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The harmful effects of COVID-19 on children living in poverty have refocused attention on the complex nature of child poverty and the vexed question of its relationship to education. The paper examines a tension at the heart of much discussion of child poverty and education. On the one hand, education is often regarded as essential for children's flourishing and a means by which children can "escape" poverty; yet on the other hand, education systems, institutions, and practices, often reflect and entrench the disadvantages associated with poverty. Narratives concerning education as an escape from poverty tend not to deal in any depth with the injustices associated with poverty, stressing instead the transformative potential of education. By contrast, largely sociological analyses of the ways in which schooling reproduces inequalities tend to stop short of developing a normative account of how education can contribute to transforming the structural injustices related to poverty and its effects on children's lives. In working to move beyond this analytic impasse, the paper shows how the cluster of concepts, which Robeyns (2018) locates as central to the capability approach, give insights which help to address these two different lacunae. The notion of conversion factors highlights the significance of taking account of existing relationships in education, while the distinction between capabilities and functionings helps guide practices regarding the education of children living in poverty. Drawing on literature on the heightened inequalities associated with poor children's experience of lack of schooling during the COVID pandemic, the paper sketches some of the ways in which sociological analysis and normative evaluation can be linked in taking forward an "ethically engaged political philosophy" (Wolff, 2018) to discuss child poverty and education in real schools.

This article explores the context for the accompanying suite of papers on creating and sustaining democratic spaces in education. Prompted by the centenary of Summerhill, the internationally famous democratic school founded in Suffolk, England, in 1921, by A.S. Neill, this collection of papers explores and broadens out the central questions at the heart of experiments in democratic education. We suggest that, at a time of distrust in and questioning of the central institutions of democratic government, and in the wake of challenges to the mainstream system of state schooling, these questions are more relevant than ever. We argue that detailed attention to the everyday practice of creating democratic spaces in a variety of educational and social contexts can highlight the myriad ways in which educators, students, families and communities can keep democratic values and principles alive, thereby enriching our discussions about the meaning and value of democratic education.

Philosophical arguments regarding academic freedom can sometimes appear removed from the real conflicts playing out in contemporary universities. This paper focusses on a set of issues at the front line of these conflicts, namely, questions regarding sex, gender and gender identity. We document the ways in which the work of academics has been affected by political activism around these questions and, drawing on our respective disciplinary expertise as a sociologist and a philosopher, elucidate the costs of curtailing discussion on fundamental demographic and conceptual categories. We discuss some philosophical work that addresses the conceptual distinction between academic freedom and free speech and explore how these notions are intertwined in significant ways in universities. Our discussion elucidates and emphasises the educational costs of curtailing academic freedom.

In this paper, I explore some of the ways in which the notion of 'home' has been invoked in the context of ideas about belonging and nationalism in the wake of the recent EU Referendum in Britain. I focus particularly on Roger Scruton's account of 'oikophobia', and explore some ways in which, while questioning the pathologisation of 'not belonging' implied in Scruton's account, we can nevertheless put the notion of 'home' and its political significance at the heart of our discussions about the educational response to contemporary debates on belonging, migration and movement.

This article is a collective writing experiment undertaken by philosophers of education affiliated with the PESGB (Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain). When asked to reflect on questions concerning the Philosophy of Education in a New Key in May 2020, it was unsurprising that the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on society and on education were foremost in our minds. We wanted to consider important philosophical and educational questions raised by the pandemic, while acknowledging that, first and foremost, it is a human tragedy. With nearly a million deaths reported worldwide to date, and with everyone effected in one way or another by COVID-19, there is a degree of discomfort, and a responsibility to be sensitive, in reflecting and writing about it academically. Members of this 'COVID Collective' come from various countries, with perspectives from Great Britain and Ireland well represented, and we see academic practice as a globally connected enterprise, especially since the digital revolution in academic publishing. The concerns raised in this article relate to but move beyond COVID-19, reflecting the impact of neoliberalism [and other political developments] on geopolitics with educational concerns as central to our focus.

This paper explores the implications of a radical republican conception of freedom as non-domination, rooted in the anarchist tradition. In discussing both the non-statist theoretical frameworks and the practical educational experiments associated with this tradition, I suggest that it can add a valuable dimension to recent critical work in philosophy of education that draws on the republican idea of freedom as non-domination.

In this article, the author focuses on the statist imaginary associated with the defence of public education. Drawing on work on the idea of the public sphere, anarchist theory and the politics of movement, she argues that in a world characterised by unprecedented and growing levels of mass migration and displacement, a new, non-statist imaginary is needed. She explores some ways in which such imaginaries can play a role in educational thought and practice.

Neel Mukherjee's novel, "The Lives of Others", which depicts characters dealing with a situation of extreme and violent oppression, is used as the basis for looking more closely at some of the theoretical assumptions about hope, agency and critical consciousness that underpin Critical Pedagogy. It is suggested that it may be educationally and philosophically valuable to reflect on the ethically troubling choices that individuals in extreme situations make in their fight against oppression, and to ask questions about the risks and the costs involved when people, through a process of critical consciousness, become fully free to claim their moral and political agency.

In this essay, Judith Suissa draws on the tradition of radical and alternative education, and on some philosophical literature on democratic politics and the role of the political imagination, in order to suggest some ways of thinking about what constitutes an educational counterpublic that are different from those suggested in recent work by philosophers of education. Building on arguments by Nancy Fraser and others about the vital role of counterpublics in the political life of democracies, Suissa suggests that creating educational spaces where the formation, development, imagining, and nurturing of such counterpublics can occur is an important aspect of this role.

A great deal of philosophical work has explored the complex conceptual intersection between ethics and epistemology in the context of issues of testimony and belief, and much of this work has significant educational implications. In this paper, I discuss a troubling example of a case of testimony that seems to pose a problem for some established ways of thinking about these issues and that, in turn, suggests some equally troubling educational conclusions.

In this article, I explore some contemporary versions of character education with specific reference to the extent to which they are viewed as constituting a form of citizenship education. I argue that such approaches often end up displacing the idea of political education and, through their language and stated aims, avoid any genuine engagement with the very concept of the political in all but its most superficial sense. In discussing some of the points raised by critics of character education, I defend the need for a more robust and radical conception of the political as a basis for a form of political education.

In this article, I look at some discussions of praising children in contemporary parenting advice. In exploring what is problematic about these discussions, I turn to some philosophical work on moral praise and blame which, I argue, indicates the need for a more nuanced response to questions about the significance of praise. A further analysis of the moral aspects of praise suggests a significant dimension of the parent-child relationship that is missing from, and obscured by, the kind of parenting advice exemplified by the discussions of praise with which I began. (Contains 7 notes.)

In this paper, we consider the relationship between the existence of private schools and public attitudes towards questions about educational provision. Data from the 2010 British Social Attitudes survey suggest that parents who choose to send children to private schools may become more entrenched in their support for more extensive forms of parental partiality, with potential ramifications for the future supporting of progressive education policy. We suggest that addressing questions about the existence of certain forms of education and school choice policies requires consideration of the broader ethical environment.

In this article, we explore to what extent parents should be "educators" of their children. In the course of this exploration, we offer some examples of these practices and ways of speaking and thinking, indicate some of the problems and limitations they import into our understanding of the parent-child relationship, and make some tentative suggestions towards an alternative way of thinking about this relationship. (Contains 4 notes.)

In this essay, Judith Suissa examines the central Rawlsian notion of a "comprehensive conception of the good" through a discussion of some recent work on issues of identity and difference, alongside a reflective account of life in a multicultural, liberal family. Suissa discusses the justificatory role the notion of "comprehensive conceptions of the good" plays in liberal theory, particularly in the context of work by philosophers of education, and she questions the normative value and descriptive adequacy of this conceptualization. Suissa suggests that there is a great deal of confusion surrounding this notion and the associated notions of "cultural coherence" and "substantive commitments," and that this has given rise to a particular imagery regarding the relation between the liberal school and the family. This imagery, Suissa argues, is an unhelpful way to think about education, and she ends with some tentative suggestions for a more nuanced understanding of this relation.

This paper explores the practice of teaching philosophy, and particularly philosophy of education, in a higher education context. Starting from a critical discussion of some of the literature on teaching and learning in higher education, I introduce the notions of philosophical style and temperament and suggest that exploring these notions, the problems they raise, and their implications for issues to do with our own identity as philosophers and as teachers, can enrich our understanding of the practice of teaching philosophy in higher education and our ability to reflect on and possibly improve our own teaching practice.

Recent media reports about new programmes for "happiness lessons" in schools signal a welcome concern with children's well-being. However, as I shall argue, the presuppositions of the discourse in which many of these proposals are framed, and their orientation towards particular strands of positive psychology, involve ideas about human life that are, in an important sense, anti-educational.

Although children and parents often feature in philosophical literature on education, the nature of the parent-child relationship remains occluded by the language of rights, duties and entitlements. Likewise, talk of "parenting" in popular literature and culture implies that being a parent is primarily about performing tasks. Drawing on popular literature, moral philosophy and philosophy of education, I make some suggestions towards articulating a richer philosophical conception of this relationship, and outline some of the implications, questions and problems this raises for philosophers of education. (Contains 1 note.)

In this paper, I explore the insights suggested by Michele Borrelli's 'The Utopianisation of Critique' in the context of a real-life educational encounter that involves an attempt at being critical. Borrelli's observation that all positive utopian critique implies an inevitable degree of dogmatism takes on a new - and less depressing - significance when examined in the light of such an encounter. Acknowledging the tensions suggested by Borelli's analysis is, I argue, what makes a particular educational stance critical. Rather than leading to conceptual confusion, this should be seen as integral to the transformative and motivational potential of the educational process.

This article discusses the social anarchist tradition of educational thought and practice, in order to throw new light on the philosophical discussion of the liberal-vocational distinction. Focusing on the central anarchist idea of integral education, I argue that the political stance of social anarchism is inseparable from the educational ideas and practice of this tradition, and contrast the key aspects of this political perspective with those embodied in mainstream educational policy and theory in the liberal state. Examining the issue of vocational education and training in light of this often-neglected political position can, I suggest, contribute to our understanding of the relationship between educational practice and values, political ideas and social change. (Contains 2 notes.)