Schooling's Relative Nonautonomy: Technocratically Subordinated Schooling and Desublimated Education

Education's autonomy cannot be found in schooling. For a theory of education to also adequately support education's autonomy, it must decouple itself from schooling since schooling is a technology of efficiency and acculturation that serves technocratic interests that strip autonomy from education. Using Christer Fritzell's examination of relative autonomy of schools, Matthew Hayden and William Gregory Harman will show that the ideological domination of schooling by technocratic interests structurally and functionally subordinates schooling. This subordination takes the form of technocratic operationalization of education concepts and schooling practices, resulting in the desublimation of learning. Hayden and Harman conclude that resublimation is required in order to restore the possibility of education's autonomy in schooling.     

Virtue Epistemology and the Philosophy of Education

This article initially provides a brief overview of virtue epistemology; it thereafter considers some possible ramifications of this branch of the theory of knowledge for the philosophy of education. The main features of three different manifestations of virtue epistemology are first explained. Importantly, it is then maintained that developments in virtue epistemology may offer the resources to critique aspects of the debate between Hirst and Carr about how the philosophy of education ought to be carried out and by whom. Wilfred Carr's position—that educational practitioners have privileged access to philosophical knowledge about teaching practice—will in particular be questioned. It will be argued that Carr's view rests on a form of epistemology, internalism, which places unreasonably narrow restrictions upon the range of actors and ways, in which philosophical knowledge of and/or for education might be achieved. In declaring that practical wisdom regarding teaching is ‘entirely dependent’ on practitioner reflection, Carr not only radically deviates from Aristotle's notion of practical wisdom, he also, in effect, renders redundant all philosophical research about education that is not initiated by teachers in this manner. It is concluded that Aristotle's general approach to acquiring information and knowledge about the world might yet still offer a foundation for a more comprehensive philosophy of education; one that makes clear that the professional testimony and reflection of teachers, observation of teaching practice, and already existing educational philosophy, theory and policy can all be perceived as potentially valuable sources of philosophical knowledge of and for education.     

Imitation,Indwelling and the Embodied Self

In this paper I argue that recent developments in higher education presuppose a conceptual framework that fails plausibly to account for indispensable aspects of educational experience—in particular that a university education is fundamentally a project of personal transformation within a particular social order. It fails, I suggest, primarily because it consists of mutually supporting but erroneous conceptualisations of knowledge and the human subject. In pursuit of transparency and codification we have seemingly forgotten education's existential dimension: that education is closely tied to questions of personal identity and the formation of character and that this is an embodied project.     

Foucault,Educational Research and the Issue of Autonomy

This article seeks to demonstrate a particular application of Foucault's philosophical approach to a particular issue in education: that of personal autonomy. The paper surveys and extends the approach taken by James Marshall in his book Michel Foucault: Personal autonomy and education. After surveying Marshall's writing on the issue I extend Marshall's approach, critically analysing the work of Rob Reich and Meira Levinson, two contemporary philosophers who advocate models of personal autonomy as the basis for a liberal education.     

Narrative analysis as philosophical research: Bridging the gap between the empirical and the conceptual

There is a longstanding debate about what can be expected from philosophy of education and what its place can be in educational theory. A remarkable resemblance can be found between the debate about the usefulness of qualitative research methods and the kinds of insights they produce. The debate between proponents of empirical (quantitative) research and of qualitative research can be traced to the opposition between the need for understanding and the desire to manipulate. We argue that empirical qualitative research is of a similar nature to philosophical research, its aim being mainly to understand a human practice. We offer a framework that allows the clarification of what may be expected from an educational science and consequently from qualitative research methods: taking as one?s starting point human experience, providing comments, and thus trying to open the eyes of others to particular human realities.     

Whose nature of science?

Science education literature explicitly and implicitly advocates basic tenets (criteria) for “the nature of science.” The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the science education tenets are also held by philosophers of science (those who study purported tenets of science), and furthermore, to reveal possible related philosophical positions underpinning differences in responses among the philosophers. The philosophers of science expressed significant disagreements with the tenets, and different philosophers of science varied on their views about the tenets. In addition, relationships were found among the philosophers' views of the nature of science, their views of philosophy of space, and with their philosophy of science in general. Therefore, the tenets that are advocated as basic criteria for science education's “the nature of science” must be reconsidered so that more accurate criteria may be developed for future nature of science research. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 34 : 39–55, 1997.     

The Paramount Importance of Experience and Situations in Dewey's Democracy and Education

In this essay, David Hildebrand connects Democracy and Education to Dewey's wider corpus. Hildebrand argues that Democracy and Education's central objective is to offer a practical and philosophical answer to the question, What is needed to live a meaningful life, and how can education contribute? He argues, further, that this work is still plausible as “summing up” Dewey's overall philosophy due to its focus upon “experience” and “situation,” crucial concepts connecting Dewey's philosophical ideas to one another, to education, and to democracy. He opens the essay with a brief synoptic analysis of Democracy and Education's major philosophical ideas, moves on to sections devoted to experience and situation, and then offers a brief conclusion. Some mention is made throughout about the surprisingly significant role art and aesthetics can play in education.     

Federal,Professional, and Public Struggles Over the School Curriculum

At the 2005 meeting of the American Educational Research Association in Montreal, I was among a group of scholars invited to discuss the state of curriculum studies. Other discussants included Michael Apple, Beverly Gordon, Craig Kridel, Janet Miller, and the organiser of the session, Barry Franklin. All of us concurred that the influence of curriculum studies in the United States is waning, even though the field has much to offer in present considerations of the knowledge that schools should teach; how it should be organised and distributed; and who, in a culture that aspires to democracy, should decide these issues. We differed in how we explained the field's shrinking influence and the action that might be taken to enhance its influence. What follows is my contribution to the discussion—a case of the United States. Read comparatively, it may shed light on struggles over curriculum in other locales. Wherever education is pursued on a societal scale, the administrative support of the state is required, yet the state's role is always problematic because it will entail not only administrative means but substantive goals (Dewey, 1935/1940). Accordingly, a persistent question will centre on the circumstances in which the state subordinates education to nationalistic or narrowly individualistic purposes that circumscribe human connections at home and abroad and the circumstances in which the state supports education that liberates individual capacities for human betterment because one's personal fate is linked inextricably to the fates of one's neighbours. This kind of question, particular and comparative, locates inquiry about the proper role of the state in education in inquiry about the present character of a society and the character to which it aspires. As Dewey (1916/1944) noted, education's purpose "has no definite meaning until we define the kind of society we have in mind" (p. 97).     

Postcolonial Interventions Within Science Education: Using postcolonial ideas to reconsider cultural diversity scholarship

In this paper, I utilise key postcolonial perspectives on multiculturalism and boundaries to reconsider some of science education's scholarship on cultural diversity in order to extend the discourses and methodologies of science education. I begin with a brief overview of postcolonialism that argues its ability to offer theoretical insights to help revise science education's philosophical frameworks in the face of the newly intercivilisational encounters of contemporaneity. I then describe the constructs of multiculturalism, and borders and ‘border thinking’ (after ) that become useful to develop postcolonial readings as an active methodology of critique able to intervene and develops more revealing interpretations of some of science education's scholarship and differentiated experiences. As the focus of these interventions, I have selected ) ‘Defining “Science” in a Multicultural World: Implications for science education’ and ) ‘Multiculturalism, Universalism and Science Education: In search of common ground’ from the ongoing discussion on multiculturalism and cultural diversity within the journal Science Education. Finally, I conclude this paper with some general comments regarding postcolonialism and the science education scholarship on cultural diversity.     

Anxieties of Democracy and Education: Naoko Saito's American Philosophy in Translation

The article is an essay on Naoko Saito's recently published book American Philosophy in Translation. We attempt to draw out the central argument of the book as it moves through its eight chapters. The author finds that American philosophy, which she takes to be rooted in pragmatism, whilst it owes much to Dewey, needs to be reconstructed in order to meet contemporary political challenges, with their implications for political education. She asks questions such as what is the place of the tragic sense of life in philosophical thought? What is a philosophy of affirmation and chance? How are we to understand the significance of the untranslatable? What are these connections between transcendence, translation and transformation? More specifically, how are we to understand the distinction between philosophy in translation and philosophy as translation? And how does all this offer us new ways of thinking about the current state of democracy, political education and education more generally? One specific suggestion is that an education in foreign language can be transformative in terms of political education. The article concludes that Saito's project throws up some important ideas that are pertinent to our times. We question the central idea regarding language education, whilst we welcome this scholarly volume.     

Betwixt and Between: Working Through the Aesthetic in Philosophy of Education: George F. Kneller Lecture,Conference of the American Educational Studies Association Savannah,Georgia, October 30, 2008

At a time when both philosophy of education and the arts are under threat within education, this article inquires into interdisciplinarity as one way of approaching the disciplines of philosophy of education and aesthetics. The article offers a retrospective autobiographical intellectual history and phenomenology of the author's own learning and scholarship within Higher Education in three main areas—philosophy of literature education, women's studies, and philosophy of music education, areas paralleling the three periods of her academic career. One sub-theme of this narrative about the balancing act of working in literature and music through philosophy of education is the author's ongoing resistance to professionalization or disciplinary academic control—of literature, philosophy, and music—while being a critical student of educational theory and practice in these areas—philosophy, literature and music within philosophy of education—of thus being “betwixt and between.” Two other themes comprising the article's subtext are “praxis” and “embodiment.” The double entendre of the phrase “working through” entails, first, using the arts of literature and music to practise philosophy of education; and secondly, embracing the psychological, ethical, and spiritual introspection that comes with critical engagement of the arts and its discourses. In short, the article aims to reprise some burning philosophical educational questions that have preoccupied its author over the years, questions deemed especially pertinent to the current increasingly diverse membership in the discipline of educational studies.     

Education as Humanism of the Other

This paper explores how educators might intervene in canonized texts of the human subject on which a particular and exclusive kind of humanism rests. In imagining possible interventions educators might make, I turn to and trace Jacques Derrida's on‐going deconstruction of the philosophical texts of subjectivity. In his body of work, Derrida destabilizes fixed notions of the human subject and the institutions it founds (like philosophy and education). From Derrida's points of destabilization and through a differing but similar deconstructive stance, I also consider Gayatri Spivak's suggestive question ‘Who is not the subject of humanism?’ to provide another possible trajectory for intervention that educators might take. Departing from knowledge‐based conceptions of human subjectivity, Spivak urges educators to respond to their students in meaningful encounter with the ‘Other’ while Derrida suggests human beings might begin the difficult and complex task of re‐envisioning an altered humanism, a humanism founded on the call of the Other in institutional sites like education. By an engaged rereading of the texts of human subjectivity upon which human beings are written and by turning to respond to the face of the human beings in and outside their classrooms as a means of encountering the Other's humanity, I suggest that educators be the catalyst for changing what it means to be human and education the means by which we approach a humanism yet to be.     

Globalization and the Asia Pacific: an exploration of efficiency and equality aims of education1

The paper aims to explore the relationship between globalization and education through an investigation of educational policy development in the specific context of the Asia Pacific. The paper's primary focus is on data collected from the World Bank, OECD, IMF and UNESCO to look primarily at three interrelated trends in education: increasing enrollments at all educational levels, issues of gender equality, and changes in public expenditure. In the paper, we argue that developments in education are increasingly impacted by a particular conception of globalization, which is illustrated in the overarching pressure of efficiency on educational aims. Although both efficiency and equality aims of education are present in recent policy developments in the Asia Pacific, the importance attached to education's capabilities of advancing human capital development have brought about a fundamental tension between two purposes of education: one relating to efficiency and one underlying education's potential to advance goals of access and equality.     

Terry Storry (1950–2004) An obituary

Abstract

From the discussion in parts one and two there are two main points that emerge. The first is that it is difficult to identify from outdoor education literature a philosophical framework on which practice is based. Secondly, the body of outdoor education literature attaches more importance to learning outcomes relating to personal and social education than environmental education. The purpose of part three is to offer a philosophical framework and use it to consider the relationship between outdoor education, environmental education and the related concept of sustainability education. The paper starts out by looking at the development of western thought and how it has promoted the concept of epistemological dualism's. The paper then presents an alternative framework of epistemological diversity including experiential, presentational, propositional and practical ways of knowing that has particular relevance for environmental education and sustainability education. Although the prime focus of this paper is environmental education it also deals explicitly with a philosophical framework which includes experiential learning. Consequently, it has relevance to other claims made of outdoor education in particular personal and social education.     

道德教育的整体性与道德教育哲学

教育和道德教育的对象是人。人作为道德教育的对象，不仅把伦理学和教育学的关系结合了起来，而且把两门科学与关于人的一般哲学学说及其方法联系了起来。道德哲学对道德教育的整体“框架”作用决定了道德哲学对道德教育的重要意义，同时也决定了必须建立相应的道德教育哲学对道德教育做整体性研究。     

PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION AS PHILOSOPHY: A METAPHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY

Abstract What is the philosophical status of the philosophy of education? Is it philosophy, no different from the philosophy of science and the philosophy of mind? Much depends on where these latter derive their philosophical bona fides from. There are two ways of viewing the matter. On one account, they are subdivisions of the veritable philosophy branches of metaphysics and epistemology. It being impossible to view philosophy of education as comparably emanating from any of the philosophical originals, this approach effectively deprives it of proper philosophical standing. On the other account, nonoriginal philosophy branches may be viewed as attaining philosophihood, each on its own. Such a purview provides the maneuverability needed to countenance the philosophical nature of philosophy of education as well. Still, George Pollack argues in this essay that if it is to fully accommodate philosophy of education, philosophy will need to be reconceived to include the unearthing of the philosophical foundations of a social practice.     

DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION IN THE TWENTY‐FIRST CENTURY: DEWEYAN PRAGMATISM AND THE QUESTION OF RACISM

Why is John Dewey still such an important philosopher today? Writing from the perspective of the Cologne Program of Interactive Constructivism, Stefan Neubert tries in what follows to give one possible answer to this question. Neubert notes that Cologne constructivism considers Dewey in many respects as one of the most important predecessors of present‐day constructivism and regards Deweyan pragmatism as one of its most important dialogue partners in contemporary discussions about pragmatism and constructivism in philosophy and education. Among the many aspects in which Dewey's works still speak powerfully to us today, Neubert highlights in this essay one theme that is at the heart of Dewey's philosophical approach: the relation between democracy and education.     

Feminist Imperative(s) in Music and Education: Philosophy,theory, or what matters most

A historically feminized profession, education in North America remains remarkably unaffected by feminism, with the notable exception of pedagogy and its impact on curriculum. The purpose of this paper is to describe characteristics of feminism that render it particularly useful and appropriate for developing potentialities in education and music education. As a set of flexible methodological tools informed by Gilles Deleuze's notions of philosophy and art, I argue feminism may contribute to education's becoming more efficacious, reflexive, and reflective of the values of its participants. Its impetus involves ‘feminist imperative(s)’ to help in the sense articulated by Elizabeth Grosz: to provoke thought, challenge, and problematize.     

Rousseau and the image of 'modern education'

The concept of 'modern education' is directly connected with Rousseau's theory of education. It is often said that Rousseau 'founded' modern education, or at least was its most influential predecessor. The paper argues that 'modern learning' or 'experimental education' was discussed within the late-17 th century 'quarrel of the ancients and moderns'. After this historically important debate, education and learning could be connected with the open experience of modern science. When compared to this tradition, Rousseau was not a modern writer. His concept of education has been far too paradoxical to serve as a groundwork for what was considered to be 'modern' or 'progressive education' at the end of the 19 th century. The image of progressive education was strengthened by child psychology, especially by theories of learning and development. Rousseau's stoic concept of 'negative education' is in many respects the opposite to such a viewpoint.     

Exploring the Role of Ideology in Interdisciplinary Science Education Policy

Despite its popularity in education studies literature, interdisciplinary science education is mostly considered outside the multitude of social forces that drive education reform. This has contributed to a mythologizing of interdisciplinary science education and lead to assumptions about the necessity of its intervention into science education practice. This research constructs a critical analysis of interdisciplinary science education by exploring a philosophical understanding of the relations between scientific disciplines, investigating discourse about interdisciplinarity in science education policy literature, and provides socioeconomic context for this reform movement. In particular, Louis Althusser's theory of ideology as material force, his conception of the spontaneous philosophy of scientists, and his theses on the ideological nature of interdisciplinary science are foundational to this critique. Althusser's contributions allow for critical reflection on interdisciplinarity and the effects of promoting it throughout scientific enterprise. Viewing interdisciplinary science education through this critical lens allows for demarcating the ideological narratives of reformist discourse from the intended outcomes of reform. This investigation elucidates the intervention of interdisciplinarity as an ideological force governing the reproduction of scientific labor, with intended downstream socioeconomic effects, such as shifting science labor from the public sector to private industry to accommodate for austerity. The conclusions of this analysis advocate for historical materialist methodologies in science education research and critical education studies, while emphasizing the role of ideology in socioeconomic reproduction.