The article analyses ethnonational conflicts in Belgium and Canada during the period 1960-1989. Using the most similar case design, it is argued that the different policy performances in Belgium and Canada can be accounted for by the institutional context in which the conflicts occurred. The institutional setup in Canada and Belgium created different modes of joint decision making. Through an analysis of three joint decision variables, namely, decision rules, preferences and default conditions, two empirical cases are scrutinized. The Canadian Pension (...) Plan in Canada and the institutional reform efforts in Belgium highlight the importance of institutional default conditions. On the basis of these empirical cases it is argued that the different conditions of joint decision making in the two states lead to a continuous production of compromises in Belgium and a genuine absence of mutual agreement in Canada. (shrink)

Starting from a Foucaultian perspective, the article draws attention to current developments that neutralise democracy through the ‘governmentalisation of democracy’ and processes of ‘governmental subjectivation’. Here, ideas of Rancière are introduced in order to clarify how democracy takes place through the paradoxical process of ‘political subjectivation’, that is, a disengagement with governmental subjectivation through the verification of one's equality in demonstrating a wrong. We will argue that democracy takes place through the paradoxical process of political subjectivation, and that today's consensus (...) society tends to depoliticize all processes of subjectivation. A final step in the argumentation is to introduce the concept of ‘pedagogic subjectivation’—to be understood as the experience of potentiality—that is to be distinguished from governmental subjectivation and also from political subjectivation. The concept ‘pedagogic subjectivation’ is proposed as a way of thinking of the school as a public place. (shrink)

Schools and classrooms, as well as the work place and the Internet, are considered today as learning environments . People are regarded as learners and the main target of school education has become 'learning' pupils and students how to learn. The roles of teachers and lecturers are redefined as instructors, designers of (powerful) learning environments and facilitators or coaches of learning processes. The aim of this paper is to argue that the current self-understanding in terms of learning environments is not (...) merely about a renewal of our vocabulary, but an indication of a far more general transformation of the world of education. It is argued that the current self-understanding in terms of 'learning environments' and 'learners' indicates a shift in our experience of time and place; a shift from (modern) historical self-understanding towards (post-modern) environmental self-understanding. The essay draws upon Foucauldian concepts in order to map the modern organisation of time and space in 'schools'. This past organisation is confronted with the current organisation of time and space in 'learning environments'. By contrasting both maps the paper focuses on the main characteristics of the current experience of time and space, that is, 'environmental self-understanding', and explores in the final section the dark side of this self-understanding. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe question concerning the relation between thinking and the university is the starting point of this paper. After a very brief outline of some reflections on this topic, the case of Campus in Camps, a Palestinian experimental university, is presented to shed light on this issue. Inspired by Isabelle Stengers’ ecology of practices, it is possible to discern four requirements on thinking in the work of Campus in Camps, namely storytelling, comparing, mapping, and using. It will be argued that the (...) particularity of thinking at the university, is that it is done via artifices that initiate processes of composition, problematization, and attention. In the concluding section, the paper proposes to understand the study practice of Campus in Camps as an adventure that activates a sense of the possible, and hence opens up futures that are different from the ones that present themselves as obvious or unavoidable. (shrink)

This paper presents an overview of the elements which characterize a research attitude and approach introduced by Michel Foucault and further developed as ‘studies of governmentality’ into a sub‐discipline of the humanities during the past decade, including also applications in the field of education. The paper recalls Foucault's introduction of the notion of ‘governmentality’ and its relation to the ‘mapping of the present’ and sketches briefly the way in which the studies of governmentality have been elaborated in general and in (...) the context of research in education more particularly. It indicates how the studies of governmentality can be related to a cartography of the learning society, a cartography which helps us to get lost and to liberate our view. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Of Masters, Intellectuals and Inequality On Lessons, Equality, Democracy Focus and Contributions to the book Notes Acknowledgement References Bibliography Jacques Rancière.

_Rancière, Public Education and the Taming of Democracy_ introduces the political and educational ideas of Jacques Rancière, a leading philosopher increasingly important in educational theory. In light of his ideas, the volume explores the current concern for democracy and equality in relation to education. The book introduces and discusses the works of Jacques Rancière, a leading philosopher increasingly important in the field of educational theory and philosophy The volume will have a broad appeal to those in the field of education (...) theory and philosophy, and those concerned with democracy, equal opportunities and pedagogy Balanced in its introduction of the political and educational ideas of this author and in its exploration in line with his work of some important issues in education and policy today Contributors from diverse countries and intellectual and cultural backgrounds, including the UK, US, Belgium, Sweden, Spain, France, Canada. (shrink)

This article examines how the practice of fieldwork can enable researchers to attend to the educational environment of the school in a world-oriented way, rather than take an explanatory or demystifying approach that spirals away from what happens in the world. Finding new ways and new vocabularies to approach educational realities gains a special urgency in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a country whose social fabric is often analysed in terms of a lack: the Congolese state is considered weak (...) or fragile and its education sector is seen as being in a deep learning crisis. Recent studies have successfully used fieldwork methods to explain the remarkable persistence of the DRC’s public education sector by ethnographically accounting for the ways it is governed on a political or bureaucratic level. We propose that fieldwork, understood as a world-oriented research practice, which instils in researchers a curiosity for the world, can also enable researchers to attend to those classroom gestures that safeguard the existence and persistence of Congolese schools on a pedagogical level. (shrink)

Against the background of the many attacks on the school as being outdated, alienating, ineffective and reproducing inequalities we offer a morphological understanding of the school as distinguished from functionalist understandings and idealistic understandings. Our educational morphology approaches the school as a particular scholastic ‘form of gathering’ i.e. a particular time–space–matter arrangement that deals in a specific way with the new generation, allows for a particular relation to the world, and for a particular experience of potentiality and of commonality. We (...) elucidate how this form performs particular operations of suspension, profanation and formation of attention and how these operations imply a slowing down and an opening of future. Finally, we emphasise the potenti.. (shrink)

Research on expert‐novice differences has mainly focused on how experts solve familiar problems. We know far less about the skills and knowledge used by experts when they are confronted with novel problems within their area of expertise. This article discusses a study in which verbal protocols were taken from subjects of various expertise designing an experiment in an area with which they were unfamiliar. The results showed that even when domain knowledge is lacking, experts solve a novel problem within their (...) area of expertise by dividing the problem into a number of subproblems that are solved in a specified order. The lack of domain knowledge is compensated for by using abstract knowledge structures and domain‐specific heuristic strategies. However, the quality of their solutions is considerably lower than the quality attained by experts who were familiar with the type of problem to be solved. The results suggest that when experts are confronted with novel problems as compared with familiar problems, their form of reasoning remains intact, but the content of their reasoning suffers due to lack of domain knowledge. (shrink)

This collection of essays considers a variety of educational ideas and programs from the perspective of governmentality, integrating conceptual and theoretical insights and empirical investigation of policy documents, and government technologies. Considers different educational ideas of enlightenment, creativity, participation, inclusion, learning, and critique Offers an overview of French philosopher Michel Foucault’s theory on governmentality and how his ideas apply to current developments in society and education Investigates the intrinsic relationship between intellectual and practical educational technologies A study of how educational (...) practice and educational theory have played a constitutive role in practices of subjectivity which are crucial to ‘learning societies’. (shrink)

This article takes up a text that Rancière published shortly after The Ignorant School Master appeared in French, ‘École, production, égalité’[School, Production, Equality] (1988), in which he sketched the school as being preeminently the place of equality. In this vein, and opposed to the story of the school as the place where inequality is reproduced and therefore in need of reform, the article wants to recount the story of the school as the invention of a site of equality and as (...) primordially a public space. Inspired by Rancière, we indicate first how the actual (international and national) policy story about the school and the organizational technologies that accompany it install and legitimate profound inequalities, which consequently can no longer be questioned (and become ‘invisible’). Second, the article recasts and rethinks different manifestations of equality and of ‘public‐ness’ in school education and, finally, indicates various ways in which these manifestations are neutralized or immunized in actual discourses and educational technologies. (shrink)

The article starts from the questions: what is it to be an inhabitant or citizen of a globalised world, and how are we to think of education in relation to such inhabitants? We examine more specifically the so–called ‘European area of higher education’ that is on the way to being established and that can be regarded as a concrete example of a process of globalisation. In the first part of the paper we try to show that the discursive horizon, and (...) the concrete techniques and strategies that accompany the establishment of this space of higher education, invite the inhabitants of that space to see themselves as entrepreneurial and autonomous entities. In the second part we show how this specific kind of subjectivation (this production of subjects), related as it is to this globalised space, involves what we call an immunisation that also affects our thinking and our ideas in and about education. To refer to this as a kind of immunisation implies that globalisation could in fact be considered a closing or enclosing rather than an opening up. We argue, therefore, that this immunisation needs to be refused in favour of the invention of other kinds of subjectivity, other ways of speaking and writing about the world and about education, such that we relate to ourselves in a different way. (shrink)

The brain adapts to changes that take place in the body. Deprivation of input results in size reduction of cortical representations, whereas an increase in input results in an increase of representational space. Amputation forms one of the most dramatic disturbances of the integrity of the body. The brain adapts in many ways to this breakdown of the afferent–efferent equilibrium. However, almost all studies focus on the sensorimotor consequences. It is not known whether adaptation takes place also at other “levels” (...) in the system. The present study addresses the question whether amputees dream about their intact body, as before the amputation, or about the body after the amputation and whether the dream content was a function of time since the amputation and type of amputation. The results show that the majority of the dreamers reported dreams about their intact body although the mean time that elapsed since the amputation was twelve years. There is no clear relation with the type of amputation. The results give modest evidence for the existence of a basic neural representation of the body that is, at least, partly genetically determined and by this relatively insensitive for changes in the sensory input. (shrink)

Essay over de relatie van de Franse wijsgeer Descartes (1596-1650) met de universiteit van Utrecht.

NOSSAS CRIANÇAS NÃO SÃO NOSSAS CRIANÇAS OU PORQUE A ESCOLAR NÃO É UM AMBIENTE DE APRENDIZAGEM.

In the 1970s Codd introduced the relational algebra, with operators selection, projection, union, difference and product, and showed that it is equivalent to first-order logic. In this paper, we show that if we replace in Codd’s relational algebra the product operator by the “semijoin” operator, then the resulting “semijoin algebra” is equivalent to the guarded fragment of first-order logic. We also define a fixed point extension of the semijoin algebra that corresponds to μGF.

In the age of web 2.0, the university is constantly challenged to re-adapt its ‘old-fashioned’ pedagogies to the new possibilities opened up by digital technologies. This article proposes a rethinking of the relation between university and (digital) technologies by focusing not on how technologies function in the university, but on their constituting a meta-condition for the existence of the university pedagogy of inquiry. Following Ivan Illich’s idea that textual technologies played a crucial role in the inception of the university, we (...) will first show the structural similarities between university thinking and the text as a profanation of the book. Secondly, we describe university thinking as a type of critical thinking based on the materiality of the text-on-the-page, explaining why the text has been at the centre of university pedagogy since the beginning. In the third part, we show how Illich came to see the end of the culture of the text as a challenge for the university, by describing the new features of the text-as-code incompatible with the idea of reading as study. Finally, we challenge this pessimistic reading of Illich’s and end with a call for a profanatory pedagogy of digital technologies that could mirror the revolutionary thinking behind the mediaeval invention of the text. (shrink)

In the 1970s Codd introduced the relational algebra, with operators selection, projection, union, difference and product, and showed that it is equivalent to first-order logic. In this paper, we show that if we replace in Codd’s relational algebra the product operator by the “semijoin” operator, then the resulting “semijoin algebra” is equivalent to the guarded fragment of first-order logic. We also define a fixed point extension of the semijoin algebra that corresponds to μGF.

Within current debates about the future impact of Artificial Intelligence on human society, roughly three different perspectives can be recognised: the technology-centric perspective, claiming that AI will soon outperform humankind in all areas, and that the primary threat for humankind is superintelligence; the human-centric perspective, claiming that humans will always remain superior to AI when it comes to social and societal aspects, and that the main threat of AI is that humankind’s social nature is overlooked in technological designs; and the (...) collective intelligence-centric perspective, claiming that true intelligence lies in the collective of intelligent agents, both human and artificial, and that the main threat for humankind is that technological designs create problems at the collective, systemic level that are hard to oversee and control. The current paper offers the following contributions: a clear description for each of the three perspectives, along with their history and background; an analysis and interpretation of current applications of AI in human society according to each of the three perspectives, thereby disentangling miscommunication in the debate concerning threats of AI; and a new integrated and comprehensive research design framework that addresses all aspects of the above three perspectives, and includes principles that support developers to reflect and anticipate upon potential effects of AI in society. (shrink)

Neste artigo, nosso objetivo é mergulhar no caráter político da educação escolar a partir de uma discussão pedagógica-filosófica. Buscamos repensar as noções de política e skholé, nos distanciando das abordagens mais comuns da política em relação à educação escolar: não apenas evitando, por um lado, a redução da política a uma questão de dinâmicas de poder, uma arena para discutir e resolver problemas sociais ou uma questão de governamentalidade; mas também evitando a redução da escola a um instrumento a favor (...) delas. Acreditamos que uma leitura meticulosa do trabalho político do filósofo francês Jacques Rancière oferece um caminho para articular as relações entre política e educação escolar sem cair nessas reduções. Sugerimos que, a partir dessa abordagem rancèriana, se torna possível explorar o aspecto transformador e emancipatório da educação escolar sem negar seu caráter político e sem reduzi-la a um mero instrumento de política governamental. Portanto, depois de revisar o que acreditamos serem algumas noções-chave do conceito de política de Rancière, propomos discutir o caráter político da educação escolar abordando dois aspectos pedagógicos cruciais: a formalização da skholé (ou seja, a maneira pela qual a skholé toma forma) e a formação escolar (o tipo de formação possibilitada pela educação escolar). Nosso objetivo é contribuir para os debates pedagógicos sobre a educação escolar, possibilitando um diálogo com uma leitura de Ranciére que vá além de O mestre ignorante. (shrink)

Teacher discipline strategies are well documented when it comes to its effects on students and the working climate in the classroom. Although it is commonly acknowledged that for student teachers classroom management is a major concern, student teachers? use of discipline strategies is largely unknown. In this paper, we examine student teachers? beliefs in relation to their discipline strategies. Three clusters of discipline strategies are distinguished: sensitive, directive and aggressive discipline strategies. Beliefs that were taken into account are self-images on (...) control and affiliation, control orientation and anticipated student responses on control and affiliation. All participants were student teachers of a one-year teacher education programme for secondary education in the Netherlands. Student questionnaires were used to measure discipline strategies (n?=?2506). Student teachers? (n?=?104) self-images, control orientation and anticipated student responses were measured with student teacher questionnaires. Results of the multiple regression analyses showed that student teachers? sensitive and directive discipline strategies are explained best by self-images on control; aggressive discipline strategies are explained best by self-images on affiliation and by control orientation. Apart from the possible academic interest in these particular findings, results are believed to be useful in a practical sense, in particular for teacher education programmes. (shrink)

In recent decades we witnessed ongoing debates about the objectives of history education, with different underlying epistemological perspectives. This qualitative study explored prospective history teachers' beliefs about these objectives of history education. Prospective history teachers of six universities starting a teacher educational programme were invited to answer an open-ended questionnaire about history education. Six objectives were found: (1) memorising; (2) critical/explanatory; (3) constructivist; (4) perspective-taking; (5) moral; and (6) collective-identity objectives. Almost all prospective teachers mentioned several of these objectives. A (...) distinction between two epistemological perspectives on historical knowledge representation (factual or interpretive), was used as a framework for categorising the different objectives. More than half of the respondents mentioned objectives of history education that represent history as factual and objectives that represent history as interpretive. We propose that in actual practice most history teachers are combining epistemologically opposing objectives for pedagogical, political and religious motives. (shrink)