Книга предназначена для исследователей, аналитиков, преподавателей, аспирантов, студентов, специализирующихся на изучении космического мышления.

This paper identifies and analyzes what constitutes special education in the revised Swedish preschool curriculum. The paper also contributes with an analytical mode of understanding political, as well as other, documents, in, for example, an educational system. The analytical strategy is mainly built upon discourse theory and discourse analysis, using the ideas of Ernesto Lacalu, Chantal Mouffe and Michel Foucault. The results show a fortified hegemonic discourse about a preschool for all children, where child-centred and inclusive approaches are dominant and (...) where special education, to a large extent, is constituted by more management, stimulation and special support. The paper raises questions about the possible effects the hegemonic discourse may contribute to.Nyckelord: diskurs, diskursanalys, diskursteori, läroplan, specialpedagogik, inkludering, pedagogik, styrdokument, svensk förskola för alla barn, utbildning. (shrink)

In this paper Johan Dahlbeck sets out to propose a pedagogy of “as if,” seeking to address the educational paradox of how students can be influenced to approximate a life guided by reason without assuming that they are already sufficiently rational to adhere to dictates of practical reason. He does so by outlining a fictionalist account, drawing primarily on Hans Vaihinger's systematic treatment of heuristic fictions and on Spinoza's ideas about how passive affects can be made to strengthen reason. Dahlbeck (...) suggests that such an account can help us overcome the problem of assuming that reason needs to be enlisted as an instrument in the educational endeavor to live according to the guidance of reason. The reason this is so is that fictions can use passive affects that are prosocial and that thereby strengthen the sense of community necessary for laying a cooperative foundation for successful joint striving. Dahlbeck suggests further that exemplary teachers are crucial to this endeavor insofar as they can offer educational fictions as imaginative and temporary placeholders for the truth, allowing students to act “as if” they were already guided by reason. (shrink)

This article clarifies the fundamental difference between empirical and conceptual questions in education. In the ongoing debate about the role of philosophy of education, many authors either unreflectively assume or actively demand that philosophy of education should try to adapt to science. Through a discussion of the possibilities of a child to open up to educational processes the article illustrates how philosophical reflection on education fundamentally differs in character from empirical approaches. It suggests that one important task for philosophy of (...) education is to clarify what questions can be answered empirically from those that are constitutive of our understanding of education. Wittgenstein’s later philosophy is used as a central starting point in this article. (shrink)

During the second half of the 20th century education has been recognized as a human right in several international conventions, and the UN also holds that “Education shall be free” and that “Elementary education shall be compulsory” (UN, 1948, Article 26). The education-as-a-human right-project could be viewed as a good intention of global inclusion in recognizing that all individuals have a right to education in virtue of being humans, and the idea of education as a human right thus has a (...) tremendous global significance. However, if we look at this more critically, the education-as-a-human right-project, may not only be grounded in altruistic good intensions for the disadvantaged. The term “elementary education”, or sometimes “primary education”, which is used in several human rights-documents seems to suggest that it is some sort of formalized education. It would be useful however to make a distinction between formal and informal education, as well as between teaching, learning, education and schooling, in the discussion of the right to education and specifically in the discussion concerning education as a “human right”. There is obviously a difference between the right to teach, the right to learn, the right to education and the right to schooling. And how are these rights related to compulsory schooling, compulsory education and the supposed duty to teach and duty to learn? A further concern is what makes this a human right rather than for example a juridical right as a citizen. By addressing these questions within a theoretical framework of social ontology and ameliorative conceptual analysis I believe that we can find new ways of dealing with fundamental problems within philosophy of education such as the nature, purpose and aims of education as well as the right to education. (shrink)

Bullying has over the years been examined and explained in individual as well as in contextual terms, and from a wide range of different theories and methods. A growing number of bullying researchers approach bullying as a socially complex phenomenon and from social psychological and sociological perspectives. There is today a tension between theoretical perspectives on bullying, but also a need for investigating the social and contextual aspects of bullying further. In this article, I will argue for the necessity of (...) dialogue between different theoretical perspectives and the inclusive potential of the social-ecological framework to create a meeting point of theories in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of school bullying. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to reconsider and explore the ontoepistemology of student engagement in higher education as part of a democratic education, going beyond neo-liberal groundings. This is urgent as the concept of student engagement seems to be taken for granted and used uncritically in higher education. In addition, higher education is affected by, and under pressure from, different global and societal forces, which raises questions about the purpose of education. In our exploration, we mainly draw on the (...) philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and his co-writers Felix Guattari and Claire Parnet, but also Karen Barad and writers who are inspired by these theories. We present four arguments on which we elaborate: Rethinking power relations, Questioning linearity and how to use goals, Appreciating pedagogical relationships as multiple voices and becoming-multiple-others, and Considering assemblages, rhizomes and lines in student engagement. These arguments open up, as we argue, the poss... (shrink)

Ukazał się kolejny, X tom Rocznika Edyty Stein. Trzeba o tym napisać nie tylko ze względu na jego zawartość. Z wydaniem tego jubileuszowego numeru został zamknięty okres, w którym redakcja Rocznika spoczywała w rękach J. S. de Murillo. Nowym naczelnym redaktorem jest od tego numeru Ul. Dobhan. W roku 1993 ukazał się I. tom Rocznika Edyty Stein, którego redakcja na zlecenie Zakonu Karmelitańskiego objął hiszpański karmelita J. S. de Murillo. Rocznik miał stanowić swego rodzaju „otwarte forum" dla współpracy między filozofię (...) i teologię, jak również pedagogikę i sztukę, nawiązujących do myśli i ducha Edyty Stein. Koncepcja Rocznika szła - jeśli można tak powiedzieć - „w szerokość", tak, aby próbować wgłębiać się w myśli Edyty Stein aż po granice możliwości. Ale co to właściwie znaczy? Czy na końcu takiego eksperymentu myślowego będziemy jeszcze mieć do czynienia z myślą Edyty Stein? Odpowiedzi na te istotne pytania i zamyślenia nad kształtem Rocznika doprowadziły do zmiany jego kierownictwa i tym samym do zmiany jego koncepcji. (shrink)

Ukazał się kolejny, X tom Rocznika Edyty Stein. Trzeba o tym napisać nie tylko ze względu na jego zawartość. Z wydaniem tego jubileuszowego numeru został zamknięty okres, w którym redakcja Rocznika spoczywała w rękach J. S. de Murillo. Nowym naczelnym redaktorem jest od tego numeru Ul. Dobhan. W roku 1993 ukazał się I. tom Rocznika Edyty Stein, którego redakcja na zlecenie Zakonu Karmelitańskiego objął hiszpański karmelita J. S. de Murillo. Rocznik miał stanowić swego rodzaju „otwarte forum" dla współpracy między filozofię (...) i teologię, jak również pedagogikę i sztukę, nawiązujących do myśli i ducha Edyty Stein. Koncepcja Rocznika szła - jeśli można tak powiedzieć - „w szerokość", tak, aby próbować wgłębiać się w myśli Edyty Stein aż po granice możliwości. Ale co to właściwie znaczy? Czy na końcu takiego eksperymentu myślowego będziemy jeszcze mieć do czynienia z myślą Edyty Stein? Odpowiedzi na te istotne pytania i zamyślenia nad kształtem Rocznika doprowadziły do zmiany jego kierownictwa i tym samym do zmiany jego koncepcji. (shrink)

I var tid ar ambitionen att sa mycket verksamhet som mojlig skall vila pa vetenskaplig grund. Darmed utokas vetenskapens domaner, samtidigt som begreppet som sadant forflackas. Filosofen Karl Poppers syn pa vetenskapen ar mera subtil. Enligt honom kan vi ingenting veta med sakerhet, ingenting bevisa, endast falsifiera, det vill saga visa att nagot ar oforenligt med faktiska forhallanden. Det som undandrar sig falsifieringen kan vi acceptera tillsvidare. Ulf Persson provar i denna bok Poppers teori pa ett antal vetenskapsomraden, daribland ekonomi, (...) pedagogik och evolutionsbiologi. (shrink)

One of the most legendary educational books ever written is Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “Émile ou de l’Education”. Most obviously Rousseau wrote this book guided by diverse more or less conscious purposes and one of the main problems it presents is paradoxical: Does education have to promote freedom by force? In this article I will, firstly, present several aims that might have triggered Rousseau to write “Émile”. Secondly, I will discuss Rousseau’s view of the so called “educational paradox”. Since this quandary touches (...) the topic of many other of his books, I will discuss “Émile” along with Rousseau’s other works and thus place his educational story in his “great narrative”. (shrink)

Lived music - multi-dimensional musical experience : Implications for music education.

This article is about a coming project concerning a coherentist approach to ethics in school. The project has two main parts; one theoretical and one empirical. The former focuses on philosophical problems and issues concerning coherentism as a metaethical position in general, and particularly when applied to the field of value education, and the latter aims to study some consequences of a coherentist approach to the study of discussing ethical matters with children.Metaethical coherentism is a position in the discussion about (...) justification of moral judgements. According to coherentism, we build some kind of web in which different moral judgements are connected by some justification‐relation or the like. Some judgements might be more central than others, but these can be justified by the more particular and peripheral ones, and vice versa. Coherentism differs from foundationalism, according to which there are some foundational judgements that are not justified by any other judgements. The rest of our judgements are justified if they are justified by this foundation. We wish to study what benefits a coherentist approach might have in the study of ethical discussions in school. In Sweden, the educational system has as one of its main purposes to mediate a "value foundation" based on "Christian ethical tradition and western humanism" to the pupils. Suppose now that you have a foundationalist approach to ethical discussion in schools, as many seem to have had historically, and that some pupil expresses the judgement that some of his classmates have a lower value than him, due to the colour of their skin. This judgement conflicts with the judgement that the colour of ones skin does not have any bearing of ones value, included in the value foundation of the school. According to a foundationalist, we here have a conflict between foundational values, or so we can suppose. In this case, there is nothing obvious to do to resolve this conflict, because the foundational values cannot be justified; it is supposed that we simply realise the correctness of them by our moral intuition, or the like. A coherentist, on the other side, could point to how these two different judgements gain different amount of justification from other judgements, and thereby hopefully find consensus, and hence dissolve the conflict.Coherentism is not theoretically unproblematic, though. One problem is how to understand the justification‐relation. What does it mean that two propositions justify each other? Philosophers have discussed several different proposals. We give a new proposal, based on some of Arne Naess' theories. With regard to methods for ethical discussion in relation to a coherentistic approach, it seems as a "philosophy with children" approach will seem as a natural choice. (shrink)

In this article, we examine which challenges aesthetics and ethics puts pedagogy before. We discuss the intersection of Emmanuel Lévinas's notion of ethics and Jacques Rancière's notion of aesthetics in a pedagogical context through the praxis of Expressive Arts. We begin by introducing Lévinas's ethics and its role in his philosophical system, and also, its implications for relation between human beings. Thereafter we introduce Rancière's aesthetics and its potential to evoke ethics by reproaching non-art as art. After these presentations, we (...) introduce the praxis of EXA through four interviews with participants from an EXA-based work that we ourselves are previously familiar with. We analyze this praxis in the light of the above mentioned philosophical notions and conclude with a discussion on the pedagogical implications of this philosophical perspective on the uses of art in education. We mean that EXA is an advantageous praxis for a pedagogy that aims at taking into account the challenges and the complexity of this aesthetic-ethical approach. Our conclusion is that this approach puts all pedagogy that aims at being more than just knowledge mediating before three challenges: it should originate from equality-in-alterity, it should invite to an ethical subject-hood, and it should have tools for both breaking the prevailing discourse and to constantly continue this process, without reaching an end. (shrink)

A main issue in Swedish school debate is the question of how to teach the student a common value system based on democracy and western humanism. The debate is rather intense, to say the least. Not only is the premise that there exists one value system that we share a target for critique, but there is also the question of what value education is or could be. There is, as well, quite a body of research on children's moral development, where (...) many take as their departure the work of Kohlberg. However, there has been little or no attention on how the individual learner conceptualizes and makes meaning out of ethical issues. That is, descriptions of processes. In this paper we will present what we take to be urgent questions that need to be investigated against the background of prior research and practical work at Södra teatern in Stockholm, Sweden. For eight years in a row, Södra teatern has had as a main project to lead a practice on the subject of philosophy with children. Several groups of youths in the age of nine to eighteen have regularly met to discuss philosophical thoughts and problems, which in a democratic manner are settled for discussion by the participants. Today this philosophical practice has spread to the north of Sweden. In Backman's final exam within the teacher education she has explored the development of children's (7‐8 years old) ability to argue for different ethical positions, both verbally and in writing and painting. This practice has been inspired by the tradition at Södra teatern, but customized to fit a regular school class in Luleå, with very little experience of philosophical discussion. In the very short period of five weeks Backman has been able to see quite significant changes in the children's ability to argue for their ethical positions. The study was initiated by examining some argumentative abilities of the pupils, for instance the ability of expressing an argument for an ethical position in writing. In the final part of the study, the same ability was examined in very similar circumstances, and the augment of expressed arguments in writing was significant. Another consideration that was raised as a consequence of the study regards the pupil's conceptualizing of ethical issues. In some conversations about the notion of justice it became clear that children interpreted the term very differently. This is not very surprising but important to pay further attention to. As mentioned earlier, there has been very little attention on how individual children conceptualize ethical issues. In this paper we argue that more interest should be put on investigating these issues in more depth, and we will do this by an outlining of a research application. (shrink)