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In Education as Mutual Translation, the author recounts recent research conducted at a UK Art School, then examines and applies Hindu Vedantist (Ancient Indian) and Yoruba (West African) philosophical concepts of self and mutuality with others to an environment that expects high levels of individuality. Yoruba and Vedantic analyses of mind are shown to have startling resonance with each other, with Paulo Freire's critical consciousness, and Ronald Barnett's student being. Placing these sources in theoretical dialogue with each other the author proposes “critical autobiographic reflection” as a tool for locating cultural, political and ontological self; she suggests that a more resilient original voice emerges from awareness of society and community than from individualism, and that genuine pedagogic exchange changes student, tutor, and the work of both.

Dialectics of Knowing in Education strengthens the philosophical basis of formal education that has been weakened by neoliberalism over the past 30 years. It theorises and encourages human existence based on social action, culture, inquiry and creativity so that citizens in democratic association can formulate their own understandings of the world and be their own philosophers of practice.Under neoliberal capitalism, formal education has become a key economic driver and factor for all countries, but has exacerbated social division and inequality. This has led to an increased pressure on education systems to emphasise individual gain and prosperity at the expense of community care and concern. Drawing on the work of Dewey, Mead, Freire and Biesta, the author argues that formal education at all levels must be transformed so that it does not seek to impose knowledge and truth, but situates knowledge as being constructed by democratic learning circles of staff, students and citizens.Focusing particularly on the notion of praxis and specific issues involving Indigenous, feminist and practitioner knowing, this book will help scholars, practitioners and policy makers to transform their education theories and practices in ways that encourage democracy, emancipation, social action, culture, inquiry and creativity.

School Education, the third volume of Charlotte Mason's Homeschooling Series, consists of thoughts about the teaching and curriculum of children aged 9-12, either at school or at home. She suggests that parents should practice what she calls'masterly inactivity'-not neglectful or permissive parenting, but simply allowing children to work things out for themselves, do things for themselves, learn from their own mistakes, and to have time for free play, and space for spontaneity. Charlotte Mason uses'living books'instead of dry textbooks; in this book, she discusses what kinds of books to look for in each subject, and how to use them to teach children to love knowledge and become real readers and lifelong learners. Charlotte Mason was a late nineteenth-century British educator whose ideas were far ahead of her time. She believed that children are born persons worthy of respect, rather than blank slates, and that it was better to feed their growing minds with living literature and vital ideas and knowledge, rather than dry facts and knowledge filtered and pre-digested by the teacher. Her method of education, still used by some private schools and many homeschooling families, is gentle and flexible, especially with younger children, and includes first-hand exposure to great and noble ideas through books in each school subject, conveying wonder and arousing curiosity, and through reflection upon great art, music, and poetry; nature observation as the primary means of early science teaching; use of manipulatives and real-life application to understand mathematical concepts and learning to reason, rather than rote memorization and working endless sums; and an emphasis on character and on cultivating and maintaining good personal habits. Schooling is teacher-directed, not child-led, but school time should be short enough to allow students free time to play and to pursue their own worthy interests such as handicrafts.

Education, Self-consciousness and Social Action reconstructs the Hegelian concept of education, Bildung, and shows that this concept could serve as a powerful alternative to current psychologist notions of learning. Taking a Hegelian perspective, Stojanov claims that Bildung should be interpreted as growth of mindedness and that such a growth has two central and interrelated components, including the development of self-consciousness toward conceptual self-articulation and the formation of one's capacity for intelligent social action. The interrelation between the two central components of education implies that learning is transformed into education only when it involves the self-consciousness and the identity of the learner. Since both are grounded in the ethical beliefs and values of the individual, transforming learning into education therefore requires that education also address students'everyday ethical assumptions, as well as their articulation and conceptualization. This claim has a number of implications for educational policy and pedagogy; one being that learning and teaching in schools are educative only if they have ethical significance for both students and teachers. Another implication is that the point of departure for educative teaching becomes the actual, everyday ethical beliefs and experiences of the students, rather than fixed curricular contents. Students'encountering with sciences and arts should aim at the conceptual articulation of those beliefs and experiences – an articulation which makes individual's rational autonomy and self-determination possible. Education, Self-consciousness and Social Action will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students interested in the philosophy of education. It should also be essential reading for anyone engaged in the study of Hegel's work.

This book explores why the concept of wild pedagogy is an essential aspect of education in these times; a re-negotiated education that acknowledges the necessity of listening to voices in a more than human world, and (re)learning how to dwell in a place. As the geological epoch inexorably shifts to the Anthropocene, the authors argue that learning to live in and engage with the world is increasingly crucial in such times of uncertainty. The editors and contributors examine what wild pedagogy can truly become, and how it can be relevant across disciplinary boundaries: offering six touchstones as working tools to help educators forge an onward path. This collaborative work will be of interest to students and scholars of wild pedagogies, alternative education and the Anthropocene, and for all those engaged in re-wilding education.

This book provides an optimistic account of the value and role of schooling. Schooling is a common but not universal approach to education and has need of its own distinctive justification, in contrast to other approaches such as home-based or work-based education. The book tackles and rejects the various large-scale ‘functional'theories of schooling which continue to dominate current debates and policies, such as schooling supporting employment and the economy, or developing citizenship. Instead, it argues that schooling and schools should be viewed as places to learn community within and through community. The lived reality of relationships within schools, based on care and curiosity, is as strong as ever: and upon this foundation is built an original philosophy of schooling. This reflective book will appeal to students and scholars of philosophy of education and to all professionals concerned with schools.

This short book provides an introduction to the study of education, outlining the dual purpose of education – to help people live well and to help develop a world worth living in. It argues that education initiates people into forms of understanding, modes of activity, and ways of relating to each other and the world that not only help individuals to live good lives, but also help secure a culture based on reason, productive and sustainable economies and environments, and just and democratic societies. Subsequent chapters address the history of education in the West; explore how education reproduces the practices and forms of life in societies and groups, and also how it transforms them; and introduce the theory of practice architectures to explain what practices are composed of, and how they are enabled and constrained by local and more general conditions and circumstances. The book closes by showing how the theory of practice architectures unfolds to offer a theory of education – a theory that underpins the definition of education offered at the start of the book. Understanding Education is essential reading for anyone interested in the theory and practice of education.

In the early 1970s the crisis in schools, particularly in urban areas, had escalated. At the same time a number of writers had advocated either the abolition or the recasting of the school system as a whole. The late Kenneth Richmond saw these phenomena as symptoms of a struggle towards a much-needed new theory and practice of education. Increasingly, he felt, it is realised that a schooled society is not synonymous with an educative society, and that learning which stops at the age of sixteen and which makes the learner the submissive receiver of instruction and training is simply inadequate in an age of technology.The'generative theory'of education outlined in this book, originally published in 1975, would conceive of the learner as the controlling agent in a network of educational resources, and of education as a lifelong process. Learning can no longer be confined within the frames and classifications imposed upon it by traditional pedagogy. Recent research evidence indicates that the importance attached to formal schooling is greatly exaggerated and that the financial and other resources devoted to the expansion of so-called educational services are largely wasted.There is a need, the author stresses, for a much wider definition of education – one that would recognise the validity of the numerous skills acquired outside the classroom (at home, in the peer group, at the work-place) and would deliberately foster a ‘school without walls'policy, whereby community institutions and organizations could be used as learning environments. Only by taking steps in this direction, he believes, can we overcome the apparently intractable problems of the schools today.

Literacies, Literature and Learning: Reading Classrooms Differently attends to pressing questions in literacy education, such as the poor quality of many children's experiences as readers, routine disregard for their thinking and the degrading impact of narrow skills measurement and comparison. This cutting-edge book moves beyond social, psychological and scientific categories that focus on individualistic and linear notions of the knowing subject; of progress and development; and of child as less than fully human. It adopts a posthumanist framework to explore new perspectives for teaching, learning and research.Authors from diverse disciplines and continents have collaborated to interrogate the colonising characteristics of humanism and to imagine a different – more just - reading of a literacy classroom. Questions of de/colonisation are tackled through the exploration of both education and research practices that seek to de-centre the human and include the more than human. Inspired by an example of high quality children's literature, playful philosophical teaching and the power of the material, the authors show how the chapters diffract with one another, thereby opening up radical possibilities for a different doing of childhood.The book hopes to help transform adult-child relationships in schools and universities. As such, it should be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the areas of literacy, philosophy, law, education, the wider social sciences, the arts, health sciences and architecture. It should also be essential reading for teacher educators and practitioners around the world.

This innovative brief provides guidance on promoting reflection in situated learning by incorporating mindfulness strategies, tapping into a surge of research interest in exploring mindfulness as an instructional strategy associated with positive learning outcomes. It illustrates the benefits of continuous reflection within situated learning and how mindfulness can be incorporated before, during, and after the learning experience to enhance the reflective experience. Critically, the authors present a new conceptual model that synthesizes theories and methods from three different areas of study—mindfulness, situated learning, and reflection— to provide a new perspective and instructional approach that has great potential to positively impact outcomes in situated learning.Among the other topics covered:• Strategies for reflection in situated learning.• Strategies for reflection-in-action in situated learning.• Mindfulness strategies for situated learning.• A conceptual model incorporating mindfulness to enhance reflection.Enhancing Reflection within Situated Learning is an exciting and pioneering resource that offers practical guidance to educators and instructional designers interested in incorporating methods and approaches for integrating mindfulness and reflection across instructional environments.

This volume explores conceptualizations of indigeneity and the ways that indigenous philosophies can and should inform educational policy and practice. Beginning with questions and philosophies of indigeneity itself, the volume then covers the indigenous philosophies and practices of a range of communities—including Sami, Maori, Walpiri, Navajo and Kokama peoples. Chapter authors examine how these different ideals can inform and create meaningful educational experiences for communities that reflect indigenous ways of life. By applying them in informing a philosophy of education that is particular and relevant to a given indigenous community, this study aims to help policy makers and educational practitioners create meaningful educational experiences.

Radical Schooling for Democracy proposes that formal education around the world has a serious philosophical weakness: as the ideology of neoliberalism increasingly dominates economic and as a consequence, educational and social life, formal education has adopted a narrow, rational and economic purpose for all students. Hooley argues that, under these circumstances, schooling is inherently frustrating and alienating for vast numbers of children as they are systematically removed from the big ideas and practices of history and knowledge of which they and their communities are a part and are instead inducted into a technical and superficial rationality of human existence. Radical Schooling for Democracy begins with a progressive and contemporary overview of philosophical and sociological thought during the European Enlightenment and identifies a framework of understanding that is extremely weak in education. This action framework of integrated philosophy, sociology and epistemology generates an ‘action theory'that not only accounts for human progress, but has the potential to radically change the nature of schooling. A number of theorists who generally support a ‘theory of action'is considered, ranging from Aristotle, Marx, Dewey and Freire to Habermas. From this analysis, the curriculum, pedagogical, assessment and research constructs of schooling are detailed such that a coherent and integrated model of education as an attribute of being human can be articulated, rather than being seen as a disparate derivative from other disciplines. With its coverage of internationally relevant issues, this book will be essential reading for academics, graduate students, policymakers and researchers in education, philosophy, sociology and epistemology, as well as teachers and pre-service teachers.

Originally published in 1969, this book aims to show that Charles Fourier has much to say that is of interest to modern edcationlists. Fourier hardly ever figures in histories of education because only recent developments in educational practice have shown his ideas to be of topical and practical importance to the schoolteacher and the planner of today.Fourier devised a system of education to suit a self-infulgent, democratic society, in which children's energies could be used in ways which were both socially useful and personally rewarding. He was a pioneer advocate of comprehensive education, so as to establish harmy between classes. He urged vocational training and guidance, so as to establish harmony between men and their work. He devised close links between education and industry, to bring pleasure into both school and work and to integrate the two. He was one of the first to plan social service to the community by children. This prophetic though eccentric writer, sometimes extravagant, often amusing, but always endearing, who has already exerted much influence on socialist theory, deserves to be better known by students of education.

All the different approaches to the issue of the university and education presented in the Yearbook form the free-standing phenomenological openings, drawing from classical phenomenological sources, relying upon traditional wisdom and implementing new, even experimental approaches and interconnections. However, they all converge on related and timeless intellectual conclusions, ever anew resurrecting the idea of humanistic culture: there is no real education without the cultivation of the essential humanity in man as its central point, without a devoted commitment to shape integrated, self-aware, independent and critical thinking, morally mature, responsible and compassionate human individuals.

Le laboratoire BONHEURS de l'Université de Cergy-Pontoise est le premier en Europe à approfondir cette question simple : peut-on apprendre à être heureux? Il initie une démarche innovante consistant à labelliser des dispositifs concrets. À quoi sert l'éducation au bonheur? D'abord, à faciliter l'acquisition des connaissances. Ensuite, à préparer le parcours de vie des individus. Enfin, à pratiquer dès l'enfance des activités formant aux relations à soi, à l'autre, à la planète. C'est le moyen le plus sûr pour fonder une société plus humaine.

This is one of the first books to explicitly address twenty-first-century education from a Confucian perspective. The contributors focus on why Confucianism is relevant to both American and Chinese education, how Confucian pedagogical principles can be applied to diverse sociocultural settings, and what the social and moral functions of a Confucianism-based education are. Prominent scholars explore a wide-range of research areas and methods, such as K–12 and college teaching; conceptual comparisons; case studies; and discourse analysis, that reflect the depth and breadth of Confucian ideas, and the divergent contexts in which Confucian principles and practices may be applied. This book not only enriches the research literature on Confucianism from an interdisciplinary perspective, but also offers fresh insights into Confucianism's continuing relevance and its compatibility with the latest research-based pedagogical practices.

Originally published in 1990. This book is concerned with the logic of the relationship between educational theory and practice. It is a fundamental examination of three ideas: Vocationalism - the idea that the central purpose of education is to prepare people for work. Managerialism - the idea that this preparation can be managed by those not intimately concerned with the practice of teaching. Consumerism - the idea that education should be led by the demands of the ‘market'. Halliday argues that promoters of these ideas share a mistaken belief in the value of pursuing a supposed ideal of objective precision in education. He traces the theoretical origins of this ideal and its practical consequences. In particular, he argues that educational development is likely to remain ossified within a particular theoretical framework, unless competing developments are allowed to flourish alongside one another. He concludes by outlining the ways in which this competition might be managed.

Speaking to an increasingly fluid world involving the migration of peoples and cultures, the global resilience of religion, and the role of schooling in fostering liberal democratic values, this book investigates the degree to which secular public schools might facilitate religious migrants'societal integration. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach which draws from political philosophy, the philosophy of education, and the sociology of religion, Collet argues that public schools in liberal democratic states can best facilitate the pluralistic integration of religious migrant students through adopting policies of recognition and accommodation that are not only reasonable in the light of liberal democratic principles, but also informed in terms of what we understand regarding the natural role religion often plays in acculturation.

We spend a lot of time arguing about how schools might be improved. But we rarely take a step back to ask what we as a society should be looking for from education—what exactly should those who make decisions be trying to achieve? In Educational Goods, two philosophers and two social scientists address this very question. They begin by broadening the language for talking about educational policy: “educational goods” are the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that children develop for their own benefit and that of others; “childhood goods” are the valuable experiences and freedoms that make childhood a distinct phase of life. Balancing those, and understanding that not all of them can be measured through traditional methods, is a key first step. From there, they show how to think clearly about how those goods are distributed and propose a method for combining values and evidence to reach decisions. They conclude by showing the method in action, offering detailed accounts of how it might be applied in school finance, accountability, and choice. The result is a reimagining of our decision making about schools, one that will sharpen our thinking on familiar debates and push us toward better outcomes.

Philosophy, Dialogue, and Education is an advanced introduction to nine key European social philosophers: Martin Buber, Mikhail Bakhtin, Lev Vygotsky, Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Simone Weil, Michael Oakeshott, and Jürgen Habermas. This detailed yet highly readable work positions the socio-political views of each philosopher within a European tradition of dialogical philosophy; and reflects on the continuing theoretical relevance of the work of each to education generally and to critical pedagogy. The discussion in each chapter is informed by materials drawn from various scholarly sources in English and is enriched by materials from other languages, particularly French, German, and Russian. This enhances the comparative European cultural perspective of the book; and connects the work of each philosopher to wider intellectual, political, and social debates. The book will appeal to academics, postgraduates, and researchers working in philosophy, philosophy of education, and in educational, cultural, and social studies more generally. Advanced undergraduate students would also benefit from the book's discussion of primary sources and the authors'suggestions for further reading.

This book, first published in 1959, was written to primarily address teachers and students of education, as well as those with a general interest in the changing practices of schools. Under the terms of the 1944 Education Act, which charged Local Authorities with contributing towards the ‘spiritual, moral, mental, and physical development of the community'. The author examines these ideas whilst examining the state of education in the United Kingdom after the 1944 Education Act.

This book covers Rudolf Steiner's biography, presented from an educational point of view and also unfolds the different aspects of Steiner's educational thought in Waldorf Education. His point of view is unique in that it relates education to a wide horizon of different contexts, such as social, pedagogical, evolutionary and spiritual aspects. His ideas are philosophical (ethical, epistemological, ontological). However, above all, they are based on spiritual understanding of the human being and the world.In many ways, they stand in stark contrast to the views that inform present mainstream educational thought and practice. Nevertheless, there are points where Steiner's ideas can find a resonance in more recent educational thought. Steiner was in many ways ahead of his time and his educational ideas are still relevant to many present day educational issues and problems.

This book, first published in 1990, takes a critical look at the major assumptions which support critical thinking programs and discovers many unresolved questions which threaten their viability. John McPeck argues that some of these assumptions are incoherent or run counter to common sense, while others are unsupported by the available empirical evidence. This title will be of interest to students of the philosophy of education.

Depuis le début des années 80, de nombreuses'éducations à'(la santé, la citoyenneté, la solidarité internationale, les médias et l'information...) sont apparues. Ces'éducations à...'se situent à la fois dans la continuité des'actions éducatives'scolaires et en rupture avec cette tradition, car elles ne se cantonnent plus au seul ordre scolaire. Elles s'inscrivent dans un contexte mondialisé. Voici un outil apportant une clarification conceptuelle et une démarche réflexive.

This book evaluates the educational system of the United States from schools for the young up to universities and various forms of adult education. It is not confined to the evaluation of intellectual achievement. Rather it tries to arrive at some judgment as to whether schools help people acquire the degree of maturity necessary for participation in the work of a nation called upon to assume world responsibilities.Education, rightly conceived, is the process by which a growing person, according to his individual capacity, is prepared to understand himself, his place in society, his relation to the universe, and to act upon this understanding. A nation, to whatever extent it can afford to do so, should help future generations to strive for such achievements. But although this obligation is generally accepted by the American citizen, its practical requirements are still not fully understood.A classic soon after its original publication, this book is timelier today than ever. The author convincingly articulates the view that all our efforts at raising the intellectual and moral standards in our high schools are doomed to failure unless we boldly pair the right subject with the right talent. He demonstrates how we can achieve this without rejecting the precious heritage that is our tradition of free secondary schooling for all who can profit by it: his goal is nothing less than the creative combination of quality and justice in education.Ulich's prescriptions for education are bold and prac1/4tical. The boldness is best characterized by his contro1/4versial suggestion that the emotional sphere serves as the means of unifying the highly diverse American society. We see the influence of modern theory and its disenchantment with the merely intellectual theory as a basis for understanding, communication, and meaning. The institution that Ulich proposes is an'ideal'one, but it is described in considerable detail. Its buildings, facilities, curriculum, and informal programs are designed to provide shared emotional experiences while retaining the need for intellectual differentiation. 1/4

Philosophical Reflections on Neuroscience and Education explores conceptual and normative questions about the recent programme which aims to underpin education with neuroscientific principles. By invoking philosophical ideas such as Bennett and Hacker's mereological fallacy, Wittgenstein's the first-person/third-person asymmetry principle and the notion of irreducible/constitutive uncertainty, William H. Kitchen offers a critique of the whole-sale adoption of neuroscience to education. He explores and reviews the role that neuroscience has started to play in educational policy and practice, and whether or not such a role is founded in coherent conceptual reasoning. Kitchen critically analyses the role which neuroscience can possibly play within educational discussions, and offers paradigmatic examples of how neuroscientific approaches have already found their way into educational practice and policy documents. By invoking the philosophical work primarily of Wittgenstein, he argues against the surge of neuroscientism within educational discourse and offers to clarify and elucidate core concepts in this area which are often misunderstood.

Education, like every other important branch of knowledge, has its underlying philosophical problems. It is these problems and the attempts to solve them which together make up the philosophy of education. This book, first published in 1957, provides a simple explanation and illustration of what philosophy can (and cannot) do for educational thinking. This title will be of interest to students of the philosophy of education.

Paulo Freire (1921—1997) is well known around the world for his innovative educational philosophy, which has led many to consider him the “father” of both critical pedagogy and popular education. What is less known about Freire, however, is that his politics and pedagogy were informed by a faith birthed in Roman Catholicism, but which also challenged the church to move beyond individual piety to prophetic action. Freire's spirituality was rooted in the conviction that God calls all people of goodwill to work toward fulfilling the vision of a new humanity given by God. To that end, this book—one of the first of its kind discussing Freire—examines the spirituality that was foundational to his life and teaching, inviting all who have been influenced by Freire to consider the deeper spiritual dimensions of their pedagogical and political work.

Employing history, social theory, and a detailed contemporary case study, Knowledge for Social Change argues for fundamentally reshaping research universities to function as democratic, civic, and community-engaged institutions dedicated to advancing learning and knowledge for social change. The authors focus on significant contributions to learning made by Francis Bacon, Benjamin Franklin, Seth Low, Jane Addams, William Rainey Harper, and John Dewey—as well as their own work at Penn's Netter Center for Community Partnerships—to help create and sustain democratically-engaged colleges and universities for the public good. Knowledge for Social Change highlights university-assisted community schools to effect a thoroughgoing change of research universities that will contribute to more democratic schools, communities, and societies. The authors also call on democratic-minded academics to create and sustain a global movement dedicated to advancing learning for the “relief of man's estate”—an iconic phrase by Francis Bacon that emphasized the continued betterment of the human condition—and to realize Dewey's vision of an organic “Great Community” composed of participatory, democratic, collaborative, and interdependent societies.

Nuraan Davids and Yusef Waghid teach philosophy of education to students, who are completing a post-graduate certificate in education (PGCE) in order to qualify as teachers. They make the argument that philosophy and education are intertwined as action concepts with the potential to affect teacher education practices. Philosophy and Education as Action: Implications for Teacher Education endeavors to clarify pertinent philosophical concepts in education and look at how these concepts impact teaching, learning, and management as classroom practices. Through the philosophical concepts of epistêmê (knowledge), phronesis (practical reasoning), praxis (productive action), paideia (education), parhessia (free speech), technê (craft or art), dialogos (deliberative engagement), philia (love and friendship), kosmopolitis (cosmopolitanism), and dinamis (potentiality), students can come to speech through a philosophical discourse situated in educational studies.

In this book, first published in 1979, Kevin Harris explores the idea that in capitalist liberal democracies formal education functions essentially not to reveal reality, but rather to transmit to each new generation a structured misrepresentation of reality. In defence of this controversial and thought-provoking view, the author argues that all knowledge of the world is theory-laden and that a neutral, detached, objective description of the world is impossible. This title will be of interest to students of the philosophy of education.

This book theorizes aesthetic classroom management through a hermeneutical approach with three fields of literature: history and philosophical foundations of chivalry, chivalry's promulgation through the Victorian Age, and parallel issues of identity in twenty-first century teacher education. The aim of the book is to examine the relationship between chivalric ethos and education. The presented case study addresses more specifically the following question: how can chivalry be re-imagined or theorized in an educational setting? Few studies address the concept of aesthetics and hermeneutical context in American classroom management and classroom life, and Attwood pinpoints and traces the medieval social concept of chivalry through the centuries and argues it has manifested itself in classroom social construction in the twenty-first century.

The book outlines a fundamental alternative to the rising wave of aggressive biological reductionism and brainism in contemporary psychology and education. It offers steps to achieving a daunting and elusive goal: constructing a coherently non-reductionist account of the mind. The main obstacle to such a construction is identified as the centuries-old contemplative fallacy that leads to entrenched dualisms and shackles major theoretical frameworks. The alternative agentive activity perspective overcomes this fallacy by advancing the core principles of the cultural-historical activity theory. This innovative perspective charts a consistently non-mentalist and non-individualist view of psychological processes without discarding the individual mind. A vast body of research and theories, from Piaget and Dewey to sociocultural and embodied cognition approaches are critically engaged, with a special focus on Piotr Galperin's contribution. The notion of the embodied agent's object-directed activity serves as a pivotal point for re-conceptualizing the mind and its role in behavior. In a radical departure from both the traditional mentalist and biologically reductionist frameworks, psychological processes are understood as taking place “beyond the brain”—as constituted by the agent's activities in the world. From this standpoint, many of Vygotsky's key insights, including semiotic mediation, internalization, and cognitive tools are given a fresh scrutiny and substantially revised. The agentive activity perspective opens ways to offer a bold vision for education: developmental teaching and learning built on the premise that real knowledge is not “information storage and retrieval” and that education is not about “knowledge transmission” but instead it is about developing students'minds.

Contesting Governing Ideologies is the third volume in the Educational Philosophy and Theory: Editor's Choice series and represents a collection of texts that provide a cutting-edge analysis of the philosophy and theory of performances of neoliberal ideology in education. In past decades, philosophy of education has provided a critical commentary on problematic areas of neoliberal ideology. As such, this collection argues, philosophy of education can be considered as an intellectual struggle that runs through the contemporary ideological landscape and has roots that go back to the Enlightenment in its traditions.This book covers multiple philosophical and educational theoretical perspectives of what we know about the ideology of neoliberalism, and many of its practices and projects. Neoliberalism is difficult to define, but what is certain is that it has significantly matured as a political doctrine and set of policy practices. This collection covers questions of ideology, politics, and policy in relation to the subject and the institution alike. The chapters in this book provide rich and diverse reading, allowing readers to rethink established discourses and contest ideologies, providing a thorough and careful philosophical and theoretical analysis of the story of neoliberalism over the past decades.Contesting Governing Ideologies will be key reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of philosophy of education, philosophy, education, educational theory, post-structural theory, the policy and politics of education, and the pedagogy of education.

Bridging the gap between interpretations of'Third Way'Platonic scholarship and'phenomenological-ontological'scholarship, this book argues for a unique ontological-hermeneutic interpretation of Plato and Plato's Socrates. Reconceptualizing Plato's Socrates at the Limit of Education offers a re-reading of Plato and Plato's Socrates in terms of interpreting the practice of education as care for the soul through the conceptual lenses of phenomenology, philosophical hermeneutics, and ontological inquiry. Magrini contrasts his re-reading with the views of Plato and Plato's Socrates that dominate contemporary education, which, for the most part, emerge through the rigid and reductive categorization of Plato as both a'realist'and'idealist'in philosophical foundations texts (teacher education programs). This view also presents what he terms the questionable'Socrates-as-teacher'model, which grounds such contemporary educational movements as the Paideia Project, which claims to incorporate, through a'scripted-curriculum'with'Socratic lesson plans,'the so-called'Socratic Method'into the Common Core State Standards Curriculum as a'technical'skill that can be taught and learned as part of the students''critical thinking'skills. After a careful reading incorporating what might be termed a'Third Way'of reading Plato and Plato's Socrates, following scholars from the Continental tradition, Magrini concludes that a so-called'Socratic education'would be nearly impossible to achieve and enact in the current educational milieu of standardization or neo-Taylorism (Social Efficiency). However, despite this, he argues in the affirmative that there is much educators can and must learn from this'non-doctrinal're-reading and re-characterization of Plato and Plato's Socrates.

This text, first published in 1988, examines the underlying rationale of educational aims as applied to individual pupils, social policies and supposedly intrinsic values. This book explores traditional educational aims such as developing the potential and autonomy of individuals or the promotion of rationality as well as more contemporary and often controversial ones. The author provides a clear and balanced justification of educational aims which teachers need in order to combat the rhetoric of changing fashion or the pressures of political and managerial opportunism. This book is essential reading both for students and teachers.

One of the most influential critical educators of the twentieth century, Paulo Freire challenged those educational inequalities and conditions of injustice faced by oppressed populations. In this new edition of Reinventing Paulo Freire, Antonia Darder re-examines his legacy through reflections on Freirean pedagogy and the narratives of teachers who reinvent his work. The fully revised first part provides important historical, political, and economic connections between major societal concerns and educational questions raised by Freire and their link to the contemporary moment, including questions tied to neoliberalism, coloniality, and educational inequalities. At the heart of the book is a critical understanding of how Freire's pedagogy of love can inform, in theory and practice, a humanizing approach to teaching and learning. Powerful teacher narratives offer examples of a living praxis, committed to democratic classroom life and the emancipation of subaltern communities. The narratives clearly illustrate how Freire's ideas can be put concretely into practice in schools and communities. These reflections on Freirean praxis are sure to spark conversation and inspiration in teacher education courses. Through a close theoretical engagement of Freire's ideas and key insights garnered from lived experiences, the book speaks to the ways Freire can still inspire contemporary educators to adopt the spirit of liberatory pedagogy, By so doing, Reinventing Paulo Freire is certain to advance his theories in new ways, both to those familiar with his work and to those studying Freire for the first time.

This book continues the story about education and the absurd. Its specific focus is on the work of Albert Camus. It tries to summarise the ways in which his writing has already inspired and influenced educational thinking and practice, and it offers a new set of educational interpretations of six of his major works. These set out the exciting challenge about how we might think about the purposes and practices of education in the future, how to talk about these, plan and deliver.Using the work of Albert Camus in this way is an attempt to bring him and his ideas closer to educational discussions. This is a deliberate attempt to show the synergy between some of his major concepts and those that are already cornerstones of educational discourses.Read from an educational perspective the work of Albert Camus also provides guidance and invigorates the imagination as to how education can respond to those increasingly complex, existential crises it finds itself connected to. For educational people interested in these questions this book will hopefully motivate a re-reading of Camus and a brave, new lens on practice.

This book critically examines multiple discourses of wellbeing in relation to the composite aims of schooling. Drawing from a Scottish study, the book disentangles the discursive complexity, to better understand what can happen in the name of wellbeing, and in particular, how wellbeing is linked to learning in schools. Arguing that educational discourses have been overshadowed by discourses of other groups, the book examines the political and ideological policy aims that can be supported by different discourses of wellbeing. It also uses interview data to show how teachers and policy actors accepted, or re-shaped and remodelled the policy discourses as they made sense of them in their own work. When addressing schools'responses to inequalities, discussions are often framed in terms of wellbeing. Yet wellbeing as a concept is poorly defined and differently understood across academic and professional disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, healthpromotion, and social care. Nonetheless, its universally positive connotations allow policy changes to be ushered in, unchallenged. Powerful actions can be exerted through the use of soft vocabulary as the discourse of wellbeing legitimates schools'intervention into personal aspects of children's lives. As educators worldwide struggle over the meaning and purpose of schooling, discourses of wellbeing can be mobilised in support of different agendas. This book demonstrates how this holds both dangers and opportunities for equality in education. Amartya Sen's Capability Approach is used to offer a way forward in which different understandings of wellbeing can be drawn together to offer a perspective that enhances young people's freedoms in education and their freedoms gained through education.

The philosophy of education is an important component of most education courses. The subject is often split into two traditions, one emphasising the use of analytic philosophy, the other engaging in radical social criticism. This book, first published in 1982, brings together the strengths of both traditions and takes stock of the debate. This study provides an interesting introduction to all the major philosophical issues in education which is different to many other works on the subject.

Informative and mind-opening, this text uniquely provides a comprehensive overview of a range of non-western approaches to educational thought and practice. Its premise is that understanding the ways that other people educate their children—as well as what counts for them as'education'—may help readers to think more clearly about some of their own assumptions and values, and to become more open to alternative viewpoints about important educational matters. The approach is deliberately and profoundly pedagogical, based in the author's own teaching practice. Designed to be used in pre-service and in-service teacher education courses where substantial critical discussion and debate are encouraged, the text is enhanced by Questions for Discussion and Reflection in each chapter. Updates and Features of the Fourth Edition• NEW! Chapter 2 exploring key features of the ‘western educational tradition', and information about the contemporary educational systems in different countries• NEW! Chapter 10 on traditional educational thought and practice in Oceania, with special focus on the Maori in New Zealand, the Hawai'ians, and the Australian Aboriginal peoples• Updated chapter on Africa includes fuller explanation of the diversity within the indigenous African experience, as well as several contemporary cases of state education in Africa• Updated Chapter 4 is designed to help non-Muslims to understand the Muslim educational heritage and the growing issue of Islamophobia• Exploration of Chinese education now includes a special emphasis on the thought of Confucius, the role of the imperial examination system, and the impact of political and economic changes in the 20th century• Updated analysis of contemporary educational practices in Hindu and Buddhist educational thought and practice and brief discussions of Jainism and Sikhism

That governments are, and will always be, involved in education, is taken for granted by the majority of educationalists. Recent market reforms are condemned, because they appear to undermine state intervention in education. But are justifications for state intervention in education philosophically sound? Is the attack on markets justified? In Disestablishing the School, Dr Tooley explores these issues, setting recent educational policy debates in the broader context of debates in moral and political philosophy, and philosophy of economics. Topical issues to do with equality of opportunity, education for democracy, education for autonomy, democratic control of the curriculum, and education as a public good are examined. None of these survive as a critique of markets in education, nor as a justification for state intervention in education. In undermining these arguments, Dr Tooley argues that the case for the disestablishment of the school, for the separation of school and state, can be philosophically sustained.

Addressing studying as a distinct educational concept and phenomenon in its own right, the essays in this volume consider study and studying from a range of perspectives. Countering dominant educational discourses, which place a heavy emphasis on learning and instruction, the contributors explore questions such as: What does it mean to study something? How is studying something different from being taught about it, or learning something about it? What does the difficulty demanded by study mean for the one who studies and for the teacher? What mode of existence does study induce? The book highlights the significance of study not only, or even primarily, for its educational outcome, but as a human activity.

Joe L. Kincheloe (1950–2008) was one of North America's leading critical pedagogy scholars. He defined post-formalist thought in terms of deconstruction, affectivity, and non-linearity. His deconstruction focused on the context of ideas, ideologies, and teaching. It was a form of sociological deconstruction, and as such, inspired by Derrida, but different from him as well. In effect, Kincheloe was trying to marry Derrida to Foucault by making deconstruction see power in thought, relationships, and the world. Kincheloe's ‘turn to affect'was inspired by feminism and radical pedagogy. It was ‘affect'focused on (in)justice and the social practices of repression. His ‘self-other'construct was inherently politicized by his identification of ‘unfreedom'with capitalism and the assumption that this link determines affect. Kincheloe assumed that linear rationality was inadequate to understanding human needs and hopes. Freedom as dynamism was seen to be inherently non-linear. The prison of rationality (it can only repeat the same, over and over again) was the crux of his critique of Newtonian-Cartesian linearity. Kincheloe attempted to construct a concept of ‘place'—such as the classroom. But it was a particular, concrete classroom and not an abstract or theoretical one. Here, the three concepts could come together. ‘Place'is context, and to understand it, deconstruction is needed. ‘Place'exists as it is felt and requires affectivity; it is eventful, alive, and dynamic. It requires non-linearity to be understood. Post-formalism, Pedagogy Lives (in memory of Kincheloe's contribution) encompasses each of the basic principles of Kincheloe's post-formal thought.

Written in the midst of World War II, this book makes a strong argument for the crucial importance of education as the solution to the dilemmas with which our Anglo-Saxon culture was nurtured, with particular emphasis on the work of John Dewey and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.'The schools with which this argument is concerned are those of the Anglo-Saxon democracies of the last three centuries. In the life of England and America as we now know them, three hundred years of cultural change have moved on to a culminating and desperate crisis. That culture, in its religious and moral aspects, we have called Protestantism. On the economic and political side it has appeared as Capitalism. And these two together have established and maintained a way of life which we describe as Democratic. This book is devoted to an attempt to understand the education which is given by Anglo-Saxon democracies, to study the learning and teaching which have been done by a Protestant-capitalist civilization.'ufrom the Preface.As the original foreword by Reginald Archambault indicates,'Fundamentally this is a book about education written by an educator who was anything but conservative and never merely theoretical. He is interested not only in educational theory but also in educational policy, and indeed, in pedagogy. The volume is invaluable, then, for the student of education, for it sheds critical light on the classic conceptions of education for the poor, and provides a heuristic statement of direction for the future.'Stringfellow Barr, writing for the New Republic, indicates that this is'A wise and courageous book. I do not know how anybody concerned with education can ignore it.'Mark van Doren in the Nation said,'As many readers as are interested in human happiness should go through this bookafor it is concerned with as important a theme as any I can imagine.'

Education has been widely criticised as being too narrowly focused on skills, capacities and the transference of knowledge that can be used in the workplace. As a result of the dominance of economic rationalism and neo-liberalism, it has become commodified and marketed to potential customers. As a consequence, students have become consumers of an educational product and education has become an industry. There is deep dissatisfaction with these neo-liberal developments. What is missing is any conception of education as a key factor in the ‘human formation'that will lead students to develop the virtues and values that they will need to not only lead successful lives, but also be responsible members of their communities — working for the common good and acting to transform them into just societies. This volume draws together a number of different perspectives on what is meant by ‘human formation', argues that for a much richer conception of education, and addresses the lack of attention to human fulfilment. It also highlights the importance of philosophy in the articulation of novel ways of conceptualising education — providing alternatives to the dominant neo-liberal and economic rationalist models. The central question with which the book is concerned is a renewed understanding of education as the formation of persons, of civil society and the role of philosophy in fostering that renewal.In this volume there are a variety of voices from diverse traditions and cultures. Both East and West are represented and it might be expected that this would result in a divergence of opinion about the purpose of education. However, in spite of the diversity, there is some significant convergence in thinking about the ways in which education ought to serve the needs of both the individual and their communities. What is also particularly useful, and what is fresh about the essays presented here, is that there is also diversity in the philosophical approaches to the problem. This means that the convergence on the importance of ‘human formation'as the cornerstone of education does not rely on a privileged philosophical method.

This book, first published in 1987, examines the notion of truth and then discusses knowledge and the way in which much of our knowledge revises or rejects the common-sense we start from. The author argues that our knowledge is not as secure as some would like to think and that there are important limits to the possibility for explanation. He shows how values permeate our ordinary thinking and argues against the objectivity of these values, showing the practical consequences of this argument for teaching in schools. This stimulating approach to a fundamental educational issue does not require previous experience of formal philosophy and will be useful to both education students and teachers in schools.

One of the most prominent African American intellectuals of the twentieth century, W. E. B. Du Bois continues to influence the understanding of race relations in the United States. In this deeply personal introduction to the man and his ideas, esteemed scholar Carl A. Grant reflects on how Du Bois's work has illuminated his own life practices as a Black student, teacher, assistant principal, and professor. Sharing the story of a brilliant man's life contribution to teaching about race and the ideologies and methodologies of racism in education and social and political thought, Grant begins his narrative with a broad overview of Du Bois's life and scholarship, before turning more specifically to Du Bois's theory of an educational system. The book concludes with an examination of Du Bois's curriculum model, predicated upon the work of the NAACP, the Harlem Renaissance, and Du Bois's own writings, as well as a discussion of the lasting legacy of Du Bois's educational and social theory in the present day. Ideal for graduate-level courses in curriculum theory, educational foundations, and education history, Du Bois and Education provides an in-depth examination of Du Bois's scholarship, social criticism, and political thought as they relate to his educational theory.

This book examines the work of the leading critical and decolonial intellectual Boaventura de Sousa Santos and its impact on education in general, and curriculum in particular. The volume brings to the table crucial itinerant theoretical rivers of thought in order to examine and understand the crises of modernity and their consequences. The author insightfully articulates Sousa Santos'major arguments—‘prudent knowledge', ‘decent life', ‘sociology of absences', and ‘epistemicide', among others—to unpack some of the major issues facing the contemporary critical terrain. In so doing, she examines how Sousa Santos retools the critical ‘emancipatory educational project'towards a more just and participatory democratic society.

This book addresses notions of critique in Design and Technology Education, facilitating a conceptual and practical understanding of critique, and enabling both a personal and pedagogical application to practice.Critique can be a frame of mind, and may be related to a technology, product, process or material. In a holistic sense, critique is an element of a person's technological literacy, a fundamentally critical disposition brought to bear on all things technological. This book provides a reasoned conceptual framework within which to develop critique, and examples of applying the framework to Design and Technology Education. The book builds on The Future of Technology Education published by Springer as the first in the series Contemporary Issues in Technology Education.In the 21st century, an ‘age of knowledge', students are called upon to access, analyse and evaluate constantly changing information to support personal and workplace decision making and on-going innovation. A critical Design and Technology Education has an important role to play, providing students with opportunities to integrate economic, environmental, social and technological worlds as they develop and refine their technological literacy. Through the design and development of technology, they collaborate, evaluate and critically apply information, developing cognitive and manipulative skills appropriate to the 21st century. Critique goes beyond review or analysis, addressing positive and negative technological development. This book discusses and applies this deeper perspective, identifying a clear role for critique in the context of Design and Technology Education.