This handbook presents a comprehensive introduction to the core areas of philosophy of education combined with an up-to-date selection of the central themes. It includes 95 newly commissioned articles that focus on and advance key arguments; each essay incorporates essential background material serving to clarify the history and logic of the relevant topic, examining the status quo of the discipline with respect to the topic, and discussing the possible futures of the field. The book provides a state-of-the-art overview of philosophy (...) of education, covering a range of topics: Voices from the present and the past deals with 36 major figures that philosophers of education rely on; Schools of thought addresses 14 stances including Eastern, Indigenous, and African philosophies of education as well as religiously inspired philosophies of education such as Jewish and Islamic; Revisiting enduring educational debates scrutinizes 25 issues heavily debated in the past and the present, for example care and justice, democracy, and the curriculum; New areas and developments addresses 17 emerging issues that have garnered considerable attention like neuroscience, videogames, and radicalization. The collection is relevant for lecturers teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of education as well as for colleagues in teacher training. Moreover, it helps junior researchers in philosophy of education to situate the problems they are addressing within the wider field of philosophy of education and offers a valuable update for experienced scholars dealing with issues in the sub-discipline. Combined with different conceptions of the purpose of philosophy, it discusses various aspects, using diverse perspectives to do so. Contributing Editors: Section 1: Voices from the Present and the Past: Nuraan Davids Section 2: Schools of Thought: Christiane Thompson and Joris Vlieghe Section 3: Revisiting Enduring Debates: Ann Chinnery, Naomi Hodgson, and Viktor Johansson Section 4: New Areas and Developments: Kai Horsthemke, Dirk Willem Postma, and Claudia Ruitenberg. (shrink)

The notions of literacy and citizenship have become technologised through the demands for measurable learning outcomes and the reduction of these aspects of education to sets of skills and competencies. Technologisation is understood here as the systematisation of an art, rather than as intending to understand technology itself in negative terms or to comment on the way technology is used in teaching and learning for literacy and citizenship. Technologisation is approached here in terms of the understanding of literacy and citizenship (...) as things that one has. Drawing on the phenomenology of Gabriel Marcel the understanding of literacy and citizenship in terms of having is problematised, as is the distinction between having and being. This opens the way for a richer understanding of being literate and being a citizen explored through the figures of the Hermit and the Poet in Thoreau's Walden. Being literate and being a citizen are brought together here in order to consider the implications of their technologisation for academic writing in the university. The question of what we write in the name of in the university is considered in the light of this and of a particular notion of the public. (shrink)

The turn to cosmopolitanism in educational research on citizenship education is indicative of a wider discourse of cosmopolitanism evident throughout social and cultural policy. This discourse represents a more 'light-hearted' use of the term than the philosophical tradition offers. This discourse should not be dismissed, however, but, instead, attention should be paid to who the citizen is that is addressed by such language. An analysis informed by Foucault's concept of governmentality draws attention to the way in which the discourse of (...) cosmopolitanism relates to the entrepreneurial self and the form of accountability demanded of the knowledge economy. A particular understanding of citizenship and of our relations to others becomes apparent. In educational research on citizenship education, cosmopolitanism is afforded a problem-solving role in relation to globalisation and, more specifically, diversity. Attention is drawn to a meta-level, of the role of particular forms of research in answering to the demand for accountability. Research practice in educational research, or more specifically, education policy sociology concerned with citizenship education, is conducted in terms of the policy language it seeks to critique. Rather than seeking the openness associated with cosmopolitanism, therefore, such research is itself accountable to the demands for particular knowledge of the citizenry. This treatment is also evident in contemporary urban planning policy, similarly concerned with cosmopolitanism as a response to diversity and inclusion. In the current discourse of cosmopolitanism, 'diversity', 'inclusion' and indeed 'citizenship' operate in particular ways through social and educational policy that rather than being dismissed should be addressed due to their role in the construction of contemporary citizenship. (shrink)

The 15th Biennial Meeting of the International Network of Philosophers of Education was held from 17 to 20 August 2016, at the University of Warsaw. The conference theme was ‘Philosophy as Translation and the Understanding of Other Cultures’, and we take this as the title for this Special Issue of Ethics and Education. The articles included in this volume are representative of the dynamism of the conference, reflecting a diversity of initiatives and interventions in what might be thought of as (...) a process of mutual education among all the participants. This, we believe, is the product of the experience of translation: translation as a linguistic experience inseparable from human transformation, which involves the crossing of borders. The way they intersect and diverge itself embodies the processes and the product of translation played out in the conference. (shrink)

The use of narrative research is often informed by a commitment to social justice on the part of the researcher. An example of this literature, Morwenna Griffiths' Action for Social Justice in Education: Fairly Different (2003), is taken here to illustrate the understanding of power and the way in which the relationship between theory and practice is conceived. The language and tone of such texts illustrate the role of a certain inheritance of psychology in the construction of subjectivity, which shapes (...) our understanding and conduct of the personal and professional. This, and the way in which the 'reflective practitioner' forms part of broader contemporary understandings of the self within liberal political rationality, is discussed with reference to work informed by the thought of Michel Foucault in order to provide a critique of the stated objectives of narrative research and the accompanying agenda of social justice. It is argued that without further attention being given within such work both to what is meant by narrative and social justice, and to assumptions regarding the nature of the operation of power, its emancipatory objectives are undermined. (shrink)

The competition question ‘What Does It Mean To Be An Educated Person?’ is associated with a powerful and influential line of thought in the philosophy of R. S. Peters. It is a question that needs always to be asked again. I respond by asking what it means, now, to be an educated person—that is, how the value of being an educated person is currently understood, and, further, how it might be understood differently. The starting point of this paper then is (...) not exactly the question of how we should best conceive of education, or of the educated person, in terms, for example, of initiation or of moral development. Instead I am concerned with who the supposedly educated person is today, according to the particular discourses and practices to which we are subject. I begin, then, by outlining the notion of the entrepreneurial self from the perspective of governmentality, with particular reference to questions of economy and the way in which the economic imperative is present in current policy. I then reconsider the idea of the educated person with reference to notions of economy and visibility as these relate to ideas of education and the self in Plato's The Republic. Discussion of readings of The Republic and of other texts of Plato by Stanley Cavell and Michel Foucault indicates how prevailing constructions of knowledge, practice, and subjectivity might be resisted. The question of what it means to be an educated person is thereby released from a particular mode of accounting for the self. (shrink)

_Philosophy and Theory in Educational Research: Writing in the Margin_ explores the practise of reading and writing in philosophy of education and education theory. Showing that there is no ‘right way’ to approach research in educational philosophy, but illustrating its possibilities, this text invites an engagement with philosophy as a possibility for educational research. Drawing on their own research, theoretical and philosophical sources, the authors investigate the important issue of what it means to read and write when there is no (...) prescribed structure. Innovative in its contribution to the literature, this edited volume enlightens readers in three ways. The volume focuses on the practices of reading and writing that are central to research in educational philosophy, suggesting that these practices constitute the research, rather than that they simply support the research. It is not a prescriptive guide and should not be read procedurally. Rather, it is intended to illustrate the possibilities for this kind of research, and to suggest starting points for those interested in pursuing research projects. Finally, attention is given to the ways in which conducting educational philosophy can be educative in itself, both to the researcher in writing it, and to its audience in reading it. With contributions from international scholars in the field of philosophy of education, this book forms a valuable guide for practitioner-researchers, taught postgraduate and doctoral students, and early career researchers in university education departments. Academic staff seeking to introduce their students to philosophy-as-research without wishing to offer a prescriptive ‘how to’ guide will also find this book of particular interest. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In recent years a tightening of safeguarding legislation and protocols that overlap with anti-terror legislation have given particular shape to discourses and practices of risk management and early intervention, particularly in early childhood education and parenting. Such developments have taken place in a context in which digital technology has become ubiquitous, enabling the role of surveillance in modes of governing to take on new forms. Here as well as giving an overview of literature on the digital in general, we (...) also focus more specifically on the parent-child relationship and the use of digital technology by parents. We then survey recent theorisations of securitisation from other fields, but again focus specifically on its relation to childhood and parenting. We bring digitisation and securitisation together here to consider how the particular form of individualisation produced today is recasting how we think about parents, teachers and children. (shrink)

Recent policy changes in the European Union have introduced the requirement for publicly funded research to be published in open access. This can be seen as part of a mode of democratic accountability that not only promotes transparency but also, Naomi Hodgson argues, is constituted by visibility and openness. By drawing attention to the way in which the researcher is asked to understand herself in this policy context, Hodgson illustrates how particular technologies of performance measurement and management, and of publication, (...) enter the researcher into this economy of visibility. The understanding of openness as a corrective to the traditional closed access system of publishing and the marketization of academia is challenged, then, in this article, which indicates how these technologies of reading and writing constitute the researcher as a particular figure in the emergent mode of governance. (shrink)

In this essay, Naomi Hodgson reconsiders the value of Michel Foucault’s normalization thesis to the study of educationalization in relation to contemporary educational policy and research. Hodgson begins by analyzing educational researchers’ response to the recent introduction of citizenship education in England, focusing specifically on a review of research, policy, and practice in this area commissioned by the British Educational Research Association . She argues that the BERA review exemplifies the field of education policy sociology in that it is conducted (...) according to the concepts of its parent discipline of sociology but lacks critical theoretical engagement with them. Instead, such work operationalizes sociological concepts in service of educational policy solutions. Hodgson identifies three dominant discourses of citizenship education within the BERA review— the academic discourse of education policy sociology, contemporary political discourse, and the discourse of inclusive education — and draws attention to the relation of citizenship education to policy initiatives, and thus to educationalization. She then discusses Foucault’s concept of normalization in terms of the demand on the contemporary subject to orient the self in a certain relation toward learning informed by the need for competitiveness in the European and global context. Ultimately, Hodgson concludes that the language and rhetoric of education policy sociology implicate such research in the process of educationalization itself. (shrink)

This paper returns to the theme of the academic turn to cosmopolitanism as a response to the challenges of globalisation, conflict, inequality and diversity discussed here previously. The discussion of cosmopolitanism here refers to the context of current policy relating to research and what it means to be a researcher in the European Union today or, as current policy frames it, ‘the Innovation Union’. The understanding of the researcher found in current policy relates closely to the particular understanding of citizenship (...) promoted in Europe today, consisting in active participation, mobility, adaptability and innovation, that is permanent learning for permanent adaptation to our current conditions. This understanding of citizenship and of research works in the name of democracy, community and their sustainability; and respect for diversity and equality and intercultural dialogue are important facets. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between democracy, citizenship and scholarship through the notion of voice. The conception of voice in current policy operates governmentally, and shores up an identity ordered according to existing classifications and choices rather than destabilising it, and enabling critique. Rather than leading to an empowerment then the notion of voice, found in policy, research and practice, constitutes a depoliticisation of citizenship. The work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Stanley Cavell and Michel Foucault is drawn upon here to (...) explore an understanding of voice constituted in seeking a different way of accounting for ourselves, a different relation of the self to the self and others than is demanded by the current order. This is explored in relation to thought and scholarship as expressions of one's voice and thus of one's citizenship. (shrink)

Recent European policy has seen a shift from a concern with lifelong learning in the Lisbon Strategy to research and innovation in the Horizon 2020 programme. Accordingly, there has been an increased policy focus on the researcher who, like the lifelong learner must be entrepreneurial, adaptable, mobile, but who must also find new ways in which to develop and deploy her skills and competences and smart solutions to current problems in order to ensure sustainability. The subject position of the researcher, (...) therefore, is not a figure distinctive to the university today, but rather one required of us all. For the excellent researcher in the university, resources exist to enable her to identify those aspects of herself that are in need of development in order to keep all aspects of her personal and professional well-being in balance, often drawn from the field of psychology. Here, rather than analysing directly the ways in which the researcher is addressed by such devices, we focus on the common experience of being in the university today. In everyday conversation, we do not describe ourselves as entrepreneurial, innovative, leading, etc., but more often as tired, stressed and not feeling at home there. Rather than taking these as impediments to productivity and aspects of ourselves requiring psychological strategies, the educational aspects of these are explored in relation to the figure of the studier, as developed from Giorgio Agamben by Tyson Lewis. The shift of discourse from lifelong learning to innovation and research in recent policy is seen to effect a further desubjectivation, a division of ourselves from ourselves. (shrink)