Utilitarianism and Education: a reply to James Tarrant

ABSTRACT This article focuses on Part III of Tarrant's paper, 'Utilitarianism, education and the philosophy of moral insignificance'. His argument that Mill's distinction between higher and lower pleasures appeals to non-utilitarian values is rejected on the grounds that he misconstrues Mill's concept of'content' and fails to give an adequate critique of Mills attempt to distinguish between the quantity and quality of pleasures. An improved criticism is offered, and it is argued that utilitarianism fails through the dependence of happiness itself upon non-utilitarian values. It is concluded that utilitarianism would devalue the role of liberal arts subjects in sensitising pupils to the problematic nature of human happiness.     

“互联网+”时代的教育民主:教育协商民主

互联网使教育民主的主体发生了根本变化。协商民主为解决教育与社会相关主体的诉求之间的断裂提供了思路。结合互联网与协商民主各自的优势,构建教育协商民主的理念,并在实践中探索教育协商民主的实现路径。     

New Conceptions of Thinking: From Ontology to Education

The articles in this special issue were analyzed in terms of their stance on the nature of knowledge (i.e., its source and location) and the perspective on conceptual change addressed. The analysis supported the argument that efforts to bridge the cognitive and sociocultural orientations toward conceptual change are either unnecessary or unachievable. Specifically, there are those theorists and researchers who do not give credence to the existence of concepts for the one or the collective, and those who do not see sociocultural influences as needed for concept formation or reformation. Attempts to bridge these two positions seem doomed to failure. Conversely, it is argued that the frameworks and models espoused by many researchers, including those contributing to this issue, cannot exist without recognition of the thoughts and reflection of the mind or without consideration of the sociocultural influences that exist in the world outside the mind.     

Democracy and Education: Reconstruction of and through Education

While focusing on Democracy and Education, James Campbell attempts in this essay to offer a synthesis of the full range of John Dewey's educational thought. Campbell explores in particular Dewey's understanding of the relationship between democracy and education by considering both his ideas on the reconstruction of education and on the role of education in broader social reconstruction. Throughout his philosophical work, Campbell concludes, Dewey offers us a vision of a society self‐consciously striving to enable its members to live fully educative lives.     

民主的多重面向:杜威Democracy and Education中文译名的世纪流变

百年来,中国学者在译介杜威名著Democracy and Education时,对其书名翻译多有不同,前后有近十种译名之别,致使杜威民主教育思想在中国传播过程中呈现出多重面向。从20世纪10-20年代流行的"平民主义与教育"译介到30年代流行的"民本主义与教育"译介再到40年代起流行的"民主主义与教育"译介,杜威Democracy and Education在不同的时代背景下总是受社会思潮的影响发生着某种转译嬗变,以契合时代发展需要。总的来说,该书在中国长达百年的译介传播并非只是一次比一次更逼真复现杜威文本思想的过程,而是在时空交错的历史长河中伴随转变着的社会情境一次又一次不断被重新阐释的过程。在新时期,还需注重结合当前社会情境对Democracy and Education进行转化性阐释,以适应时代变革图新需要进而揭示其当代意涵。     

Democracy Through Learner-Centered Education: a Turkish Perspective

Aimed at documenting the problems and constraints confronting learner-centered instruction in Turkey, this article first explains the link between democracy and education and the role of learner-centered instruction in realizing democratic ends. By drawing on John Dewey’s ideas and Turkish scholars’ perspectives on Turkish education, the article then presents the problems and constraints that pose threats to the implementation of learner-centered instruction in Turkey. The author also explains the problems within the Turkish educational system and teacher education programmes, and the challenges that in-service teachers and students may experience with learner-centered instruction.     

Teacher Education in a Democracy

The paper discusses Iris Marion Young's idea of asymmetric reciprocity that rethinks typical understandings of gift giving. Iris Marion Young's proposals for asymmetric ethical relationships have important implications for democratic contexts that seek to take differences seriously. Imagining oneself in the place of the other or expecting from the other what one expects from oneself levels out differences between people and hinders possibilities of interaction.

The conditions of asymmetry and reciprocity of Iris Marion Young's communicative ethics, as well as that of the unexpected as understood within situations of gift giving, bring about new readings of learning and teaching situations. The paper discusses issues of power and knowledge that have important ethical implications for how the relationships between the teacher and student could be imagined and how the teacher and student imagine themselves.

Following Derridean underpinnings to Young's notion of asymmetric reciprocity the paper questions pedagogic attempts that seek to minimize the asymmetric positions of the teacher and the student and challenges educational practices based on the reproduction of knowledge and reproduction of persons. The paper follows Young's arguments against Derrida's reading of asymmetry as being one sided. It argues that such a reading does away with the idea of teaching and learning altogether as teaching necessarily involves acts of responding. It continues to argue that Young's conceptualizations of gift giving as reciprocal and asymmetrical open up alternative understandings of the pedagogic relationships between teachers and students.     

Democracy Through Learner-Centered Education: a Turkish Perspective

Aimed at documenting the problems and constraints confronting learner-centered instruction in Turkey, this article first explains the link between democracy and education and the role of learner-centered instruction in realizing democratic ends. By drawing on John Dewey’s ideas and Turkish scholars’ perspectives on Turkish education, the article then presents the problems and constraints that pose threats to the implementation of learner-centered instruction in Turkey. The author also explains the problems within the Turkish educational system and teacher education programmes, and the challenges that in-service teachers and students may experience with learner-centered instruction.