterized by an increasing pluralism when it comes to the beliefs and values of its citizens. The author suggests that democracy has a normative basis in the principle of reciprocity which can be supported in an overlapping consensus by reasonable persons who differ in their moral, religious and philosophical beliefs. It is argued that this basis mandates a deliberative kind of democracy and that certain implications follow for how to understand the relation between democracy and individual rights, between democracy and religious belief and speech, and between rationality and deliberation, among other things. The author proceeds to discuss three educational issues in relation to the principle of reciprocity and its implications: 1. The legitimacy and content of a mandatory citizenship education, 2. Children’s rights to develop personal autonomy, 3. The opportunity for parents and children to choose which school children attend. These issues are important in relation to the question of how to balance unity and pluralism in education in that they concern the promotion of certain common beliefs, values and dispositions among citizens or the creation of a system of choice between schools with different profiles. The purpose of the discussion is to construct a theoretical position which balances the values of unity and pluralism in education, by giving diversity its due (contra communitarianism) while upholding a measure of unity (contra libertarianism and radical multiculturalism) which is located in the democratic and autonomy- promoting purposes of education rather than (exclusively) in its economic/vocational purposes (contra neo-liberalism). The discussions make use of political philosophy, educational philosophy and empirical research carried out by other researchers.

The thesis deals with specific emphases of special educational support provided to people with severe mental and multiple disabilities in their adult age. The aim of the thesis is to determine what the specifics of therapeutic support for adults with a severe handicap are, and how professionals adapt their specialized care to the fact that their clients are adults. To obtain the data for the purposes of the thesis, a qualitatively oriented research has been conducted, using semi-structured interviews with teachers and social service workers who have been involved with severely disabled adults for a long time. Data has been analyzed by methods of open and axial coding, which are part of the grounded theory. Other methods of data collection utilized for thesis processing include content analysis of specialized literature, content analysis of service users' documentation, and participant observation. The data obtained suggests that professional support of adults with mental and multiple disabilities must take into account both the specific level of development needs of these individuals, and their physical age. A significant component of the professional care is creating a relationship to the disabled person as an equal partner.