MacIntyre,rival traditions and education

This paper critically discusses MacIntyre's thesis that education is essentially a contested concept. In order to contextualise my discussion, I discuss both whether rival educational traditions of education found in MacIntyre's work – which I refer to as instrumental and non-instrumental justifications of education – can be rationally resolved using MacIntyre's framework, and whether a shared meaning of education is possible as a result. I conclude that MacIntyre's synthesis account is problematic because the whole notion that there are rationally negotiable ways in which to compromise or harmonise opposing justifications of education found in instrumental and non-instrumental forms of education is troubling – the reason being that these are cultural disagreements about human flourishing that are not neutral-free, and due to a lack of care distinguishing between the common uses of the term ‘education’, and its looser usages to mean something like school learning that embraces a range of aims and goals that are often incompatible. In this light, it is argued that the contestability card has been unnecessarily overemphasised, and brings to our attention the complex ways in which we interpret education and what it means to be educated.     

LOVE AND RUIN(S): ROBERT FROST ON MORAL REPAIR

This essay begins where Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue begins: facing a moral world in ruin. MacIntyre argues that this predicament leaves us with a choice: we can follow the path of Friedrich Nietzsche, accepting this moral destruction and attempting to create lives in a rootless, uncertain world, or the path of Aristotle, working to reclaim a world in which close‐knit communities sustain human practices that make it possible for us to flourish. Jeff Frank rejects MacIntyre's framework and in this essay attempts to create an alternative path, one of moral repair. Through a close reading of several poems from Robert Frost's North of Boston, Frank develops the notion of moral repair and describes its ethical and educational implications.     

After Higgins and Dunne: Imagining School Teaching as a Multi‐Practice Activity

There remains a concern in philosophy of education circles to assert that teaching is a social practice. Its initiation occurs in a conversation between Alasdair MacIntyre and Joe Dunne which inspired a Special Issue of the Journal of Philosophy of Education. This has been recently utilised in a further Special Issue by Chris Higgins. In this article I consider two points of conflict between MacIntyre and Dunne and seek to resolve both with a more nuanced understanding of the implications of applying the concept ‘social practice’ to teaching. I critique both Dunne's and Higgins' focus on schools and school teaching. It is their focus on school teaching, rather than a broader account of teaching, that leads them astray. The result is that Dunne and Higgins have not shown that teaching is a social practice. School teaching is not a complex activity, but a complex set of different activities co‐located in one place and engaged in by the same agents. In a final section I offer an account of ‘school teaching’ as a multi‐practice activity which is consistent with MacIntyre's approach, and argue that schoolteachers have both an institutional and an educative role.     

MacIntyre's Revolutionary Aristotelian Philosophy and his Idea of an Educated Public Revisited

In this article I revisit MacIntyre's lecture on the idea of an educated public. I argue that the full significance of MacIntyre's views on the underlying purposes of universities only become clear when his lecture on the educated public is situated in the context of his wider ‘revolutionary Aristotelian’ philosophical project. I claim that for MacIntyre educational institutions should both support students to learn how to think for themselves and act for the common good. After considering criticisms from Putnam, Wain and Harris I conclude that MacIntyre's later work points towards an idea of educated ‘community’ that is more outward looking and open to difference than his earlier articulated idea of an educated ‘public’.     

Refurbishing MacIntyre's Account of Practice

According to Alasdair MacIntyre's influential account of practices, ‘teaching itself is not a practice, but a set of skills and habits put to the service of a variety of practices’ ( MacIntyre and Dunne, 2002 , p. 5). Various philosophers of education have responded to and critiqued MacIntyre's position, most notably in a Special Issue of the Journal of Philosophy of Education (Vol. 37.2, 2003). However, both in that Special Issue and since, this debate remains inconclusive. Much of this earlier discussion seems to accept that teaching is a unique case in being a putative practice that does not fit readily into MacIntyre's account. In fact many supposed practices, including some nominated by MacIntyre himself, do not fit his account. A constructive critique of this account leads to a refurbished, broadly MacIntyrean account of practice. This will clarify the issue of whether teaching and a range of other activities are, indeed, practices.     

Competing Conceptions of the Educated Public

Alasdair MacIntyre's paper ‘The idea of an educated public’ followed on his frontal attack in After Virtue on the ‘failed’ intellectual project of the Enlightenment and on its liberal heritage. His argument, in the paper, was that the only way we can save ourselves from that failure is by restoring the idea of an educated public modelled on the type found in eighteenth century Scotland. This article takes up the issue of the ‘crisis’ of modernity, and argues that MacIntyre's ‘public’ is just one possible one and not necessarily the best. Other, competing conceptions of an educated public have been proposed, among others by Dewey and Habermas, that do not necessitate the conservative solution of going back to the past.     

Moral Education and Literature: On Cora Diamond and Eimear McBride

I argue in this paper for the rich and subtle connections between moral philosophy and literature as they are articulated and explored in the work of the contemporary American philosopher, Cora Diamond. In its significance for broader educational debates—specifically, debates regarding the value of the arts and humanities in a context of global economic collapse—Diamond's work is strikingly original. I argue that it offers much more to educators than the related work of her Anglo‐American contemporaries, among them Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty. In development of my position, I read Diamond's 2008 essay, The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy, withA Girl is a Half‐formed Thing, the debut novel of Irish writer Eimear McBride.     

Social climate in diverse university departments: the role of internal knowledge sharing

Background:?A good social climate is a precondition for developing a well functioning staff in university departments. However, as universities are becoming increasingly diverse in their staff composition, new problems for the social climate may develop. Organisations where members are open to diversity are known to be better integrated and to perform better. While the relation between a positive social climate and group functioning is well documented, we know much less about antecedents for such a climate.

Purpose:?The aim of this study is to examine the effect of internal learning and knowledge sharing engagement (sharing informal knowledge of a personal nature and the staff's application of each other's knowledge to task relevant problems) on diversity climate (openness to linguistic, visual, value and informational diversity) among university teachers.

Sample:?The study used questionnaire responses from 489 teachers in multicultural Danish university departments.

Design and methods:?To study antecedents for a good diversity climate, statistical analysis including hierarchical multiple regressions was applied.

Conclusions:?Results showed that group members' engagement in: (1) sharing informal knowledge of a personal nature; and (2) their application of each other's knowledge to task relevant problems had strong positive associations with openness to linguistic, visible, value and informational diversity. We conclude that interaction and knowledge sharing among teachers in multicultural departments is likely to have a favourable effect on the social working climate.     

Introduction

On July 9, 1996, the Connecticut Supreme Court issued its landmark school desegregation decision, Sheff v. O'Neill. More than a decade later, Hartford's schoolchildren are as segregated as they were when the case was first filed in 1989. Based on data from a statewide survey and data collected from two focus groups of white parents collected shortly after the State's High Court ruling, this investigation reveals that the racial attitudes of white parents were, from the beginning, a major obstacle to a successful resolution of the Sheff impasse.     

Forgotten History: Mexican American School Segregation in Arizona from 1900–1951 1

This article documents the efforts by Mexican Americans to challenge school segregation in Arizona in the first half of the twentieth century. As in Texas and California, although state law never formally mandated the segregation of Mexican American students, school districts in Arizona often established separate “Mexican Schools” for Mexican American students. While districts argued that segregation was necessary because of students' poor English skills, the segregation of Mexican American students in Arizona's public schools was not an isolated practice but occurred in tandem with other discriminatory practices that restricted the social rights of Mexican Americans, many of whom were American citizens. However, Mexican Americans challenged segregation in the courts. Notably, in Gonzales v. Sheely, a case heard in the United States District Court of Arizona in 1950, Judge Dave Ling declared segregation unconstitutional over three years before the Supreme Court's historic decision in Brown v. Board (1954).     

《好人难寻》中奥康纳矛盾的女性观

通过分析奥康纳经典短篇小说《好人难寻》中出现的几位女性角色,例如老祖母、孩子的妈妈和萨米老婆,观摩文本中作者对这几位女性角色的处理,从而得出奥康纳在这部短篇小说中体现的矛盾的女性观:一方面她反对南方社会的女性观和女性的社会行为规范,对这些传统的行为嗤之以鼻;另一方面她的作品中也反映了她内化了的父权制影响,对女性被压制地位表现出冷漠的态度。最后,从奥康纳的职业作家身份和"南方淑女"身份分析奥康纳矛盾女性观的成因。     

The Alleged Importance of Being Tough, Really Tough

Christina Hoff Sommers and Sally Satel, a philosopher and a psychiatrist, now both policy analysts at the American Enterprise Institute, write in their recent book One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture Is Eroding Self-Reliance that empirically unsupported psychological theories ultimately descended from the cultural upheavals of the 1960s have slowly wormed their way into the educational and social scientific mainstream. These theories, the authors argue, promote a view of the human person as someone who is ‘too fragile for this world’, and in need of ceaseless counseling and coddling from the cradle to the grave. The case the authors make for their thesis is, I argue, uneven – strong in specific cases, but weak and overwrought in many others. In the end, I argue, they misidentify the main cause of the increasing shallowness that, to a growing number of critics, is slowly infesting contemporary social science and education. A review essay on Christina Hoff Sommers and Sally Satel’s, One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture Is Eroding Self-Reliance, 2005, St. Martin’s Press, New York.     

Good jobs – but places for women?

This article is concerned with men and women's experience of elite positions and with the extent to which such positions are seen as places for women, so as to provide an insight into their commitment to continuing in them. Senior management in universities are elite positions in terms of income; those who occupy them are relatively powerful internally, although relatively powerless in relation to the state and the market. Drawing on a purposive study of those at the top three levels (i.e. presidential, vice-presidential, and dean) in public universities, it finds little difference between men and women's perceptions of the advantages/disadvantages of these positions. However, in a context where roughly four-fifths of those in university senior management are men [O'Connor, P. 2014. Management and Gender in Higher Education. Manchester: Manchester University Press.], at the level of organisational narratives and at the interactional level, gender differences persist. These differences are reflected in variation in commitment to continuing in senior management positions.     

Regional Boards of Education: mediating links betweens social investment and social consumption

This article examines the data gathered during research into the formation of a regional board of education in Victoria, Australia. Two of the issues which arose over the 12‐month research period and which were extensively commented on during the second round of interviews are explored. The first issue relates to the frustration experienced by, especially, the elected representatives who had joined under the banner of collaborative and participatory decision making, but found in reality that this was not the case. The consequent high degree of alienation led many members to resign. The second issue relates to the tension between the central administration and the members representing the local community who sought to contest the limitations imposed on them by the central administration's budgetary guidelines. These issues are discussed within the theoretical perspectives offered by O'Connor, Offe and Habermas.     

NAPCE Newsletter

It is Jeremy Henzell-Thomas's conviction that the contemporary preoccupation with the so-called ‘clash of civilizations’ is as ill-founded as it is unhelpful. The assumption of an adversarial stance to which it leads is fuelled by, and affirms, a polarized thinking which does disservice to fundamental truths about unity and diversity. Drawing on theology and philosophy, he examines the etymology of key words –‘identity’, ‘authenticity’, ‘originality’, ‘fitra’ (nature) – to argue for the need to transcend difference in order to achieve (universal) identity. ‘We share a common identity as human beings, and, beyond that, a common origin within the source of Creation.’ If we are to honour the spiritual needs of young people and provide an education which is genuinely holistic, we need teachers who are prepared to listen to what young people are saying and to enter into a relationship with them that goes beyond the personal, the social and the moral.     

Indian in the Cupboard: A case study in perspective

The children's book, The Indian in the Cupboard, by British author Lynne Reid Banks, provides a case study which contrasts American Indian and non-Indian perspectives about stereotypes of Native Americans in children's literature, as reflected in the review literature. Exploration of the reasons why the book is becoming a classic in children's literature reinforce the need for teachers, librarians, and parents to find a role in: encouraging practitioners to understand what constitutes stereotypes of American Indians; educating potential teachers and librarians about cultural diversity; including works reflecting the voices of Native Americans in library collections for children; using caution when relying on book reviews; helping children learn critical thinking skills that enable them to recognize stereotyping; and providing and hearing the voices of Native Americans explaining why portrayals of Indian characters are often fantasized literary constructions.     

‘It's a year and then that's me’: masters students' decision‐making

This paper explores the decision‐making of students entering full time UK taught masters degree courses. The findings come from an ongoing research project, Career progression and employability for full time UK resident masters students. Little previous work has focused on these students and their process of transition (however long) from undergraduate studies. Analysis of the data from in‐depth interviews with 24 students from six masters courses across two universities has led to the development of a threefold classification to summarize students' circumstances on entry to their courses. Alongside this, Bourdieu's notions of field, social, cultural and economic capital and habitus have proved valuable in making sense of the data. I argue that students' decisions to pursue full time higher level study are related to their circumstances on application, their dispositions and the resources they have available to them that are relevant to their masters level study. Key differences in the students' circumstances are cross cut by key common themes, suggesting that they bring their prior dispositions to their decision‐making, which is firmly located within the opportunity structures they perceive as relevant to themselves. The complexities of the students' decision‐making appear to be a far cry from the narrow policy notion of students as rational actors seeking economic gain.     

The Very Idea of an Educated Public: On Philosophical Education and MacIntyre's Project

In this paper, I aim to reconsider MacIntyre's notion of an educated public. In particular, I aim to do so in light of his recent elucidation of the role of philosophical education in rejecting, or at least challenging, predominant and shared cultural assumptions. I begin by outlining MacIntyre's original case for an educated public as found in The Idea of an Educated Public. I then briefly consider and respond to three prominent criticisms of MacIntyre's original explication of the notion. In responding to these criticisms, it will be made clear that subtle shifts in MacIntyre's subsequent treatments of the notion reduces the dependency of such a public's existence on the university. I conclude by arguing that the development in MacIntyre's articulation of the necessary conditions for an educated public when considered in conjunction with his recent defence of the conditions for an ‘adequate philosophical education’ provides his philosophy of education with the conceptual resources needed to break free of a final difficulty which MacIntyre himself has articulated. Specifically, I contend that the four stages of an adequate philosophical education MacIntyre outlines are such that they need not be restricted to implementation in formal educational institutions such as the university.     

Revisiting Grutter and Gratz in the Wake of Fisher: Looking Back to Move Forward

This article revisits the University of Michigan's 2003 affirmative action cases, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. Through the aid of critical textual analysis and critical race theory, the author looks back at the predominant narratives that framed the challenge to, and defense of, race-conscious affirmative action policy in the University of Michigan cases. In the wake of Fisher v. University of Texas Austin, the third affirmative action case to be heard before the United States Supreme Court within the last decade, the author suggests that revisiting Grutter and Gratz may be helpful to understand the evolution of arguments for and against affirmative action.     

Practical reason and positioning

This paper argues that an emerging framework for studying social episodes known as ‘positioning theory’ is a rich tool for practical reasoning. After giving an outline of the Aristotelian conception of practical reason, recently developed by Alasdair MacIntyre, it is argued that positioning theory should be seen not as a detached, scientific theory, but rather as an important resource for learning to think and act in relation to practical and moral matters. I try to demonstrate a number of significant points of resemblance between MacIntyre's analysis of practical reason and Rom Harré's positioning theory. Following a pragmatist view of social theories, I suggest that positioning theory can be seen as explicating an understanding of social episodes that we need to acquire in order to learn to act as capable practical reasoners, but which quite often is left implicit in our everyday lives. Finally, I consider how positioning theory could be used to train the capacity for practical reasoning in moral education.