Until recently, little attention has been paid in the school classroom to creationism and almost none to intelligent design. However, creationism and possibly intelligent design appear to be on the increase and there are indications that there are more countries in which schools are becoming battle-grounds over them. I begin by examining whether creationism and intelligent design are controversial issues, drawing on Robert Dearden's epistemic criterion of the controversial and more recent responses to and defences of this. I then examine (...) whether the notion of ‘worldviews’ in the context of creationism is a useful one by considering the film March of the Penguins. I conclude that the ‘worldviews’ perspective on creationism is useful for two reasons: first it indicates the difficulty of using the criterion of reason to decide whether an issue is controversial or not; secondly, it suggests that standard ways of addressing the diversity of student views in a science classroom may be inadequate. I close by examining the implications of this view for teaching in science lessons and elsewhere, for example in religious education lessons and citizenship lessons and at primary level where subject divisions cannot be made in so clear-cut a manner. (shrink)

Evolution is often seen as a site of contestation within the school curriculum. The topic of evolution is therefore often considered to be ‘controversial’. I first examine what is meant by ‘controversial’ and conclude that while, in an everyday sense, the topic of evolution can indeed be considered to be controversial, this term can mislead. A more fruitful way forward may be to regard the topic of evolution as ‘sensitive’. I examine reasons why evolution might be considered sensitive – noting (...) that for a not inconsiderable number of people it is so because of a perceived conflict with religious views and also because it may be existentially disturbing for some. Rather little attention has been paid in the philosophy of education literature as to how we might deal with sensitive issues. I therefore look at what we mean by describing an issue as sensitive and at how teachers might deal in the classroom with such issues, specifically evolution. (shrink)

Legitimate parental interests need to be distinguished from any putative rights parents qua parents may be said to possess. Parents have no right to insulate their children from conceptions of the good at variance with those of their own. Claims to the right to faith schools, private schools, home-schooling or to withdraw a child from any aspect of the curriculum designed to enhance a child’s capacity for autonomous decision-making, are refuted.

What is the future of Philosophy of education? Or as many of scholars and thinkers in this final ‘future-focused’ collective piece from the philosophy of education in a new key Series put it, what are the futures—plural and multiple—of the intersections of ‘philosophy’ and ‘education?’ What is ‘Philosophy’; and what is ‘Education’, and what role may ‘enquiry’ play? Is the future of education and philosophy embracing—or at least taking seriously—and thinking with Indigenous ethicoontoepistemologies? And, perhaps most importantly, what is that (...) ‘Future’? These debates have been located in the work of diverse scholars: from the West, from Global South, from indigenous thinkers. In this collective piece, we purposefully juxtapose diverse takes on the future of these intersections. We have given up the urge to organise, place together, separate with subheadings or connect the paragraphs that follow. Instead, we let these philosophers of education and thinkers who use philosophical texts and ideas to sit together in one long read as potentially ‘strange and unusual bedfellows’. This text urges us to understand how these scholars and thinkers perceive our educational philosophical futures, and how the work and thinking they have done on thinking about what the future of that new key in philosophy of education may look like is embedded in a much deeper and richer literature, and personal experience. (shrink)

Since the establishment of the National Council for Vocational Qualfications (NCVQ) in 1986, the influence of the competence-based approach, which underpins National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs), has spread beyond its original remit and now extends into schools and higher education. Competence strategies are criticised for their conceptual imprecision and their behaviourist, foundation. More significantly, it is argued that the competence approach displays confusion and incoherence in its interpretation and use of the ideas of ‘knowledge’ and ‘understanding’, and so should be challenged (...) and resisted by educators committed to these values. (shrink)

The role of critique in the Anglophone analytical tradition of philosophy of education is outlined and some of its shortcomings are noted, particularly its apparent claim to methodological objectivity in arriving at what are clearly contestable positions about the normative basis of education. Many of these issues can be seen to have a long history within European, and especially German, philosophy of education. In the light of this the discussion moves on to a consideration of similarities and contrasts between the (...) Anglophone and German-inspired deployment of the concept of critical rationality in philosophy of education. The claims to objectivity of the Anglophone tradition are contrasted with a more self-conscious concern for social justice and improvement in other European traditions, which has been followed more recently by a greater scepticism concerning the potential of critique for delivering social justice and improvement in education. This has parallels with the growing Anglophone disillusion with ‘classical’ analytic philosophy of education. This in turn has resulted in a greater awareness of the limitations of critique: its ideological character, its rootedness in specific contexts, its own potential dogmatism and its ambiguities. The various contributions to this volume are briefly described and related to each other. (shrink)

In this inaugural lecture, delivered at the University of Birmingham in January 2014, I sketch the outline of a theory of moral education. The theory is an attempt to resolve the tension between two thoughts widely entertained by teachers, policy-makers and the general public. The first thought is that morality must be learned: children must come to see what morality requires of them and acquire the motivation to submit to its authority. The second thought is that morality is controversial: there (...) is deep uncertainty about both the requirements of morality and the reasons to comply with them. I draw distinctions between two kinds of moral education and between two kinds of moral inquiry . I argue that some basic moral standards are robustly justified and that schools should promote subscription to these standards by means of both moral formation and directive moral inquiry. (shrink)

The sensitive nature of certain controversies is particularly problematic for teaching across difference. Questions as to what makes a controversy sensitive and how care and empathy are implicated in discussing it are considered through examples connected to the author’s own practice and in light of the traditional rationalist concept of critical spirit and feminist strong reflexivity. The suggestion is made that discussing sensitive controversy requires a ‘doubled view’ and that this is needed at all levels of inquiry.

ABSTRACT The article criticizes certain subjectivist and isolationist stances on controversial issues, and construes the teaching of controversial issues as an interpersonal task. On this view the teacher (1) encourages students to enter into the perspectives of others; (2) establishes points of contact which make reasoned discourse possible; and (3) inducts students into a wider domain where they are provided with knowledge about controversies as well as the skills for handling those controversies. All of this requires considerable intervention on the (...) part of the teacher. Current doubts about such intervention are unjustified. (shrink)

Charles Clark; Why Teachers Need Philosophy, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 23, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 241–252, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-.

There are renewed claims that thinking, or important aspects of it, should be conceived in terms of certain general powers, skills or competencies which should be taught as such. Some possibilities for confusion within this view are identified and it is argued that its undoubted attractions must be weighed against certain severe dangers, particularly with regard to how it may predispose us to conceive of content and its role in thinking. Some implications for teaching of a view of thinking that (...) affirms the sanctity of content are sketched. (shrink)

John N Andrews; General Thinking Skills: are there such things?, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 24, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 71–79, https://doi.o.