The aim of this article is to reconsider and explore the ontoepistemology of student engagement in higher education as part of a democratic education, going beyond neo-liberal groundings. This is urgent as the concept of student engagement seems to be taken for granted and used uncritically in higher education. In addition, higher education is affected by, and under pressure from, different global and societal forces, which raises questions about the purpose of education. In our exploration, we mainly draw on the (...) philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and his co-writers Felix Guattari and Claire Parnet, but also Karen Barad and writers who are inspired by these theories. We present four arguments on which we elaborate: Rethinking power relations, Questioning linearity and how to use goals, Appreciating pedagogical relationships as multiple voices and becoming-multiple-others, and Considering assemblages, rhizomes and lines in student engagement. These arguments open up, as we argue, the poss... (shrink)

In the following essay, I discuss my own uneasy and nonlinear journey from the classroom to Deleuze, describing the concepts and lines of thought that have been productive in thinking differently about teaching and teacher education. I also detail my encounters with the surprising orthodoxies of using Deleuzian/Deleuzoguattarian thought. From these, I suggest that ‘being Deleuzian’ is itself a molar line that serves as an exclusionary mechanism, working to preserve high theory for the use of only a select few. Instead, (...) I argue for the potential of making such nonlinear thinking accessible to mainstream audiences to interrupt the linear, status quo thinking undergirding a global educational neoliberal movement. (shrink)

Early childhood practice in Aotearoa New Zealand is guided by Te Whāriki, a curriculum which is rich in moral concepts. While there are opportunities for early childhood educators in Aotearoa New Zealand to reflect upon moral concepts in their educational settings, it is the position of this paper that critical engagement with these concepts is hindered by two major factors: lack of exposition on the moral concepts maintained within the English version of the early childhood curriculum document, and a historical (...) gendered divide between theory and practice in early childhood education Aotearoa New Zealand. To address these concerns, the author draws from the philosophical writings of Iris Murdoch with particular focus upon her concept of attention. The theoretical plurality in Te Whāriki and the maternal image of the early childhood teacher are discussed. The author articulates the opportunities offered by Murdoch’s vision to view the curriculum and the early childhood teacher anew. (shrink)

We want to reconsider and explore the epistemology of student engagement in higher education as part of a democratic and sustainable education, going beyond neo-liberal groundings. In our exploration, we mainly draw on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and his co-writers Felix Guattari and Claire Parnet. In contemporary educational systems, teachers are often urged to work with student engagement in various forms due to the connection between academic success and student engagement. Student engagement is being perceived as an important factor (...) in quality measurements – a trend which can be connected to the neoliberal marketization focusing on performance, individualization, competition, goal-rationality and linear progression. This neo-liberal agenda produces new demands on education, changing students’ and teachers’ possibilities to act and become within higher education. In addition, some theories are prioritized which lead to narrowed and limited epistemologies for higher education and accordingly student engagement. Deleuze’s way of thinking challenge linearity and dualistic views of subject/object and process/product when emphasizing becoming, appreciating multiplicities and the unpredictable; what has not yet come into being. When ”doing” Deleuze in teacher education, we have considered ‘pedagogical relations’ to involve both human and non-human relations - assemblages that are both intercorporeal and entangled. Such assemblages open, according to Deleuze, for a rhizomatic thinking about learning where events are created that bear possibilities for all actors involved to become-multiple-others for a while. These processes of becoming runs through on-going affective, entangled and moving relationships and modes of existence. Although our exploration is mainly philosophical, we will connect our exploration to an ongoing project at our university. This attempt to reconsider the epistemology of student engagement, challenges structures, power-relations and epistemological pre-assumptions in higher education by creating disruptions, openings and lines of flight? (shrink)

The purpose of this thesis was set against the background of changed expectations on education and teachers’ work in contemporary Western societies, reflecting global educational trends of standardisation and assessment moving further down the ages. The overall aim of the thesis was to explore and gain understandings of how teachers’ work is constituted. The exploration was based on lived experience and philosophical perspectives, and the main research questions were: i) what is the significance of existential dimensions of teachers’ work, and (...) ii) how can they be understood in the light of a globalised and standardised education? The theoretical and methodological basis of the thesis was mainly the philosophy of the life-world as formulated by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The studies included employed the following methods: drawings with associated oral comments, written teacher responses and follow-up interviews, visual documentation with associated oral comments, and finally, the study of the relevant philosophical literature. In total 50 teachers and 112 children participated in study I, ten teachers in study II and eight teachers in study III. In study IV, the data consisted of philosophical literature.The findings show that teachers’ work involves not only teachers’ intellectual capacities and skills, but also their emotional and embodied being, and intertwined relationships as well. Further, teachers’ work it affected not only by the views of children, knowledge and learning held by teachers, policymakers and society that affect teachers’ work, but also by ontological assumptions and existential dimensions in a wider sense. It emerged that teachers’ views of education and their attempt to appreciate the unpredictable beyond dualistic assumptions are holistic, and multidimensional, in comparison to the rather linear and standardised global agenda.The crossover analysis of the findings suggests that teachers’ work is mainly constituted by ambiguities and intertwinings of an ontological character that have epistemological implications. In this thesis ambiguities are used to describe aspects that at first seem contradictory but are in fact more like irreducible uncertainties – as intertwined and reversible aspects of teachers’ work as a whole. Accordingly, existential dimensions of teachers’ work are ubiquitous within these ambiguities and intertwinings, and appear as significant in mainly two ways – firstly, as closely connected dimensions of the life-world and lived experience, referred to as lived time, lived space, lived body and lived other; secondly, as basic notions mainly about the relationships between i) subject and object, ii) mind and body, iii) human, culture and nature, iv) linear and multidimensional temporality. These existential dimensions of teachers work are discussed as Intercorporeal reversibilities, Intertwinings, chiasm and flesh and A chiasmic being. The ambiguous aspects of teachers’ work seem to derive from a general ambiguity of views on education, in which the rationalistic view tends to dominate since it often reflects the management of education. This overall ambiguity demands a reconsideration of the wider aim of education as well as of different relationships within education beyond dualisms and divides. Particularly, intercorporeal and intertwined relationships are essential, encompassing the significant intertwinings of ‘subjectobject’, ‘mindbody’, and ‘humannatureculture’. It is argued that this rethinking needs to be done in order to create conceptual and operational space for diverse and challenging pedagogical relationships. Thereby, a process of a chiasmic being for teachers in their work and for children’s learning can be enhancedKey words: teachers’ work; teaching; school; early childhood education; lived experience; existential; pluralistic; Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)