For contemporary critical philosophers of education, the thought of Paul Tillich, a protestant theologian, does not seem to be a very likely point of reference. Nevertheless, we decided to read some of his works within a philosophical-educational context. Reading those works of Tillich we realized that they required a pedagogical-philosophical acknowledgement. Scarce as the educational analyses of Paul Tillich’s writings are, they concern mostly either religious education or some specific issues connected with teaching. Our proposal was to read him differently: (...) as a critical tool for grasping contemporary educational issues, independent from a religious or didactic approach. In the article, referring to the thoughts of Tillich, we analyze the three most important tensions of the last and present centuries: kairos I and II, referring to the human condition after World Wars I and II, and kairos III, related mainly to the war on terrorism and to the growing climate crisis. The analysis of these special moments in the history of humankind is related to the postulates and pedagogical attitudes articulated by us. We conclude that as a result of the deepening climate crisis and the looming specter of a cataclysm, the transition to a better aion may enable the pedagogy of radical hope. The essence of this pedagogy is to shape the “courage to be” during grassroots, collective and political action - an existential attitude saturated with resistance, concern and hope that such grassroots, cultural-religious practices can contribute to social change and reduce the fear of inevitable death associated with the risk of annihilation of the Earth. (shrink)

Postmodern theory is used to consider literacy instruction with and without an electronic whiteboard to investigate what it means to move beyond using technology to replicate older models of classroom structure that may be historically situated but that also limit or at least, do not support engagement in ways that may be possible through use of new technologies. Using postmodern theory in this regard is a way in which to consider again the thoughts and practices that tend to construct identities (...) and ideologies in ways that work against true engagement in literacy tasks, lead to subjection and demonstration of acquiescence in place of engagement that leads to participation and critical engagement. Critical engagement as opposed to gaining and maintaining student attention to task are considered in this paper. Thinking about use of the electronic whiteboard from a postmodern perspective cautions us about careful use of this technology to avoid sending messages to students about them and their role in literacy development, the classroom, and in society. (shrink)

Postmodern theory is used to consider literacy instruction with and without an electronic whiteboard to investigate what it means to move beyond using technology to replicate older models of classroom structure that may be historically situated but that also limit or at least, do not support engagement in ways that may be possible through use of new technologies. Using postmodern theory in this regard is a way in which to consider again the thoughts and practices that tend to construct identities (...) and ideologies in ways that work against true engagement in literacy tasks, lead to subjection and demonstration of acquiescence in place of engagement that leads to participation and critical engagement. Critical engagement as opposed to gaining and maintaining student attention to task are considered in this paper. Thinking about use of the electronic whiteboard from a postmodern perspective cautions us about careful use of this technology to avoid sending messages to students about them and their role in literacy development, the classroom, and in society. (shrink)

Post‐Marxist critical sociology of education has influenced the development of indigenous (‘kaupapa’) Maori educational theory and research. Its effects are examined in four claims made for Maori education by indigenous theorists. The claims are: indigenous kaupapa Maori education is a revolutionary initiative; it is a cultural solution to Maori educational under‐achievement; it has reversed the decline of the Maori language; it provides a valid educational alternative for an ethnically and culturally distinctive population. The analysis suggests that the indigenous theory approach (...) is representative of the position‐taking strategy that characterises post‐Marxist critical sociology of education, concluding that claims made in kaupapa Maori voice discourse are not supported by the empirical evidence which indicates a more complex social reality. (shrink)

This paper highlights the voices and experiences of individuals who objected to animal dissection in their high school science and biology classes. The data were collected via online surveys , and 8 of these participants took part in more in-depth telephone interviews. Participants were former students from Ontario, Canada, who discussed their experiences with animal dissection in general, and objection to dissection in particular, if applicable. The findings reveal that students who expressed objection to dissection experienced a range of teacher (...) responses, including pressure to participate, the request to join another group of students and watch, the choice to use a dissection alternative, warnings of compromised grades, and other responses. The study points to the importance of choice policies to ensure that dissection alternatives are available in classrooms. In this way, students can select among different options of how they would like to learn, and teachers can be prepared to accommodate those who choose not to dissect. (shrink)

As a full-time foreign faculty member in the Chinese Normal university system for the past five years, I analyze the contested terrain of being a critical, Freirean educator/researcher as an insider and outsider of Chinese and Western academic systems and societies overall. This autobiographical analysis is within the contexts of China’s academic focus on raising their global higher education rankings, along with self-reflectivity of my own multiple, often-conflicting identities and Western-centric Orientalism, theorized by Edward Said, in my legitimization of academic (...) work. The following themes are analyzed through critical and Freirean frameworks: pursuit for top rankings coinciding and conflicting with scholarship breadth and depth, academic freedom, and politics of education; constructs of “harmony” that grounds teaching and research; and select pedagogical commonalities and differences between the East, the Global South, and the West. The article delves into preconceptions, including my own,... (shrink)

As a means to challenge and diminish the hold of mainstream curriculum's claim of being a colorblind, politically neutral text, we will address two particular features that partially, though significantly, constitute the hidden curriculum in the United States—race and class—historically studied as separate social issues. Race and class have been embedded within the institutional curriculum from the beginning in the US; though rarely acknowledged as intertwined issues. We illustrate how the theoretical and interpretive structure of French philosopher and sociologist Pierre (...) Bourdieu can productively subsume the insights of critical race theory into its framework in a way that provides a more robust understanding of how race and class continue to be socially reproduced in schools. To perform this task we examine, through Bourdieu's constructs of habitus, field, capital, symbolic violence and misrecognition, the ways in which race, in general, and whiteness, specifically, influences pedagogical and curricular existence within the institutional superstructure of school. (shrink)

This paper examines Henry Giroux’s critical pedagogy, and explores the interconnections among education, democracy, and hope. Whereas critical pedagogy rejects foundationalism, it still requires a normative foundation to criticise oppressive situations and pose a vision of the future. Giroux rejects foundationalism and regards oppressive force such as neoliberalism as an enemy of both hope and democracy. He regards hope as an act of imagination, something to be cultivated, which can be regarded as a medium of mobilisation. This seems inconsistent with (...) the tenets of critical pedagogy, as mobilisation is often thought to suppress individual human agency, which Giroux and other critical pedagogues have emphasised heavily. This paper solves this inconsistency via the radical democracy advocated by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and Gramscian insights regarding hegemony and education, and redefines the role of hope in Giroux's theory. Giroux’s framing of hope moves us towards certain normative claims and mobilises people to desire democracy as a normative foundation for society. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy, it is claimed, is essential for the legitimisation of public policy and law. It is built upon an assumption that citizens will be capable of constructing and defending reasons for their moral and political beliefs. However, critics of deliberative democracy suggest that citizens’ emotions are not properly considered in this process and, if left unconsidered, present a serious problem for this political framework. In response to this, deliberative theorists have increasingly begun to incorporate the emotions into their accounts. (...) However, these accounts have tended to focus only upon the inclusion of emotions in the external-collective exchange of reason between citizens. Little work has been done on how the individual will actually cope with emotions internally within their own minds. There has been no consideration of the capacities that citizens will need to perceive, understand and regulate emotions as they formulate reasons both by themselves and with others. Moreover, there has been little consideration of how these capacities might be educated in children so that emotionally competent deliberative citizens can be created. In this paper, emotional intelligence is presented as an essential capacity that can fulfil this role for the deliberative citizen and deliberative democracy more generally. The ‘deliberative school’ is suggested as a potential site for this transformation that can progress from generation to generation, cultivating citizens that are increasingly better equipped to handle emotionally-laden deliberative engagement. (shrink)

Ovaj tekst, kao nastavak našega promišljanja o dispozicijama za pedagogično djelovanje, kritička je refleksija vlastite profesionalne svakodnevice u kojoj detektiramo brojne dileme vezane za svrhu pedagoške profesije. Točke prijepora, poput – biti neutralna ili angažirana, graditi distanciran ili prisan pedagoški odnos, prioritizirati vlastitu ili tuđu dobrobit, odbijati ili prihvaćati sukob kao potencijalni agens promjene – izmještamo iz hodnika, predavaonica i učionica u kojima bivamo te, izlazeći time iz komforne zone nepromišljanja o njima, apostrofiramo ambivalentnu pojavnost dihotomije javno–privatno u skrivenome kurikulumu (...) tih prostora. Promatrajući dispozicije kao za autonomno pedagogično pedagoško djelovanje prediktivna uvjerenja i osobine razvijajućega karaktera, u radu zagovaramo napuštanje shvaćanja pedagoginja kao neutralnih profesionalki apstrahiranih od osobnih uvjerenja, kvaliteta i ograničenja te u fokus stavljamo etičnost, refleksivnost i autentičnost kao temeljne dispozicije za pedagogično djelovanje usmjereno k podupiranju mogućega i transformativnoga u pedagoškome odnosu. Rad zaključujemo promišljanjem odgovornosti studijā pedagogije i samih pedagoginja za kultiviranje opisanih dispozicija. This text, as a continuation of our reflections on dispositions for pedagogical practice, is a critical reflection on our everyday working life, in which we detect numerous dilemmas related to the goal of the pedagogical profession. We move points of contention – such as being neutral or engaged, building a distanced or close pedagogical relationship, prioritising one’s own benefit or that of others, rejecting or accepting conflict as a potential agent of change – out of the halls and classrooms in which we spend time and, breaching the comfort zone of not thinking about them, accent the apparently ambivalent dichotomy of public and private in the hidden curriculum of these spaces. By conceptualizing dispositions as evolving predictive beliefs and personal traits, the paper advocates abandoning the view of pedagogues as neutral professionals devoid of personal beliefs, qualities, and limitations, instead focusing on ethics, reflexivity, and authenticness as the basic dispositions for pedagogical practice directed towards supporting the possible and transformative in the pedagogical relationship. The paper concludes with a consideration of the responsibility of pedagogy programmes and pedagogues themselves in cultivating the aforementioned dispositions. (shrink)

In this article I discuss how Jacques Rancière’s thought invites us to re-conceptualize the education–emancipation nexus. The primary goal of traditional approaches to emancipatory and anti-oppressive education has been to empower the oppressed so that the latter can (re)gain their voice and transform their situations. Building on Rancière’s ideas, I argue that the processes of empowering the oppressed imply that one has the power to empower the other, and thus start with an assumption of inequality. I conclude the article with (...) a call for a pedagogy of ignorance. Grounded in Rancière’s thought, this pedagogy is ignorant of any division and hierarchy of intelligence. (shrink)

This article explores the role of the Deaf child as peer educator. In schools where sign languages were banned, Deaf children became the educators of their Deaf peers in a number of contexts worldwide. This paper analyses how this peer education of sign language worked in context by drawing on two examples from boarding schools for the deaf in Nicaragua and Thailand. The argument is advanced that these practices constituted a child-led oppositional pedagogy. A connection is drawn to Freire’s (1972) (...) theory of critical pedagogy. Deaf children’s actions as peer educators are framed as an act of resistance towards the oppression of their language and culture. A contrast is drawn between oralist pedagogy that is historically associated with punitive practices and didactic methods and the experiential and dialogic interaction that characterised peer learning of sign languages. The argument is made that the peer teaching and learning processes enabled the self-actualisation of the Deaf children whereas the oralist methods were based on a deficit model that focused on modifying deaf children according to the norms of hearing society. The implications of this for current policy and practice are inferred to be about access to sign languages and the importance of Deaf communities in deaf children’s education. The argument is made that space needs to be created for deaf children to engage in peer learning. (shrink)

This article seeks to explore the theoretical contributions of Axel Honneth, particularly in his works, The Struggle for Recognition and Reification, aiming at diving deep into the debate on the contemporary ideological expressions and their incidence in the process of subjective constitution in teenage years. This particular interest springs from the need to interweave the concepts of reification, forgetfulness and recognition within a fruitful theoretical field in order to interpret a project work called Hip-Hop: cultures and identities, developed with teenagers (...) in a public school in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. From our point of view, the concepts of reification and forgetfulness are fundamental to identify how the conservative ideological expressions are present in the imaginary of adolescents in the contemporary world. Although rereading the concepts of reification and forgetfulness, as proposed by the author, is regarded as essential for understanding the ideological expressions that are based on and guided by consumption. However, even though we acknowledge Honneth's efforts toward moving forward with the concept of reification, it is crucial to emphasize the mediation concept Lukács explored in his work, History and Class Consciousness, so as to elucidate how the forgetfulness of the primary recognition relations is processed. (shrink)