Student-centered pedagogy has been embraced by many feminist practitioners and educational theorists as an antidote to more “traditional” or “masculinist” forms of classroom relations, epistemological constructs, and theories of self. I will show that the margin-center schema, student-centered pedagogy’s foundational metaphor, undermines feminist projects when applied to teacher-student relations. Although the margin-center schema has been a useful diagnostic tool in feminist theory, it operates prescriptively in student-centered pedagogy. Student-centered pedagogy designates teachers’ “proper place” at the margins of classroom life, a (...) place that echoes bygone visions of domestic femininity. This paper is simultaneously a critique of student-centered pedagogy and a recuperative project to dislodge the work of John Dewey from the teacher-centered/student-centered binary. (shrink)

Respect is a cardinal virtue in schools and foundational to our common ethical beliefs, yet its meaning is muddled. For philosophers Kant, Mill, and Rawls, whose influential theories span three centuries, respect includes appreciation of universal human dignity, equality, and autonomy. In their view children, possessors of human dignity, but without perspective and reasoning ability, are entitled only to the most minimal respect. While undeserving of mutual respect they are nonetheless expected to show unilateral respect. Dewey and Piaget, scions of (...) the same liberal tradition, grant children a larger degree of autonomy and equality thereby approximating the full respect conditions reserved for adults in the prior theories. In this article, after reviewing the premises of respect, I attempt to blend the divide - between minimal and full respect - by separating respect-due from respect-earned . While the former, premised on human dignity, should be granted unconditionally to all, the latter is contingent upon qualities that one possesses or acquires over time. Adding the notion of respect-due is a constraint on the prevalent school practice of turning respect into demands for deference. The relevance of this distinction is discussed in terms of student-teacher relationships. (shrink)

This paper uses the philosophical methods employed by Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey to formulate pragmatism’s basic ideas about education. The ideas proposed by the pragmatists are also used to compare and define their relationship between each other in order to create a new philosophy (theory) of democratic education. Based on the assumptions of pragmatism to show democracy in education, the paper explains the application of pragmatism to educational reform in Vietnam today. For pragmatism is to be (...) what unites education. (shrink)

When it comes to the body, the professional pedagogical field shows a paradoxical attitude: With regard to sense-oriented school subjects, educational policies tend to underline a close relatedness of body and mind. However, where learning is primarily connected with mental activities and intellectual engagement, the body is rarely assigned an integral role. Discussing the grounding ideologies of this paradox, I will consult phenomenological and enactivist perspectives in order to develop an approach to embodied learning which takes into account both sense-oriented (...) as well as intellectual domains. I will argue that considering the interdependence of body and mind including their situatedness does not only benefit the cultivation of the body and the senses, but also opens up further perspectives for intellectual engagement. (shrink)

Introduction: A Theory of Democracy and Justice.

Richard Rorty, in his ‘Consequences of Pragmatism’ (1982), acknowledging the pragmatic direction taken by both modern and postmodern philosophy, declared that ‘James and Dewey were not only waiting at the end of the dialectical road which analytic philosophy traveled, but are waiting at the end of the road which, for example, Foucault and Deleuze are currently traveling’ (Rorty, 1982, p. xviii). This paper does not aim to establish who traveled the farthest along the road posited by Rorty. Instead, its purpose (...) is to trace a common direction as a sort of pragmatic trajectory that will map a territory constituting Gilles Deleuze’s new image of thought, or rather as he put it, a thought without image. By addressing some of Deleuze’s ideas on thinking and learning, especially with regard to the problematics of sources of knowledge, this paper posits the convergence between his philosophical position and Dewey’s philosophy of education despite the two being seemingly separated by time, place and culture. The paper further shifts the focus from the factual knowledge to an experimental and experiential process of knowing and asserts the latter’s far-reaching implications for education as a developing and generative practice. (shrink)

Throughout history, philosophers have reflected on educational questions. Some of their ideas emerged in defense of, or opposition to, skepticism about the possibility of formal teaching and learning. These philosophers include Plato, Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Together, they comprise a tradition that establishes the impossibility of instruction and the imperative to undertake it. The value of this tradition for contemporary education is that it redirects attention away from performance assessments and learning outcomes to (...) the ethical, aesthetic, and metaphysical dimensions of schooling. I argue that philosophers of education are uniquely responsible for teaching this tradition so that instruction might be undertaken in the right spirit. To this end, my essay is divided into three parts. In the first part, I explain why instructional skepticism has not been prominent in philosophy of education. I follow up, in the second part, by clarifying my choice of the term ‘instruction.’ In the third part, I sketch the instructional philosophies that ‘book-end’ this tradition: those of Plato and Wittgenstein. (shrink)

In discussing the origins of the antievolution movement in American high schools within the framework of science and religion, much is overlooked about the influence of educational trends in shaping this phenomenon. This was especially true in the years before the 1925 Scopes trial, the beginnings of the school antievolution movement. There was no sudden realization in the 1920's – sixty years after the "Origin of Species" was published – that Darwinism conflicted with the Bible, but until evolution was being (...) taught in the high schools, there was no impetus to outlaw it. The creation of "civic biology" curricula in the late 1910's and early 20's, spearheaded by a close-knit community of textbook authors, brought evolution into the high school classroom as part of a complete reshaping of "biology" as a school subject. It also incorporated progressive ideologies about the purposes of compulsory public education in shaping society, and civic biology was fundamentally focused on the applications of the life sciences to human life. Antievolution legislation was part of a broader response to the ideologies of the new biology field, and was a reaction not only to the content of the new subject, but to the increasingly centralized control and regulation of education. Viewing the early school antievolution movement through the science-religion conflict is an artifact of the Scopes trial's re-creation of its origins. What largely caused support for the school antievolution movement in the South and particularly Tennessee were concerns over public education, which biology came to epitomize. (shrink)

The student as consumer has emerged as a common motif and point of contestation in educational philosophy over the past two decades, as part of the critique of the neoliberal educational re...

This article examines the potential of Action Research informed by Dewey’s pragmatism as a research methodology in the social sciences. Not only a philosophical orientation, pragmatism is also a powerful mode of inquiry. When combined with the democratic research approach of Action Research, Deweyan pragmatism has great potential to shed light on educational and other social science questions, forward social change, and enact Dewey’s vision of radical social democracy. Although Dewey’s philosophy, one could argue, has never been mainstream in education (...) and in research, the combination of Deweyan philosophy and Action Research has the potential to revive interest in Dewey’s work and serve as an example of Deweyan .. (shrink)

This article is an imaginary Socratic dialogue between J. S. Mill and Michel Foucault, principally concerning educational assessment.

In this article I discuss the philosophy of John MacMurray, and in particular, his little-examined writings on discipline and emotion education. It is argued that discipline is a vital element in the emotion education MacMurray thought central to learning to be human, because for him it takes concerted effort to overcome the human tendency toward egocentricity. It is maintained that MacMurray's philosophy of education is of contemporary significance for at least two reasons. On the one hand it suggests an alternative (...) vision for humanistic education. While liberal educationists such as Oakeshott and Peters stressed that the pursuit of knowledge and understanding was the main way in which persons could develop their humanity MacMurray instead emphasised that persons can only learn to become human by pursuing other-centred relationships. On the other hand his philosophy can also reveal the limitations in much contemporary debate in emotion education which critics (such as Ecclestone and Clack) suggest increasingly aims at little more than helping pupils feel better about themselves. According to MacMurray a genuine emotion education can enlarge humanity by supporting persons to feel and act for the sake of others rather than think about themselves. Despite sympathy for MacMurray's account of the purposes of education it is nonetheless concluded that the pursuit of knowledge as an end in itself does not necessarily constitute a negative expression of human agency (as MacMurray asserts)—but rather that the disciplined pursuit of knowledge may also form part of any education concerned to enrich human life. (shrink)

In this paper I compare the roles that the explicit and implicit educational theories of John Dewey and John Rawls play in their political works to show that Rawls’s approach is skeletal and inappropriate for defenders of democracy. I also uphold Dewey’s belief that education is valuable in itself, not only derivatively, contra Rawls. Next, I address worries for any educational theory concerning problems of distributive justice. Finally, I defend Dewey’s commitment to democracy as a consequence of the demands of (...) productive public inquiry and education. (shrink)

This thesis investigates text memorization, a widely used yet under-explored language practice in foreign language teaching and learning in mainland China. The inquiry was conducted along two lines: to conceptually examine a number of issues central to the understanding of the practice of text memorization in the Chinese context, and empirically inquire into Chinese learners/teachers’ practices and perceptions of the inclusion of text memorization in foreign language learning and teaching. The review of literature shows that memorisation had been widely practiced (...) in other parts of the world until recently, including the Anglophone west. By challenging the belief that emphasis on memorisation stifles and creative thinking, which is believed to be one of the key aims of Western education, I argue that memorisation or memorised knowledge is not only legitimate in but constitutes an important part of learning. I also demonstrate that Confucius’ theory of learning, which allows the coexistence of emphasis on memorisation and critical thinking arguably can be of relevance to education in the 21st century. Also advanced in the conceptual study is the argument that the methodological considerations underlying ALM, despite its western origin, match up to some fundamental Chinese conceptions of learning and teaching. The empirical study reported in this thesis addresses the need for a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the practices and beliefs of Chinese learners and teachers regarding the use of text memorization in foreign language learning and teaching. This study bases its methodology on semi-structured interviews complemented by small-scale surveys. The data was collected from a group of Chinese learners and teachers affiliated with 10 schools and 6 universities at three different educational levels, i.e. junior high, senior high and college, which constitute the major part of foreign language education in China. Data collection was mainly based in a single Chinese inland capital city and lasted for one year and two months involving two fieldwork trips to China. Analyses of the data lead to two major findings. First, both learners and teachers hold overwhelmingly positive perceptions of the use of text memorization in foreign language learning and teaching. The practice was perceived to be beneficial not only because it assists learning in a number of ways but because it builds the learners’ sense of achievement and confidence. Second, the informants’ positive beliefs about text memorisation, though context-constrained, might be more attributable to their perception of benefits to their language learning and teaching than to the view that the practice is consistent with traditional Chinese culture and values. In sum, this inquiry promotes a ‘different-rather than-deficit’ perspective in understanding Chinese learners and their learning practice as well as problematizing the uncritical assumptions about the negative impact of a Confucian philosophy of education. (shrink)

Many recent writers on democracy have lamented its decay and warned of its imminent death. We argue that the concerns are focused at three different levels of democracy. The most fundamental of these, celebrated by Tocqueville and by Dewey, recognizes the interactions and joint deliberations among citizens who seek sympathetic mutual engagement. Such engagement is increasingly rare in large-scale political life. In diagnosing and treating the problems, we recommend returning to the debate between Lippmann and Dewey, in which many of (...) the concerns now prominent were already voiced. This inspires the main work of the paper – the reconstruction of Dewey’s conception of democracy as a ‘mode of associated living’. We focus on the thesis that democracy is educative and explicate Dewey’s notion of growth, showing how democratic education contributes to three important functions: the capacity for sustaining oneself, the enrichment of individual experience, and the ability to enter into cooperative discussions with fellow citizens. Dewey’s conception of democratic education is directed at fostering particular virtues and, if citizens come to possess them, the need for Lippmann’s ‘omnicompetent individual’ vanishes. We conclude by suggesting that Dewey’s project of educating democratic character is pertinent for addressing the disaffection of our times. (shrink)

Two complementary bodies of literature either claim explicitly or imply that human cruelty is rooted in asymmetrical relationships. The first describes and analyzes various forms of domination and acquiescence, including colonialism, racism, imperialism, sexism, and interpersonal power dynamics, among others. The second attempts to describe what would constitute the antidote, namely symmetrical relationships of mutuality and equality. Both of these literatures counsel abandoning asymmetrical relationships in favor of the symmetrical. To the contrary, this paper argues that it is only in (...) the context of asymmetrical relationships that humans can learn the basics of equality and mutual regard that undergird democracy. More particularly, the moral use of asymmetrical relations would be to help the young acquire, inter alias, the kinds of self-awareness and self-understanding that would enable them to function as responsible parties in symmetrical relations. (shrink)

Globalization, with its undisputed benefits, also presents complex moral challenges that business leaders cannot ignore. Some of this moral complexity is attributable to the scope and nature of specific issues like climate change, intellectual property rights, economic inequity, and human rights. More difficult aspects of moral complexity are the structure and dynamics of human moral judgment and the amplified universe of global stakeholders with competing value claims and value systems whose interests must be considered and often included in the decision-making (...) process. While managing moral challenges is considered in management literature to be a legitimate and crucial function of business leadership, the complexity of moral challenges in a globalized business culture stretches the managerial capacities of individuals who rely on a personal moral compass and their own wisdom traditions of philosophy or religion for guidance. The Global Moral Compass introduces an expanded epistemic value framework as an aid to understanding and managing moral complexity in a globalized business culture. (shrink)

In this essay, I investigate the human act of spectatorship as found in the work of John Dewey and Paulo Freire. I will show that each is thoroughly anti-watching when it comes to educational practices. I then problematize their positions by looking at their spectatorial commitments in the realm of aesthetics. Both Dewey and Freire have a different opinion about spectatorship when it is a matter of watching art. I claim that this different in opinion derives from the practice of (...) ‘educational humanism’. By educational humanism, I mean the tendency to posit stock human traits that derive from pedagogical practices. Ultimately, I will take a stand against educational humanism, against the process of back-forming, from educational circumstances, the desirability, or the undesirability, of human traits. (shrink)

In this article, the concept of school discipline will be explored in relation to that of educational interest. Initially, Clark’s account of two different kinds of school order (discipline and control) will be explained. The interest-based theory of school discipline advanced by Pat Wilson will thereafter be analysed. It will be argued that both these scholars persuasively explain how school discipline may follow when learning activities are successfully married to pupil interests and experiences. However, it will be maintained that the (...) epistemic position adopted by Wilson is problematic. Although Wilson suggests that Richard Peters placed too great an educational emphasis on initiating pupils into public traditions of knowledge, it is here claimed that Wilson did not value that development enough. With reference to Whitehead, it is concluded that discipline in schools ought to be arranged so as to help pupils foster wisdom for life, as this concept integrates liberal knowledge and educational interest. (shrink)