Hope, Confidence and Democracy

ABSTRACT Social hope, shared hope which relates to the future of communities, is distinguished from personal hopes. Democrats, it is claimed, cannot entertain the kind of social hope found in the Marxist and Christian traditions. However, they do need hope in democracy. Social hope depends on the closely related value of social confidence. Therefore democrats need confidence in democratic values to support their democratic hopes. In school social confidence in democratic values can be promoted by the process of framing whole school policies, as well as by the policies themselves.     

Counselor Recall of Specific Details: Implications for Counseling and Counselor Training

This study examined two verbal process variables in counseling: (a) accuracy of counselor recall statements, and (b) relevance of counselor recall statements.     

Moral Education and Education in Altruism: Two Replies to Michael Hand

This article is a critical discussion of two recent papers by Michael Hand on moral education. The first is his ‘Towards a Theory of Moral Education’, published in the Journal of Philosophy of Education in 2014 (Volume 48, Issue 4). The second is a chapter called ‘Beyond Moral Education?’ in an edited book of new perspectives on my own work in philosophy and history of education, published in the same year. His two papers are linked in that he applies the theory outlined in the former to a critique in the latter of my views on education in altruism in a 1990 publication. I introduce this article by outlining the tradition of recent philosophical thought about moral education, beginning with that of Richard Peters, in which Hand is working.     

Can Education for Democratic Citizenship Rest on Socialist Foundations?

The paper examines two recent arguments, by Keith Graham and Richard Norman, to the effect that a liberal individualist foundation is insufficient for a socialist conception of democracy and needs to be replaced or supplemented by collectivist notions [I]. It concludes that these arguments are unsound and that a defensible education for democratic citizenship on socialist lines should be based on liberal values, not least that of personal autonomy. At the same time it concedes to collectivism that socialist democracy needs to operate within a social framework, but sees national communities rather than social classes or smaller-scale groupings as the most promising candidates for this.     

A Philosophy of Seeing: The Work of the Eye/‘I’ in Early Years Educational Practice

The work of the eye has a powerful influence across culture and philosophy—not least in Goethe's approach to understanding. Aligned to aesthetic appreciation, seeing has the potential to offer an authorial gift of ‘other‐ness’ when brought to bear on evaluative relationships. Yet this penetrating gaze might also be seen as limiting when put to work in the services of ‘other’. From the subtle sideways glance, to the lingering gaze of lovers, a look can mean many things. But the eye does not work alone—what can be seen is directly impacted by the ideologies that influence interpretation, the time and space of its origin, and the genre of its capture. But it is only later, through post‐modern eyes, that the image finally falls victim to its subjective (and discursive) stance and can be thus rendered obsolete. As such, the work of the eye far exceeds literal notions of visuality. These same tensions are evident in the work of the early Bakhtin Circle (1917–1923) through their engagement with neo‐Kantism, Russian formalism, phenomenology and Russian Avant‐Gardes. In this article the art of seeing is reconciled in educational practice for the early years as a relational event through Goethian‐inspired interpretations of visual surplus and aesthetics. Through this lens seeing is brought to life as an encounter of authorship—implicating the ‘I’—as a potential relationship of meaning and accountability at the centre of visuality.