This paper takes issue with Derek Sankey's: ‘Minds, Brains, and Differences in Personal Understanding’, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 39 (2007), pp. 543–558 on the questions of the post-pedagogical classroom and the forms of knowledge. I then try to show that a theory of meaning framed in terms of normative pragmatics is better able than the brain science Sankey relies on to account for the concept of a person or self; the central educational concept of personal understanding; the relation between being (...) a person and membership of the species Homo sapiens; the role of mental images in meaningfulness; the functioning of figurative language; and the Gadamerian notion of understanding as constitutive of the self. It is necessary on the way to answer Sankey's criticisms of correctness, a concept on which any normative theory must rely. (shrink)

This article argues that, as applied to education, the Capabilities Approach pioneered by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum shares a range of philosophical commitments with the work of social realist scholars on the concept of ‘powerful knowledge’. I first trace the history of the concept of powerful knowledge and present critiques put forward by social justice scholars. I then outline the Capabilities Approach, arguing it provides a response to some of these concerns. From here I develop the connection between the (...) two educational paradigms focusing on four areas of affinity. The first is the conceptual similarity between the ‘power’ of powerful knowledge and Nussbaum’s account of a capability. The second is their concern with the reduction of education to technical-instrumentalism, human capital, and other economically driven imperatives. The third is a shared focus on the link between knowledge, human agency, and freedom. The fourth, is a mutual rejection of relativism and embrace of a nuanced universalism. Ultimately, by drawing together these two conceptually rich approaches to the aims and purposes of education, I hope to open a space for theorizing about both capabilities and powerful knowledge that can resolve some of the problems in both. For powerful knowledge, the Capabilities Approach allows a more concrete explication of why access to disciplinary bodies of knowledge is of value to both individuals and society. On the side of the Capabilities Approach, engaging with the concept of powerful knowledge can help give a rationale for how educational knowledge fosters certain centrally important capabilities. (shrink)

Higher education has often been accused of its anti-social character, represented by the metaphor of the ‘ivory tower’. However, the idea of the pursuit of knowledge per se, which is associated with the ivory tower, has not been widely recognized as a public ideal of higher education. In this study, by drawing on the 20th-century British educational philosopher Paul H. Hirst’s theory of liberal education, I revisit and re-evaluate the Newmanian idea of pursuit of knowledge as an end itself as (...) a public ideal for higher education. I argue that the public criteria provided by discipline-rooted knowledge are among the criteria that are most able to define and legitimise higher education. These public criteria are compatible with the distinctive nature of higher education, which is essentially aimed at adult citizens and linked to research as the creation of knowledge, and can even serve to legitimise the cognitive structure of the society. (shrink)

Three kinds of knowledge usually recognised by epistemologists are identified and their relevance for curriculum design is discussed. These are: propositional knowledge, know-how and knowledge by acquaintance. The inferential nature of propositional knowledge is argued for and it is suggested that propositional knowledge in fact presupposes the ability to know how to make appropriate inferences within a body of knowledge, whether systematic or unsystematic. This thesis is developed along lines suggested in the earlier work of Paul Hirst. The different kinds (...) of know-how and their relationships are discussed and it is suggested that they occupy different places and different relationships in any curricular hierarchy. The changing role that knowledge by acquaintance plays within this hierarchy is also discussed. Implications of this account for the current National Curriculum and for curriculum design more generally are discussed, looking at History, Science and Design Technology as examples. (shrink)

This thesis investigates how preservice teachers understand ‘challenging behaviour’ and how this knowledge informs their teaching practice. Challenging behaviour is problematised as a knowledge referent and the epistemic tensions that preservice teachers experience in coming to ‘know’ about challenging behaviour are explored. This is an in-depth, qualitative study that focuses on the experiences, knowledge and knowledge-change of five final-year preservice primary teachers before, during and after their final Professional Experience. Data was gathered via interviews, focus groups, concept maps, document analysis (...) and classroom observations. Foucault’s theories of knowledge comprised the theoretical framework of the study and discourse analysis was used for data analysis. Major conclusions reached were threefold. Firstly, this study embraced the ambiguity and complexity of ‘challenging behaviour’ by avoiding the definitional debate and instead identifying and positing three discourses of challenging behaviour. This approach was found helpful in understanding preservice teachers’ knowledge of the topic. Secondly, it was found that the preservice teachers’ knowledge of challenging behaviour was, at best, ‘confused’ insofar as it was rarely discursively consistent. Thirdly, the types of epistemic processes through which the preservice teachers reconstructed their discursively inconsistent knowledge were theorised as either ‘matching’ or ‘squishing’. These epistemic processes were cast as problematic. Both ‘matching’ and ‘squishing’ demonstrated potential to maintain epistemic equilibrium and so limit possibilities for knowledge expansion and reflective practice. Moreover, in the case of ‘squishing’, this epistemic process was found to generate confusions, which were at times unsupportive of pedagogical decision-making. Two major implications of the research concern teacher education. Firstly, because the preservice teachers’ confusions, pedagogical distress and quandaries around challenging behaviour seemed to stem from discursively inconsistent knowledge, there is a call for teacher education programs to more clearly delineate multiple knowledges of challenging behaviour. Secondly, the preservice teachers’ epistemology was characterised by an overwhelming propensity to perceive a theory/practice divide in their professional knowledge. However, for these preservice teachers, there was not such a polarity to be bridged regarding challenging behaviour. Recasting the theory/practice problem in terms of knowledge showed the preservice teachers were doing a good deal of complex epistemological work ‘in the middle’ of theory and practice. Theory was not considered irrelevant, it was mobilised to make specific pedagogical decisions during practicum. However, understandings of these ‘practical theories’ were fraught with the incoherence and confusions associated with the epistemic practice of ‘squishing’. Thus, although the preservice teachers’ knowledge indicated they were ‘working in the middle’ of theory and practice, they were not doing so with great accuracy or effectiveness. It then is necessary to offer preservice teachers more comprehensive tools to work with and understand ‘knowledge’, rather than ‘theory/practice’. (shrink)

There is more to be said about two of the topics Chris Peers addresses in his article Freud, Plato and Irigaray: A morpho-logic of teaching and learning (2012, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 44, 760–774), namely the Socratic method of teaching and Plato’s stance with regard to women and feminism. My purpose in this article is to continue Peers’s discussion of these two topics.