The use of philosophy in educational programmes and practices under such names as philosophy for children, philosophy with children, or the community of philosophical enquiry, has become well established in many countries around the world. The main attraction of the educational use of philosophy seems to lie in the claim that it can help children and young people to develop skills for thinking critically, reflectively and reasonably. By locating the acquisition of such skills within communities of enquiry, the further claim (...) is that engagement with philosophy can foster the development of moral reflection and sensitivity and of social and democratic skills more generally. Claims like these provide a set of arguments for the inclusion of philosophy in the school curriculum that goes well beyond philosophy as just another curricular subject or body of knowledge. The aim of this article is to raise some questions about the conception of education that appears to inform the discussion about the educational use of philosophy. My ambition is to suggest an additional rather than an alternative view about the educational use of philosophy in the hope that this may act as a reminder of a different way in which one can engage with philosophy in educational settings which, in turn, might also act as a reminder of how philosophy might engage with us. The philosophical distinction in which my argument is phrased is that between humanism and post-humanism and the guiding educational concept is that of exposure. (shrink)

In recent decades, the shift towards the “learnification” of educational discourse has de facto reframed educational purposes and schooling practice, thus reframing what students should know, strive for, and, in a sense, be. In this paper, given the efforts to disrupt the dominance of learning discourse, I seek to engage regarding a specific concern, namely, the progressive removal of imagination within educational official framework. Indeed, imagination has virtually disappeared from the documents, publications, web pages and recommendations of major educational agencies (...) and institutions worldwide, with important and potentially damaging consequences for schooling, teaching and learning. Employing a Deweyan perspective, I argue that imagination plays a crucial role in the creation of pivotal educational features and phenomena, such as knowledge, inquiry, choice and deliberation, critical agency, meaning creation, and, importantly, the openness of possibilities. Therefore, the eclipse of imagination becomes, at the very same time, the eclipse of education; nurturing imagination is about nurturing education. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyse the Deweyan account of thinking and subject and discuss the educational consequences that follow from such an account. I argue that despite the grouping of thinking and reflective thought that has largely appeared in the interpretation of Deweyan work, Dewey discloses an inescapable uncertainty at the core of human thinking. This move is even more challenging given Dewey's firm faith in the power of intelligent action, and in education as the means by which human beings (...) grow and create meaningful existence. I argue that throughout his work, Dewey dismantled the understanding of the subject as a detached and self-assured centre of agency. In Deweyan understanding, on one hand, the subject is empowered to reflect on experience and to use this reflection to evolve new ways of acting, thus pushing experience forward. On the other hand, by acting, the subject can create new points of interaction within experience. This understanding of thinking and subject has far-reaching consequences for education, which must be conceived not so much as the attempt to master and control experience but as the means to create new, unpredictable experience by putting new points of interactions into our relationship with the environment, changing our being-embedded-in-the-world. Dewey repositions educational, intentional agency away from control and mastery and in the direction of growth and openness. (shrink)

In this paper, I wish to offer insight into the role of paradox in teaching. I will do so by analyzing teachers’ everyday work, taking a qualitative approach and constructing a small-scale empirical study. Philosophically, my attempt is framed by Heidegger’s thought. Drawing from research data, I argue the following: paradoxes and dilemmas are the very basis of teaching, and a teacher cannot see paradoxes and dilemmas if she/he has already made an choice of disengagement from the profession. Stated otherwise, (...) the sense of dependency, laceration, and even helplessness experienced by teachers I met and interviewed are not occasional or unwanted outcomes, but rather the very nature of the ethics of teaching. The rationale of teaching – curricula, objectives, and learning outcomes – is framed by teachers’ intentionality, namely, by teachers’ ‘being thrown’ and involved in leaving teaching situations. Teachers are simultaneously thrown into the projecting and understanding that co... (shrink)

ABSTRACT“Evidence-based” methods, which most prominently include randomized controlled trials, have gained increasing purchase as the “gold standard” for assessing the effect of public policies. But the enthusiasm for evidence-based research overlooks questions about the reliability and applicability of experimental findings to diverse real-world settings. Perhaps surprisingly, a qualitative study of British educators suggests that they are aware of these limitations and therefore take evidence-based findings with a much larger grain of salt than do policy makers. Their experience suggests that the (...) real world is more heterogeneous than the world imagined by evidence-based policy enthusiasts. (shrink)

ABSTRACT‘Subjectification', the cornerstone concept of Biesta's philosophy of education, refers to how autonomy should be realized in educational settings and to the fact that explanation is irrelevant to emancipation. In this article a critical realist reading is provided of how Biesta links narrative learning to emancipation and of the shortcomings that spring from this connection. The central thesis of my argument is that truth and values should take center stage in an educational philosophy of emancipation and that these two concepts (...) are left out of Biesta's conception of emancipation. It is suggested that Biesta's philosophy of emancipation has no criteria for distinguishing what is true from what is false and valuable from invaluable. This happens because it cannot adequately address (i) how one passes from ‘is' to ‘ought’ (ii) the ways in which rational thinking could be emancipatory and (iii) the grounds on which emancipatory living is better than non emancipatory living. (shrink)

The increased influence of neoliberalism in education has allowed the trend of evidence-based teaching to dominate professional development in many Western countries. Despite increased and persistent neoliberal measures in education, education critics argue that neoliberal reforms have a naive view of teaching. This narrowed neoliberal view both ignores the complexities involved in the everyday interaction between teacher and student and constrains the teacher’s judgement thereby limiting their contribution in the educational process. Many educators will note the significance of reflection in (...) learning as essential and often emotional. However, the emotional experiences embedded in teacher reflections are often ignored, even discounted, in the discussion of teachers’ professional development. Investigating this phenomenon of emotions in teacher reflections, analysed by drawing on lifeworld theory, revealed how emotional experiences can be a resource in teachers’ professional development. To acknowledge teachers’ emotional experiences means recognizing that the teacher’s subjective and lived body is involved in the reflective and learning process of becoming professional. (shrink)

This paper seeks to reconceptualise the basis for trusting teachers in current educational discourses. It proposes moving away from trust based on ‘absolute accuracy’ to trust as encapsulated in the practice of parrhesia. On the surface, parrhesia appears to be the opposite of Sartre’s concept of ‘bad faith’. Paradoxically, however, our attempts to be sincere in our accounts are inevitably tainted by this. This paradox is especially evident in autobiographical writing, an activity that is both parrhesiastic in nature and susceptible (...) to bad faith. This does not mean that we should abandon trust in these ways of accounting for oneself, however. Rather, parrhesiastic practices in autobiographical writing can offer a different understanding of how we account for ourselves and our practices, one that does not pertain to a narrow definition of truth as accuracy, but instead leads to a form of self-criticism where one situates oneself in relation to the ‘truth’ of their accounts in new ways. Towards the end of the paper, I explore three ‘parrhesiastic techniques’ and their relationship to accounting for oneself as a teacher, to reimagine these techniques from technicist to existential ways of relating to our practices. (shrink)

In this report on an interview-based school case study undertaken with seven school leaders using component theory analysis and the hermeneutic method, we reveal the relational essence of learning design at the Australian Science and Mathematics School. The phenomenon of learning togetherness presents, forged by deliberately practised notions of contributive leadership within open learning spaces and ongoing attention to new interdisciplinary curriculum forms. This case study highlights the phenomenological nature of a school that has been deliberately purposed for deep collaborative (...) learning forms, respecting student and teacher ideas in the process, and marginalising habitual industrial school design forms that constrain effective student and teacher learning. The study has relevance for school leaders and teachers wishing to pursue new school design forms within enabling learning cultures that attend more closely to the learning needs of young people poised to enter the Third and Fourth Industrial Revolutions. (shrink)

The idea that professional practices such as education should be based upon or at least be informed by evidence continues to capture the imagination of many politicians, policy makers, practitioners and researchers. There is growing evidence of the influence of this line of thought. At the same time there is a growing body of work that has raised fundamental questions about the feasibility of the idea of evidence-based or evidence-informed practice. In this paper I make a further contribution to this (...) discussion through an analysis of a number of assumptions that inform the discussion. I focus on the epistemological, ontological and praxeological dimensions of the discussion and in each domain identify a deficit. In the epistemological domain there is a knowledge deficit, in the ontological domain an effectiveness or efficacy deficit and in the practice domain an application deficit. Taken together these deficits not only raise some important questions about the very idea of evidence-based practice but also highlight the role of normativity, power and values. Against this background I outline the case for the idea of value-based education as an alternative for evidence-based education. As I am generally concerned about the expectations policy makers hold about what evidence can and should achieve in professional practices such as education, my contribution is primarily meant to provide educators and other professionals with arguments that can help them to resist unwarranted expectations about the role of evidence in their practices and even more so of unwarranted interventions in their practices. (shrink)

The question of capacity building in education has predominantly been approached with regard to the methods and methodologies of educational research. Far less attention has been given to capacity building in relation to theory. In many ways the latter is as pressing an issue as the former, given that good research depends on a combination of high quality techniques and high quality theorising. The ability to capitalise on capacity building in relation to methods and methodologies may therefore well be restricted (...) by a lack of attention to theory. In this paper we make a case for capacity building with regard to theory, explore the different roles of theory in educational research, and provide an outline of an agenda for capacity building with regard to theory. (shrink)

1. Questions about the quality of education are at the forefront of discussions amongst politicians, policy makers, parents, teachers, students, the media and the wider public in almost all countri...

In this article, I explore the impact of the contemporary culture of measurement on education as a professional field. I focus particularly on the democratic dimensions of professionalism, which includes both the democratic qualities of professional action in education itself and the way in which education, as a profession, supports the wider democratic cause. I show how an initial authoritarian conception of professionalism was opened up in the 1960s and 1970s towards more democratic and more inclusive forms of professional action. (...) I then show how, in the wake of the transformation of the welfare state and the rise of neo-liberal forms of governing, the democratic dimension of professionalism became distorted. I discuss three distortions: having to do with the position of clients, the nature of accountability and the status of professional knowledge. While at first sight, the developments in each of these areas can be seen as furthering the democratisation of the professions, I argue that in fact they have eroded the democratic dimension of the professions and show the contribution of the culture of measurement to this erosion process. In the final step of my argument, I suggest how a more democratic mode of professional action might be regained and how such a mode of professional action might contribute to wider processes of democratisation. (shrink)

Qualitative and quantitative research on the impact of medical and health humanities teaching in baccalaureate education is sparse. This paper reviews recent studies of the impact of medical and health humanities coursework in pre-health professions education and describes a pilot study of baccalaureate students who completed semester-long medical humanities courses in the Division of Medical Humanities & Bioethics at the University of Rochester. The study format was an email survey. All participants were current or former baccalaureate students who had taken (...) one or more courses in literature and narrative in medicine, bioethics, history of medicine, and/or visual arts and healthcare during the past four years. The survey gathered numerical data in several areas: demographic information, career plans, self-reported influence of coursework on educational and career plans, and self-reported influence of coursework on intellectual skills and abilities. It also gathered narrative commentary that elaborated on students’ responses to the numerically-based questions. Notable findings from preliminary analysis of the data include higher scores of self-reported impact of the coursework on specific habits of mind and on preparedness for intended career rather than on gaining admission to future educational programs. Discussion of the results focuses on several potential future directions this type of study might take, including multi-center, longitudinal, and sequential approaches. (shrink)

Elwyn Richardson’s experimental approach to teaching and learning and Oruaiti was officially sanctioned, but the history of education in Aotearoa/new Zealand shows that teachers have been typically conformist. In this article, I suggest that positivist paradigms from the industrial age continue to shape classroom teaching, partly because of norms of individualism, and partly because neoliberal understandings have become central in the functioning of our schools and society. Teaching is an activity that promotes the ethics of a community or society by (...) promulgating some ideas and marginalising others. In Aotearoa/new Zealand, many of our students struggle with the collective orientation of their community traditions and the societal emphasis on individualism. Modernist beliefs in social progress through technology still permeate education policy. Promoting communitarian understandings requires more open-ended approaches to teaching such as Richardson demonstrated. With digital technologies gaining progressively greater influence in schools, the opportunities for social connectedness have been enhanced alongside an increasing emphasis on individual devices. This article briefly explores interconnections between experimentation, context and community. (shrink)

Evidence-based practice in education involves basing decisions about what to do on evidence about the relative effectiveness of available interventions (e.g. programmes, products, practices). This article considers two influential critiques of evidence-based education (EBE) pertaining to its treatment of values. The ‘general critique’ condemns EBE for excluding values from decisions about what to do in education. The ‘specific critique’ condemns EBE for relying on a deterministic view of causality in education which disregards the complex, value-laden nature of educational contexts. I (...) argue that virtually all versions of EBE escape the general critique, including the dominant intervention-centred approach that relies on experimental research to discover ‘what works’, because the predictions EBE aims to support are only one premise in a broader normative argument. Further, intervention-centred EBE can avoid much of the specific values-based critique because it is consistent with a probabilistic, rather than deterministic, understanding of causality. However, I argue that only a context-centred approach to EBE that relies on evidence about the specific target setting from local sources in addition to evidence from theory and mixed methods research can fully address the specific critique by accommodating critics’ descriptive claims about the nature of educational contexts. (shrink)

Rapid technological advancements, globalisation, environmental crises, and ongoing conflicts have contributed to an increasingly quickly changing social, cultural, and work environment for current and future generations. In this paper, we argue that the traditional schooling system and approaches to curriculum and pedagogy that are based on nineteenth century industrial age models might reach their limit to prepare students sufficiently for the expectations and challenges of life and work in future. While so-called 21st-century education has seen a nominal change in classroom (...) layouts and increased use of teaching technology, we would argue that not much has changed in terms of the underlying structures of schools and the mostly pre-described curriculum schools and teachers must operate under. While current education systems struggle with many challenges from teacher burnouts to increasing student dis-engagement (e.g. rising truancy in New Zealand), we posit that new challenges lie ahead that will further disrupt, if not implode, current approaches to schooling and curriculum. Drawing on theories such as Biesta’s World-Centred Education and Pinar’s notion of Currere to reconceptualise curriculum, we would argue that schooling needs to move away from the traditional ‘static map’ of curriculum content to a more dynamic approach to schooling that allows teachers and schools to chart new territory, together with their students, for a rapidly changing future. As guiding compass of sorts for dynamically exploring an uncertain future with students, we propose Teschers educational approach to Schmid’s Art of Living as a starting point. (shrink)

The assessment of learning in the ethical domain is one of the most complex aspects to attend in the educational context. In recent years, character education has contributed greatly to different social disciplines, such as education or nursing. However, the development of this approach has run up against several obstacles and limitations, as there is little evidence regarding its long-term effectiveness or its evaluation. This essay aims to identify some of the main difficulties to assess learning in the ethical domain, (...) as obstacles and possible constraints to Aristotelian-based character education. Methodology is analytical and of a philosophical-educational nature, based on which an argumentative analysis is constructed from the bibliographical review of the contributions of classical and contemporary authors. Results show the existence of four major problems and ten associated subproblems, both of an external nature linked to the contextual factors of assessment, and of an internal nature that affect the essence of the process itself, which highlight the difficulty of carrying out assessments of an ethical kind. Far from proposing a pessimistic position, we argue a realistic vision that allows educators at different educational levels to be aware of the limits and critical points of evaluation in the ethical domain. (shrink)

This paper considers prominent forms of discourse in educational research, the nature of their appeal and the force of the idea of freedom within that appeal. For this, two different aspects of research are juxtaposed, aspects in which the value of freedom is articulated in contrasting ways. First, evidence-based education is considered as a prominent manifestation of faith in scientific method in education: in this, it might be said, there is an obsession with freedom – the freedom of the research (...) from bias. Second, and by contrast, in humanistic forms of educational research, freedom assumes a position of central importance, in the idea of autonomy. Here are two contrasting ethical priorities, respectively, the supposed neutrality that is achieved by excising individual judgement, and the vision of the good life that prioritises the rational exercise of that judgement. In this paper, I wish to discuss the kind of aura that is attached to these ideas, embedded as they are in a western metap... (shrink)

In this contribution, we look – both historically and in the present – at how children are objectified in data and how it is assumed that this objectivation is a way to dismiss ideology, or at least to separate the ideological from the scientific. We argue, however, that the separation of data from ideology is itself a highly ideological choice. As Freire points out: education never was and never can be objective. The objectivation of the child and, more generally, of (...) pedagogy means that the agenda that this serves remains veiled. A closer look at what data are put forward as the means to objectify education reveals that this agenda is deeply individualistic and fit to serve a competitive capitalist society. We argue that if this is the case, it ought to be the result of democratic debate and, therefore, we need more, not less, ideologies in pedagogy, because facts and data are always embedded in ideologies. And so they should be. (shrink)

Public education is not just a way to organise and fund education. It is also the expression of a particular ideal about education and of a particular way to conceive of the relationship between education and society. The ideal of public education sees education as an important dimension of the common good and as an important institution in securing the common good. The common good is never what individuals or particular groups want or desire, but always reaches beyond such particular (...) desires towards that which societies as a whole should consider as desirable. This does, of course, put the common good in tension with the desires of individuals and groups. Neo-liberal modes of governance have, over the past decades, put this particular educational set up under pressure and have, according to some, eroded the very idea of the common good. This set of contributions reflects on this state of affairs, partly through an exploration of the idea of publicness itself – how it can be rearticulated and regained – and partly through reflections on the current state of education in the ‘north’ and the ‘south.’. (shrink)

The use of narrative – in this case a fictional dialogue – has been a time-honoured way of exploring ideas and most importantly indispensable for learning, at least since the time of the Sophists. Indeed, the dialogues of Plato exemplify this thesis because the qualities and characteristics of philosophy and philosophising are revealed through their lives. Extending on this premise, we would argue that we learn to understand both the unity and complexity of philosophy – particularly in education and educational (...) research – not by formal philosophical arguments, necessary as they are in some contexts, but by narratives that are relevant, narratives that make the actions of one or more characters intelligible and justifiable. As a result, this article uses a narrative approach for the dual purpose of exhibiting the relevance of philosophy intelligibly exhibited through the examples of the characters put forward, but at the same time characters we our... (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Over the past decade there has been a trend within adapted physical activity (APA) to question the hegemony of the medical understanding of disability. This debate has consequences for professional practice, which some argue should be regarded as a learning situation with a pedagogical orientation. The concept of evidence-based practice and research has spread from its origin in medicine to other allied health fields and education. In this article I discuss the limitations of applying evidence-based practice to a pedagogical approach (...) to APA. More specifically, I use the Aristotelian notion phronesis to show that professional practice of APA is essentially characterized by an indeterminacy that cannot be eradicated through the technological thinking inherent in evidence-based practice. (shrink)

Educational theorists working within the tradition of Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas’s thought, posit teaching to be a site of implied ethics, that is, a realm in which non-violent or less violent relations to the other are possible. Derrida links ethics to the realm of friendship, enabling one to understand teaching as a site of the ethics of friendship. I clarify how friendship, as a re-metaphorization of differance, opens us up to a conception of teaching that provides a counterpoint to (...) the current discourse of ‘effective’ teaching. I draw out the implications of the Derridean conception of friendship for the educator in his or her philosophical orientation towards teaching and attempt to show that friendship points the educator towards an orientation that enables a ‘fine tuning’ and opening up of one’s sense of obligation and responsibility to one’s students in ways that cannot be circumscribed to current or institutionally sanctioned ways of understanding the activity of teaching, especially as it is often envisioned in American public education. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

In this article, an attempt is made to introduce a systematization of the loosely connected group of authors called Bildungstheorie. This ought to not only be of significance for German-speaking educational science, for the concept of Bildung is also increasingly used internationally for the formulation and development of pedagogical issues. It is proposed that the concept of complexity could be suitable for bringing attention to common presuppositions in the theoretical dealing with the problem of Bildung. The thesis is that Bildung (...) in theories of Bildung is described from various perspectives as complex, meaning it is an open and uncertain interplay of components irreducibly associated with planning and governance problems. As this thesis is corroborated by means of selected positions within Bildungstheorie, evidence is provided that complexity in educational science—differently than it may seem at first glance—is not for the first time today a theme of importance. Rather, it is demonstrated that a nascent discipline-specific complexity research can be linked to already existing traditions. (shrink)

Exploring teaching as an upper secondary school teacher through lived experience offers pedagogical insights that have been challenged over a period of 25 years, when neoliberal educational policies gradually transformed the conditions for teaching in Swedish schools. The article is grounded in the assumption that the teaching profession is complex and there are multiple tacit dimensions inherent in being and becoming a teacher. Several of these dimensions are captured by the notion of pedagogical tact and have to be learned through (...) practice. However, over the past few decades, the implementation of neoliberal policies in the Swedish education sector have changed the conditions for teaching, and created an area of tension between the teacher’s pedagogical alignment and the educational practices influenced by neoliberal values. The aim of the study is to describe how the author experienced these tensions, and what they meant for her becoming and being a teacher in three different pedagogical sites: a higher education preparatory program, a vocational preparatory program, and in adult education. The description is grounded in the lifeworld phenomenological approach and carried out through personal narrative. (shrink)

This article presents the Pilgrimage Model as a template for educators wishing to lead students on site-specific studies of engaged learning. During the 2015–2016 academic year, a group of Georgeto...

The existential, experiential, ethical, pathic and pre-pathic dimensions of education are essential for the creative composition of subjectivities in institutional spaces, yet educational research and policy tend increasingly to privilege technical discourses and prescriptive approaches both when evaluating ‘what is effective in education’ and when determining educational policy. This essay explores those aspects of the educational experience and educational institutions that are often felt and sensed pre-cognitively by students, parents and teachers, but are seldom given further elaboration or articulation in (...) educational research. We will reflect on what is meant by the experience of education and experience in education, including the struggles to make sense of or understand something, the surprises that strike pre-reflectively, and the ways in which such moments are noticed, pursued, and explored rather than reflexively ‘evaluated’. We then explore the idea of experimentation in institutions, in particular in relation to the range of concepts that Jean Oury introduces in order to move our attention and awareness to questions of experience, existence, atmosphere, and the pathic—the way in which we undergo, sense and participate in the world prior to cognition and the desire for mastery and control of our encounters. Finally, we address the question of the ethics of institutions. (shrink)

This article outlines and appraises the considerable criticism of educational research, both in the United Kingdom and in North America, and shows how it has pointed to a narrowing of what counts as good or worthwhile research in the policy discourse. In particular, this involved prioritising research that purports to show clearly and unmistakably 'what works', and institutionalising this view of research in a range of centres that receive official approval. The article, though recognising the fruit of such centres, challenges (...) the epistemological basis of such a narrowing of what counts as research, and, in doing so, analyses what is meant by evidence, the different kinds and strengths of evidence and the consequent need to democratise the search and appraisal of evidence in the constant refinement and criticism of the evidence. (shrink)

This article outlines and appraises the considerable criticism of educational research, both in the United Kingdom and in North America, and shows how it has pointed to a narrowing of what counts as good or worthwhile research in the policy discourse. In particular, this involved prioritising research that purports to show clearly and unmistakably ‘what works’, and institutionalising this view of research in a range of centres that receive official approval. The article, though recognising the fruit of such centres, challenges (...) the epistemological basis of such a narrowing of what counts as research, and, in doing so, analyses what is meant by evidence, the different kinds and strengths of evidence and the consequent need to democratise the search and appraisal of evidence in the constant refinement and criticism of the evidence. (shrink)

The present article addresses the question of whether, and to what extent, critical thinking should make attunement to current social and political landscapes central to its practice. I begin by outlining what I consider to be the basic positions in the debate about the political contextualisation of critical thinking, which are referred to as the crypto-Enlightenment and the critical pedagogical models. I argue, on the basis of various strands of research, that there is a prima facie case to be made (...) in favour of the critical pedagogical position that favours forefronting the social and political context of critical thinking and thinking in general. I then draw attention, however, to problems of coherence and justification in the critical pedagogical position, before turning, finally, to an alternative grounding of critical thinking that takes seriously the historical and social contextualisation of thinking without the coherence problems of critical pedagogy. My conclusion is that while the critical pedagogical model is right to point to the fatal incompleteness of Enlightenment-style critical thinking due to its failure to properly acknowledge the norm-saturated nature of historical consciousness, critical pedagogy itself fails to offer a coherent alternative to the problem of integrating value and rationality in a more full-blown grounding of critical thinking. I suggest that a hermeneutical model that integrates the rational, axiological and historical moments in consciousness provides a more satisfying foundation for understanding the trajectory and purpose of critical thinking. (shrink)

Two related aspects of the present ‘knowledge capitalism’ stage of globalisation are discussed in this article: the transformation of education to make it more directly supportive of educational growth and competition, and the growing demands on educational research to provide scientific evidence for education policy and practice, using narrowly defined methods and techniques. It is argued that both developments have profound consequences for the construction and use of educational theory, and the vital need for critical discussion and communication in this (...) respect is emphasised. (shrink)

This article draws on the ecological model of teacher agency and elaborates on how teacher agency is achieved, its components and how it could be strengthened. This model highlights professional competence, structural and cultural context, and professional purpose as the main elements of achieving agency. In this paper, we specify some elements of the ecological model and elaborate on how three types of reflection could be used to strengthen conditions for achieving teacher agency. These include, first, procedures aimed at articulating (...) the theory of action, including effective strategies, rules and principles for practice; second, procedures of practical reflection, aimed at fostering the conceptualization of practice and the understanding of oneself as a teacher; and third, procedures of critical reflection, which help to address the inequalities and malpractices of education and society. The main importance of this paper is to extend the practical relevance of the ecological model for teacher learning settings. (shrink)

The agroecological transition of agriculture not only requires changes in practices but also in ways of thinking and in their underlying values. Agroecology proposes broad scientific principles that need to be adapted to the singularities of each farm. This contextualization leads to the identification of agroecological practices that work locally and could serve as evidence-based practices to be transferred to local practitioners. This strategy was tested in a 4-year experiment conducted with dairy-sheep farmers in the South of France. The aim (...) was to collectively engage in the agroecological transition. Our work focused on the creation of a diagnostic tool that was used to analyze local farms and identify virtuous practices to be promoted locally as evidence-based practices. But this strategy came up against the complexity and singularity of the situations to be transformed: not only was no evidence found but the construction of the diagnostic tool itself led to controversy concerning the models of agriculture to be promoted. The experiment then took a pragmatic turn: on-farm workshops were organized to enable farmers to benefit from the professional judgment of peer farmers who were willing to help their colleagues accomplish their agroecological transition. The diagnostic tool, which was designed to be prescriptive, was then used to judge the social acceptability of solutions that made sense in each farmer’s own situation. Our experiment led us to conclude that managing the agro-ecological transition of farmers and their farming system is better conceived as a value-based process than as an evidence-based one. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the role of exemplarity in education through a conceptualisation of two different dimensions of exemplarity in educational practice. Pedagogical exemplarity, which relates to the pedagogical and ethical dimension of educational practice. In other words, this dimension explores the educational moments when someone takes up an exemplary function in educational practice. Didactical exemplarity, which relates to the exemplary function of subject matter or educational content. In other words, this dimension explores the educational moments when something takes up an (...) exemplary function in educational practice. Through an initial conceptual exploration of these two dimensions, via the works of Linda Zagzebski and Martin Wagenschein, the paper sets out to lay the foundation for a deeper understanding of the role of exemplarity in education. (shrink)

ABSTRACTResearch shows that various pharmaceuticals can offer modest cognition enhancing effects for healthy individuals. These finding have caused some academics to support liberal use of pharmacological cognitive enhancement in schools and universities. This approach partially arises from arguments implying there is little moral justification for regulating such drugs. In this paper, I argue against the liberal use of PCE on epistemic grounds. According to Charles Taylor, emotions and behaviour are epistemically valuable because they tell us meaningful things about reality. Hence, (...) an accurate interpretation of students’ emotions and behaviour in context is crucial to support an effective and ethical educational process. This paper supports the assertion that PCE might alter emotions and behaviour, and thereby distort the interpretation of the educational situation by students, educators and policy makers. Therefore, when discussing whether or not to regulate PCE we should be mindful of these epistemic concerns. (shrink)

This article revisits John Wilson’s “first steps” in moral education—a conceptual analysis of morality—and what he calls an education in morality. Education in morality focuses on morality as a form of life with a specific domain in which it aims to initiate students, and on education as a growth-oriented, progressive activity. Arendt’s conception of natality in education is then used to show how it provides a catalyst for growth, discovery, and tradition-trumping newness, and acts as a stepping-stone to public action (...) as morality and recognition of the plurality of human life. It becomes clear that the inherent sociability of morality forces the consideration of it as a public and social act. Education in morality must preserve the potential for the capacity to contribute to the development of morality and concurrently develop that capacity through the production of plurality that follows and the negotiations necessary for its preservation. Morality, then, must not be taught as a static set of immutable principles, but rather as an inclusive, adaptive process by and through which groups govern their associations. (shrink)

This paper assumes that educators are now involved in a struggle for their souls and for the souls of their students. The idea of the soul in this case is not the religious one, but the soul invoked by Foucault to name that aspect of self, that ‘exists, or is produced … within the body … or born … out of methods of punishment, supervision and constraint’. Neoliberalising social policy not only aims to transform structures and enact new technologies of (...) control but also involves the transformation of values and cultures, and hence the formation of new subjectivities. With that in mind this paper argues for an education understood as experiments with alternative modalities of self-formation that are responsive to the key challenges of our times. The paper experiments with as aphoristic style and hence is structured through six fragments that provide various takes on this problematic, including: an autobiographical moment; a brief rendering of Foucault’s genealogy of the relationship between truth and the subject; Hadot’s genealogy of philosophy; various definitions of spirituality; and an account of Buddhist epistemology that distinguishes knowing and realization. The paper concludes by arguing for a Buddhist inspired pedagogy that is defined in terms of the relationships between teacher, student and realization. From such a perspective, it is not identity work that is the ethico-political project of our times, but of learning how to quite literally get free of our self. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

This essay describes the growing interest in and use of concepts such as phronesis and authenticity in educational research and practice. While phronesis seems to be connected to the ethical dimension of education and educational guidance, the concept of authenticity seems to be connected to the existential dimension. This essay shows the relatedness between those two concepts and the relevance of an “existence philosophical” perspective on phronesis and authenticity. The author points to the importance of an ontological approach where phronesis (...) and authenticity are understood as two ways of respectively sensing and understanding the Being-dimension. This existence philosophical approach opens up for a new kind of praxis of Philo-Sophia, which could be realized in teacher training, when the focus is on how to become more mindful and aware of the Bildung-process in education and guidance. The essay suggests that this Being-dimension can be approached through the emergence of Communities of Wonder between the teacher and teacher student in the classroom or guidance session. (shrink)

In this article the extent to which stories and personal narratives can and should be used to inform education policy is examined. A range of studies describable as story or personal narrative is investigated. They include life-studies, life-writing, life history, narrative analysis, and the representation of lives. We use 'auto/biography' as a convenient way of grouping this range under one term. It points to the many and varied ways that accounts of self interrelate and intertwine with accounts of others. That (...) is, auto/biography illuminates the social context of individual lives. At the same time it allows room for unique, personal stories to be told. We do not explicitly discuss all the different forms of auto/biography. Rather, we investigate the epistemology underlying the personal story in the context of social action. We discuss the circumstances in which a story may validly be used by educational policy makers and give some examples of how they have done so in the past. (shrink)

In this article the extent to which stories and personal narratives can and should be used to inform education policy is examined. A range of studies describable as story or personal narrative is investigated. They include life-studies, life-writing, life history, narrative analysis, and the representation of lives. We use ‘auto/biography’ as a convenient way of grouping this range under one term. It points to the many and varied ways that accounts of self interrelate and intertwine with accounts of others. That (...) is, auto/biography illuminates the social context of individual lives. At the same time it allows room for unique, personal stories to be told. We do not explicitly discuss all the different forms of auto/biography. Rather, we investigate the epistemology underlying the personal story in the context of social action. We discuss the circumstances in which a story may validly be used by educational policy makers and give some examples of how they have done so in the past. (shrink)