This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Unselving Anticipation Departures Conclusion: Schools as Places of Unselving Acknowledgement Notes References.

This book examines historical approaches and current research and practice related to the education of adolescents placed at risk of school failure as a result of social and economic conditions. One major goal is to expand the intellectual exchange among researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and concerned citizens on factors influencing the achievement of poor and minority youth, specifically students in middle and high schools. Another is to encourage increased dialogue about policies and practices that can make a difference in (...) class='Hi'>educational opportunities and outcomes for these students. Although the chapters in this volume are not exhaustive, they represent an array of theoretical and methodological approaches that provide readers with new and diverse ways to think about issues of educational equality and opportunity in the United States. A premise that runs through each chapter is that school success is possible for poor and minority adolescents if adequate support from the school, family, and community is available. *The conceptual approach places the research and practice on students placed at risk in a historical context and sets the stage for an important reframing of current definitions, research, policies, and practices aimed at this population. *Multiple research methodologies allow for comparisons across racial and ethnic groups as well as within groups, and contribute to different and complementary insights. Section III, "Focus on African-American Students," specifically addresses gender and social class differences among African-American adolescents. *Current reform strategies presently being implemented in schools throughout the United States are presented and discussed. These strategies or programs highlight how schools, families, and communities can apply research findings like the ones this book presents, thus bridging the often wide gap between social science research and educational practice. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to explain the historicity of moral education in school and particularly to cast light upon implications that the subject of self-cultivation in the modern enlightenment period gives to contemporary moral education. By representing characters of traditional education concerning goals and contents that the subject of self-cultivation in the modern formal school has, I raise a question about the moral education in the formal school was created for political purposes, therefore, insist that it can be (...) assume that the subject of self-cultivation in regular schooling was made for taking the place of the traditional education. Against it, you may think so that the subject of self-cultivation was the works of imitating the Japanese school system. At that time there was an inquiry into the educational systems of Japan and the United States for setting formal schooling, obviously, it was under the influence of Japan. But with a plethora of circumstantial and historical evidence, it presents that the subject of self-cultivation was a try to mediate traditional education and modern moral education, not as a mere imitation. Thus, it should reconsider the history of moral education in school, especially our own creativity of the subject of the self-cultivation in Korea. Claiming that the subject of the self-cultivation has the internal characteristics unrelated to copying the self-cultivation education of Japan, this study suggests that concrete and historical facts that prove the moral education in continuity and takes a look at contents of the subject in some detail to give a flavor of the theoretically based identity of moral education in school. The idea that the spirit of Confucianism must maintain but selectively it could be taken goods of western civilization was prevailing at that time. Although pragmatism is emphasized, the traditional moral codes and values are still significant educational contents. We can confirm coexistence of modern and traditional education in many places. The criteria for the admission of the school of education was to select a person skilled in Chinese, and teaching methods were also old-fashioned. Even though new knowledge and skills are introduced to school education, they had to be based on traditional education. Traditional education was accepted not only in general public education but also in foreign language schools for a particular purpose. Even new schools established to introduce foreign cultures were centered on Confucian education. In a transitional stage, it was considered that traditional methods were still valid. It was possible that because it was relatively autonomous to make a modern school system despite the influences of foreign. In 1909, according to the standards for textbooks, Japan confiscated several textbooks of the subject of self-cultivation and banned the sale of ones. That is what demonstrate real goals and functions of the self-cultivation subject. The subject of self-cultivation had a variety of functions and characteristics. First is to raise and practice virtues as the aims of official educational. Second is colonial ideology injection of Japan as cultivating humanity to meet the purpose of Japanese rule. The third is to recover of having lost country through education and then to promote the prosperity of the nation. We should not devalue the subject of self-cultivation due to partial functions intended by Japan. In the same vein, to teach the subject of the self-cultivation, there were traditional ways of using Sohak and Dongmongseonseup, types of ethnic education by educated persons of private schools, western courses replaced by the Bible and the ethics and so on. The goals of education of the Joseon Dynasty and its contents were about the self-cultivations and moral trainings. Traditional education at that time was, from the viewpoint of goals and contents of education, moral education in a broad sense, even though not a form of school moral education. After that, a modern curriculum of regular schooling was created and the subject of self-cultivation was born as an independent study. The subject of self-cultivation in modern times is the predecessor of Korean school moral education. The foundation of the curriculum was to preserve the value of traditional education, but its purpose had been altered in the course of its implementation. However, it is very important that moral education in school was created the first as an essential course in the modern education curriculum and it has become the basis of moral education in Korea. (shrink)

This article explores the potential of schools to enhance students’ well-being and overall quality of life. The discussion is framed through two distinct perspectives: the Bildung tradition and Aristotelian ethics. In regions where the Bildung tradition is prominent, schools are traditionally viewed as environments conducive to fostering humaneness. However, contemporary educational policies often diverge from the core values of Bildung-oriented education. The article advocates for the continued promotion of Bildung and flourishing within schools. To achieve this, (...) certain foundational conditions must be met. One such condition is acknowledging students’ need for a sense of belonging and purpose, which is essential for their flourishing. This flourishing, in turn, equips students with the courage and resilience to face an uncertain future and contribute to societal change. For schools to foster a sense of belonging, they must be meaningful places of interaction and companionship, both physically and socially. This necessitates recognizing that educational environments are situated within specific geographical and cultural contexts. Consequently, education should not be excessively standardized. The Bildung tradition provides insights into why this is important. When combined with Aristotelian ethics, it becomes possible to develop schools that offer students a sense of belonging and purpose, thereby promoting their flourishing. In this framework, Bildung and flourishing are seen as concepts that embody possibilities and optimism, offering hope and empowerment at both individual and collective levels. (shrink)

This target article considers the relation of fluid cognitive functioning to general intelligence. A neurobiological model differentiating working memory/executive function cognitive processes of the prefrontal cortex from aspects of psychometrically defined general intelligence is presented. Work examining the rise in mean intelligence-test performance between normative cohorts, the neuropsychology and neuroscience of cognitive function in typically and atypically developing human populations, and stress, brain development, and corticolimbic connectivity in human and nonhuman animal models is reviewed and found to provide evidence of (...) mechanisms through which early experience affects the development of an aspect of cognition closely related to, but distinct from, general intelligence. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of emotion in fluid cognition and on research indicating fluid cognitive deficits associated with early hippocampal pathology and with dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis stress-response system. Findings are seen to be consistent with the idea of an independent fluid cognitive construct and to assist with the interpretation of findings from the study of early compensatory education for children facing psychosocial adversity and from behavior genetic research on intelligence. It is concluded that ongoing development of neurobiologically grounded measures of fluid cognitive skills appropriate for young children will play a key role in understanding early mental development and the adaptive success to which it is related, particularly for young children facing social and economic disadvantage. Specifically, in the evaluation of the efficacy of compensatory education efforts such as Head Start and the readiness for school of children from diverse backgrounds, it is important to distinguish fluid cognition from psychometrically defined general intelligence. (Published Online April 5 2006) Key Words: cognition; cognition-emotion reciprocity; developmental disorders; emotion; fluid cognition; Flynn effect; general intelligence; limbic system; neuroscience; phenylketonuria; prefrontal cortex; psychometrics; schizophrenia. (shrink)

The Power of Community-Centered Education provides psychological, sociological, historical and philosophical insights into why community works so well as an organizing principle for high school. The book concludes with a call to action for all agencies and institutions that have public outreach programs to consider how they assist in building "education-centered communities" that support the work of high schools by offering research opportunities and scaffolding to secondary education.

The article presents the contemporary situation of teaching ethics in secondary schools in Spain. It highlights the historical and systemic contexts related to the introduction of this subject into the curriculum in the 1980s, as well as its position in the curriculum as an alternative to religious education. It also diagnoses problems and deficits resulting from multiple legislative changes, inconsistent and instrumental treatment of this subject by legislators and its still visible undervaluation in the Spanish education system. Finally, it (...) proposes a number of practical solutions related to the methodology of teaching ethics and the role that a teacher can play in the education process. These suggestions are an attempt to respond to the assumptions formulated by law regarding the objectives of teaching the subject “Ethical Values”, and above all, they emphasize the close connection of ethics with the development of civic attitudes, practical development of critical thinking skills, responsibility, and autonomy. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Vulnerabilization and De-pathologizationTwo Philosophical SuggestionsHavi Carel, PhD (bio)Alastair Morgan raises useful and interesting philosophical critiques of the 'power-threat-meaning' framework proposed by Johnstone et al. (2018). In what follows I make two suggestions that may clarify some aspects of the debate. First, to broaden the notion of threat: we can think more broadly about adverse life events as the source of mental suffering by broadening the notion of threat to (...) what I term (in joint work with Ian James Kidd) Vulnerabilization. Second, I offer a distinction between de-pathologizing psychiatric disorders (i.e., removing stigma and negative stereotypes) and de-medicalizing such disorders (i.e., rescinding them from a diagnostic manual), in order to suggest that de-medicalizing on its own does not solve the problem of stigma, but de-pathologizing is a better candidate for achieving that.Threat and VulnerabilizationMorgan argues that the notion of threat is too limited to cover the breadth of psychiatric conditions and presentations. Threat and power may often be present, but how they lead to the appearance of behaviors that meet certain diagnostic criteria, is, as Morgan states, unclear at best and only a partial explanation for psychiatric disorders (it explains some behaviors, not all). I suggest we view threat as one type of a broader category, which I propose to term 'Vulnerabilization' (Carel & Kidd, 2021).Vulnerabilization refers to the effects of interactions and actions that impact on people by harming them and making them more vulnerable to future adversity. For example, removing a struggling child from a classroom causes them to miss the lesson, and if done repeatedly, harms their capacity to continue studying. Leaving a weak patient unsupervised in the wrong kind of bed may cause them to fall and become more vulnerable to disease and infection. Failing to organize accommodation for an inmate about to be released from prison forces them onto the streets and makes them more vulnerable to reoffending. The point of the term is to draw attention to the fact that one is not born vulnerable, to paraphrase de Beauvoir, [End Page 73] but becomes vulnerabilized through acts and omissions of others. Such acts and omissions often take place under the auspices of an institution—health care, social care, education, criminal justice, and so on—and are therefore intimately tied to ethoi and conduct of institutions (for a full analysis see Carel & Kidd, 2021).Vulnerabilization is a common theme in the testimonies of people who have negative experiences of social institutions, including, of course, health care institutions. Ideally, health care systems, schools, courts, and other major institutions scaffold and protect our agency, efficiently support our endeavors, and fairly and reliably disperse social and epistemic resources. But while some people have reliably satisfying experiences of social institutions, others find that many, if not all, of the institutions they encounter abandon, ignore, silence, harm, or even kill them and people like them (this is not an exaggeration: inquiries such as the Francis Report (2013) on the Mid Staffordshire patient neglect case and the Sheldon Review (n.d.) provide plentiful examples of that).1 When vulnerable people encounter institutions, they are often at an epistemic and communicative disadvantage that makes their interactions with institutions a source of suffering and injustice and indeed makes such people even more vulnerabilized. They may be affected by poverty, disability (especially mental ill health and learning disabilities), trauma, domestic violence, ill health, racism, sexism, ageism, or other sources of disadvantage, prejudice and discrimination; and, of course, they can be disadvantaged by a combination of such factors. Seeing power as the source of much suffering, social injustice and poor mental health is, of course, entirely in line with this view and I agree with Morgan that Johnstone et al. (2018) identified an important source of suffering.De-Medicalizing Versus De-PathologizingAnother important issue about psychiatric diagnoses is the stigma and negative stereotypes surrounding mental illness. Calls to de-medicalize a specific or all mental disorders is, in part, a call to remove stigma and negative stereotype from the behaviors and mental states that characterize a mental disorder. However, to de-medicalize... (shrink)

In this third paper in a series of four, we explore some ways of doing education differently. An education that moves beyond the persistent failures and irredeemable injustices of modern mass schooling episteme. The episteme for education we adumbrate – an episteme of life continuance – begins with a recognition of interdependency and the value of diversity, diverse knowledges and relations of tolerance. We propose an escape from the extinction ethics which modern schools perpetuate and a new grammar of (...) living in which education and politics are processes of re-learning, co-learning, decision taking, limit testing, and conflict resolution in relation to an uncertain future. To achieve this, we outline a set of open and ‘unplanned’ commoning activities that would take place within local social infrastructures focused on re-politising learning itself and practicing the care of oneself, others, community and the environment. The proposal for a different education as common(ing) activities undertaken within social infrastructures, is about reimagining political and environmental relations, and co-creating a sense of collective ownership of and responsibility for the environment. A form of community that it is practical, rather than utopian, and that would be both the means and ends for such an education. (shrink)

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of contents -- Contributors -- Introduction -- 1 From place to planet: The role of the language arts in reading environmental identities from the UK to New Zealand -- From here to there -- Cockney translation -- Environmental identities -- Environmental knowledge -- Conclusion: moving from place to planet -- Notes -- References -- 2 Connecting community through film in ITE English -- Introduction -- The place of English (...) in the contemporary policy context -- Place in English: doing things differently -- The film project -- The films -- 'Our Place': the Kingsville School -- 'This is Our Place': High Bridge -- 'This is My Place': Silver Hill -- Discussion -- The place of school -- The place of the subject -- The place of pupils -- Connecting community through film: the possibilities of place -- Note -- References -- 3 Muslim youth identities through devotional songs and poetry in South Yorkshire communities -- Introduction 1: creative language study as etiolation -- Introduction 2: faith-based complementary schooling and language heritage -- Introduction 3: Islamophobia and youth identity -- Poetry and 'song' in the Islamic world and among Muslim youth in the UK -- This study -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- 4 Creative spaces for developing independent writing with English teachers -- Why do we need to develop teachers as creative writers? -- The role and influence of the National Writing Project -- The writing identities of trainee teachers -- Writing in creative spaces -- Some conclusions: writing teachers in creative spaces -- Writing from the Georgian House -- Writing from Brandon Hill -- Notes -- References -- 5 Durham city as an educational resource in initial teacher education for English: Seeing the city with new eyes -- Context -- The activity -- Implications. (shrink)

Originally published in 1944, this book presents the case for keeping examinations as part of the British school system. Brereton suggests potential reforms and argues that examinations have positive values in 'stimulating pupils and teachers generally, and in co-ordinating the work and aims of schools that might otherwise drift far apart'. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the debate surrounding the changing role of examinations in British education.

In October 2012, the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine amended its eligibility requirements for admission. In addition to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, persons who qualify for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service are now eligible for admission. Simply put, we extended the educational opportunity of medical school to people who are in a particular category of undocumented immigrants. We became the first medical school in the United States (...) to have an intentional, transparent policy of eligibility for persons eligible for the DACA program. This expanded admissions policy has gained some attention in the popular press and brought us many expressions of support. It has also dismayed a few members of our school's circle of faculty and alumni.We wish to walk you through the history of our policy's development. We believe that viewing it as it developed will make clear three pertinent ideas: this policy flows directly from the mission of medical schools, it suits a positive notion of social justice and is also compelled by a duty not to discriminate on arbitrary grounds, and educators who steward educational institutions must have the moral courage to place considerations of institutional mission and social justice above the political views and negative responses of some alumni and donors. (shrink)

This book offers a unique analysis of the tension between the individual and society in educational contexts, and the role that citizenship and democratic education can play. It approaches the question from two different perspectives - the institutional and the interactional - and argues that any solution must answer the tension from both or it will necessarily fail. The answer is found through a political methodology that places education at the centre and concludes that a balance can be (...) found if we embrace the federated disestablishment of education and state and internally democratic schooling that aims to realise the emancipation of the political child. The book situates itself in the tradition of political philosophy that is education focused, identifying an unresolved tension between the individual and society in the works of Rousseau, Dewey, and Freire. It discusses the concept of authority as a primary issue persisting in this tension. It does so by exploring both interactional and institutional responses based on the idea of the free individual and cooperative associations. The author advocates an education system that creates the necessary space for the cultivation of the free individual and is run by the principles of internally democratic schooling. With a strong focus on citizenship and the role of education in the development of social-justice oriented citizens, this book will be of great interest to researchers, academics, and postgraduate students in the fields of philosophy of education, political philosophy, educational theory, and citizenship education. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Intersection of Medicine and ReligionJohn C. DormoisThe practice of medicine offers a host of rewards to the practitioner. Besides the obvious intellectual satisfaction of solving a difficult diagnostic problem or the ability to make a comfortable living, I have found the greatest personal sense of moral gratification when helping [End Page 196] families negotiate the most challenging event in life: making decisions at end of life. Whether the (...) condition was a ruptured intracranial aneurysm with brain death or a patient with far advanced cancer struggling with the choice between experimental chemotherapy or choosing comfort therapy at home surrounded by family for the remaining days of life, the moral courage required to provide the best guidance was considerable. In my early years of practice I didn’t call my actions in these situations “courageous” nor were there moral “guidelines” providing a blueprint. I knew I responded with empathy and compassion and that this ability had a lot to do with being raised in a religious or spiritual home. At the same time, I suspected that some of the lack of empathy and compassion I witnessed in some of my colleagues was related to the very training programs of physicians. This essay traces the origin of my moral and ethical concerns about medical education and my intention to reinvigorate the spiritual or existential voice in medicine.An early life experience had a great deal to do with shaping my moral development. At age seven my family traveled through the West Indies. My father’s amateur radio hobby meant that at every stop we would be greeted by one of his radio contacts. One stop in particular was life changing.Port au Prince, Haiti was an unknown place to this seven year–old, but to say it was a culture shock to a boy from Kansas would be an understatement of epic proportions. It was during this visit that I experienced true poverty in its most blatant form. In downtown Port au Prince I saw limbless beggars and the deformed from polio and malnutrition. But it was the sight of the garbage dump near the center of town that changed my world forever. There, among piles of detritus, I saw children and families making their home in the dump. They had hollowed out a sort of cavern in the piles of trash that served as a place of refuge from both the rain and the sun.This experience in many ways has served as a framework and background for my life. Although seen through the eyes of a seven year–old, the picture can only be adequately understood within the context of being raised by religiously faithful parents, parents free of hypocrisy whose lives personified the best in Christian virtues and practices. These early experiences planted the seeds that would only fully blossom some 60 years later.Medical school was a demanding but exhilarating experience. Each day was a day of discovery … anatomy, physiology, pathology … all subjects opening up a whole new world to explore. Internal medicine suited me best since it was the specialty that most closely integrated all the basic sciences necessary to arrive at a diagnosis. I loved the elegance of endocrinology in particular where a given hormone mediator could cause widely different effects if present in excess or completely absent. But I was in the end drawn to cardiology since it combined complex physiology with my avocation, the love of running.There was, however, a disturbing aspect of medicine education that I observed affecting many of my classmates. Although I can vividly recall the enthusiasm that all of us shared as we donned our white coats for the first time and envisioned a future of caring for our patients, things gradually and insidiously changed over the next four years. The altruism and empathy that was so evident in the early years gradually lessened as graduation approached. I could not help being struck by this change and wondered at the time why that should happen. I had no insight then that what I had observed was a well recognized consequence of the medical school experience. I’m sure that the passage from professional training to practice in... (shrink)

Poetry holds an important place as part of our cultural heritage.1 However, despite poetry’s apparent cultural value, there have been surprisingly few attempts to articulate clearly how this should be reflected in the teaching curriculum in our schools and universities. As a consequence of this lack of clarity, the cultural value of poetry gives way to the increasing emphasis on providing instrumental justification for the teaching curriculum; including poetry in the curriculum is often justified in terms of promoting transferable (...) skills and knowledge such as problem solving, understanding and interpreting language, general creativity, widening vocabulary, identifying or “spotting” techniques, and learning... (shrink)

Two of our greatest educational theorists, John Dewey and Nel Noddings, have been reluctant to admit that some students are simply more talented than others. This was no doubt due to their feeling that such an admission was inconsistent with democratic concern for everyone. But there really is such a thing as superior talent; and the present book explains how that admission is compatible with our ideals of caring. Traditionalists confident that some disciplines are more important than others haven’t (...) worried that that way of putting things threatens to make those who are excluded feel quite bad about themselves. But an ethics of care can show us how to make these differences much less hurtful and more morally acceptable than anything that has been proposed by traditionalists. So the present book offers a middle way between the denial of the reality of superior talents and an insensitive insistence on that reality. It argues that care ethics gives us a way to do this, and it bases that claim largely on the promise of such an ethics for moral education in schools and in homes. It is argued on psychological grounds that caring can only take place on the basis of empathy for others, and the book shows in great detail how empathy can be encouraged or develop in school and home contexts. Other approaches to moral education—like Kantian cognitive-developmentalism and Aristotelian character education—can’t account for moral _motivation_ in the way that an emphasis on the development of empathy allows. And in the end, it is only students educated via care ethics who will be sensitive to one another in a way that largely undercuts the negative psychological impact of educational institutions and practices that acknowledge the greater talents or creativity that some students have. (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)

__Youth, Education, and the Role of Society_ examines the “learning landscape” currently available to American adolescents, arguing that we need to expand, enrich, and diversify the learning opportunities available to young people today._ Central to the book is Robert Halpern’s view that we depend too exclusively on schools to meet the full range of young people’s developmental needs. “High school learning as typically structured is just too fragmented, isolated, and abstract to meet young people’s developmental needs,” he argues. “It (...) relies too much on century-old curriculum and pedagogy, and is too oriented, in an unreflective way, toward preparing young people for four-year college.” As Halpern notes, school leaders are already aware of the limitations posed by traditional high schools and are aiming for reformed school institutions and curricula. However, he contends that “better meeting young people’s learning and developmental needs will require far more than a reconceptualized high school experience. It will mean a fundamentally different understanding of where learning can take place and the wholehearted participation of a variety of institutions and sectors of society.” The book’s initial chapters explore the nature of productive learning experiences for adolescents. The volume then looks at how various institutions—including schools, after-schools, businesses, and nonprofit and civic organizations—can make unique and indispensable contributions to those crucial learning experiences. Halpern also considers how other countries “structure learning” during these formative years, and he concludes with an exploration of the social and cultural challenges ahead—challenges we must meet, he argues, if we are to enlist and sustain the necessary participation of institutions and adults in an expanded and enriched program for preparing young people for adult life and success. A bold and wide-ranging effort to examine—and reimagine—learning and youth development, this book promises to be a major contribution to the literature on adolescent education. (shrink)

Ethical education should help students become more sensitive to the perspectives and experiences of others. However, the field is dominated by the teaching of moral values as a subject-matter, or by the fostering of character traits in students, or by moral reasoning. This book proposes an alternative to these limited moralistic approaches. It places human relationships at the core of ethical education, in its understanding of both ethics and education. With contributions from renowned international scholars, this approach is laid (...) out in three parts. Part I develops the underlying theory of ethics and education; Part II focuses on the relevant pedagogical principles, and Part III provides illustrations of emergent innovative ethical educational practices in worldwide schools. Against a backdrop of divisiveness and apathy, the innovative practices described in this book show how a new vision for ethical education might be centred around caring for students' well-being. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"An Option for Art But Not an Option for Life":Beauty as an Educational ImperativeJoe Winston (bio)IntroductionIn a recent meeting of the academic staff in the university department where I work, we were asked to state our current research interests. Responses progressed around the circle and everyone listened quietly and respectfully until I stated that my interest was beauty, to which there was general laughter—complicit, not derisory, as if (...) everyone laughing presumed it was a joke. In the same week, I heard a story from a colleague who works in another institution. She had been interviewing a prospective female candidate for their postgraduate teacher training course with a deputy principal from a local school. When it came to a decision, the latter had not been in favor of offering the young woman a place; she was "too beautiful," she thought, to the extent that she would "be a distraction" in the classroom.I offer these stories as illustrative of a fact little discussed—that beauty is a problem in educational discourse, seen as either wildly irrelevant or discordant with the job of teaching. Yet it was not always the case. Beauty has in the past been understood as one of the highest aims of education. For Schiller, it fulfilled a core human need, and he wrote in the second of his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man that "it is only through Beauty that man makes his way to Freedom."1 Matthew Arnold argued that it was in beauty that the "human race finds its ideal."2 Emerson saw beauty as "the form under which the intellect likes to study the world,"3 and Iris Murdoch argued that it should be at the base of any education in the virtues, citing Plato's argument that beauty is the one spiritual quality that we love by instinct.4 These figures could hardly be described as philosophical lightweights, yet their sentiments and the complex arguments through which they expressed [End Page 71] them have for years been neglected; only recently has this begun to change. Elaine Scarry, in particular, has written an influential book on the topic, taking up the argument of Iris Murdoch and developing a strong case for the educational power of beauty, allying it strikingly with an education in social justice.5 Two recent articles in this journal have also heralded a re-evaluation of beauty as a concept of profound significance for both the arts and education. Stuart Richmond sees in the development of our capacities to create and appreciate beauty "a way to bring us back into contact with what is sensual and intrinsically worthwhile,"6 and Howard Cannatella argues passionately "that something of the indelible quality of poiesis and delight in beauty should be the focus of specific educational concern, a factor at its core."7This article is an attempt to add further substance to the claim that-beauty should be one of our core educational values. In doing so, it develops the ideas that connect these perspectives: that beauty's power is instinctive, that it delights, that it is of deep human value. As do Murdoch and Scarry in their different ways, I will argue that beauty is powerfully formative and intrinsically associated with virtue, an idea developed in the final section of the article. First, however, I wish to consider what happened to beauty and why it became a neglected concept not only in education but also in the arts.What Happened to Beauty?Language and world refer to each other and presuppose each other for their mutual intelligibility. In this count, human learning becomes the process of aligning language and world.8In considering beauty, we begin inevitably with the word itself and with its usage. Like all evaluative concepts captured through language, beauty is a historical and cultural entity and, as such, it has both gathered and discarded meanings with the passage of time. Consequently, its nature is elusive and open to revision and debate. Is it characterized by perfect harmony and balance, as the classical world would have it, or by the soaring solidity of a medieval Gothic cathedral? Do we associate it with goodness... (shrink)

Dār al-Qurʾāns, which were among the madrasas in the Ottoman period and where qirāʾāt was taught, turned into the Qur'āns schools after the law on unity of education, enacted on March 3, 1924. That was the end of the institutional entity of qirāʾāt education in Turkey. Afterwards, a number of qirāʾāt teachers kept performing this education by their individual efforts. Among these teachers, Osman Nuri Taşkent who was the former head-imam of Nuruosmaniye Mosque in Istanbul was assigned as a (...) Qurʾān teacher in Adapazarı in 1936. This research aiming to address Taskent’s service as a public servant, his educational activities, and his role in the re-institutionalization of the qirāʾāt education is planned as a qualitative case study and carried out by document analysis and interview techniques. In conclusion, this study has demonstrated that (a) this school which aimed to be offered in Adapazarı was planned as qirāʾāt education school, (b) Taşkent was the responsible official teacher (c) 14 students graduated under his mentorship in Adapazarı, and (d) this institution was named as Dār al-Ḥuffāz of Adapazarı in his period. Moreover, it shows that after the leaving of Taşkent, this school maintained the education under the responsibility of Himmet Babalıoğlu who is one of the former students; however, the type of education changed and turned into a general Qur'āns chool.Summary: With the law of unified education which is a turning point in the history of Turkish education, all educational institutions were gathered under responsibility of the Ministry of Education. However, madrasas were closed approximately two months later, even though it was not included in the law. Along with the madrasas, Dār al-Qurrā that are the institutions performing education on the recitation, memorizing, and the principles ofreading the Qurʾān were also attempted to be closed with the similar understanding. However, the President of the Religious Affairs in this period opposed this attempt and these institutions turned into Qurʾān schools due to the insistences of the president that these institutions should maintain their education under the responsibility of the presidency of religious affairs. After this change, qirāʾāt education lost its institutional entity.Whether Dār al-Qurrās have been able to continue education since 1925 as Qurʾān schools is controversial. According to some researchers, the Qurʾān schools after this change were not closed as opposed to other religious institutions, imam hatip schools and Darülfünun Faculty of Theology, and continued their education. Another view is that these courses were officially opened for the first time in 1925, closed since 1929 with the alphabet revolution in 1928, but they restarted education in 1930 with the permission for limited locations in Anatolia and for some teachers in Istanbul. Another view is that the courses planned to be opened in ten places could not be activated due to some obstacles in 1925, but they could be opened after the closing of imam hatip schools after 1930.In some studies, it is stated that the qirāʾāt education, which lost its institutional existence with the conversion of Dār al-Qurrās to the Qurʾān schools, providing general Qurʾān education has been continued with individual efforts of some qirāʾāt teachers such as Serezli Ahmed Şükrü (d. 1932), Hamdi Efendi (d. 1939), Akrepoğlu Osman Nûrî Taşkent (d. 1942), Ömer Aköz (d. 1952), (Ayağıkesik) İsmail Hakkı Bayrı (d. 1972), Hasan Akkus (d. 1972) and Üsküdarlı Ali Efendi (d. 1976). In the same studies, it is also underlined that the science of qirāʾāt regained an institutional entity only after the attempts of Tayyar Altıkulaç in 1968, with the sending of the Diyanet to Aşıkkutlu, honorarily occupied with the science of qirāʾāt in Uğurlu town of Of. However, the fact that Osman Nuri Taşkent was appointed in 1936 as Qurʾān teacher in Adapazarı while he had been the chief-imam of the Istanbul Nuruosmaniye Mosque reveals that the efforts for the institutionalisation of the qirāʾāt education began much earlier.This research aiming to address Taskent’s service as a public servant, his educational activities, and his role in the re-institutionalization of the qirāʾāt education is planned as a qualitative case study. The main problem in the study is whether the appointment of Osman Nuri Taşkent, the chief-imam of the Istanbul Nuruosmaniye Mosque in 1936, as a Qurʾān teacher in Adapazarı is an attempt to establish an institution of qirāʾāt education in the early period of the republic, or not, and the some results are as follows:In the diploma that he awarded Himmet Babalıoğlu who one of his students in Adapazarı, Taşkent presented himself as assigned the teacher and tutor by Turkish Republic for those who want to memorize and learn the Qurʾān as well as to learn qirāʾāt according to books of Shātibiyya and Durra in Adapazarı. This statement shows that his main reason for the leaving Istanbul was qirāʾāt education. Before his appointment to Adapazarı in 1936, Taşkent was giving qirāʾāt education at the Nuruosmaniye Mosque. Accordingly, in his interview with Diyanet Magazine in 1989, Hızal who is one of previous students stated that he had received qirāʾāt education from Taşkent in Nuruosmaniye since the early 1930s. Moreover, in his ratification letter, he stated that Hızal got ratification for Taṣḥīḥ al-Ḥurūf on July 13th, 1933 and qirāʾāt on May 10th, 1935. These statements show that he was occupying with qirāʾāt education in Istanbul. In this case, it is not reasonable to assume that he was appointed in Adapazarı for general Qurʾān teaching.Some documents also clearly reveal that Taşkent went to Adapazarı for qirāʾāt education, and the education he provided there is about qirāʾāt. Six years after Taşkent left Adapazarı, the informative letter which the Adapazarı muftī of the period wrote to the Presidency of Religious Affairs is perhaps the most important document. According to this document, 14 students studied Taṣḥīḥ al-Ḥurūf in Adapazarı graduated under his mentorship. However, it should be immediately stated that “Taṣḥīḥ al-Ḥurūf” in this letter means qirāʾāt education in consideration of that Babalıoğlu and Hızal were among the 14 students. Because Babalıoğlu learned qirāʾāt all of them from Taşkent as in his diploma and Hızal received diploma of Taqrīb. Furthermore, Himmet Babalıoğlu and İsmail Uziş who were the students in Adapazarı submitted their petitions to ask the left position by Taşkent. These petitions are ones of the important documents proving that the process started with Taşkent in Adapazarı was qirāʾāt education. Accordingly, they both addressed their candidacy for Adapazarı Qurʾān teaching by emphasizing their qirāʾāt education and competence in this field.A clear answer may not be given to the question of "Is the appointment of Taşkent as a Qurʾān teacher in Adapazarı individually given to him or is an institution established there?" in the context of his departure. However, some correspondences show that this education was an institutional activity for his period. Then, when it is aimed to identify qirāʾāt education as an institution for its period, the title of “Dār al-Huffāz of Adapazarı” is used and Taşkent is described as “Adapazarı Qurʾān Teacher”. Additionally, as Adapazarı Qurʾān teaching had an institutional quality, one of his students, Himmet Babalıoğlu, was appointed to the relevant position after him. (shrink)

This monograph contrasts two prominent models of education, Competence-Based Education (CBE), more recent and currently dominant in most school systems around the world, and Bildung-Oriented Education (BOE), once the basis of the school systems of Northern Europe. CBE is assessment-oriented and interprets learning as the acquisition of clearly definable and allegedly measurable competences, and is supported by supranational organisations, such as the OECD, which approach education from the perspective of human capital theory. BOE is instead teaching-oriented and characterises learning holistically (...) as aimed at the progressive articulation of a meaningful ‘big picture’ in the student’s mind. Emerged in Northern Europe under the influence of the ideals of the Enlightenment and Neo-Humanism of individual and collective autonomy and responsibility, BOE was subsequently enriched with a hermeneutical approach to teaching and socio-political objectives of emancipation and solidarity originating within Critical Theory. The book first analyses CBE and argues that, in spite of its celebrated ‘scientificity’, it is internally incoherent and unreliable, contributes to structural forms of oppression and injustice, can foster social pathologies, and fails to provide students with the kind of intellectual autonomy they need as both human beings and citizens of our complex post-industrial societies. Then, it introduces BOE and articulates and defends an updated version of it from objections raised by critical theorists, poststructuralists and postcolonial thinkers. It argues that BOE is a coherent and flexible model of education that endows students with autonomy and responsibility, can reduce structural forms of oppression and injustice, and can heal social pathologies. (shrink)

This article seeks to introduce the topics of green schools and sustainability education to the reader as the first article in a series of pieces on such subject matters. With respect to the first essay, the modern historical development of sustainability related education is assessed through the lens of its roots in both the U.S. educational system and the environmental movement. Furthermore, many of the purported benefits of green school construction practices are examined subsequently given their relative importance (...) and popularity with respect to the topic. Finally, a brief but important examination is proffered per several of the philosophical ramifications of these efforts in an effort to further develop the understanding and discussion of such topics and the related series of articles. (shrink)

In its early years the sociology of education was not clearly distinguished from general social philosophy. Spurred by the publication of John Dewey’s_ School and Society_ in 1899, widespread interest in the role of the school as a social institution helped to lay the foundation for the development of educational sociology as a separate field of study. This facsimile set of eight books, selected by the editor, presents early contributions to the development of the sociology of education from the (...) 1920s through to the 1950s - the period in which it emerged as an organized and specialized sub-field of sociology, mainly in the USA. Comprehensive and fascinating, the extensive new introduction to this set places these works firmly in the context of current scholarship, while the nature of the facsimile provides a real sense of immediacy and authenticity for both students and scholars alike. (shrink)

At the centre of this paper is the distinction between a politicised school, and school as a political space. We take note of Papastephanou’s (2005) warning not to make education the passive receiver of political thought. Based on Masschelein and Simons (2013), we criticise the tendency to conceptualise democratic education, particularly agonistic democratic education, as the implementation of political theory in a school context. We draw on their idea of school as free time, to argue that democratic education should envision (...) the classroom as political in itself, that is, as a place for negotiation and renewal, where the ends are not predetermined. When school becomes a place to implement political theory, when it is politicised, then it is stripped of its own political potency. In scholastic terms, it is tamed. In this paper, a fusion of Mouffean agonism with Masschelein and Simons’ conception of school, works to form an understanding of agonistic democratic education as a time and place for the formation of community and for the negotiation of identity, under protection from the non-accountability (Arendt 1961) that characterises scholastic practice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 73-84 [Access article in PDF] Music-Picture:One Form of Synthetic Art Education"Music-picture (a picture drawn through musical perception)" has been widely accepted by art educators in Japan. The purpose of this essay is to propose the making of music-pictures as art education and to put it on afirm theoretical base. I first investigate three gestalt rules: adjacency, continuance, and resemblance, all of which (...) are applicable to the senses of both seeing and hearing. Next I present research on color hearing as one version ofsynaesthesia, which is the comprehensive faculty that binds the five senses in various ways. The well-organized music-picture program by Kaoru Sasaki 1 is introduced as an example. 2 The synthetic art-educational value of music-picture will become clearer through these examinations. The Interrelations between Visual Arts and Music It is exciting that the visual arts meet music in an art class, even if these subjects are entirely different in regard to media, expressive form, the category of perception, and mastery of techniques. Put simply, Picasso's works are visible, whereas Stravinsky's pieces are invisible. Nevertheless, both powerfully convey imaginative and often narrative messages. Relying on intuition alone, I firmly believe both are interchangeable.My research on common methods of organizing both recorded music and painting was my first observation of the mutual relationship between music and visual arts. 3 But what I considered then would not be applied to art class directly because the research was based on my practical experience. It did not have any educational goals. Now I recognize that instructive approaches are necessary to lay the foundation for art classes dealing with interaction between two distinct modalities.In Japan, the Ministry of Education and Science provides the government curriculum guidelines nearly every ten years. It contains descriptions on two subjects: The visual arts and music taught in these classes are at an elementary school level and a junior high school level, both located within a compulsory education system. The new version has been in force since April 2002 (the new school term starts in April in Japan). Objectives in the two educational fields are similar and ideas of what art and music education ought to be are almost the same. The aim common to both in the government curriculum guidelines: "Through expression and appreciation, we [End Page 73] cultivate students' sentiments" invites the linking of music and the visual arts across the curriculum.Many art educators in Japan are interested in this sort of idea and have actually put it into practice. 4 They are engaged in interrelating or even unifying music and the visual arts. Additionally I know other teachers who have designed and proposed many ideas toward this crossover. Listed below are general ideas that seek to combine visual arts with music in an art class.1) Music-picture: to make a pictorial description of impressions received from music.2) Sound map: to make a map of sounds heard at a given location. Each sound is visualized by simple marks like - - -, <<<, ~~~, ooo, and xxx.3) Graphic notation: to write a score which directs the details, whole form, and progression of music by graphics instead of staff notation. Using onomatopoeias or instructions by words are common. It can be improvised, based on intuitively translating visual impacts into sounds.4) Sound toy: to make an original musical instrument of familiar easil obtained materials. For instance, a corrugated cardboard ukulele whose strings are rubber bands, a pair of maracas made of empty cans and soybeans, and so forth.5) Sound sculpture: to make sculpture producing interesting sounds (sometimes noises like creak or clatter). Extensive genres: wood sculpture, metal construction, assemblage (junk arts), kinetic arts, and so on.6) Sound installation: to make a place where participants experience sounds generated by objects or equipment.7) Multimedia: in the broad sense, to mix visuals with music; noises like jingle, tap, and bang! in daily life, or natural environmental sounds like a pit-a-pat of falling rain, a whisper of leaves, or... (shrink)

Shame, shame management and reintegrative shaming feature in some restorative justice literature, and may have implications for schools. Restorative justice in schools is effective when perpetrators of wrong-doing can accept and take ownership of their wrongful acts, are appropriately remorseful, and seek to make amends. Shame may be understood as an ethical matter if it is regarded to arise because of the contradiction between the wrongful act and the individual’s sense of self and self-worth. Shame management (that is, (...) seeking reintegrative over stigmatising shaming) can be regarded to reflect a form of social responsibility as it contributes to community restoration by repairing ruptured social relationships. The notion of shaming and acknowledgement of harm thus assumes norms of acceptable community behaviour, attitudes and relationships, and is therefore also an ethical matter. Successful restorative practices in schools depend on the school-wide existence and practice of such norms, and mesh with virtues education, stimulated by the contemporary demand of many national curricula to promote so-called key competencies. Although the concepts of restorative justice and reintegrative shaming serve as a context for this article, its chief impetus was provided by an evaluative study of a group of New Zealand schools, in the course of which notions such as shame, reintegration and exclusion became evident. The chief purpose of this article is to consider and problematise shame from the perspective of the philosophy of education, and ask whether the concept of shame has a place in schools, whose important aims ought to include the development of democratic citizenship. (shrink)

The author is an academic educationist, and this book clearly distinguishes between religious education and religious indoctrination. It is concerned with the philosophy of religious education and is designed to acquaint the reader with the main issues involved in the debate that surrounds the place of religious education in the curriculum of the public school system in Nigeria. His contention is that religious educators, as with other disciplines, should present the subject matter as a legitimate object of enquiry capable of (...) yielding knowledge and understanding. Amongst topics covered are knowledge and truth; justification of religious education, its aims, the role of the bible, modern educational methods, indoctrination and commitment, and religious education in a pluralist society. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:“Destined to Fail”: Carl Seashore’s World of Eugenics, Psychology, Education, and Music by Julia Eklund KozaJune Boyce-TillmanJulia Eklund Koza, “Destined to Fail”: Carl Seashore’s World of Eugenics, Psychology, Education, and Music (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2021)This is a difficult book to read not only because of its length but also its content. While reading the history of eugenics and how it played out in the (...) invention of the holocaust, I found myself feeling the nausea that I similarly feel when embarking on Margaret Attwood’s Handmaid’s Tale. I also remembered how I had used the Seashore tests of musical ability in my time teaching in London primary schools. I was faced with a common problem in UK State schools–three places for violin tuition and twenty children seeking them. The Seashore tests appeared to be the answer to the problem. The claims made for them were that they would tell me which children were likely to succeed because they had more musical ability than others. It was only in the process of using them that I realized that this was an unjustified claim. Conversations with John Sloboda revealed two other aspects that might play out in musical success. One was a moment/event which made a person fall in love with a particular instrument and want to learn it. The other was the amount of time a person would put in to practice the instrument, which in many London contexts with high-rise flats and no soundproofing [End Page 83] was extremely difficult. All that the Seashore tests showed was the third aspect involved in engagement with music, which was the ability to recognize the musical patterns of a particular culture. But what this book shows us so clearly is the danger of rating this ability to grasp the musical patterns of the Western classical musical traditions as the totality of musical ability. Beneath this is the belief that some people are innately musical but, more significantly, others are not. In my experience, musicality is a difficult area in our UK culture; people are more likely to say that they are not musical in a way that they would not in relation to any other academic discipline such as English, geography or history. In many educational contexts, I have pointed out that, if a teacher believes that some students are musical and some are not, then it is unethical to have class music lessons for everyone in the curriculum. Helpfully, in the final chapter of the book, some of these shades from the past, that still color contemporary thinking about music education, are clearly set out.To turn to the book itself, the first chapter sets out Seashore’s life as a “Mendelian hereditarian who believed that musical talent is biologically inheritable, differently bestowed, and immutable.”1 The author contextualizes the belief system in which this is rooted, discussing the American Eugenics Society, the best baby contests, and the “great man” narratives of the early to mid-twentieth century (first set out in Galton’s idea of genius). Seashore’s legacy figures in a number of academic fields, including audiology, aesthetics, educational reform, the American Psychological Society, and the National Academy of Sciences. She hopes to initiate a debate about how eugenics has, and still does have, a part in stories of both music education and education generally. She situates her work in a view of “‘the past’ as a dynamic construct created and recreated in the present.”2 She sets up a different way of remembering the past by acknowledging that past, present, and future are culturally constructed and bounded, in which she uses Foucault’s concept of power.3 She considers the role of “solid” science in supporting both eugenics and its responsibility for the Holocaust. I would recommend that anyone embarking on historical musicology read this chapter to understand the complex mechanisms which need to underpin such study.My own academic research has been about deconstructing the patriarchal values that filled my own miseducation in music history. The legacy of Galton’s construction of genius dominated my music education and when I took my professorial... (shrink)

Education as identity formation in Western-style liberal-democracies relies, in part, on neutrality as a justification for the reproduction of collective individual identity, including societal, cultural, institutional and political identities, many aspects of which are problematic in terms of the reproduction of environmentally harmful attitudes, beliefs and actions. Taking a position on an issue necessitates letting go of certain forms of neutrality, as does effectively teaching environmental education. We contend that to claim a stance of neutrality is to claim a position (...) beyond criticism. In the classroom this can also be an epistemically damaging position to hold. To further explore the problem of neutrality in the classroom, and to offer a potential solution, we will look to the philosophical community of inquiry pedagogy, and advocate for the addition of place-based education; a form of experiential education that promotes learning in local communities in which the school is situated, each with its own history, culture, economy and environment. However, how we understand ‘place’ is fundamental to understanding the potential of place-based education in giving students a ‘sense of place’—how they perceive a place, which includes place attachment and place meaning. To this end, we look to Indigenous understandings of Place and social reconstruction learning to inform place-based pedagogies. Doing so, we hold, opens a pathway to ethical education. (shrink)

The article presents partial results of nationwide research devoted to teaching ethics. It discusses the place of ethics in the Polish education system and the development trends visible since its introduction (1991). When it comes to legislature, acts and ordinances of the Minister of National Education were analyzed. Next to legal acts also judgments of the Constitutional Tribunal, regulating the principles of teaching and assessing the subject of ethics, were discussed. An important aspect of these regulations, due to their practical (...) consequences, is the positioning of ethics as an alternative to the religious education. Statistical data were also analyzed, allowing for a nationwide assessment of the development of interest in the ethics as a subject of school teaching – an increase in the number of schools in which the subject of ethics is taught (depending on the stage of education and the type of school), as well as an increase in the number of full-time equivalent for ethics teachers. The last-mentioned increase, although significant since 2014, is nevertheless small in absolute numbers; ethics still remains a niche subject. Over the years, one can observe an improvement in its status and an increase in social demand. However, the current definition of ethics as an optional subject means that the level of participation still remains low. (shrink)

BackgroundOver the last decades there has been a change in the way schooling is perceived recognizing that children’s learning is closely linked to children’s health. Children spend most of their time at school, which is often the place where problems are identified and interventions are offered, not only for treatment but also prevention. Embedding arts therapies into the educational system may help address children’s emerging needs and have a positive impact on their wellbeing.MethodsA pilot cross-over randomized controlled design was (...) employed to investigate the effectiveness of an arts therapies intervention on a series of child- and teacher-reported outcome measures, specifically, health related quality of life, wellbeing and life functioning, emotional and behavioral difficulties, as well as duration of sleep. Sample size calculations for future large-scale studies were also performed, and the sustained impact of the intervention was evaluated at 3, 6, and 12 months follow-up. The pluralistic theoretical and therapeutic framework of this intervention was informed by a systematic review on school-based arts therapies interventions and is presented in detail in the study protocol. Participants were 62 children with mild emotional and behavioral difficulties.ResultsImprovements in HRQOL and CORS were greater in those engaged in the arts therapies intervention than the control groups and were maintained at the follow-up stages. Significant improvements were only found for duration of sleep and SDQ. Minimal clinically important differences as defined in the published protocol were found for CORS, SDQ and duration of sleep, but not HRQOL.DiscussionFindings indicate that the arts therapies interventions were having a clinically significant effect on life functioning, duration of sleep, emotional and behavioral difficulties. Findings also indicate a small effect size for health related quality of life, suggesting the intervention was having a small positive effect on this outcome measure. The study indicates that all outcome measures assessed here would be suitable for inclusion in a larger randomized controlled study utilizing these arts therapies interventions, and that a sample size of 225 participants would be required if these outcome measures were used. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Remixing the Classroom: Toward an Open Philosophy of Music Education by Randall Everett AllsupJuliet HessRandall Everett Allsup, Remixing the Classroom: Toward an Open Philosophy of Music Education (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2016).As a leading voice in music education, Randall Allsup works continually to reconceptualize music education toward democratic and socially just praxis.1 He routinely challenges the field to become self-conscious of practices that limit forward movement, providing (...) powerful critiques2 and urging music education toward open possibilities.3 Remixing the Classroom: Toward an Open Philosophy of Music Education is work that will shift our field. His comprehensive philosophy of music education looks, longs, for moral openings4 through which twenty-first-century music education may become a space of possibility. His writing interweaves stories and theory toward what he calls an "open philosophy," drawing upon the ideas of John Dewey, Maxine Greene, and Roland Barthes. Allsup introduces stories of Dapper Dan, Jiro Ono, Kafka, Atul Gawande, and the Orpheus Orchestra in New York City to illustrate powerful points about current and possible paradigms of music education.Chapter 1, "Toward Open Encounters," discusses the making and breaking of the law (tradition) and explores how tradition and the Master-Apprentice model restrict what is possible in music education. Allsup explores the nature of music education and the limitations it places upon its participants. Chapter 2, "Music-Teacher Quality and Expertise," asks fundamental questions of our field and [End Page 100] explores and challenges the "place and purpose of public schooling in a democratic society."5 Allsup speaks to the function of education and critiques music education. Chapter 3, "learning in laboratories," puts forward a Deweyan laboratory model in which a museum is at the center of the school with learning laboratories situated around it. He explores what this structural fluidity might enable and develops notions of lawmaking and lawbreaking, extending possibilities of the open encounter. The final chapter, "looking, Longing, for Moral Openings," calls on music educators to embrace a more open music education paradigm. Allsup draws upon Greene to challenge music education to move "from the predictable to the possible."6 He puts forward the Orpheus Orchestra, a conductorless orchestra, as one possibility.I situate myself as an anti-racist, anti-colonial, feminist scholar rooted in anti-oppression scholarship.7 locating my review through this framework, I elaborate upon what I see as the major strengths and limitations of this work, drawing upon Judith Butler8 and postcolonial theory. significantly, Allsup's book calls upon music education to "give an account of [it]self" and promotes a self-consciousness crucial for our field in the age of high stakes accountability measures. I contend that he provides a music education philosophy for what stuart Hall terms the "postcolonial moment"9 and ultimately positions music education as a space of possibility. Alongside these strengths, I offer a challenge toward what I view as the open possibilities of closed forms and a critique of his "pedagogy of travel and surprise."Judith Butler points to the impossibility of giving an account of oneself. she notes,I speak as an 'I,' but do not make the mistake of thinking that I know precisely all that I am doing when I speak in that way. I find that my very formation implicates the other and me, that my own foreignness to myself is, paradoxically, the source of my ethical connection with others.10Butler notes the subject's "partial opacity to [her]self."11 In Remixing the Classroom, Allsup calls upon music educators to account for the practices and traditions continually reinscribed in the field. He poses challenging but fundamental questions in the work in music education, asking readers to consider what they do unconsciously. Butler asserts we can never fully account for ourselves. Allsup challenges the field to try, pushing music educators to face hard truths and limitations of what music education is and has been. In chapter 1, for example, he argues:To call a studying musician "unmusical" is to extinguish a light; it is to act as if the future is certain and that human potential is somehow fixed. It is to act [End Page 101... (shrink)

In many places around the world the modern school is under a relentless pressure to perform and the standards for such performance are increasingly being set by the global education measurement industry. All this puts a pressure on schools, teachers and students but also on policy makers and politicians, who all seem to have been caught up in a global educational rat-race. There is a discourse of panic about educational quality, which seems to drive an insatiable (...) need for improvement, geared towards ever narrower definitions of what counts as education and what counts in education. The surprising result is that the modern school is increasingly seen as a problem, with high levels of dissatisfaction amongst teachers, students, politicians, the media and the public at large, who all want something better from the school, although they disagree about what this may look like. The question this raises is whether it is time to give up on the modern schools and its promise and hand it over to Pearson, Google and other educational capitalists, or whether we should try again and, if so, where we might go. The reflections I offer in this paper are primarily meant to think again about the relationship between the school and society, arguing for a more ‘obstinate’ school and a more ‘patient’ society. I argue that whether such a recalibration of the relationship between school and society is possible, is ultimately a test of the democratic quality of society itself. (shrink)

This paper explores an important yet overlooked aspect of Philosophy for Children : how children experience competitiveness in the Community of Philosophical Inquiry. It describes a qualitative case study conducted with 76 young people involved in CPI dialogues in formal and informal educational settings in Canada and New Zealand. Interviews and video observation revealed that participants often experienced dialogues as competitive exchanges in which ‘winning’ consisted of convincing others, while giving in to others’ opinions was associated with defeat and (...) disappointment. Participants recognised the potential dangers of competitiveness, notably the epistemic risk of excluding alternative perspectives and the social risk of damaging their relationships. Participants often successfully managed competitive dynamics by remaining engaged and open-minded. The last part of the paper discusses these findings in relation to theoretical work in P4C, notably Kennedy’s notion of the CPI as a ‘place of agon.’ Further, it argues that we should rethink the role of competitiveness in the CPI while remaining mindful of its risks, notably by considering its potential as a motivational drive and its place within a larger process of inquiry. (shrink)

The body of research on civic education points to the importance of teachers creating open democratic environments, leading to what has been termed the political classroom. This yearlong study of an Israeli multicultural and bilingual high school civics course, in which students from different citizenship status participated, presents a case in which teachers were unsuccessful in achieving this goal, raising the question of what limited this class's potential to create an educational environment where democratic discourses could have taken place? (...) The main argument points to Israel's current disputative political environment that led to the enactment of four educational mechanisms that resulted in such a futile reality. These included: conflicting objectives, avoiding discussion of controversial issues, implementing traditional teaching practices, and overlooking language issues. The neo-liberal educational environment and a culture of fear and self-censorship were both identified as a common explanation to these, leading to an educational reality in which there was a detach between the lessons and the students’ transcultural lived political experiences. From a methodological perspective, the study illuminates the importance of focusing on such unsuccessful cases, examining their elements, and understanding what influences them. (shrink)

In this essay I refer to eros as the force that plays on our bodies and connects us to the larger community of life, an embodied form of love that charges the will towards well-being. Analyzing the ways that eros can be engaged and expressed in the "commons" as a life sustaining force, I look to current, on-the-ground work being done in Detroit, MI where a grassroots network of artists, community-builders, educators and neighborhood folk are revitalizing their city. Linking this (...) work and the love I experienced with them to childhood experiences in my own homeplace in northern New York State, I argue for the development of eco-ethical consciousness within an erotic "poetics of place" where the natural world speaks to us within our interpretive, expressive efforts. Finally, in an explication of education as those generative relations that are specifically oriented towards well-being, I look to the relation among eros, language and the creation of the commons as a critical educational endeavor. If we are to stem the tide of ecological destruction now upon us, we will need educators in public schools who recognize and are able to create classroom practices that encourage an "eco-erosic love" and thus inspire students who can protect the fragile relationship of their human communities to the ecosystems upon which we depend. (shrink)

The self is a historical and cultural phenomenon in the sense of a dialectically evolving narrative construct about who we are, what our borders and limits and capacities are, what is pathology, and what is normality, and so on. These ontological and epistemological narratives are usually linked to grand explanatory narratives like science and religion, and are intimately linked to cosmological pictures. The “intersubject” is an emergent form of subjectivity in our time which reconstructs its borders to include the (...) other, and which understands itself as always building and being built through a combination of internal and external dialogue. The shift from monological to dialogical discourse is both a product and a producer of the intersubject, and is in turn made possible by a shift—underway for the last one hundred years or so—in the human information environment. The major educational innovation which reconstructs theory and practice for the intersubject—community of philosophical inquiry (CPI)—assumes, following field and systems theory, that any group gathered together is an interactive system. It also assumes that the fundamental forms of growth and development both of the individual and of the collective take place through a process of communal deliberative inquiry into meaning, resulting in the reconstruction of beliefs, values, and discourses on both an individual and a collective level. CPI is a process in which subject and object are both active and passive, shaping and being shaped, determining and determined, in and through their transaction. It assumes that its interlocutors are in a relation of both mutual and self-interrogation. As the phenomenon of the intersubject gains credence in human culture, philosophy is gaining power as an educational idea in the elementary and high school classroom. Communal philosophical dialogue is the discursive space where the subject’s fundamental assumptions about self, world, knowledge, belief, beauty, right action and normative ideals enter a dialectical process of confrontation, mediation, and reconstruction. (shrink)

Place-based education is founded on the idea that the student’s local community is one of their primary learning resources. Place-based education’s underlying educational principle is that students need to first have an experiential understanding of the history, culture, and ecology of the environment in which they are situated before tackling broader national and global issues. Such attempts are a step in the right direction in dealing with controversial issues in a democracy by providing resources for synthesising curriculum though theory (...) (curriculum content, including traditional subjects) and practice (practical learning as experiential education). Nevertheless, many place-based accounts discount Indigenous conceptions of place, which are integral to Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, especially in relation to the ontological relationship to Land and Country. Indigenous philosophy has the potential to inform what place-based education means by students developing a ‘sense of place’ when engaging with local communities as their ‘own’ place. In this article we re-imagine the community of inquiry as a place-responsive pedagogy by learning from Indigenous philosophy, and recentring Indigenous notions of place in experiential learning. In addition to exploring the pedagogical potential of a place-responsive account of the community of inquiry, we look to the implications for teacher preparation. (shrink)

At a time of pedagogical exhaustion, this article wants to imagine ways to redeem education, to spare education from its unaccomplished promises, reinvent and renew its vows, and make it somehow work towards possible futures. But how can this be done when there is no longer the old inherited faith in a direction of history with an end, no ‘telos’ nor faith that educational institutions will inevitably move societies forwards? Is there any ‘after’ if the arrow of history points (...) in no direction? What can we collectively expect from education if we have no assurance that schooling can lead to anything better than what we are now, or that caring for truth will make people freer? In place of the modernist idea of progress, the alternative narrative that is being offered to school systems and teachers is what I will describe as the ‘innovation paradigm’. Within this framework what we are, what we have, and what is in place are presented as declining, inadequate, and unsatisfactory. This narrative has become so powerful that from a ‘pedagogical popular culture’ perspective it has turned into the mainstream way of thinking about our educational institutions, practices, and hopes. Would it not, however, be more pedagogically productive to speak of ‘variation’ instead of ‘innovation’? Might this be the potential path for redeeming education after progress? [Editorial note: this paper forms part of the suite of papers entitled ‘Education After Progress’.]. (shrink)

The emerging discipline of educational neuroscience stands at a crossroads between those who see great promise in integrating neuroscience and education and those who see the disciplinary divide as insurmountable. However, such tension is at least partly due to the hitherto predominance of philosophy and theory over the establishment of concrete mechanisms and agents of change. If educational neuroscience is to move forward and emerge as a distinct discipline in its own right, the traditional boundaries and methods must (...) be bridged, and an infrastructure must be in place that allows for collaborative and productive exchange. In the present paper, we argue that school psychologists have the potential to fulfill this need and represent important agents of change in establishing better connections between research and practice. More specifically, we use theNational Association of School Psychologists (NASP) (2020)Domains of Practice to highlight several areas where school psychology can actively support forging connections between neuroscience and educational practice. School psychologists represent untapped potential in their knowledge, skillset, and placement to serve a vital role in building the bridge between neuroscience and education. (shrink)

Life education, also known as life and death education, is an important subject in Taiwan with institutions offering degree programs and courses that focus on quality learning and implementation of life education. What is interesting from the perspective of Taiwanese Education is that the teaching of life education also incorporates a number of Eastern-derived and conceptualized tenets, for example, Buddhist teaching and the importance of spiritual wisdom. This premise contends then that life education in Taiwan, in general, is concerned with (...) the promotion, fulfillment, and cherishing of quality life experiences (e.g., personal contentment, happiness). One example of life education, which resonates with other spiritual beliefs and religious faiths (e.g., Hinduism), is related to spiritual cultivation and the enlightenment of life wisdom. Our own teaching of the subject, likewise, places emphasis on the goal of teaching students to seek meaningful understanding of and appreciation for three major, interrelated components of life education: life wisdom, life practice, and life care. Life education is a beneficial subject as its theoretical understanding may help individuals cope with pathologies and negative life experiences. One negative life experience, in this case, is the ultimate fate of humankind: death. Approaching death and/or the onset of grief is something that we all have to experience. How does one approach death? It is not easy feat and, of course, grief for a loved one is personal and some of us struggle with this. We contend that spiritual cultivation and enlightenment, arising from life education, may assist us with the coping of death (e.g., the possibility of transcendence beyond the realm of life). Forming the premise of the present article, we propose that a person’s ‘spiritual and enlightened self’, reflecting the convergence of three major aspects of life education (i.e., Philosophical reflection, Enrichment of personal well-being, and Spiritual cultivation), would result in the initiation and creation of a number of virtues and positive characteristics – for example: having a positive outlook in life, showing compassion, forgiveness, etc. These virtues and quality characteristics, from our philosophical reasoning, are equivalent to those qualities that positive psychology advocates for. (shrink)

Although rituals are considered central to human life, scholarship on rituals in music education is sparse. This may be due to a more general emphasis on the individual and private at the expense of the social and public aspects of music in education. This article highlights the educational value of school rituals in festivities and celebrations, arguing that there is a need to revisit the idea of musical performance as ritual from an educational perspective. By leaning on anthropological (...) viewpoints, musical performances in school rituals are seen as having a central place in youth life and as revealing a school's core values: rituals are considered as social arenas where students can enact who they are and gain implicit knowledge that guides them on an embodied way. They also aid students to explore, affirm, and celebrate their important life relationships. School rituals, however, involve a pedagogical paradox: they not only manifest traditional values and the prevailing order, but may also reflect and actively promote desired changes. Therefore, school rituals and musical performances in rituals should be constantly re-evaluated from an educational perspective so that they can function as critical educational-culture machineries for conscious change. (shrink)

Education is a field that evolves constantly in relation to the changes in the society and the needs of its beneficiaries, taking over and adapting functional models from other fields. The quality of education of today’s generations has a direct impact on the future, as tomorrow's adults need to have strong key competences, but also transversal competences needed in a dynamic and competitive labour market. Thus, the knowledge society implies opening up the education system to other social sectors, exploiting the (...) paradigm of student-centred education, harnessing technology and virtual environments to create authentic learning and training contexts. Within this framework, educational coaching can be a means through which the individual potential of the learner can be discovered and optimised, with multiple benefits in personal, academic and professional terms. In order to achieve academic success, students need to know themselves, set short-, medium- and long-term goals and objectives, develop skills and competences in autonomous learning, communication, self-motivation, creative and critical thinking, emotion management etc. Through coaching activities, students can benefit from academic support and help in the process of self-discovery and personal development, optimising personal potential, collaborating and creating educational communities that share common goals and values. Placing the teacher in the position of a coach, this can contribute to the development of a multifaceted perspective related to the role of the teacher in the contemporary school, as a student’s partner in the process of his or her education. The present paper aims to explore students’ perceptions concerning the need for coaching activities in their academic life and to identify the students’ main needs and directions for optimizing actions and interventions. (shrink)

The strength of the ideological explosion of the beginning of the last century, which led to the destruction of the principles of structural-matrix thinking, standard-stereotyped behavior, undoubtedly also reached the education system. However, according to the author’s opinion, the reason for the beginning of transformations in the sphere of education is not an external impact on the education system. External factors of influence, undoubtedly, contributed to the corrosion of the shell of the education system, but the breakthrough of “mantle of (...) education” could occur due to the centrifugal force of the accumulated internal energy. The boundaries of the closed educational space were unable to keep the critical mass of problems accumulated in education. The implosion of education, as one of the most inertial social systems, was inevitable.If the changes that have taken place in the societies of European countries in the New Age, in particular, led to the transition to a new type of university with a new content, while maintaining its old form, the changes that are currently observed, both in the higher and school education, attest to the gradual destruction of the form of educational institutions, their disclosure from within. The evidence of that is cloud schools, flipped classroom, flipped learning, MOOC with its educational resources and teaching methods: Podcast, Vodcast, Pre-Vodcasting. Despite criticism from representatives of the classical educational system, the popularity of modern teaching models continues to grow. (shrink)

This conversation offers a discussion of the meaning, sense and social function of school, both as an institution and as a time-space for the practice of schole . It also discusses the different types of Greek time : Schole is, as aion or childhood, a further emergence, a radicalization of school as an experimental zone of subjectivity and of collectivity. Schole is, as aion or childhood, a further emergence, a radicalization of school as an experimental zone of subjectivity and of (...) collectivity. The source of this radicalization is philosophy, to the extent that the philosophical impulse turns us inward upon ourselves in the interest, not of techniques for the enhancement of productive time, but of an emergent new brain: in the interest of new values, new sensibilities, new capacities, new connections, new centers of meaning, new bodies. Today we are in a global situation—the situation of late capitalism and late empire—in which school turns upon and ruthlessly suppresses schole, which distorts their relation almost beyond recognition. There is a struggle between school as a more efficient, far-reaching vehicle for the technical transformation of the chore curriculum, and schole as utopia. The paper also examines the place of childhood in educational discourse, and some critiques of the practice of community of philosophical inquiry in schools are considered as well as the role of questions and questioning in both philosophy and schooling. Finally, it problematizes the role of philosophy in school and in scholé: if the role of philosophy in schole is an active one, even an activist one, then the role of the child in producing dikaiosyne in school as scholé should be no less active. The conversation ends with some questions: in what way is the philosophical life preferable to the political life? Why are the politics of philosophy worth any more than the politics of the political order? (shrink)

The term ‘space’ is inherently geographical. Educational provision and activity takes place within spaces ranging from a room at home or in a school to a campus to an administrative area which could be a state within a country, a whole country or a group of countries. Such spaces are known as geographical surfaces. Within these spaces the process of learning and teaching takes place at particular points that are often nodes in a network which may be formal, such (...) as a group of schools or universities, or non-formal, such as in cyberspace. Understanding what goes on depends on the scale at which it is observed, ranging from individuals to global outreach. Altogether, this constitutes the geography of educational reality. This comprehensive volume includes a theoretical background, plus a sample of situations including school level, policy and administration, inequitable access, education hubs, and small states. It offers an introduction to a relatively neglected member of the family of education foundation disciplines, the geography of education. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Comparative Education. _. (shrink)

Educational theorists may be right to suggest that providing mindfulness training in schools can challenge oppressive pedagogies and overcome Western dualism. Before concluding that this training is liberatory, however, one must go beyond pedagogy and consider schooling’s role in enacting the educational neurofuture envisioned by mindfulness discourse. Mindfulness training, this article argues, is a biopolitical human enhancement strategy. Its goal is to insulate youth from pathologies that stem from digital capitalism’s economisation of attention. I use Bernard Stiegler’s (...) Platonic depiction of the ambiguousness of all attention channelling mechanisms as pharmaka—containing both poison and cure—to suggest that this training is a double-edged sword. Does the inculcation of mindfulness in schoolchildren empower them; or is it merely an exercise in pathology-proofing them in their capacity as the next generation of unpaid digital labourers? The answer, I maintain, depends on whether young people can use the Internet’s political potentialities to mitigate the exploitation of their unpaid online labour time. That is, on whether the exploitative ‘digital pharmakon’—the capitalistic Web—can at the same time be socio-politically curative. (shrink)

This Handbook provides an interdisciplinary discussion on the role and complexity of ethics in education. Its central aim is to democratise scholarship by highlighting diverse voices, ideas, and places. It is organised into three sections, each examining ethics from a different perspective: ethics and education historically; ethics within institutional practice, and emerging ethical frameworks in education. Important questions are raised and discussed, such as the role of past ethical traditions in contemporary education, how educators should confront ethical dilemma, how (...) schools should be organised to serve all children, and how pluralism, democracy, and technology impact ethics in education. It offers new insights and opportunities for renewal in the complex and often contentious task of ethics and education. (shrink)