Imagining the Future: What Anarchism Brings to Education

The authors review Judith Suissa's provocative book , Anarchism and Education: A Philosophical Perspective, a text that demonstrates the central role of education in anarchist theory. Suissa compellingly argues against the charges that anarchism is overly idealistic and impractical, instead seeing its potential for innovative and liberatory educational change. The authors suggest, however, that an enhanced conversation among critical pedagogy, antiracist pedagogy and anarchist thinking on education can help to show both the continued relevance of radical and creative thinking, and that anarchist thought has been part of the development of oppositional, critical, collaborative, teaching and learning projects .     

From a Language to a Theory of Resistance: Critical Pedagogy,the Limits of “Framing,” and Social Change

In this article, Rebecca Tarlau attempts to build a more robust theory of the relationship between education and social change by drawing on the conceptual tools offered in the critical pedagogy and social movement literatures. Tarlau argues that while critical pedagogy has been largely disconnected from its roots in political organizing, social movement literature has shifted away from a theory of educational processes within movement building. Specifically, she suggests that the currently dominant “framing perspective” in the social movement literature is incredibly limited in its ability to analyze the pedagogical aspects of organizing. Conversely, while scholars of critical pedagogy are extremely convincing when critiquing U.S. schooling, the field is weaker when theorizing about how teachers using critical pedagogy can link to larger movements for social transformation. Critical pedagogues need more organizational thinking and social movement scholars need a more pedagogical focus. Tarlau suggests three conceptual frameworks for moving forward in this direction: the notion of social movements as pedagogical spaces, the role of informal educational projects in facilitating the emergence and strength of social movements, and the role of public schools as terrains of contestation that hold the possibility of linking to larger struggles for social justice.     

To Whom It May Concern: Epistolary political philosophies and the production of racial counterpublic knowledge in the United States

This article explores the philosophical underpinnings and implications of the idea of the public in the US state processes of knowledge production and control. In it we take up questions of public and counterpublic political philosophical knowledge production and mediation in relation to an expanding state. Specifically, we examine the political philosophies of racialized counterpublics since the 1960s, considering the particular knowledge production genre of the political prison letter. We suggest that the philosophical principles of the dominant public in the US have a proclivity to merge with state mechanisms of domination and to thwart counterpublics and their modes of political knowledge production.     

Educational psychology and the reform of teacher education

Benton and Hoyt (1989) perform a service for educational psychology by obtaining empirical evidence about educational psychologists' reactions to changes in teacher education proposed by the Holmes Group and the Carnegie Commission. Their paper should serve to stimulate debate about the proper role of educational psychology in teacher education. In this paper, we challenge the empirical findings reported by Benton and Hoyt and suggest reasons why the findings may misrepresent educational psychologists' interest in teacher education. We argue that some of the Holmes and Carnegie recommendations contradict the emerging consensus among cognitive psychologists about the contextually bound nature of knowledge. Benton and Hoyt conceptualize educational psychology according to the traditional middleperson viewpoint and make recommendations with respect to educational psychology that presume this conceptualization. We counter that the middleperson viewpoint is being made obsolete by changes in psychology, and describe an alternative conception of educational psychology. This alternative conception leads to a set of alternative recommendations about the appropriate role of educational psychology in the reform of teacher education.     

Democratic Education versus Smithian Efficiency: Prospects for a Deweyan Ideal in the “Neoliberal Age”

In this essay, David Meens examines the viability of John Dewey's democratic educational project, as presented in Democracy and Education, under present economic and political conditions. He begins by considering Democracy and Education's central themes in historical context, arguing that Dewey's proposal for democratic education grew out of his recognition of a conflict between how political institutions had traditionally been understood and organized on the one hand, and, on the other, emerging requirements for personal and social development in the increasingly interconnected world of the early twentieth century. Meens next considers Dewey's ideas in our contemporary context, which is dominated by a neoliberal ideology that extends the economic logic of Smithian efficiency to all domains of modern social and political life. He argues that the prevalence of neoliberalism poses two challenges to Deweyan democratic education: first, Dewey's emphasis on general education and a resistance to specialization is economically inefficient; and second, Dewey's strong, democratic conception of the “the public” is anathema to the neoliberal vision of the public as a conglomeration of individual agents. These challenges, he concludes, significantly stack the deck against Deweyan education by ensuring that the latter will be neither economically practicable nor widely understood.     

中国古代思想政治教育的基本特征和现实启示

思想政治教育是一定阶级或政治集团为了实现其政治目标和任务而进行的思想、道德及心理综合教育实践。它经历了雏形、形成、成熟及没落几个阶段。古代思想政治教育，无论在教育原则、内容、途径、方法上都有其鲜明的特色，对于形成中国人的民族心理及价值取向，维护华夏文明永生不息起了非常重要的作用，但同时也有其明显的局限性。取其精华，去其糟粕，是我们研究古代思想政治教育的明智选择。     

再论计算机网络对新时期我国思想政治教育的挑战和机遇

计算机网络的迅速发展对人们的道德观念和价值观念以及传统思想政治教育模式带来了挑战 ,同时 ,也为思想政治教育在新时期的发展带来了机遇 ,一是极大地丰富了思想政治教育信息资源 ;二是改善和丰富了思想政治教育手段 ,对实现思想政治教育现代化产生极大的促进作用 ,三是使思想政治教育的对象进一步扩大 ,促进了全民思想政治教育的实现 ,四是促进了终身教育的实现。     

Perspectives on human and social capital theories and the role of education: An approach from Mediterranean thought

Current discussions about education suggest that a transformative pedagogy that goes beyond the acquisition of knowledge and skills is needed. However, there is no agreement as to the inputs needed for a correct development of the educational model. In this sense, we can identify the presence of two different approaches to human and social capital which embody distinct educational worldviews. On the one hand, the ‘Marketable Human Capital’ or ‘Personal Culture’ approach, and on the other hand, the ‘Non-Marketable Human Capital’ or ‘Civic Culture’ approach. The first, which is linked to mainstream economic theory, sees education as any stock of knowledge that contributes to an improvement in the productivity of the worker and individual well-being. The second, which is rooted in the Mediterranean tradition of political thought, highlights the role of civic virtues, reciprocity, and public action within the educational process and its influence on public happiness. In this article, we analyse these connections in order to introduce the eighteenth-century Mediterranean tradition of economic thought into discussions about human and social capital theories and the role of education in them. Focusing on education through these prisms, national and international agendas must be reoriented towards the integral development of people to include broader global debates.     

The impact of education on political ideology: Evidence from European compulsory education reforms

Previous research documents a correlation between education and political ideology, usually indicating a positive relationship between education and left-wing political views. In this paper, I examine to what extent this association is causal. I merge political ideology data from 25 waves of Eurobarometer surveys with information on 18 educational reforms in 11 European countries. I then instrument for educational attainment with a regression discontinuity design that estimates the increase in education due to compulsory educational reforms. Notably, it appears that omitted variables bias is important here. I find a significant causal effect of education moving individuals to the right when properly addressing the endogeneity whereas there is a significant association between education and left-wing political ideology when treating education as exogenous. I find that on average, among the individuals compelled into additional education from these specific reforms, an additional year of education moves individuals to the right of the political continuum by about 5–6%. However, I also find no evidence of a causal effect on political ideology for a subgroup of countries.     

辅导员思想政治教育职能的失落与归位

作为思想政治教育工作者,辅导员对大学生思想政治教育负有重要责任,但在实际工作中,高校辅导员思想教育职能往往发挥不够。通过对辅导员思想政治工作现状的讨论,提出辅导员做好思想政治工作的几点思考。     

Elizabeth Anderson interviewed by John White

The distinguished US philosopher Elizabeth Anderson, who teaches at the University of Michigan, answers questions put to her by John White about educational aspects of her work in moral and political philosophy. She begins by describing her indebtedness to Dewey in his views on developing students’ capacities for intelligent enquiry and as citizens in a democracy. She elaborates on this in her emphasis on children learning fraternally together with others of diverse class, racial and ethnic backgrounds. She also discusses the control of education, looking at the role of the state and other political authorities in education, the charter school movement and home schooling. Well‐known for her views on democratic equality (as distinct from equality of fortune) and on an adequacy criterion of fairness, she shows how these ideas apply to education for a democratic society. This takes her into critical discussions of equality of educational opportunity, education as a positional good, and the rich variety of educational aims fitting a democracy of equals. Anderson has also written about the errors of theistic religion as well as two award‐winning recent books on the imperative of social integration and on the authoritarian powers of employers. Developing these thoughts in an educational direction, she writes here about religious and moral education, problems with assimilationist and multicultural approaches to schooling, and preparation for work as an educational aim.     

“Listen Then,or, Rather,Answer”: Contemporary Challenges to Socratic Education

The popularity of Jacques Rancière in recent work in educational philosophy has rejuvenated discussion of the merits and weaknesses of Socratic education, both in Plato's dialogues and in invocations of Socrates in contemporary educational practice. In this essay Jordan Fullam explores the implications of this trend through comparing Rancière's educational thought to an analysis of the relationship between dialectic and stultification in Plato's Republic. This task clarifies what is useful in the recent wave of scholarship that brings Rancière's work to bear upon Socratic education, and what we might redeem in the practice of teaching that Plato assigns to the character of Socrates in the Republic. Fullam also draws on the educational literature on Socratic education to provide further context to explore the usefulness of both Rancière and Socrates for contemporary teaching.     

WHY "WHAT WORKS" WON'T WORK: EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE AND THE DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

A bstract .  In this essay, Gert Biesta provides a critical analysis of the idea of evidence-based practice and the ways in which it has been promoted and implemented in the field of education, focusing on the tension between scientific and democratic control over educational practice and research. Biesta examines three key assumptions of evidence-based education: first, the extent to which educational practice can be compared to the practice of medicine, the field in which evidence-based practice was first developed; second, the role of knowledge in professional actions, with special attention to what kind of epistemology is appropriate for professional practices that wish to be informed by the outcomes of research; and third, the expectations about the practical role of research implicit in the idea of evidence-based education. Biesta concludes that evidence-based practice provides a framework for understanding the role of research in educational practice that not only restricts the scope of decision making to questions about effectivity and effectiveness, but that also restricts the opportunities for participation in educational decision making. He argues that we must expand our views about the interrelations among research, policy, and practice to keep in view education as a thoroughly moral and political practice that requires continuous democratic contestation and deliberation.     

CHALLENGING SPECULATION ABOUT “DEWEY'S RACIALIZED VISIONS”

In this essay Michael Eldridge maintains that Frank Margonis has in a recent article ill‐advisedly speculated about John Dewey's pedagogy, suggesting that his “racialized visions” of students and classroom communities involve a “false universalism” that is problematic for our multicultural society. Based on this understanding, Margonis concludes that we need to seek an alternative to Dewey's educational philosophy. Eldridge strongly disagrees with this conclusion, arguing that assessing Dewey's philosophy and pedagogy is not a matter for speculation but should instead be based on the extensive documentation and research that is readily available. Eldridge focuses in this essay on documenting Margonis's speculations regarding Dewey's theory and pedagogy, and then offering an alternative reading of Dewey's writings as well as scholarship about Dewey's life and work. Ultimately, Eldridge argues that a wholesale abandonment of Dewey's educational approach is unnecessary and would be misguided.     

“…If we were cavemen we'd be fine”: Facebook as a catalyst for critical literacy learning by dyslexic sixth‐form students

This article is derived from a study of the use of Facebook as an educational resource by five dyslexic students at a sixth form college in north‐west England. Through a project in which teacher‐researcher and student‐participants co‐constructed a group Facebook page about the students’ scaffolded research into dyslexia, the study examined the educational affordances of a digitally mediated social network. An innovative, flexible, experiential methodology combining action research and case study with an ethnographic approach was devised. This enabled the use of multiple mixed methods, capturing much of the rich complexity of the students’ online and offline interactions with each other and with digital media as they contributed to the group and co‐constructed their group Facebook page. Social perspectives on dyslexia and multiliteracies were used to help interpret the students’ engagement with the social network and thereby deduce its educational potential. The research concludes that as a digitally mediated social network, Facebook engages the students in active, critical learning about and through literacies in a rich and complex semiotic domain. Offline dialogue plays a crucial role. This learning is reciprocally shaped by the students’ developing identities as both dyslexic students and able learners. The findings suggest that social media can have advantageous applications for literacy learning in the classroom. In prompting learning yet remaining unchanged by it, Facebook can be likened to a catalyst.     

A NEW LOGIC OF EMANCIPATION: THE METHODOLOGY OF JACQUES RANCIÈRE

The idea of emancipation plays a central role in modern educational theories and practices. The emancipatory impetus is particularly prominent in critical traditions and approaches where the aim of education is conceived as that of emancipating students from oppressive structures in the name of social justice and human freedom. What is needed to effect emancipation, so it is assumed in this tradition, is an exposition of the workings of power, as it is only when one sees and understands how power operates that it is possible to address its influence. In several of his publications the French philosopher Jacques Rancière has raised questions about the logic of this view of emancipation. Throughout his career Rancière has also worked consistently on the articulation of a different approach, an alternative way to understand and do emancipation. In this essay Gert Biesta provides a systematic reconstruction of Rancière's ideas on emancipation from three angles: political theory, political practice, and the practice of education. Biesta argues that Rancière provides us with a new and different way to understand how education might contribute to emancipation and also where and how, often in the name of emancipation and democracy, it actually hinders emancipation.     

关子大学生政治教育目标调整的思考

大学生群体政治态度如何，直接影响即将步入社会的他们的社会适应性，甚至关系到社会政治的稳定。因此，本文设计了调查问卷，调查分别来自江苏省五所高校理、工、文三大类专业的学生对实施政治教育的主体——学校及其教育实效的看法，从实证的角度肯定了学校在政治教育中的重要地位，并对政治教育目标的调整提出了自己的建议。     

老子“无为而治”思想与隐性思想政治教育

老子提出的“无为而治”是其政治伦理思想的核心,也是教育之道。文章分析了教育中的“无为而治”,既是教育教学的一种理念,也是一种艺术和策略。作为一种教育理念,“无为而治”指的是在教育教学过程中,教育者应遵循学生身心发展规律,因势利导,在潜移默化中将教育内容传输给受教育者。这对当前高校开展的隐性思想政治教育有一定的启示作用,并对增强思想政治教育的实效性,具有一定的理论价值和现实意义。     

The contribution of the ontological turn in education: Some methodological and political implications

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.