Philosophy of Education

This article examines sociotechnical imaginaries of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) through the cultural lens of the film Barbie. The hyperreal setting of Barbieland serves as a prescient metaphor for education in an increasingly synthetic world where the real and artificial converge. By analysing representations of artificiality and authenticity in the film, I argue that similar cultural assumptions and anxieties shape how GenAI is understood and implemented in education. The Barbie doll’s transformation from plastic figure to ‘real’ human raises questions about (...) embodiment and identity that parallel debates about human-machine relationships in learning environments. Drawing on concepts of simulacra and agential realism, I explore how narratives of technological empowerment influence educational practice. By juxtaposing Western-centric views of Barbie with Indigenous perspectives, particularly Ellen van Neerven’s ‘Water’, the article critiques dominant cultural narratives about technology and intelligence. This comparison challenges commercial imaginaries of technological empowerment and suggests more diverse, culturally responsive approaches are needed to integrate GenAI in education. (shrink)

Are there things schools can do to build pupils’ resilience to extremism? The UK ‘Prevent duty’ assumes there are, but schools are poorly served by existing government advice. Here I offer a cautious defence of the idea that the acquisition of extremist beliefs and attitudes can be forestalled by educational means. I begin by sketching, and modifying, Quassim Cassam’s family resemblance account of the concept of extremism. I then focus in on what I take to be a core ideological commitment (...) of extremism: the belief that there is an ideal so worthy as to exempt those who pursue it from the requirements of basic morality. I argue, first, that it is permissible for educators to forestall the exemption-from-basic-morality belief and, second, that it is possible for them to do so. (shrink)

This paper critically examines the spatial context of discussing controversial issues in educational settings. It begins by evaluating the concept of safe spaces, addressing significant critiques such as the illusion of safety, essentialism, censorship, and the negativity of learning. Next, civility is considered as an alternative, highlighting the failure of this approach to account for crucial spatial and relational dimensions. To address these gaps, the notion of “spaces of repair” is introduced. This framework seeks to integrate individual virtues with collective (...) responsibility, emotional engagement, and empathetic communication, fostering environments where controversial issues can be addressed without neglecting the personal, emotional, and psychological effects on students. In “spaces of repair” classroom discussions are seen not only as a simulation of democratic practice, but the very enactment of democratic commitment to one another, including willingness to nurture and repair the social bonds, even through conflict and controversy. (shrink)

Bioethics educators have access to a wide range of teaching approaches, including online strategies which became familiar to many teachers during the pandemic. As teaching contexts continue to evolve, reflection on which approaches best fit our pedagogical aims in bioethics is timely. As a contribution to this reflection, we report our experience incorporating podcasts into our students’ learning in two Australian universities at Masters level. We describe the potential of podcasts to positively impact learning and student experience. We explore them (...) firstly as substitutions for lectures and secondly as supplements or substitutions for readings. Based on our teaching practice, we discuss the use of both bespoke teacher-created podcasts and pre-existing third party podcasts. We suggest that podcasts can engage students effectively in bioethical issues, model philosophical dialogue, facilitate high quality class discussion, and give learners access to both mainstream experts and less powerful voices in an immediate and moving way. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel approach to teaching critical thinking. The approach centers around developing the student’s ability to engage in analytic reasoning. By “analytic” in the previous sentence I mean reasoning about analyticity, i.e., coming to know truths about analytic propositions as opposed to synthetic propositions. I consider the ability to engage in this kind of reasoning to be what some philosophers call “conceptual competence”. I argue that focusing on conceptual competence in critical thinking courses benefits philosophy departments in (...) two ways. First, focusing on conceptual competence distinguishes the content of a critical thinking course from, say, courses on logic or probability/statistics. Second, conceptual competence is a skill that is unique to philosophy. I argue that it is also a fundamentally important skill for all students. Thus, teaching critical thinking as conceptual competence can situate philosophy at the center of any school’s general education plan. (shrink)

I offer and defend methods for fair and principled grade exempting (dropping low grades) from the final grade calculation of undergraduate courses. I begin by addressing Daryl Close’s prohibition of such grade exempting from his article “Fair Grades” (2009) and then identify the types of courses and practices that may employ fair and principled grade exempting. I conclude with objections, replies, and the final view that grade exempting can be fair, principled, and consistent with Close’s overarching grading model: the purpose (...) of grading as an “information process concerning the mastery of course content.”. (shrink)

Should ethics instructors seek to teach students to act more ethically? As might be expected, teachers of ethics are divided on whether ethics instruction should have character development as a specific goal. In this article, the author elaborates three concerns by raising and answering three questions about the goal of teaching students to be ethical: (1) Is it partisan?, (2) Is it possible?, (3) Is it practical? Ultimately, the author argues that the goal of promoting ethical behavior in an ethics (...) course borders on being a partisan affair, may well not be possible, and is impractical. For these reasons, the author argues it is best to not adopt this goal. (shrink)

I argue in favor of teaching Plato’s brief dialogue on courage, Laches, in introductory level philosophy classes. My pedagogical approach is dialogical in that the dramatic elements of the dialogue are interpreted as advancing Plato’s philosophical content, and that interlocutors’ positions merit evaluation by students on their own terms. My approach is historical in that the historical biographies of the interlocutors are considered relevant to students’ understanding of philosophical positions. In the dialogue, two generals, Nicias and Laches, offer contrasting advice (...) on military training, and different accounts of courage. I argue that the intuitive appeal, and ultimate flaws, of their views reflects the contrasting bases for their historical reputation at the dramatic date of the dialogue, and historical events that diminished their reputations by the date of the dialogue’s composition. The result is a substantive but approachable landscape for students to explore an issue of intrinsic interest. (shrink)

It is controversial whether a teacher, not familiar with philosophical literature, can do philosophy with children—in other words, conduct philosophical discussions in philosophy activities with them. There are views in the literature that oppose and support this issue. These debates necessitate more studies. Therefore, we carried out a qualitative case study in a kindergarten with a teacher and fifteen students in Turkey. The teacher implemented fourteen lessons with the students aged 5–6 years. The lesson plans were developed together with the (...) researchers and the schoolteachers in meetings over three months. We collected data through field notes, meeting minutes, interviews and audio recordings. Our findings showed that the teacher was able to exhibit behaviors appropriate for philosophical inquiry during the philosophy activities with children and develop a positive attitude towards the practice. This finding supported the views arguing that a teacher with no previous philosophy training can do philosophy with children. (shrink)

The article argues that the concept of kairos can enrich understanding of good teaching and the conditions needed to teach well. The article first gives a general introduction to establish what is involved in teaching well, drawing on the concept of phronesis in Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics. Because of variations of translation, I adops the sense of phronesis as practical judgement with the attributes of virtuous behaviour and wisdom. The article outlines the concept of chronos as a preliminary to understanding what (...) kairos represents in the conceptualization of time. I claim that chronos predominates in the contemporary context of education. I next discuss kairos and use two examples to convey the nature of the kairos moment. This approach helps us get at kairos from inside the concept itself, which how Papastephanou and van Manen illustrate the concept in relation to education. In the last part of the article, I suggest some implications for policy and practice. I conclude that phronesis and kairos are complementary explanatory concepts that underlie what happens when people teach well (virtuously). The good teacher knows how (phronesis) and knows when (kairos). However, given the conditions described in the section on chronos, good teaching may not always be possible. (shrink)

Harvey Siegel has argued that successful critical thinking requires both a critical mindset and expertise in evaluating reasons. In this article, I focus on the latter, the business of accurately appraising competing reasons in the practical domain. More specifically, I critically examine the limitations inherent in two commonly used epistemic frameworks: the balance account and reasons-for-and-against. I argue neither is suitable for scenarios requiring especially nuanced appraisals or complex metrics. This is because they primarily deal with somewhat crude approximations and/or (...) binary choices. I will propose a new framework to address this concern. I dub this the Stress-Testing-Critique-Support-Explanationist Account (STCSEA). STCSEA is engineered to handle complex practical epistemic situations, ones where determining what to do is not straightforward or immediately calculable. To fully understand the accurate and reliable determination of competing reasons’ strengths and weaknesses, educators require sophisticated tools. Such tools can help us fully to grasp the concept and mechanics of rational defeat—that being figuring out the strength of competing reasons. To do so, we must also formulate and continuously refine an operationalized defeasibility taxonomy.I proceed as follows. I begin by providing a brief overview of the critical thinking debate. I then survey John Pollock’s work on defeaters. This work is germane to the conversation yet remains something of a lacuna in the contemporary philosophy of education literature. After this, I discuss the balance account and reasons-for-and-against, specifically their evident limitations. I then make a case for the superiority of STCSEA when it comes to handling ‘hard cases’. These are cases where what we should, must, or may do necessitates a complex computation. Such computations often exceed the mathematical or epistemic resources associated with ‘balancing metaphors’ and ‘for and against’ determinations. (shrink)

Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, taught himself to read, as a teenager, by spending hours with Plato’s Republic and a dictionary. Later, he describes reading the cave allegory in Republic 7 as “a seminal experience” in his life, “for it had started me thinking and reading and trying to find a way to liberate Black people.” Last year, I decided to teach his book Revolutionary Suicide in my ancient philosophy class alongside Plato. A few (...) key considerations guided my work: I wanted to make sure that Newton and the Panthers were not reduced to Plato cheerleaders. I also needed to introduce the Black Panther Party and its complex histories without overwhelming the students. In terms of Plato, one goal of the class was to offer examples of what might arise as we viewed Republic 7 through this lens. Finally, since the Black Panther Party established many schools—often with inspiring results—I worked to both incorporate key elements of Black Panther pedagogy into my class and design assignments that might allow the students to feel challenged by and connected to these stories. (shrink)

This paper is a philosophical piece relating to an issue in education theory: what is the epistemological nature of the product of education research and what are the consequences for the reporting of findings and conclusions in particular, what form of contribution to knowledge and/or understanding can emerge from education research? Education research takes many forms, so the answer to the question addressed may vary according to the research paradigm adopted. Paradigm possibilities and forms of reporting consistent with each paradigm (...) are defined in the paper. The position adopted here is that whatever the research paradigm that applies, the integrity of a research project is dependent on alignment of its goals, its methodology, its ontological and axiological underpinnings, its findings, and its conclusions. The contribution of the paper is eliciting the way this alignment plays out according to the research paradigm that applies to a reported research undertaking. (shrink)

In philosophical ethics, thought experiments seek to clarify moral reasoning by abstracting from the contingent character of real-world moral dilemmas, viewing moral actors as abstract persons. This paper argues that such an approach to philosophical ethics ultimately harms the reasoner as abstraction is linked with decreased empathy and a psychology of dehumanization, particularly regarding debates about the moral status of marginalized groups. It both makes the reasoner callous to the suffering of others and generates anxiety in members of marginalized groups (...) who must defend their moral status in the abstract. Using examples from related fields (legal education, medical education), this paper argues that moral philosophers would do better if they reduced a reliance on abstract thought experiments and instead relied on more concrete cases from literature and history. (shrink)

Natural learning is a countercultural home education approach characterized by the notion of freedom and autonomy in life and learning, intertwined in cultural environments. Using purposive sampling, two single parents from a “township” culture provided an in-depth understanding of natural learning in their context. A case study design was used to collect data, and thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. The results show that home education is a viable space to embed learning and culture and that educational spaces (...) can be creatively transformed to reclaim and reaffirm culture. This study also amplifies the voices of the historically marginalized in home education research. (shrink)

The emergence of Large Language Models has exposed composition studies’ long-standing commitment to Cartesian assumptions that position writing as a nonmaterial, distinctly human activity. This paper develops a naturalized theory of composition grounded in Deweyan pragmatic naturalism that dissolves the nature/culture dualism embedded in contemporary theory and practice. We advance an eco-ontological account that understands compositional activity as emerging from within the matrix of animal behavior and introduce “compositional viability” to theorize how writing functions as a biosemiotic tool for environmental (...) reconstruction. This framework yields three pedagogical implications: attending to somaesthetics, cultivating writerly habits, and orienting composition toward viable action. (shrink)

This article explores the resurgence and application of John Dewey’s concept of “inquiry” within Francophone literature, particularly in the context of education and training. Dewey’s “Theory of Inquiry,” first introduced in 1938, is examined through a comprehensive lexicographical analysis of 291 French- language scientific publications. The study identifies six main classes of pub- lications that utilize Dewey’s concept in diverse ways, ranging from philosophical analyses to practical applications in education and professional training. The analysis highlights the varied and evolving uses (...) of the concept, reflecting a dynamic interplay between theoretical foundations and practical implementations. The findings suggest that while Dewey’s theory is increasingly referenced, its applications remain fragmented, necessitating a deeper understanding of its integration into different research contexts. The study provides insights into the scientific dynamics within the Francophone educational research community and proposes further exploration of these trends in the English literature. Résumé en français: Cet article explore la résurgence et l’application du concept de “l’enquête” de John Dewey dans la littérature francophone, en particulier dans le contexte de l’éducation et de la formation. La “Théorie de l’enquête” de Dewey, introduite pour la première fois en 1938, est examinée à travers une analyse lexicographique approfondie de 291 publications scientifiques en langue française. L’étude identifie six principales classes de publications qui utilisent le concept de Dewey de diverses manières, allant des analyses philosophiques aux applications pratiques dans l’éducation et la formation professionnelle. L’analyse met en lumière les utilisations variées et évolutives du concept, reflétant une interaction dynamique entre les fondements théoriques et les mises en œuvre pratiques. Les résultats suggèrent que, bien que la théorie de Dewey soit de plus en plus référencée, ses applications restent fragmentées, nécessitant une compréhension plus approfondie de son intégration dans différents contextes de recherche. L’étude fournit des éclairages sur les dynamiques scientifiques au sein de la communauté de recherche éducative francophone et propose d’explorer davantage ces tendances dans la littérature anglo-saxonne. (shrink)

The new realities of social media, echo chambers, and partisan information sources have created social forces that challenge core assumptions about democracy. Are we in an epistemological crisis, where separate and distinct communities of inquiry limit shared understandings of truth? In this essay, I turn to the political and educational thought of John Dewey to explore this challenge. Though some of Dewey’s prescriptions are outdated, I argue that it is possible to reconstruct and extend key insights for our contemporary era. (...) Drawing on Dewey, I offer pedagogical strategies to create conditions where students are more open and able to listen, understand, and work across lines of difference. I highlight themes of structured dialogue to bridge differences, the importance of action, and faith in humankind. (shrink)

It is an honor and a pleasure to take over editing responsibilities for Education and Culture from Jessica Heybach. We want to thank her for her service to the journal and to the John Dewey Society (JDS) and for her sage leadership, especially in a time when university budgets and support are shrinking, and it is harder and harder to get people to step up and do the labor needed to keep academic fields afloat. Working as a journal editor used (...) to be an honor that came with institutional support and course releases in many universities and involved a competitive application process to assume the role, but the reality is that now way too many scholars are overextended, underresourced, and undersupported. Finding... Read More. (shrink)

A notable concept in the global discourse on curriculum reform is that of ‘student agency’. The OECD introduced this concept in its Education 2030 project, a vision for curriculum—especially the curriculum in schools—in an increasingly uncertain future. Since the introduction of the project, the emphasis on the individual student’s role in learning has grown in global significance. The issues of how to interpret this somewhat unfamiliar concept in the East and how to reflect it in national curriculum policy have emerged (...) as important matters. Within South Korea’s unique education system, the discourse about student agency has exerted a rhetorical power that emphasizes student choice and student voice in Korean national curriculum policy. This paper aims to examine how the global curricular vision of student agency has been interpreted in South Korea’s particular context and to criticize the philosophical assumptions embedded in it with respect to the establishment of the individual student’s subjectivity in learning. To achieve this purpose, first I explore the meaning and characteristics of student agency in the OECD Education 2030 project. Next, I examine the dynamics of constructing student identity in Korean educational policies. Finally, I critically review the philosophical assumptions underlying the issue of students’ subjectivity in learning. (shrink)

What is the point of taking ethics classes? In this paper, I would like to discuss a specific answer to this question, according to which ethics instruction can facilitate moral education by directly teaching students what’s morally right. More specifically, I will argue that this view is much more plausible than one might first suspect. Therefore, the widespread disregard of this view in the philosophical literature is unwarranted. To establish this claim, I will proceed in two steps. First, I will (...) argue that the idea of educational transfers of moral knowledge is perfectly in line with specific epistemological assumptions that already underly wide parts of our educational practice. Second, I will argue that moral knowledge transfers would be a promising way of facilitating moral education in ethics classes. Having thus established the claim that the idea of moral knowledge transfers deserves closer scrutiny, I will discuss its implications in a little more detail by delineating some specific desiderata for future philosophical research that arise against the background of the previous considerations. (shrink)

Contemporary work confronts researchers and educators with a range of challenges, including those posed by complex environments in which workers grapple with uncertainty in high-stakes situations. A different challenge lies in the assumptions brought to learning design and facilitation, assumptions which together constitute a ‘paradigm’ concerning how to approach these tasks. Without a paradigm, designers and practitioners may exercise an incoherent practice; but if the paradigm is in some way problematic, then the practice may be compromised. In this paper, we (...) focus on work in complex environments that involve uncertainty in high-stakes situations, problematizing a particular paradigm—the ‘pre-specification’ approach—that is often brought to bear on it. The key to this paradigm is that work can be analysed and represented such that it can be specified in advance as a reference point for educational endeavours. We problematize key epistemological and ontological assumptions of this paradigm. Hermeneutics draws attention to the limits of these assumptions regarding what we can understand and represent about work, while complexity theory allows us to recognize ontological features of work that make pre-specification difficult or untenable. We conclude that in complex work, representation-making needs to be a distributed activity rather than a specialty, and it occurs at multiple points on the learning continuum rather that solely at the beginning. (shrink)

In this article, we investigate the ethical conditions of online education by extending Levinas’ concept of the ‘face’. Considering the ‘face’ of the other raises the question of what it is we see when communicating online—is it the face of the other, or something else? How does this perception constitute the other for ‘me’? Can we access the ethical dimension of experience in online communication? To describe the ‘face’ we encounter in online educational settings, we introduce the concept of ‘interface’: (...) the presentation of the other in something other than their body. We argue that in online settings, the interface becomes the entry point for ethical pedagogy. Importantly, we do not argue that online teaching is preferable to other forms of teaching. Instead, we aim at sharpening the view of the limits and possibilities of online teaching. (shrink)

Drawing on Courtney Jung’s structural theory of obligation, this article proposes a novel interpretation of the relationship between liberal democratic justice and identity politics. This interpretation, in turn, justifies an anti-racist curriculum in the context of liberal democratic education. According to Jung’s theory, the liberal state has an obligation to improve the status of oppressed identity groups in society in so far as the state itself has participated in the formation of their identities through historical and continuing structural injustices. Based (...) on this theory, the article argues that anti-racist education should be understood as receiving its justification not from the recognition of particularistic identities as such, but from the state’s obligation to compensate for the structural injustices, which have contributed to the formation of the identities in question, and which are incompatible with liberal democratic justice. Furthermore, the article elaborates on a form of anti-racist curriculum broadly compatible with the liberal democratic aim of fostering political and personal autonomy of students. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the sustainability of employing Philosophy for Children (P4C) to address the ongoing ecological crises affecting Guam. I argue that although P4C aims to foster a more ecological form of living, its failure to cultivate contemplation and dialogue grounded in specific ecosystems renders it incapable of fostering generative and sustainable inquiry that pushes against the serializing forces of capitalism and colonialism. I further draw on Austronesian seafaring traditions and the works of Indigenous CHamorus to reconceptualize the (...) community of philosophical inquiry as a community of philosophical wayfinding. Within such a community, the participants navigate an ocean of harmful ideas in an empowering and sustainable manner by emphasizing the local mental, social, and environmental conditions of their inquiry. I begin by first motivating the question of P4C's ecological sustainability for Guam through the history of capitalism's and the Brown Tree Snake's co-colonization of CHamoru subjectivity. I specifically use Félix Guattari's The Three Ecologies to identify the semiotics of power through which capitalism pollutes CHamoru Ecology to further Americanize CHamoru existential cartographies. While P4C offers a potential pathway for creating new subjectivities, I argue that the community of philosophical inquiry's abstract nature turns it into a source of capitalist expansion on Guam. Finally, I draw from Austronesian seafaring and CHamoru ecopoetry to reimagine the community of philosophical inquiry as a more locally grounded and impactful practice, capable of addressing Guam's ecological crisis through the creation of invested subjectivities. (shrink)

The Brown vs. Board of Education decision’s central affirmation, “separate is inherently unequal,”(the “inherency statement”) is literally false—separate facilities, for different racial groups, can be equal, even if they are often not. The inherency statement has contributed to confusion about integration, (educational) equality, and the relation between them. (1) Schools with one-race-dominant demographics(“separated”) are not necessarily “Segregated” (in the Jim Crow Segregation sense). The forms of racial injustice and subordination involved in separated schools are not necessarily of the same moral (...) character and severity as those of Segregated schools. (2) The Brown decision did not make clear that what was being declared unconstitutional and in violation of the “equal protection of the laws” was precisely the white supremacist system of Segregation itself, in its educational manifestation. (The 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision did so). Separation is “inherently” unequal only within a Segregation system, where the separation reflects a socially recognized stigmatization and assault on the dignity of one group (3) The inherency statement falsely implies that all-Black or all-Indigenous (and thus “separate”) educational institutions cannot be excellent. (4) The existence of an “egalitarian pluralist” tradition, especially in African-American educational thought(but present in different forms within Indigenous, Latine, and Asian American educational traditions), which promotes both equality and separation, is unrecognized as a normative framework in Brown and in subsequent school separation/integration cases. (5) By its misleading touting of integration as the linchpin of equality, the inherency statement masks the vital role of outside-of-school factors, especially concerning students’ socio-economic background, that hinder the achievement of such equality, and closes out an inquiry into what would be required to bring about equality in light of those conditions. The inherency statement implies this because it says we already know that separation is the cause of inequality and integration its remedy. (6) The inherency statement expresses a failure to recognize that integration can be educationally valuable for reasons other than its (alleged or actual) links to equality, in particular as a distinctly favorable setting for civic education that prepares students for life and participation in a multiracial democracy. (The Court recognized the civic importance of education itself, but not specifically of the integrated form of education they mandated.). (shrink)

The years since the world-wide demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020 have seen a significant embrace of antiracist education as part of moral education, followed by conservative rollback of such efforts. The article discusses both, and is applicable to the further retrenchment in the second Trump administration (in 2025). Antiracist moral and civic education should educate about both interpersonal racism (racism of individuals toward other individuals) and institutional racism (systemic racial injustices). Each of those areas involves (...) both “negative” values—avoiding racial wrongs—and “positive” values—promoting race-related goods. Negative interpersonal values include stereotyping, antipathy, and demeaning the other. Positive interpersonal values include respecting racial others as equals, recognizing positive racial differences, respecting cultures associated with racial groups. Negative institutional values are the most familiar—ending, mitigating, repairing systemic racial injustices. Positive institutional values include promoting racial justice, understanding, harmony, and a culture of respect throughout society represented in its institutions. Institutional racism requires civic education, in order to recognize patterns of injustice, to analyze their causes, and to be able to measure them against both morally sound and nationally salient ideals (such as equality, liberty, and justice). Antiracist education must be sensitive to students’ particular racial identities, and to asymmetries between the way white and non-white identities function morally and civicly. -/- Although sometimes it is important to ignore someone’s racial identity in interacting with them, “color-blindness,” promoted as an overarching principle by the Trump administration and the retrenchment legislation, cannot play that role. Antiracist education requires that we often take account of people’s race, and the issue is how to do that properly, not to ignore it entirely. (shrink)

It is plausible that there is a contrast between the rich emotional content which is often connected to laypeople’s interest in philosophy and the emotional austerity of doing academic philosophy. We propose the hypothesis that this contrast is one cause of the disappointment some students experience when they begin to study philosophy in college. We also propose a more demanding hypothesis, according to which this emotional contrast is confused with a semantic difference, which misleads students to think that the questions (...) which initially caused their interest in philosophy are not even considered by academic philosophy research. Moreover, we provide a list of concrete empirical research questions which need to be answered to establish whether these hypotheses are true, and we argue that, if they are true, they give rise to a hitherto unnoticed and important challenge to the teaching of philosophy. (shrink)

This study aims to contribute to the ongoing scholarly conversation about education through the lenses of the German philosophy of Bildung and the American philosophy of pragmatism. More concretely, in this article, the two philosophies are represented by the traditions of critical-constructive Didaktik, based on Wolfgang Klafki's work, and transactional realism, based on John Dewey's. Against the background of the widespread outcomes-based modes of education today, the authors seek to shed light on the necessary reconceptualization of schooling and teaching and (...) to explore the possibilities for constructive routes forward for curriculum theorizing. They outline the aspects of knowledge and the learning concepts that the two philosophies share and those about which they differ. The authors also analyze the consequences that these similarities and differences have for the educational approaches of critical-constructive Didaktik and transactional realism. Finally, the authors present an empirical example from a Swedish year-eight classroom, drawing conclusions based on their findings and considering corresponding implications about the two traditions' potential to contribute to an understanding of teaching as a pedagogical responsibility. (shrink)

In this article, derria byrd contends that more robust interrogation of the organizational contribution to inequity in higher education would be aided by understanding higher education organizations as social actors. Organizational social actor theory demonstrates that colleges and universities are more than inert contexts in which marginalized students' experiences and outcomes play out. They are entities that possess unique dispositional orientations, motives, and inclinations toward action. This conceptual article argues that engagement with institutional habitus, grounded in Pierre Bourdieu's theory of (...) practice, situates colleges and universities as social actors whose structural positions generate interests, beliefs, and behaviors that tend to constrain opportunity for students. The concept shifts the empirical gaze from students to colleges and universities in examinations of education inequity and facilitates analysis of how colleges' social position and the organizational identity, opportunities, and limitations it engenders support and/or inhibit organizational practice, including transformation toward equity. byrd crafts this argument in five parts: (1) exploration of organizational social actorhood theory, (2) overview of Bourdieu's theoretical framework and key conceptual tools, (3) expansions on Bourdieu's foundational formula to demonstrate how institutional habitus supplements the theorist's framework, (4) purposeful engagement with critiques of how institutional habitus has been employed in educational research, and (5) guiding principles for empirical engagement with institutional habitus. Throughout, byrd employs a collective case study of three college campuses to ground the theoretical review in empirical realities and uncover the invisible influence of social power on organizational practice. Given Bourdieu's attention to higher education and broad concern for systemic inequities reproduced at this level, this article focuses on higher education but has implications for educational research more broadly. (shrink)

In this article Antti Moilanen assesses criticisms of Wolfgang Klafki's model of exemplary teaching made by Meinert Meyer and Hilbert Meyer and by Chi-Hua Chu. “Exemplary teaching” is a style of discovery-based teaching in which students study concrete examples of general principles in such a way that they acquire transferable knowledge and skills. Put differently, the aim of exemplary teaching is to foster categorical Bildung. Klafki's model of exemplary teaching is based on Martin Wagenschein's didactics and his own theory of (...) the categorical Bildung. Here, Moilanen explicates and analyzes Klafki's theory of categorical Bildung, Wagenschein's concepts related to exemplary teaching, Klafki's conception of the conditions and principles of exemplary teaching, and criticisms of Klafki's didactics set out by Meyer and Meyer and by Chu. He then examines whether Meyer and Meyer as well as Chu have adequately understood Klafki's model of exemplary teaching and whether their criticisms are justified, concluding that their criticisms do not credibly question the validity of exemplary teaching. (shrink)

Fostering transformative experiences is a central goal of education. In this article, Marieke Schaper examines the relationship between doubt and transformation in education, specifically problematizing the idea that doubt can serve as a catalyst for transformative experiences in the classroom. Schaper's thesis is that doubt is not valuable by itself; it must encompass certain characteristics if it is to support meaningful transformation while avoiding the risks of transformative education. In making this argument, Schaper proposes the concept of aspirational doubt as (...) an educationally valuable subcategory of doubt. She begins by engaging with the vast philosophical and psychological literature on doubt and, based on this analysis, identifies five main conceptions of doubt that wield influence. Next, she points to the ethical risks of using doubt as an educational catalyst, particularly for transformative purposes, but instead of rejecting the role of doubt in transformative education, she explores the potential of aspirational doubt to circumvent these risks. She concludes with a discussion of the practical implications for fostering aspirational doubt in the classroom. (shrink)