In the Absence of Adults: Generations and Formation in Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Taika Waititi's recent film ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’ (2016) portrays the coming‐of‐age of a young boy, Ricky, in a world with few recognisably responsible adults. While the film does not engage explicitly with formal education, it raises several questions central for understanding education as formation, highlighting the generational aspects of educational relations and pointing to the importance of an adult world taking responsibility for the formation and upbringing of the younger generation. Departing from a discussion on the role of formation and intergenerational relations in Rousseau and Arendt, we will draw on the film's portrayal of an adult world in crisis in order to discuss some of its possible consequences for understanding education in terms of intergenerational relations and formation. This involves raising questions about the educational consequences of the absence of recognisably responsible adults and it involves investigating how this absence might impact our understanding of education as the formation and upbringing of educated human beings.     

Dissection of a truth regime: the narrowing effects on the public good of neoliberal discourse in the Virginia performance-based funding policy

A major role of all public higher education institutions is to foster the public good. In democratic societies, the public good emphasizes the more collective activities and benefits and how resources are accessible to all in a society. Institutions of higher education create new knowledge, promote cultural tolerance, increase civic activity, and have lasting intergenerational effects among other things which all serve to enhance the collective activities of a polity. Since public higher education institutions promote the public good, and since public higher education institutions are governed by policy, educational policy becomes a crucial determiner of the public good. Moreover, policies are constructed with language or discourse. Thus, the discourse of policy, which has the power to structure the actions, speech, and thoughts of those affected by the policy, has a direct impact on the public good. In light of this importance, this paper critically examines the discourse of educational policy.     

Relations of blood? Racialization of civic identity in twenty-first century Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how notions of race, ethnicity, and blood are mobilized in educational texts in Hong Kong. It elaborates how civic identity is racialized as part of a nationalist education operating beneath the surface of expressed commitments to global citizenship, human rights, etc., in curriculum and textbooks. Many have commented on how cultural and ethnic ties are prioritized over political principles as bases for civic education in Asian societies. These cultural/ethnic bases should be critically examined, however, as they imply racial/ethnic exclusions. Examining how race, ethnicity, and blood are used to justify cultural framings of civic identity leads to questions about how education can be used to unify some, while alienating others from a sense of belonging and community. I argue that racialization of Hong Kong civic identity is not a happy solution for all members of society, and for more inclusive visions of identity in education.     

职业教育阻断贫困代际传递的政策设计与评估研究

乡村振兴战略提出要坚持精准扶贫,而精准扶贫工作的难点是农村普遍存在着贫困代际传递。职业教育是阻断贫困代际传递的关键举措,要完善职业教育政策的顶层设计与评估工作,旨在通过人力资本投入的提高、教育环境的改善、教育行为的改进等,提升社会中个人自身素质、生存能力,并提高社会流动的可能性,实现个人在社会中的向上流动和社会层次的跃升。文章提出教育政策应具有个体主义、结构主义和关系主义三种取向,并提出要阻断贫困代际传递,需要从人力资本投入、社会关系重建等方面提高贫困群体的学习意愿、教育质量和就业质量,增强主流社会对于贫困群体的认同。     

什么是公民教育

实践中,以培养公民、造就公民身份、塑造公民道德为指向的公民教育不可避免地会受到公民、公民身份等相关概念内涵变化的影响。同时,公民教育作为一种特殊的教育活动,自然也会伴随教育思想、教育理念的发展变化而变化。一方面公民教育只是造就公民的一种途径,另一方面公民教育也只是教育功能的一个方面。不过,无论如何,公民都不但需要教育,而且可以教育。公民教育的终极理想必然指向人类的善好生活。     

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.     

Religious Education and Community Involvement among Jewish Adolescents

Interest in intergenerational educational strategies in faith communities raises the question of their relationship to the prevalent homogeneous‐age group processes. This concern is addressed by considering the validity of generational differentiation, by answering two commonly expressed concerns about intergenerational education, and by examining the relationship of developmental theory to education. The conclusion drawn is that intergenerational and homogeneous‐age group educational strategies in faith communities should be considered complementary, but with the intergenerational approach taking primacy over the age‐segregated approach     

对目前公民教育问题及公民精神人格构建的思考

公民教育是帮助人们了解公民属性与权利责任的教育。目前我国公民教育中存在的主要问题是,公民教育观念相当薄弱,公民教育的内容比较狭窄,公民教育的效能远不能令人满意。要有力改变公民教育与公民素质的落后,关键是要在重视公民教育的前提下,选择好公民教育的科学思路,在调整好公民教育内容的同时,结合国民教育的人格培养来一体性地构建好公民的精神人格,以健全的公民精神人格来产生健全的公民精神。公民精神人格的构建,包括培养公民的理性能力、公民的理想及价值观与道德准则、公民的情感意志、公民的知识视野等四个方面的主要教育价值要点。     

Educational mobility across generations of formally and informally employed: Evidence from Pakistan

Poverty persists across generations through the transmission of informal employment from one generation to the next. Education and earnings are considered important factors that transmit informal employment across generations. Considering education as one of the transmission mechanisms of sectoral employment and poverty, no studies have yet conducted any comparative analysis of educational persistence across generations of formally and informally employed parents. Therefore, the present study estimates the intergenerational persistence of education by considering the nature of parents’ employment through intergenerational elasticity and intergenerational correlation approaches of mobility measurement. Results show that intergenerational persistence is higher at the lower levels of education when the father is informally employed. On the contrary, when the father is formally employed, this persistence is higher at the higher levels of education. This result implies that labour market reforms are essential along with educational reforms to break this intergenerational persistence.     

小学公民教育的问题探讨

我国当前小学教育阶段的公民教育不应与道德教育两分,同时要改变公民教育意识相对落后、公民教育措施不力的现状。小学的公民教育应该从学校、家庭和社会对公民教育的观念变革、借鉴国外先进的公民教育经验以及弘扬我国传统文化和教育思想中的精髓等方面进行改善,以提升我国国民素质并促进现代社会转型。     

澳门中小学品德与公民教育成效的评价研究

以澳门《非高等教育制度纲要法》规定的教育总目标为评价标准,通过学校问卷调查、学生评定和课堂观察,本研究发现,澳门中小学品德与公民教育取得了一定成效,并表现出如下的特点:品德教育的成效优于公民教育,又私德教育成效优于公德教育。本文从澳门的历史背景出发,配合有关研究文献,针对上述特点的成因进行了探讨。     

政治学意义上的公民教育:基本审视与哲学基础

在政治学意义上,公民教育不仅仅局限于教育内容本身,而应该体现为国家分配核心价值、塑造现代公民的政治社会化过程。自公民教育产生,最初形成了自由主义、社群主义和共和主义三种公民教育观。由于这三种公民教育观存在内在缺陷以及时代的推动,其后又形成了多元主义和全球主义的公民教育观。无论何种公民教育观,都有其特定的理论背景和演进逻辑。因此,需要对其政治学意义进行批判和审视。     

Civic Respect, Civic Education, and the Family

We formulate a distinctly 'political liberal' conception of mutual respect, which we call 'civic respect', appropriate for governing the public political relations of citizens in pluralist democratic societies. A political liberal account of education should aim at ensuring that students, as future citizens, learn to interact with other citizens on the basis of civic respect. While children should be required to attend educational institutions that will inculcate in them the skills and concepts necessary for them to be free and equal citizens, parents should be granted as much freedom as is compatible with the requirements of civic respect to raise their children in accordance with their respective 'comprehensive doctrines' (systems of beliefs and values, including religious doctrines). We consider an objection to our position drawn from the account of upbringing recently advanced by Matthew Clayton, namely, that the conception of civic respect that we advance rests on an implausible view about the limited scope of the requirements of political justice. We develop an account of the 'basic structure of society' as the appropriate subject of political justice that can overcome this objection.     

The Democracy We Need: Situation, Post-Foundationalism and Enlightenment

Postmodernism precludes philosophical justifications for democracy. This undermines the role of philosophy of education and leaves us with weaker reasons for educational democracy than we need. If the 'postmodern challenge' is as Wilfred Carr conceives it, Jürgen Habermas meets that challenge. His work rests on neither Enlightenment essentialism nor foundationalism. Habermas can accept and explain that consciousness is historically and socially situated in discourse, yet still argue to the possibility of emancipation. I defend his conception of rationality from charges of essentialism. Rational thinking can critique its own specific forms, so superior forms of rationality remain universalisable by rational means. A historicising account of such critique avoids situationist relativism. These considerations justify educational democracy and preserve a role for philosophy of education.     

Adolescent Civic and Political Engagement: Associations Between Domain-Specific Judgments and Behavior

Judgments and justifications for different forms of civic involvement and their associations with organized and civic behavior were examined in 312 middle-class primarily White adolescents ( M  = 17.01 years). Adolescents applied moral, conventional, and personal criteria to distinguish involvement in community service, standard political, social movement, and social gathering activities. Males judged standard political involvement to be more obligatory and important than did females, who judged community service to be more obligatory and important than did males. For each form of civic involvement, greater involvement was associated with more positive judgments and fewer personal justifications. Structural equation modeling indicated that adolescents' judgments about specific types of civic involvement were associated with similar forms of civic behaviors.     

Hegemony of the “Great Equalizer” and the Fragmentation of Common Sense: A Gramscian Model of Inflated Ambitions for Schooling

Increasingly over the past 50 years, the mission statement of schooling in dominant US-American discourse has coalesced around a Great Equalizer narrative of education; that is, it has identified schools as the primary means through which individuals can achieve social mobility. In this article, I employ a Gramscian framework to describe how this dominant yet illusory definition of purpose disorients well-intentioned educational actors and often pits them unwittingly against each other. I show that as a result of a false narrative about what schools do for society, a fragmented common sense has arisen amongst teachers, politicians, scholars and activists to the detriment of a collective theory of change. To guard against fragmentation and avert educational actors' consent to a hegemonic social order, I argue that the first step toward collective resistance is acknowledging the limited impact schools have on the socioeconomic layout of society. Accordingly, educational actors hoping to ameliorate inequality must agree upon more realistic—and less tangible—cultural goals for schooling, such as inculcating critical citizenship and fostering civic participation.     

高等教育跨越职业代际效应的作用

跨越职业代际效应是教育的一大社会效益。不同受教育程度的劳动者,其跨越职业代际效应是不同的。与受过初等和中等教育者相比,受过高等教育的劳动者跨越职业代际效应,向上流动的可能性最大。     

Should religious education be a compulsory school subject?

Britain is an increasingly secular society, yet religious education is a compulsory school subject. Is its compulsory status justifiable? Religious education was made compulsory in 1944 partly so as to support the moral values underlying democracy. This civic justification faded after the war, but even today one official justification of religious education is in terms of moral education. Another has to do with understanding and respecting other religions and beliefs. This essay examines both justifications and concludes that neither is strong enough to support the continued existence of religious education as a separate, compulsory subject. The same verdict is passed on a third justification, based on a recommended switch in the content of religious education classes to the critical analysis of religious claims.     

袁公为公民教育思想探析

我国近代著名的教育家袁公为,对公民教育的理论与方法进行了探索与研究,形成了自己对公民教育的独到思考与认知:世界近代的公民教育是历史发展的产物;广义的公民教育概念;社会学、政治学和心理学为公民教育提供理论基础和知识借鉴;从学校到社会,从小学到中学,从课内到课外,从知识教学到行为训练的系统的公民教育实施方法。袁公为公民教育思想对现代思想政治教育仍具重要的启示和借鉴意义。     

当代中国公民教育的时代背景和体系建构

当代世界的市场化、现代化、全球化发展使公民教育成为世界各国教育界关注的热点问题，我国市场经济的发展和完善、国人公民意识的觉悟、和谐社会目标的提出，使当代中国公民教育的发展获得了前所未有的良好契机、社会基础和政治保障。笔者认为，要建构我国公民教育的体系，就必须首先确立其理念和目标，把握其内容和方法，找到与当前教育现实相契合的适当形式。