This article contributes to work on temporality in education. Challenging the future-oriented focus in contemporary education, the authors question how ideas and assumptions regarding the future—centred on the Child—can set narrow boundaries around children in schools. In carrying out this task, we employ the work of Lee Edelman and John Dewey to examine the educational ramifications of the focus on the future, which we call ‘educational futurism’. The argument seeks specifically to explore how educational futurism imposes limits on educational discourse (...) and privileges a certain future—making it unthinkable to imagine ways outside of such a privileged future. Juxtaposing Lee Edelman and John Dewey, we draw out connections and disconnections between their disparate philosophies, illustrating the ways in which educational futurism ignores or overlooks the lived experiences of children. We conclude by briefly noting the queerness of children and the impact of such queerness on broadening discussions of the future of children and their educations. (shrink)

The concept of moral innocence is frequently referenced in popular culture, ordinary language, literature, religious doctrine, and psychology. The morally innocent are often thought to be morally pure, incapable of wrongdoing, ignorant of morality, resistant to sin, or even saintly. In spite of, or perhaps because of this frequency of use the characterization of moral innocence continues to have varying connotations. As a result, the concept is often used without sufficient heed given to some of its most salient attributes, especially (...) those germane to moral agency and the moral community. In this article I intend to identify these attributes and propose that moral innocence is best defined as an inability to enter the moral community as a result of a trust in moral illusions. The content of the illusions pertains to several factors including one’s role in the moral community, one’s ability to wrong or harm others, the intricacies of one’s moral interaction with others, and the corresponding manifold complexities tangled up with the concepts of good and evil. Maintaining these illusions impedes or even prohibits an appropriate exchange of praise and blame with others. As membership in the moral community requires precisely this ability to engage in such an exchange, moral illusions necessarily give rise to an inability to participate in the moral community. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.