‘How Well He's Read,To Reason Against Reading’: Language,Eros and Education in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost

This article explores the notion of eros and education by turning to erotic literature: specifically, Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. In this early play, Shakespeare portrays a sophisticated Renaissance world in which the conventions of literary education overtly affirm and celebrate eros whilst covertly denying its relational and generative power. The courtiers of Navarre, whilst being experts in the ‘semantics’ of eros, all fail to respond when their own relationships and the world around them require of them a genuine erotic engagement. Shakespeare thus portrays a situation where eros, language and education are all divided, and suggests that a superficial appropriation of desire results in a concept of education which is overly learner‐centred and avoids relationality and a genuine engagement with the world. Only through this authentic engagement, the play suggests, do eros and education genuinely belong together.     

Borrelli,Mill, Emily and Me

In this paper, I explore the insights suggested by Michele Borrelli's ‘The Utopianisation of Critique’ in the context of a real‐life educational encounter that involves an attempt at being ‘critical’. Borrelli's observation that all positive utopian critique implies an inevitable degree of dogmatism takes on a new—and less depressing—significance when examined in the light of such an encounter. Acknowledging the tensions suggested by Borelli's analysis is, I argue, what makes a particular educational stance ‘critical’. Rather than leading to conceptual confusion, this should be seen as integral to the transformative and motivational potential of the educational process.     

Paying Attention to Bodies in Education: theoretical resources and practical suggestions

This article theorizes and exemplifies reconceptualized teaching practices, both in early childhood education (ECE) and in a couple of programs within the new Swedish Teacher Education (since 2001). These programs are tightly knit to the last 12 years of reconceptualized early childhood education practices in and around Stockholm, built on deconstructive, co‐constructive, and re‐constructive principles, inspired by poststructural and feminist poststructural theories. The aim is foremost to work towards a dissolution and/or transgression of the modernist theory‐practice binary that dominates ECE and teacher education practices, where theory is meant to be applied to practice. Student teachers, as well as pre‐school teachers, use what I have conceptualized as deconstructive talks, as a possibility of making visible the dominant discourses of childhood, identity, learning, play, and gender in the performed and documented teaching practices. In teacher education, students’ narratives are also deconstructed. The aim is to transgress teaching‐as‐usual; i.e. dominant and normative ways of thinking and acting in teaching and learning situations. I will suggest an ethics of ‘resistance’, affirmation and becoming, inspired by Derridean deconstructionist thinking, as a professional attitude and reflexive mode for teachers, teacher students and teacher educators.     

The Utopianisation of Critique: the Tension between Education Conceived as a Utopian Concept and as one Grounded in Empirical Reality

Critique is a concept that is constantly used as an instrument for agreement or disagreement, for reflection and discussion. There is a difference, however, between critique as a historically grounded phenomenon and critique as a utopian conception not situated in any particular socio‐historical context. Educational theory resists reduction to empirical science partly because of its utopian character. Thus tensions that arise within it concerning its individual, social and emancipatory aims mean that it always has a double aspect of being both utopian and socially grounded at the same time. In general there is a tension within the practice of education between upbringing, on the one hand, and self‐emancipation on the other, which is reflected at the level of educational theory in the distinction between normative‐utopian and dogmatic‐empirical elements. Even a utopian critique, however, must make use of the social and historical materials available in order to function, and thus it becomes itself historically situated. This unavoidable situation is one that must be embraced by a self‐consciously utopian form of theorising. Just like other theories of society, the theory of education has two possibilities for self‐definition. It can be conceived of either as a utopian or as a factual theory. In the latter case, it follows social contingency passively, giving itself over to the ‘destiny of Being’ in order to await the ‘result’. But it can also be interested and take part in social processes, and thus contribute to the opening out of thought and culture to utopian considerations. Educational critique, even in the utopian sense, however, has to recognise its own dogmatic elements in order to function as critique. It is thus self‐evident that critique without dogmatism is not only impossible but also senseless. Similarly, educational dogmatism, although it apparently excludes critique by definition, must contain within itself the possibility of new forms of critique based on its own assumptions. Its very reliance on empirical methods to address the solution of unquestioned problems can itself subvert the dogmatic normative assumptions on which that empirical enquiry is based.     

Education,Freedom, and Temporality: A Response to Biesta and Säfström's Manifesto

Since it was first published in 2011, ‘A Manifesto for Education’ by Gert Biesta and Karl Anders Säfström has received numerous enthusiastic reviews and been hailed as providing ‘an alternative vision for education’. Such enthusiasm, however, is perhaps not purely attributable to the substance of the text but also to the form that it adopts. In this regard, I attempt to explore what the authors refer to as the ironic usage of this genre of writing in relation to its message. The authors diagnose a problem in education related to the modern understanding of time, and they suggest an alternative ‘non‐temporality’ in which we ‘stay in the tension between “what is” and “what is not” ’. While I appreciate the Manifesto's attempt to offer criticism based on the link between freedom and temporality in education, I take issue with aspects of their analysis. I discuss temporality and freedom through a reading of Martin Heidegger in which the concept of time in education is understood in terms of human freedom as possibility.     

Higher Education,Collaboration and a New Economics

In this article I take as my starting point the economist, Jeremy Rifkin's, claims about the rise of what he calls the ‘collaborative commons’. For Rifkin, this is nothing less than the emergence of a new economic paradigm where traditional consumers exploit the possibilities of technology, and position themselves as ‘pro‐sumers’. This emphasises their role in production rather than consumption alone, and shows how they aim to bypass a range of capitalist markets, from publishing to the music industry. In asking how education is situated in relation to the collaborative commons, I consider the growth in technology‐driven, cost‐negative services as a response to the current market in higher education. This raises the issue of what we mean by ‘collaboration’ in the university, and how this might be different from, for example, cooperation or teamwork. In seeking to provide a richer conception of collaboration in higher education, I look to Martin Buber's concept of the relational act and the life of dialogue, and to some of the seminal work of Ronald Barnett on the philosophy and economics of higher education. The article suggests that these concepts afford a new perspective on collaboration that amount to a new economics for education. Such economics require a radical shift in how we perceive the role of responsibility, reciprocity and the educative possibilities of conversation.     

What should Educational Institutions be for?

In this article, I respond to the work of Gert Biesta regarding the question of what education should be for. He maintains education ought to be oriented towards the ‘good’ rather than measurement, accountability and efficiency. While sympathetic to such claims, I nonetheless question his avowal that discussion of the purposes of education needs to entail reflection upon tripartite processes of qualification, socialisation and subjectification. I also argue that the concept of subjectification presented by Biesta is elusive. He says educators cannot plan to produce it in students. He also suggests there is an unhelpful surplus of reason in education that constrains possibilities for subjectification. According to Biesta, education partly reproduces ‘rational communities’ that stifle the emergence of human uniqueness and inhibit persons from challenging accepted social orders. In response to this, I argue there is currently a deficit rather than a surplus of reason in education concerning the common good. Following MacIntyre, I claim that educational institutions should support students to learn how to think for themselves and act for the common good. I conclude that such utopian thinking about the purposes of education may be needed, now, more than ever.     

Professional role and identity of Icelandic preschool teachers: effects of stakeholders’ views

In this article, we explore the reality of Icelandic preschool teachers who are, as in most other countries, predominantly female. The gendered nature of the role and the current identity adopted by preschool teachers appear to impact on their perceived status and professionalism. In this process, stakeholders in early childhood education (ECE), as well as the preschool teachers themselves, play important parts. The question that underlies the paper is: ‘How do the views of preschool teachers and stakeholders in ECE affect the preschool teachers’ professional identity?’ The data used to answer the question are from focus group research carried out with preschool teachers and stakeholders in ECE in one community in Iceland. These stakeholders, besides preschool teachers and staff within the preschools, were parents, professionals at the municipal preschool office and politicians. The theoretical perspective informing the methodology of the research was ‘symbolic interactionism’ and the concept of ‘democratic professionalism’ was used as an aspirational framework to analyse the data. The findings reveal connections between the ideology relating to the preschool teachers’ educational role, their limited leadership and the gendered views of stakeholders. At the end of the paper, implications and recommendations for preschool teachers are suggested.     

Personalisation: the nostalgic revival of child‐centred education?

Personalisation is an emerging ‘movement’ within education. Its roots reside in marketing theory, not in educational theory. As a concept it admits a good deal of confusion. It can refer either to a new mode of governance for the public services, or it qualifies the noun ‘learning’, as in ‘personalised learning’. The concern here is with its intellectual affinity to child‐centred education, one which the government in England has strongly denied. On balance, the government’s view of personalisation is not of a piece with what may commonly be regarded as child‐centred education. But the strong semantic accord between the terms ‘personalisation’ and ‘child‐centred education’ provokes a question: why does the government not provide a term which unequivocally distinguishes its current ‘vision’ for education from child‐centred education? By retaining the term personalisation, the government purports to do two things: first, because of its focus on personalised ‘tailored’ needs and co‐produced solutions, it adapts education even further to a consumerist society; and second, because the term personalisation strikes a chord with the discourse of child‐centred education, it blurs the fact that little to do with pedagogy or with curriculum has in fact been changed. The term personalisation generates a nostalgic appeal to better times long gone.     

Improving Practice through Reflective Enquiry: confessions of a first‐time action researcher

A number of key constructs underpin educational action research. This paper focuses on the concept of ‘truth’ and by doing so hopes to highlight some debate in this area. In reflecting upon what ‘truth’ might mean to those involved in action research, I shall critically evaluate Thorndike's ‘Law of Effect’ and Bruner's ‘Three Forms of Representation’, and explain how these perspectives might help us find ‘the truth’ of an area under study and how they might inform the methodology of research. I shall close by suggesting that teacher‐researchers should allow for a constructivist approach in their action research methodology in order to help them in their sense‐making process.     

Making ‘place’ for ecological sustainability in early childhood education

Culturally, childhood is often understood as a time of innocence which can mean that issues such as ecological sustainability are considered too problematic for early childhood practice. By drawing on findings from a research project that focused on issues of ecological sustainability in early childhood centres in New Zealand from Western and indigenous perspectives, this article contributes a critical perspective of ecological sustainability as an educational issue in early childhood education (ECE). The article falls into two parts: the first section gives an overview of some of the conceptual and theoretical issues that underpin critical perspectives of childhood, and provides a context for current global ECE discourse, while the second section introduces the research project and discusses the intersections of ‘local’ and ‘global’ in light of teachers’ emerging ‘pedagogies of place’. The intent is to demonstrate that critical engagement with such complex global issues as ecological sustainability generates spaces for new understandings of how ECE can contribute to theory and practice of education for sustainability.     

The experience of learning to teach: Changing student teachers' ways of understanding teaching

I examine how physical education teachers respond to homophobic name‐calling, as revealed in life history interviews with ‘lesbian’, ‘gay’, and ‘heterosexual’ teachers in Canada and the USA. Censoring homophobic name‐calling in schools is discussed as an important, but insufficient, response. Several ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’ teachers responded with pedagogies of injury; that is, they recalled their personal experiences of homophobic language to teach students not to use words such as ‘fag’, ‘dyke’, and ‘queer’. I examine why some teachers were prepared to risk further personal injury in order to prevent injury to other students. In addition to rational and conscious explanations, I speculate that an unconscious masochistic imperative may also animate this approach to anti‐homophobic education. Ultimately, I ask what is demanded from teachers if this type of anti‐homophobic teaching is animated by what has been called an attachment to subjection.     

Religious freedom and rendering to Caesar: reading democratic and faith‐based values in curriculum,pedagogy and policy

In this article I synthesise and apply elements of political and reading theory to demonstrate how central themes in learners’ lives (such as freedom, faith, autonomy, equality, rationality and rights) can be read and interpreted differently. I suggest that policy and pedagogy for citizenship and democratic education informed by research into reader response can shift the locus of control not simply from state to citizen but towards an understanding of the transaction between the two. To promote ethical participation I propose changes to the ‘text’ of the curriculum and the ‘reading’ stance of learners so that learners are liberated to bring legitimate moral and religious conviction to their readings of state‐sponsored values. I conclude that young citizens are respected and freedom is protected when educational readings become more nuanced and move beyond the polarities of freedom and restraint, autonomy and heteronomy, public and private, aesthetic and efferent, faith and reason, secular and religious or even democratic and faith‐based.     

Towards an Aesthetic Education? Rorty's Conception of Education

The ‘liberal utopia’ presented by Richard Rorty in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity is a unique attempt to address the ancient problem of the relationship between individual and society or, in Rorty's terms, that between the private and the public. This article examines Rorty's influential conception of education and asks: can his book be regarded as utopian? Is it possible to establish an education for democracy on his ‘postmodern’ premises? I conclude that Rorty's attempt to separate private from public and to promote a fusion between irony and solidarity is tantamount to founding human existence on an aestheticising orientation. This entangles Rorty in self-contradiction and raises educational and political problems which remain unresolved.     

Stiegler’s ecological thought: The politics of knowledge in the anthropocene

Abstract

My objective in this article is to consider the implications of Bernard Stiegler’s theory of the neganthropocene for the politics of knowledge and education. Stiegler sets out his theory of the neganthropocene in his recent books, Automatic Society and The Neganthropocene, in order to respond to what he writes about in terms of the entropic conditions of the hyper-industrial society of the anthropocene. In this respect Stiegler extends his earlier work on hominisation, technics, technology, and hyper-industrialisation to take in the concept of the anthropocene and related environmental, ecological concerns. In this article I set out Stiegler’s theory of the neganthropocene, before thinking through the politics of knowledge and education that could make this utopian transformation from an ecologically unsustainable to a sustainable society possible. What would the politics of knowledge of the neganthropocene look like and how would they work in the context of the (global) education system?     

Minimal utopianism in the classroom

Abstract

In this paper, we build on recent work on the role of the ‘utopian pedagogue’ to explore how utopian thinking can be developed within contemporary higher education institutions. In defending a utopian orientation on the part of HE lecturers, we develop the notion of ‘minimal utopianism’; a notion which, we suggest, expresses the difficult position of critical educators concerned to offer their students the tools with which to imagine and explore alternatives to current social and political reality, while acknowledging the contingent ethical constraints of the system within which they and their students are working. While agreeing with utopian theorists such as Darren Webb who have defended the need for ‘blueprint utopias’ in education in the face of the reduction of the idea of utopia to a purely process-oriented pedagogy, our focus here is on the prior educational task of providing the conceptual and communicative tools for utopian thinking to emerge. The collaborative nature of this paper is reflected in the interdisciplinary sources on which we draw in developing our ideas, including moral philosophy, literary theory, political philosophy, anarchist theory and utopian studies.     

Moral development: a reply to Richmond and Cummings

My paper on moral development has been criticized on three main counts: firstly, that I have confused romantic and progressive ideology; secondly, that I have failed to appreciate the teleological character of (cognitive) developmental theory; thirdly, that I have failed to show that normativity of developmental theory goes, as it were, ‘all the way down’. In this reply, I maintain that the first two charges are based on distortion and misrepresentation of my argument, and—in relation to the third charge—that my critics have simply failed to offer any discernible counter‐argument to my case that it is misguided to seek empirical theoretical grounding for developmental theories of the kind in question.     

Reconciling Divisions in the Field of Authentic Education

The aim of this article is twofold: first, to identify and address three central divisions in the field of authentic education that introduce ambiguity and at times inconsistencies within the field of authentic education. These divisions concern a) the relationship between autonomy and authenticity; b) the division between the two basic attitudes towards ‘care’ in the authenticity literature, and; c) the well‐worn division between objective and subjective realms of knowledge and identity construction. Addressing these divisions through Charles Taylor's distinction between active and passive aspects of authenticity, I believe, will lead to a better understanding of the main issues involved in conceptualising and applying authenticity‐based education. Second, to present what I call The Postconventional Authentic Relation‐to‐Self (PARTS) as a basis for overcoming and reconciling the above divisions. I shall conclude by providing some examples of the way the perspective envisioned by PARTS can be applied to educational practices.