This paper follows recent debates around theorizations of ‘affect’ and its distinction from ‘emotion’ in the context of non-representational theories to exemplify how the ontologization of affects creates important openings of ethical and political potential in educators’ efforts to make productive interventions in pedagogical spaces. The ontological orientation provided by NRT has two important implications for educational theory and practice. First, it exposes the indeterminacy and inventiveness of affective capacities of bodies, illustrating how diverse socio-materials events are variously enrolled in (...) everyday school life processes of differentiation. Second, it emphasizes an affirmative account of the ethics and politics of affect in which connections and relations forged between bodies, things and spaces constitute the basis of new configurations of affects and emotions in schools. (shrink)

This paper follows recent debates on the ontological turn in the social sciences and humanities to exemplify how this turn creates important openings of methodological and political potential in education. In particular, the paper makes an attempt to show two things: first, the new questions and possibilities that are opened from explicitly acknowledging the methodological and political consequences of the ontological turn in education—e.g. concerning agency, transformation, materiality and relations; and second, the importance of being clear about how educators and (...) educational researchers conceptualize ontology and engage with debates on the ontological turn in related disciplines. The paper sketches some of the methodological and political implications of the ontological turn for education, focusing in particular on the concept of learning. (shrink)

Re-turning to our experiences of putting a diffractive methodology to work ourselves, as well as engaging with the writings of Donna Haraway and Karen Barad, we produce some propositions re...

This paper is an attempt to connect the Brazilian Paulo Freire’s well known educational thinking with the “philosophy for children” movement. It considers the relationship between the creator of philosophy for children, Matthew Lipman and Freire through different attempts to establish a relationship between these two educators. The paper shows that the relationship between them is not as close as many supporters of P4C have claimed, especially in Latin America. It also considers the context of Educational Policies in our time (...) and why Freire’s understanding of the politics of education makes it impossible to be Freirean and at the same time be neutral or favorable to the actual status quo. Finally, after presenting Lipman’s understanding of the relationship between philosophy, education and democracy and their connection to capitalism, it proposes ways to begin the political path of philosophizing with children inspired by Paulo Freire’s educational thinking. As a result, a more politically committed path to doing philosophy with children is offered. (shrink)

This article discusses the idea of intra-generational education. Drawing on Braidotti’s nomadic subject and Barad’s conception of agency, we consider what intra-generational education might look like ontologically, in the light of critical posthumanism, in terms of natureculture world, nomadism and a vibrant indeterminacy of knowing subjects. In order to explore the idea of intra-generationalism and its pedagogical implications, we introduce four concepts: homelessness, agelessness, playfulness and wakefulness. These may appear improbable in the context of education policy-making today, but they are (...) born of theorising our practices in the age-transgressive field of Philosophy with Children. We argue that these concepts help to reconfigure intra-generational relations, ways of being and becoming. They express the longing, corporeality and visionary epistemology of nomadic enquiry. These inventions express a non-hierarchical philosophy of immanence. We draw some tentative conclusions about educational practices more generally. (shrink)