This paper rethinks the fostering task of the teacher in a time when it, paradoxically, has tended to become marginalized and privatized despite its public urgency. Following post-holocaust thinkers such as Hannah Arendt and Zygmunt Bauman, the position explored here is radical in the sense that it takes ‘the crisis of traditions’ and the erosion of a common moral ground or value basis seriously, and it is conservative in the sense that it insists on responding educationally to the call from (...) the past by returning to the moral character of our existence and our own embeddedness in the incompleteness of living traditions. The argument is that there is a difference between educating for common values—which entails a belief in pre-existing commonalities—and making values common in and through education. The latter, we argue, entails an aspiration for continuously creating new commonalities and for cultivating the ability to act and judge as a thinking moral agent in specific, lived and worldly cases. In this sense, the fostering task of the teacher is to create commonality of what is not common, turning the liberal democratic values of the past into contested objects of study. (shrink)

This second companion volume on engineering studies considers engineering practice including contextual analyses of engineering identity, epistemologies and values. Key overlapping questions examine such issues as an engineering identity, engineering self-understandings enacted in the professional world, distinctive characters of engineering knowledge and how engineering science and engineering design interact in practice. -/- Authors bring with them perspectives from their institutional homes in Europe, North America, Australia\ and Asia. The volume includes 24 contributions by more than 30 authors from engineering, the (...) social sciences and the humanities. Additional issues the chapters scrutinize include prominent norms of engineering, how they interact with the values of efficiency or environmental sustainability. A concluding set of articles considers the meaning of context more generally by asking if engineers create their own contexts or are they created by contexts. -/- Taken as a whole, this collection of original scholarly work is unique in its broad, multidisciplinary consideration of the changing character of engineering practice. (shrink)

The faith in progress that propelled the West for over four centuries is in decline due to its own success. The emergence of capitalism with its novel market imperatives has created both the poverty that causes political crises and the material growth that has destabilized the Earth’s climate. There is a growing sense that we are dominated by the technologies and social organizations that we hoped would liberate us. Individualism and secularity have left people feeling isolated and without a sense (...) of higher purpose, leading some to reject Enlightenment values in favor of traditionalisms and even neofascism. In universities, faculty struggle to prove their utility and relevance, because they cannot guarantee their graduates a decent living in a world of automation and globalized production. As a result of these trends, the West’s ability to produce responsible citizens is in question. Our students are largely inured to appeals to transcendent values because they are urged to be “practical.” Faculty are no longer encouraged to care about the character-building nature of a liberal education. United States universities are in danger of not having an independent voice, as those departments that can consistently get major external funding seek commercial applications for the products of their research. In the United States, ideologically based harassment and censorship of unpopular ideas takes place regularly and is a major deterrent to pursuing a career in higher education. Given these challenges, can intellectuals still make a difference in universities? Many have taken to social media and other ways of getting their ideas around the increasingly steep paywalls of academic publications and the de facto censorship in their institutions. Some of the most vibrant exchanges of ideas are now happening in other places, largely online. These venues draw in people who are trying their best to learn something they are unlikely to learn at universities. But are such alternatives truly sustainable or good enough? Higher education is at a crossroads in which even this “retreat and regroup” strategy is highly problematic. (shrink)

This article focuses on Daisaku Ikeda's (1928– ) philosophy and practice of intercultural dialogue—what I call ‘value‐creative dialogue’—as a new current in interculturalism and educational philosophy and theory. I use excerpts from Ikeda's writings to consider two aspects of his approach to dialogue. First, I locate his approach philosophically in Buddhism; in the examples of dialogue modeled by Ikeda's mentor, Josei Toda (1900–1958), and by Toda's mentor, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi (1871–1944); and in Makiguchi's theory of value creation (soka) and value‐creating (...) pedagogy. Second, I consider the multiple and value‐creative levels Ikeda's dialogues play. I conclude with implications of value‐creative dialogue in education in general and bilingual‐bicultural education in particular. (shrink)

Any liberal democratic state must honour religious and cultural pluralism in its educational policies. To fail to honour them would betray ideals of freedom and toleration fundamental to liberal democracy. Yet if such ideals are to flourish from one generation to the next, allegiance to the distinctive values of liberal democracy is a necessary educational end, whose pursuit will constrain pluralism. The problem of political education is therefore to ensure the continuity across generations of the constitutive ideals of liberal (...) democracy, while remaining hospitable to a diversity of conduct and belief that sometimes threatens those very ideals. Creating Citizens addresses this crucial problem. In lucid and elegant prose, Professor Callan, one of the world's foremost philosophers of education, identifies both the principal ends of civic education, and the rights that limit their political pursuit. This timely new study sheds light on some of the most divisive educational controversies, such as state sponsorship and regulation of denominational schooling, as well as the role of non-denominational schools in the moral and political development of children. Oxford Political Theory presents the best new work in contemporary political theory. It is intended to be broad in scope, including original contributions to political philosophy, and also work in applied political theory. The series will contain works of outstanding quality with no restriction as to approach or subject matter. The series editors are David Miller and Alan Ryan. (shrink)

This article explores the context for the accompanying suite of papers on creating and sustaining democratic spaces in education. Prompted by the centenary of Summerhill, the internationally famous democratic school founded in Suffolk, England, in 1921, by A.S. Neill, this collection of papers explores and broadens out the central questions at the heart of experiments in democratic education. We suggest that, at a time of distrust in and questioning of the central institutions of democratic government, and in the (...) wake of challenges to the mainstream system of state schooling, these questions are more relevant than ever. We argue that detailed attention to the everyday practice of creating democratic spaces in a variety of educational and social contexts can highlight the myriad ways in which educators, students, families and communities can keep democratic values and principles alive, thereby enriching our discussions about the meaning and value of democratic education. (shrink)

The educationally emaciated, suffering from intellectual and spiritual bilumia, binge on facts and linear thinking. The imprimatur of clarity and the infatuation with quantification are accoutrements of this affliction, often characterized by apathy. Chaos is introduced as the wrecking ball for the hierarchical skyscrapers that overcrowd the educational skyline. The type of chaos proposed can be explained by the neutron bomb analogy. Chaos destroys all that is inessential but leaves standing the essential and promotes holistic rather than compartmentalized learning. The (...) authors further contend that one insight is better than a myriad of facts; in being vigilant of serendipity; that the value-aspect of facts is as important as the facts themselves. Such beliefs form a foundation for educational holism. Our goal is to popularize philosophy in the same way science has become popular without a mass understanding. Empiricism is criticized for creating the theoretical basis for fragmentation (forming the basis for an island ideology) by excising essence. Founded on inessential empirical ideology, efforts to teach multiculturalism merely exacerbate difference, promote alienation, and discourage tolerance. Within the framework of value hierarchies we favor, tolerance is not understood as open-armed acceptance of just anything, but the forbearance of an evil for the promise of greater good. Essence cannot be removed: even in the idiosyncratic we can find the essential. In the absence of chaotic methodology, critical thinking remains an apolitical, amoral, and atemporal process displaced from social and political reality. We propose a critical thinking that is not legalistic, but is action-oriented. The pipe dream for education is a political, moral, temporal, and decompartmentalized critical thinking that disseminates philosophy across the curriculum. Those who risk becoming pariahs and nomads are essential to the rejuvenation of the educational system. (shrink)

Despite the fact that business people and business students often cast doubt on the relevance of universal moral principles in business, the rejection of relativism is a precondition for business ethics to get off the ground. This paper proposes an educational strategy to overcome the philosophical confusions about relativism in which business people and students are often trapped. First, the paper provides some conceptual distinctions and clarifications related to moral relativism, particularism, and virtue ethics. More particularly, it revisits arguments demonstrating (...) that virtues in business are not in contradiction with the relevance of universal principles, despite the fact that virtue ethics is often identified with particular relationships and contexts. It goes on to show how students and managers, but also researchers, often mix up radically different conceptions of moral relativism. It is also argued that this confusion is in part created by the cross-cultural management literature in which the methodological stance of the value-freedom of the social sciences is, in a perplexingly mistaken way, transformed into a rejection of all normative discussion and a plea for relativism. The remainder of the paper presents some tools that may be helpful in steering people toward less simplistic views about moral relativism and virtue ethics. It further argues that it is equally important to spell out that moral universalism can be understood in a humble way, without implying either arrogant ethnocentrism or omniscience, as part of an ongoing debate that progresses gradually. (shrink)

Tsunesaburo Makiguchi is best known as the founder of Soka Gakkai, the association of lay members of the Nichiren Shoshu sect of Buddhism that has grown to number more than ten million followers throughout the world, including some 200,000 Nichiren Shoshu of America adherents in the United States. But Makiguchi had spent a lifetime as an educator, developing his "value creating" educationai philosophy, before he founded Soka Gakkai. In the 1930s he proposed educational reforms that were fully as revolutionary as (...) those advanced by his American counterpart John Dewey. He is one of Japan's most significant yet perhaps least recognized educators. Makiguchi said that Japan's educational system was haphazard, unplanned, fragmented, and useless. Convinced that the pursuit and creation of values are the ultimate purpose of life, he proposed a "value creating" educational system. Defining the three greatest values in life as goodness, beauty, and gain, Makiguchi held that through education people should increase their ability to create values and thus find happiness. (shrink)

This paper will consider the role of schools, as a particular moral habitat in the formation of moral virtues and how the inculcation of a comprehensive private moral system of beliefs, values and practices leads to public values in a multicultural, pluralist society. It is argued that the formation of good persons ensures the formation of good citizens and that governments should therefore support good moral education rather than seek to impose national public values or to concentrate on developing (...) good citizens only. The recognition that moral values are learnt within particular private moral systems of values, that it is these on which common public values rely for support and that there are a variety of such comprehensive private moral systems also means that a variety of schools need to be supported. One condition which such schools need to fulfil is that the comprehensive private moral system of beliefs which they inculcate in their students is based on a recognition of the universal applicability of the moral principles that they endorse. (shrink)

This paper will consider the role of schools, as a particular moral habitat in the formation of moral virtues and how the inculcation of a comprehensive private moral system of beliefs, values and practices leads to public values in a multicultural, pluralist society. It is argued that the formation of good persons ensures the formation of good citizens and that governments should therefore support good moral education rather than seek to impose national public values or to concentrate on developing (...) good citizens only. The recognition that moral values are learnt within particular private moral systems of values, that it is these on which common public values rely for support and that there are a variety of such comprehensive private moral systems also means that a variety of schools need to be supported. One condition which such schools need to fulfil is that the comprehensive private moral system of beliefs which they inculcate in their students is based on a recognition of the universal applicability of the moral principles that they endorse. (shrink)

The article is a bold extraction of the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) value of traditional African education, attempting to capture the essence of what education made a young person be when he/she qualified for marriage. At the marriage stage an adult was given the green light to become the head of a family and manager of a home, and permitted make all the decisions touching on the family and, at the same time, take care of the community and (...) country at large. In that situation, Prof. F.X. Gichuru has identified the qualifications as five pillars, viz. self-discipline, self-drive, integrity, harmony and patriotism, qualities that have been eroded in Kenya today by modernization and westernization, rendering the people generally irresponsible and non-accountable. The author proposes the five pillars as a solution to this problem, thereby creating a new accountable and responsible people, a new nation and a new leadership quality, targeting the young as the people to culturally transform in the space of twenty years. The African Cultural Regeneration Institute the author founded, now accredited by UNESCO to advise on ICH in Africa, has been proposed as the institution to champion this transformation of the national ethos of Kenya, starting with an initial action of two years. The success of the model will serve other countries of Africa and, indeed, the global community, in showing how ICH can be used to solve the challenges of modern society. (shrink)

Proponents of environmentalist views often urge the teaching of such views and the inculcation of ‘green’ values within the educational curriculum of schools as a key component of achieving their ends. It might seem that modern versions of political morality that refuse to take a stance on controversial questions—religious, ethical, philosophical—or eschew appeal to perfectionist doctrines, such as Rawlsian political liberalism, are beset by a particularly acute difficulty in this regard. To the extent that environmentalist views embody claims about ethical (...) matters such as how individuals should live their lives, they fall foul of this version of political morality. This article evaluates the resources available to political liberalism to respond to the challenge of bringing the teaching of green values and virtues within the national curriculum. It argues that environmental concerns differ in morally important ways from other ethical, philosophical, and religious views that are typically off-limits to political liberalism. Much that passes as green ideals are not simply a conception of the good life in the manner that religious views, for example, are. Rather, many environmental goods are crucial to the realisation of socioeconomic justice and therefore escape the requirement of state neutrality on endorsing the truth or importance of their role. A minimal political liberal education includes teaching about justice-based concerns as part of a compulsory national curriculum. (shrink)

Andrée-Anne Cormier and Harry Brighouse explore the question of whether there are good reasons for schools to try and produce citizens disposed to use, and practiced in, civil discourse and behavior, and if so, what this implies for schools. First, the authors propose an account of the value (and disvalue) of civility, drawing on Cheshire Calhoun’s conception. They argue that civility is good in many circumstances, but not always. In some circumstances, it is neither beneficial nor morally required. Second, they (...) elucidate the reasons for teaching civility in schools and what they think that doing so would involve, what demands it would make on teachers, and how the aim of promoting civility would shape the structure of schools. Finally, they identify some reasons for pessimism that schools can be very successful in promoting civility. They do not think that these are conclusive reasons against teaching civility in schools, but they suggest that civility can only be taught well if educators are clear-eyed about the hurdles they will have to overcome. (shrink)

This paper will consider the role of schools, as a particular moral habitat in the formation of moral virtues and how the inculcation of a comprehensive private moral system of beliefs, values and practices leads to public values in a multicultural, pluralist society. It is argued that the formation of good persons ensures the formation of good citizens and that governments should therefore support good moral education rather than seek to impose national public values or to concentrate on developing (...) good citizens only. The recognition that moral values are learnt within particular private moral systems of values, that it is these on which common public values rely for support and that there are a variety of such comprehensive private moral systems also means that a variety of schools need to be supported. One condition which such schools need to fulfil is that the comprehensive private moral system of beliefs which they inculcate in their students is based on a recognition of the universal applicability of the moral principles that they endorse. (shrink)

A recurring theme in many places concerns the nurturing and maintenance of a civil society that is committed to justice, to human fulfilment and a community that actively pursues the good of all its members. The creation of a civil society where there is respect for persons and a concern for the good of others is an important social aim and though it is not the sole responsibility of educational institutions, they have a crucial role to play in its development. (...) It also evident that the creation of a civil society includes the family and the wider community and so in order to understand how a civil society is to be fostered, we need to understand relationality, a central concept in both the Western and Eastern understandings of human nature. If we reflect on contemporary education in both the East and the West, an important question to consider is the extent to which education measures up to developing in young people a sense of their responsibilities to one another, their families and to the wider community. In short the question of how well we are developing humane persons who are able to relate to one another and build a civil society. This article argues that there needs to be a rebalancing of the aims of education to include the development of those values and dispositions that will foster a civil society. (shrink)

In business schools, there is a persistent myth according to which management education is, and should be, ‘value-free’. This article reflects on the experiences of two business schools from Finland and Australia in which the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education have been pragmatically used as a platform for breaking with this institutionalized guise of positivist value neutrality. This use of PRME makes it possible to create learning environments in which values and value tensions inherent in management (...) class='Hi'>education can be explored and exposed. Inspired by Rorty’s understanding of ethics—notably his discussion of ‘final vocabularies’ and ‘moral imagination’—and Flyvbjerg’s reading of phronēsis, the article discusses an approach to learning that helps both teachers and students in exploring and exposing values in management education by problematizing dominant business school vocabularies, thereby leading to moral development, in the Rortian sense. The article presents a number of final vocabularies that business students come to class with, some learning methods used to challenge these vocabularies through discussion of alternative vocabularies, and the new directions for moral imagination that may result. (shrink)

Pursuing world-class universities, China has emerged in recent decades as an increasingly popular destination for internationally mobile academics. The goal of this study was to identify current education policy dispositions toward foreign faculty at the national and institutional levels in China. Findings indicate that within China’s higher education policy discourse, foreign faculty are identified as an advantage, and a source of conflict, ultimately having an ambiguous role as they attempt to manage their complicated status in Chinese higher (...) class='Hi'>education institutions. Foreign faculty are typically regarded as an international asset, accelerating global competitiveness and international rankings to enhance the acceleration of China’s higher education system. They are also considered controversial in relation to Chinese culture, values, and traditions. However, the most prevalent policy disposition explored in this study was that of vagueness and marginality, indicating underlying ambiguity toward foreign faculty. The study concludes with implications for future scholars and policymakers to consider. (shrink)

What is the value of having medical students engage in creative production as part of their learning? Creating something new requires medical students to take risks and even to fail--something they tend to be neither accustomed to nor comfortable with doing. “Making stuff” can help students prepare for such failures in a controlled environment that doesn’t threaten their professional identities. Furthermore, doing so can facilitate students becoming resilient and creative problem-solvers who strive to find new ways to address vexing questions. (...) Though creating something new can be fun, this is not the main outcome of interest. Rather, the principle reason we recommend devoting precious curricular time to creative endeavors is because it helps medical students become better doctors. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to discuss some of the foundational issues centering around the question of integrating education in human values with professional engineering education: its necessity and justification. The paper looks at the efforts in ‘tuning’ the technical education system in India to the national goals in the various phases of curriculum development. The contribution of the engineering profession in national development and India’s self-sufficiency is crucially linked with the institutionalization of expertise and the (...) role of morality and responsibility. This linkage can be created through a proper understanding of the social role of the profession—what motivates the professionals and what makes professional life meaningful. Value education facilitates the process of moral maturity and the development of a ‘holistic’ mindset. This paper deals with the need to create such a mindset, the human values associated with it and gives examples of efforts to impart such education through ‘action-oriented’ programmes introduced in some institutes of engineering in India. (shrink)

This article brings together mindfulness and habitus theory in relation to developing wise leaders. In particular, we present new insights about the intersection of time, subjective and intersubjective experience, and mindfulness that are relevant to developing embodied wisdom in leaders. We show that temporal competence is essential for shaping habitus and developing embodied wisdom. Further, and to extend theoretical understandings of mindfulness in leadership, we argue that temporal capabilities developed through mindfulness can foster embodied wisdom by creating a specific ‘wisdom (...) habitus’ that includes values and ethics. The system of dispositions that comprise one’s habitus is, however, largely unconscious and implicit and we discuss how mindfulness renders habitus, including ethical conation accessible to development for the bodily ability to act wisely. This article then establishes a framework that leadership development programs in business schools can adopt for understanding habitus and mindfulness to enable embodied wisdom to develop in leaders. Finally, we show that a mindfulness perspective offers valuable contributions to research on leadership. (shrink)

A new selection of writings on education by Buddhist philosopher and founder of Soka University, Daisaku Ikeda. Culled from some five decades of the author's works, this collection presents educational proposals, lectures to university students, and personal essays. The author delves not only into the meaning of Soka (value-creating) education but offers a hopeful vision of the power of education to bring happiness to the individual and peace to the world.

It is not easy to summarize what has been suggested in this essay. But in greatly simplified terms, something like this may serve.The understanding which comes through education increases the power of man over himself and his world; it increases his awareness, his capacity to influence, to accept and to enjoy. Everybody knows these things, but an explanation of how this power arises has been attempted. To do this, understanding, was said to be a process, a dynamic act, and (...) four perspectives on this act, each showing one of the ways in which power is created have been presented.First, it was suggested that thought is the process of discriminating the field of feeling. This implies a much closer connection between thought and feeling than is ordinarily held. The particular power here is expressed in terms of the idea that the form of thought both expresses and limits at the same time. Due to this you get clear elements not only expressed in their own right, but deriving part of their clarity and individuality because of their explicit exclusion from other elements of the same field. Second, the power of knowing was explained as due to the tension between levels of significance It was suggested that concepts are fields of meaning composed of mutually constituting levels or particularity and generality.Third, it was suggested that the power of knowing comes through the extension of the range of significant feeling through the use of imagination.Finally, the double aspect of consciousness, which allows man both to do something consciously and to guide such doing self-consciously, was indicated as of major importance to the power and practice of a liberal education because it constitutes the power which frees man from himself.No one can liberate another person by organizing his experience for him. That he must do for himself; it is his life. But educators are in the business of disciplining the student in the truly human fashion which includes the organization of our experience in terms of dynamically interacting levels of generality and significance, the objectifying and clarifying of the field of feeling through thought, the broadening and deepening of that range of feeling through the imaginative projection of possibilities for feeling, as well as the steady consciousness of self that frees man from himself.These four aspects constitute the power which man's nature gives to him alone. It is because of this power that man has been called a rational animal. And along side of this power any others which he may be said to possess are as nothing. Indeed, it is open to question whether there are any other separate powers. Someone may want to mention the power of human love, but a moment of reflection should show that all we consider of most value in human love is an expression of the powers of which we have spoken. A liberal education is of value precisely because it is aimed at the development of those qualities of truly human activity which characterize man at his best. We may have to accept something less than this due to human frailty, but we need not be content to aim at anything less. (shrink)

When searching for justification for music education, researchers often make an analytical distinction between ends and means as well as between intrinsic and extrinsic values as related to them. These distinctions are often combined with a view in which ends with stable intrinsic values are seen as above means as extramusical. The article examines how John Dewey’s theory of experience and valuation challenges these distinctions by taking use-value and different aspects of quality in experience as part of the process (...) in which valuation is born. Pedagogical actions of the teacher, social interaction between the students, the questions of how, as well as desires and shared interests become constituting elements of valuation in the means-ends continuum of learning music. The article argues that for justifying its practices, the value of music education ought to be more strongly anchored in the learner’s experience and the question of how educational practices create the attitude for lifelong learning. (shrink)

A new selection of writings on education by Buddhist philosopher and founder of Soka University, Daisaku Ikeda. Culled from some five decades of the author's works, this collection presents educational proposals, lectures to university students, and personal essays. The author delves not only into the meaning of Soka (value-creating) education but offers a hopeful vision of the power of education to bring happiness to the individual and peace to the world.

Education has been acknowledged as the key factor contributing to personality development and identity formation. To ensure appropriate education, it is thus of utmost importance to reflect on the power of the educational content. As a result, respecting Islamic values from a major authentic source, like the Holy Qur’an, paves the ground to fulfil this goal. On the contrary, the first and foremost educators to convey these values are the family, because each person mainly spends the time of (...) one’s education in this small, primary social institution. Above and beyond, the building block of a society and the starting point of a culture, a civilisation and human history is the family. As a noble book of guidance for the human beings, the Holy Qur’an has accordingly shed light on the role of the family. Against this background, this study, adopting a descriptive analytical approach, aimed to investigate the Islamic family from the perspective of the Holy Qur’an with an emphasis on the education of children. Accordingly, the Holy Qur’an reveals that the main purposes of creating a family are inner peace, generational survival and expansion of the faith and monotheism. A healthy family environment can thus have a profound impact on cultivating moral character and virtues. In view of the Holy Qur’an, the family is the first place to seek relief and perform the acts of worship. No divine religions have also given as much value to the family as Islam, which implies its comprehensiveness. Despite much attention to the family in most societies, it receives special importance in the Qur’anic teachings. This article is a review study that dealt with Qur’anic concepts related to education in the family. Therefore, after categorising different Qur’anic verses, analyses have been presented in each category. Contribution: Islam has set many specific programmes and educational instructions from childbirth and then delegated their implementation to the family. Accordingly, this noble religion offers many guidelines for picking a perfect name, breastfeeding and weaning, loving, observing justice and fulfilling promises in relation to children. (shrink)

Education has been acknowledged as the key factor contributing to personality development and identity formation. To ensure appropriate education, it is thus of utmost importance to reflect on the power of the educational content. As a result, respecting Islamic values from a major authentic source, like the Holy Qur’an, paves the ground to fulfil this goal. On the contrary, the first and foremost educators to convey these values are the family, because each person mainly spends the time of (...) one’s education in this small, primary social institution. Above and beyond, the building block of a society and the starting point of a culture, a civilisation and human history is the family. As a noble book of guidance for the human beings, the Holy Qur’an has accordingly shed light on the role of the family. Against this background, this study, adopting a descriptive analytical approach, aimed to investigate the Islamic family from the perspective of the Holy Qur’an with an emphasis on the education of children. Accordingly, the Holy Qur’an reveals that the main purposes of creating a family are inner peace, generational survival and expansion of the faith and monotheism. A healthy family environment can thus have a profound impact on cultivating moral character and virtues. In view of the Holy Qur’an, the family is the first place to seek relief and perform the acts of worship. No divine religions have also given as much value to the family as Islam, which implies its comprehensiveness. Despite much attention to the family in most societies, it receives special importance in the Qur’anic teachings. This article is a review study that dealt with Qur’anic concepts related to education in the family. Therefore, after categorising different Qur’anic verses, analyses have been presented in each category.Contribution: Islam has set many specific programmes and educational instructions from childbirth and then delegated their implementation to the family. Accordingly, this noble religion offers many guidelines for picking a perfect name, breastfeeding and weaning, loving, observing justice and fulfilling promises in relation to children. (shrink)

Against the backdrop of a global pandemic, this study investigates how U.S. higher education leaders have centered their crisis management on values and guiding ethical principles. We conducted 55 in-depth interviews with leaders from 30 U.S. higher education institutions, with most leaders participating in two interviews. We found that crisis plans created prior to the COVID-19 pandemic were inadequate due to the long duration and highly uncertain nature of the crisis. Instead, higher education leaders applied guiding principles (...) on the fly to support their decision-making. If colleges and universities infuse shared values into their future crisis plans, they will not have to develop a moral compass on the fly for the next pandemic. This paper suggests the following somewhat universal shared values: engage in accuracy, transparency, and accountability; foster deliberative dialog; prioritize safety; support justice, fairness, and equity; and engage in an ethic of care. To navigate ethics tensions, leaders need to possess crisis-relevant expertise or ensure that such expertise is present among crisis management team members. Standing up formal ethics committees composed of diverse stakeholders also is instrumental in navigating tensions inherent in crises. The next pandemic is already on the horizon according to experts. Through infusing values into future crisis plans, higher education leaders can be confident that their responses will be grounded in their communities’ shared values. (shrink)

This monograph aims to uncover value-belief-systems underlying dominant narratives in modern IHEs, impacting the lives of many multidimensional adult learners. To do so, Eurocentrism and neoliberalism are used to analyze the socio-cultural-political movements of the U.S. and its influence on higher education trends. Then, models of adult consciousness and transformative approaches to adult learning are introduced to problematize dominant narratives and make the case for more complex epistemologies. With critical contemplation, acts of compassion for interdependence, self-compassion for intentionality, authentic (...) relationships for political consciousness, listening for non-duality, and mindfulness for impermanence (CALM) are introduced as ways to emphasize self-transformation and self-actualization. CALM practice is just one way to join others in the social justice work of wholeness and humanity to better support multidimensional adult learners. Along with this understanding comes the potential to disrupt dominant narratives with a moral stance, honoring innate human value and the diverse human condition. The future of institutions of higher education must be guided by a moral position in the name of healing and wellness. Together, we can transform higher education so that institutions are a place where adult learners create the conditions of freedom to actualize the right to self-worth, the liberty to connect with others, and the pursuit of personal fulfillment, honoring this nations guiding principles of life, liberty, and happiness. (shrink)

There is a dire need today to create spaces in which people can make meaning of their existence in the world, abiding by cultural frameworks and practices that acknowledge and validate a meaningful existence for all. People are not just isolated individuals but are connected in diverse ways with other persons within our natural and social environment which is part of the whole universe. The African philosophy of uBuntu or humaneness is re-emerging for its timely relevance and potential as indispensable (...) in our quest for global citizenship, peace, and mutual understanding in securing sustainable human development in the broader ecosystem. Comparative educationists have the challenge to devise theoretical frameworks, epistemological and pedagogical constructs as well as pragmatic, useful and effective ways of promoting the virtues of compassion and recognition of our common humanity in eliminating the ills of domination and control that are guided by greed, hatred, jealousy, and intolerance. Comparative Education for Global Citizenship, Peace and Shared Living through Ubuntu paves the way for a better understanding of the critical importance of the collective search and endeavor towards achieving the virtues of nonviolence, peace, shared values of living together, global citizenship, improved quality of life for all and a better appreciation of the positive implications of interdependence. (shrink)

In this volume philosophers from throughout the Asia-Pacific region discuss a wide range of topics related to the development of democratic values and ways of life. The papers explore ideas, values and practices related to democracy from the different perspectives of the great religious and philosophical traditions of Asia, as well as considering both philosophical issues and the place of philosophy in a democratic society. While the contributors represent different philosophical traditions, they are connected through a common concern with humanity, (...) a belief in the value of philosophical inquiry and scholarship and by a commitment to the value of philosophy education in building and sustaining democracy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Merging Traditional Technique Vocabularies with Democratic Teaching Perspectives in Dance EducationA Consideration of Aesthetic Values and Their Sociopolitical ContextsBecky Dyer (bio)IntroductionConventional aesthetic values in dance traditionally have been wed to long-established authoritarian teaching approaches in American professional dance companies and university dance programs. Developed over time from a mixture of enduring cultural tastes, aesthetic ideals, and historical influences, aesthetic values play a significant role in teaching and learning processes (...) in the classroom, although the impact of their presence on learning is often indiscernible or paid little attention. As dance educators in higher education make efforts to move toward more democratic teaching perspectives, they often find themselves philosophically lodged between established approaches to teaching traditional, codified vocabularies and aesthetics and more contemporary, student-centered, and democratically oriented perspectives to teaching and learning dance. Attention to the sociopolitical contexts of dance training gives practitioners opportunities to consider aesthetic values of dance from differing cultural vantage points and the perspectives by which these values are taught and learned.Each learning circumstance in dance is a complex weaving of personal and social experience involving individuals, communities, movers, and viewers. Movement aesthetic values emerge from personal and communal morals and ideals as well as social mores of the body, which create contextual lenses for experiencing, interpreting, and making meaning of movement vocabularies created and perpetuated in dance communities. It is important that teachers who seek to incorporate more democratically oriented, student-centered teaching perspectives become mindful of ways social values and perceptual/contextual frameworks impact personal [End Page 108] and communal practices in dance. Approaches to learning technique that consider sociocultural factors of dance movement aesthetics—wherein teachers and learners are led to recognize and reflect upon personal, social, and aesthetic values embodied in movement and embedded in movement vocabularies—can lead teachers and learners to better understand the significance of learning in dance as it relates to personal and social worlds beyond the classroom.This article will suggest how movement analysis from a socially contextualized perspective can inform understanding about the significance of sociopolitical contexts and aesthetic values in Western dance training. Perspectives of movement analysis will provide groundwork for discussing perceivable ways to address discrepancies between democratic and authoritarian teaching viewpoints and to challenge the prominent linking of conventional aesthetic values and vocabularies, as well as codified techniques, to authoritarian practices. The discussion will address relationships between pedagogical perspectives and ideologies held by teachers concerning the place and worth of conventional aesthetic values and the nature of aesthetic experiences in the dance technique classroom, and the potential understandings and meanings their students construct.Foundations of Movement Analysis: The Ideas and Practices of Rudolf LabanRecognizing embedded personal and social aesthetic values in movement is an important initial stage in developing more critically reflective practices that promote meaning, agency, and student interest in learning. The task is challenging because the only values accessibly evident to the bystander, and often the mover, are visual ones. Yet, as Rudolf Laban (1879-1958) suggested, intangible values also inspire movement. Laban created a theoretical framework—referred to as Laban Movement Analysis—for movement exploration, description, and analysis to consider both noticeably apparent and less-tangible values of movement by investigating movement phenomena and factors that generate them.1 The praxis-oriented system involves reflecting on movement observations, considering emotional and mental facets of movement, and taking into account experiential bodily perspectives of the mover.2Although one of Laban's fundamental purposes for developing a descriptive vocabulary for movement was to facilitate the mastery of dance technique,3 his teaching emphasized the "harmonious expressiveness of the whole individual," as he aimed to facilitate dancers' ability to understand and use their bodies in order to discover individual ways of expressing themselves and communicating.4 Laban's attitudes toward training were in sharp contrast to approaches of the day, yet interestingly, they were not [End Page 109] opposed to them. For example, common dance gestures and postures were expanded into free exploration and studied from diverse points of view rather than a narrow range of perspectives, aesthetic values, and movement qualities.5Laban's theory of "Effort," which he linked to emotions as well as... (shrink)

This book addresses concerns about educational and moral standards in a world increasingly characterised by nihilism. On the one hand there is widespread anxiety that standards are falling; on the other, new machinery of accountability and inspection to show that they are not. The authors in this book state that we cannot avoid nihilism if we are simply _laissez-faire_ about values, neither can we reduce them to standards of performance, nor must we return to traditional values. They state that we (...) need to create a new set of values based on a critical assessment of contemporary practice in the light of a number of philosophical texts that address the question of nihilism, including the work of Nietzsche. (shrink)

Alongside clinical practice, medical schools now confront mounting reasons to examine nontraditional approaches to ethics. Increasing awareness of systems of oppression and their effects on the experiences of trainees, patients, professionals, and generally on medical care, is pushing medical curriculum into an unfamiliar territory. While there is room throughout medical school to take up these concerns, ethics curricula are well-positioned to explore new pedagogical approaches. Feminist ethics has long addressed systems of oppression and broader structures of power. Some of its (...) established concepts can offer distinct value as medical climates change and adapt in response to increased awareness of the experiences of marginalized individuals and populations. In this essay, we offer a set of concepts from feminist ethics that have a fundamental role to play in medical school curriculum: relationality, relational autonomy, and epistemic justice. Though these concepts are not exhaustive, they can be taught in tandem with the concepts that have historically grounded ethics education in medical school, such as autonomy and beneficence. Ultimately, we contend that these concepts hold particular value in ethics curriculum insofar as they diversify mainstream ethical approaches, directly address the pervasiveness of systems of oppression in medicine, and recognize the voices and concerns that may be marginalized in standard approaches. (shrink)

Giving Voice to Values is a very important tool that has helped many professionals better align what they do with what they value and believe. This book introduces the methodology of Socratic Dialogue as a complementary set of tools for creating spaces of joint reflection in which one can gain clarity about one's values and gain the confidence to voice them effectively. Socrates' main concern was to progressively reach a higher alignment between ideas and actions: that is, to achieve a (...) harmony between what we think, what we say and what we do. The first step to giving voice to our values involves introspection and dialogue with others - which is how we can become aware of what we really think and value. An examined life, Socrates reminds us, is a fulfilled one. Based on more than 10 years' experience teaching Socratic Dialogue to business and law students, executives and professionals, faculty, incarcerated people and other vulnerable groups, the book provides teachers and practitioners with a roadmap to conceive, design and conduct Socratic Dialogue courses and sessions. It provides context for the method and its adaptation to the challenges of the 21st century. The book also offers guidance on how to structure a Socratic Dialogue classroom, as well as a series of tried-and-true activities and exercises, practical recommendations, and testimonies of the transformative impact that dialogue courses have had on participants. The book is of prime interest to professors and educators of business ethics, as well as professional consultants working to help organizations become more responsible and introduce ethical reasoning in their decisions. It also serves as a valuable resource for social educators and practitioners in prisons and rehabilitation units, as well as teachers in primary and secondary education. (shrink)

Amid the growing coalescence between the religion and ecology movements, the voice of Muslims who care for the earth and its people is rising. While the Islamic position on the environment is not well-represented in the ecotheology discourse, it advances an environmental imaginary which shows how faith can be harnessed as a vehicle for social change. This article will draw upon doctoral research which synthesised the Islamic ecological ethic (eco-ethic) from sacred texts, traditions and contemporary thought, and illustrated how this (...) ethic is enlivened in the educational landscape of Islam. Knowledge of the relationship between human beings and the natural world, of the creative order upon which the world was created, and of right living, is essential in this educational project and the global ecoIslamic movement employs a range of institutes, from the masjid to the maktab, to impart the environmental message of Islam. Despite the manifestation of environmental education activities across the educational establishment, much of what passes as Islamic education today is not representative of the holistic, integrated and comprehensive educational philosophy of Islam. Contemporary social concerns, such as the environmental question, can, in my view, act as an impetus to develop a pedagogy which endeavours to be true to the religious traditions, values and ethics of Islam, while also displaying the transformative force of this faith. Muslims, at more than one-fifth of the world population, own a fair share of global concern around the earth’s health and well-being. Across the world, many continue to base their life and lifestyle decisions on the teachings of Islam, and are showing the relevance of traditional resources and institutions in meeting one of the greatest challenges facing humanity—the health of our planet. (shrink)

In 1865, the Brussels educational reformer Pierre Temples advocated to take drawing as the cornerstone of education. He criticized that education was modelled on conventions and grammatical rules in order to learn to read and write, this way ignoring the potential of drawing to create new concepts. This paper is also concerned with the significance of drawing in the realm of education. However, not to elaborate on its added value for education, but to discuss the mode (...) of thinking that it seeks to disclose. The paper starts with a re-reading of two stories: Pliny the Elder's image of the origin of drawing and Viktor Lowenfeld’s artistic developmental theory. This brings us to an understanding of the significance of drawing not as a pure sensory experience, nor as a cognitive one, but as a new gesture that marks the visual as visual, to make it an object of thought. Unlike Temples, this contribution is not against grammar, but understands the act of drawing as a form of grammatisation in itself: i.e. a particular response to an event, which simultaneously enables us to visualize what confronts us. Hence, an ability to imagine and create new relationships with the world. (shrink)

The article is devoted to identifying the value of the phenomenon of aesthetic value and beauty of mathematical knowledge and the beauty of mathematical theory of teaching mathematics. The aesthetic potential of mathematical knowledge allows the use of theater technology in the educational process with the active dialogic interaction between teacher and students. The criteria of beauty in mathematical theories are distinguished: the realization of beauty as the unity of the whole, and in the disclosure of the complex through the (...) elementary; methodological interpretation of the beauty in the community of mathematical structures and optimal information content of the meta-language of mathematics; the practical embodiment of beauty in the formalization of the infinite through the finite. The beauty of mathematics is the force that permeates all the ‘layers of knowledge‘ not along, and across, although the effectiveness of mathematical activity due to aesthetic laws, which do not always lend themselves to unambiguous interpretation. In the article it is stated that, depending on the educational goals of communicative impact on the audience, in fact, ‘mathematical lectures theatricality‘ can have different characteristics, the most important of which are teachers artistry and artistic director’s work of a teacher. This cultural phenomenon that includes the theatrical talent, helps create an atmosphere of cooperation needed in varying degrees of activity for pedagogical interaction. The author believes that such approach, developed on the basis of the Stanislavsky system, allows university professors of mathematics significantly improve mathematical lectures. (shrink)

Legislating comprehensive sex education curricula has long been believed to be essential to aligning education about sex, sexuality and human relationships with the values of equality, inclusivity and autonomy. Defences of the need for ‘good’ sex education in public schools are contingent upon arguments about whose experiences ought to guide us in determining what sufficient alignment with such values might look like. The aim of this paper is to explore the assumptions underlying one prevailing norm in such (...) defences: what I call parental deference or the practice of heeding to the rights of parents in debates about sex education. The question at the heart of this paper is, then, who in our communities does this deference exclude? I begin with a brief consideration of the appeal of parental deference within theories of education in general, and sex education in particular, before problematising its normalisation through a consideration of the exclusions such deference creates. In the process, I aim to explore the limits of parental deference for addressing the intersection of sexuality, sex, gender and race with violence in curricula and argue instead that one way of mitigating the consequences of these limits is to take seriously what I call sex education's community problem: If schools are to serve communities, why are so many community members’ experiences excluded? (shrink)

In a time of rapid technological and social change, business organizations must help their employees develop a new appreciation of how social and ethical values are being shaped and challenged by evolving information technologies. Many ethical and social conflicts have arisen around the advanced information technology used today. The emerging technologies continue to create situations not previously encountered. There are numerous risks facing corporations involved in the use of computing technology. Leaders of organizations looking ahead to assess the impact of (...) technological changes can try to prepare their employees for the future. This paper addresses the urgent need for individuals in corporations to become more knowledgeable about computing technologies and their impact. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dewey, Implementation, and Creating a Democratic Civic UniversityIra HarkavyThinking begins in... a forked-road situation, a situation that is ambiguous, that presents a dilemma, that poses alternatives.—John Dewey (How We Think 122)The social philosopher, dwelling in the region of his concepts, “solves” problems by showing the relationship of ideas, instead of helping men solve problems in the concrete by supplying them hypotheses to be used and tested in projects of (...) reform.—John Dewey (Reconstruction in Philosophy 192)Democracy must begin at home, and its home is the neighborly community.—John Dewey (The Public and Its Problems 213)democracy, as we all know, is seriously threatened throughout the world (Fisher). In the United States, the chasm-like inequities laid bare by COVID-19, the ongoing killing of black Americans, the violent insurrection at the Capitol, and the continuing attempt to subvert the electoral process are powerful indicators of a system under severe strain (Guardian Staff; Rubin). These developments are also a sign of deep and chronic problems, including the following:1. Increasing economic, political, social, educational, and health inequalities2. Increasing racism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia3. Increasing attacks on science, knowledge, and democracy itself4. Declining trust in nearly all major institutionsMany things, obviously, contribute to the present situation. Among them is the failure of universities to successfully do what they are supposed to do: educate students to be ethical, empathetic, engaged, democratic citizens, and [End Page 49] advance knowledge for the continuous betterment of the human condition (Benson et al., Knowledge). To use a Marxian framework, but to reject its economic determinism, universities, in my judgment, are not a part of society’s superstructure. They are, to the contrary, a core component of its base (Marx, “Preface”). What they do matters enormously, significantly determining the kind of society we have now and will have in the future.Universities, as former Harvard president Derek Bok and others have emphasized, have become the central societal institutions in the world (Bok, Universities and the Future 3). Research universities, in my judgment, are the most central. They develop new ideas and technologies, incubate businesses, serve as cultural and artistic centers, and are engines of local, national, and global economies. As anchor institutions, they often engage in partnerships with government, the private sector, and community-based organizations to revitalize local neighborhoods and schools (“Anchor Institutions Task Force”). It is the university’s role as an educational institution, however, that is most important.The schooling system increasingly functions as the core subsystem—the strategic subsystem—of modern information societies. Schooling, more than any other subsystem, as John Dewey claimed, influences the functioning of the societal system as a whole. Viewed systemically, it has on balance the greatest “multiplier” effects, direct and indirect, short-term and long-term. Restating these points somewhat differently, I strongly agree with the Chilean sociologist Eugenio Tironi that the answer to the question “What kind of education do we need?” is to be found in the answer to the question “What kind of society do we want?” (Tironi). Education and society are dynamically interactive and interdependent. If human beings hope to maintain and develop a particular type of society, they must develop and maintain the particular type of education system conducive to it. As Dewey in effect argued: No effective democratic schooling system, no democratic society.1For William Rainey Harper, who, as the first president of the University of Chicago, brought Dewey to Chicago, universities are the primary shapers of the American schooling system. In an 1899 speech at the University of California, he perceptively observed that “[t]he school system, the character of which, in spite of itself, the university determines and in a large measure controls.... [T]hrough the school system every family in this entire broad land of ours is brought into touch with the university; for from it proceed the teachers or the teachers’ teachers” (Harper 25). Agreeing with Harper, I contend that higher education institutions powerfully shape the learning, values, and aspirations of students from kindergarten through graduate school. [End Page 50]Given the university’s societal role and influence, creating and sustaining an inclusive, just democratic society requires a... (shrink)

Multicultural education is a thriving – though sometimes controversial and increasingly contested – field of study and research. Its major aim and purpose has been described as to create equal educational opportunities for students from diverse racial, ethnic, social, and cultural backgrounds to help them acquire the knowledge, aptitudes, and skills needed to function effectively in a pluralistic democratic society. Multicultural education draws its content, concepts, paradigms, and theories from specialized interdisciplinary domains such as ethnic and women’s studies, (...) as well as by interrogating, challenging, and reinterpreting the work of other established disciplines and applying it to pedagogy and curriculum development in educational settings. As academic thinking about and around multicultural education continues to develop, this new title in the Routledge series, Major Themes in Education, meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of the field’s vast literature and the continuing explosion in research output. Compiled by David Gillborn, editor of the leading international journal, _Race, Ethnicity, and Education_, this new collection of major works brings together in four volumes the canonical and the best cutting-edge scholarship. The editor has drawn on the most important and influential research to create a one-stop ‘mini library’ which describes and analyses the nature, scope, and principal issues of global multicultural education today. Multicultural Education is fully indexed and has a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars and students – as well as by educational policy-makers – as a vital research and pedagogic tool. (shrink)

A liquid modernity, where the traditional certainties have become fluid and blurred, presents a major challenge for education. The world is changing so quickly that homo sapiens, learning animal par excellence, can no longer rely on strategies acquired through learning experiences, let alone those derived from traditional values or wisdom. The excess of useless information creates a glut. When saturation level is reached, accumulation ceases to be a sign of wealth and becomes undesirable. Knowledge is confined - discarded like (...) refuse - in the infinite capacity of cyber-computers. What should we humans keep and what should we reject in this process? In times of liquid modernity, how and what should our children be taught in order to be able to develop survival strategies throughout their lives? (shrink)

We argue for peace education as a process of improving the quality of everyday relationships. This is vital, as children bring their habits formed largely by social and political institutions such as the family, religion, law, cultural mores, to the classroom (Splitter, 1993; Furlong & Morrison, 2000) and vice versa. It is inevitable that the classroom habitat, as a microcosm of the community in which it is situated, will perpetuate the epistemic practices and injustices of that community, manifested in (...) attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and actions that can limit the child’s ability to learn. The educational task then, is to create opportunities for children to problematize the very environment they inhabit. To this end, our concern is for peace education aimed at addressing epistemic violence; a form of harm brought about by a particular rationality of domination. -/- The classroom community of inquiry, initially developed by Matthew Lipman and Ann Sharp as the methodology for the Philosophy for Children (P4C) approach to education (Lipman & Sharp, 1978; Lipman, Sharp & Oscanyan, 1980), is often viewed as a solution to inequality in the classroom—an intellectually safe environment which allows students to explore, practice and internalize good reasoning through philosophy so that they can make school relevant to their lives. Traditionally, the teacher’s role is to take a ‘neutral stance’ in discussion during the conduct of a community of inquiry. However, we argue that it is misplaced to assume that the community of inquiry is a safe intellectual environment in which the teacher as co-inquirer also facilitates the discussion procedurally, letting the argument lead, which Lipman took as the guiding principle for his process of inquiry. For, as Paulo Freire (1987) put it: -/- ... the dominant ideology makes its presence in the classroom partly felt by trying to convince the teacher that he or she must be neutral in order to respect the student. This kind of neutrality is a false respect for students. On the contrary, the more I say nothing about agreeing or not agreeing out of respect for the others, the more I am leaving the dominant ideology in peace! (p. 174). -/- Teachers must be aware of the possibility of epistemic violence to be able to detect and disrupt it, in order to facilitate a peaceful inquiry. We do not consider peace in the negative, as the absence of conflict, but in the positive as the capacity to respond skilfully to conflict as a way of life. Therefore, we concentrate on peace education that prepares students to turn conflict into inquiry, rather than peace education as values education or character education that instils values of ‘fraternity and non-violence’ (Gregory, 2004, p. 277). The community of inquiry provides such a framework, however, we argue that it must be facilitated in a way that mitigates the effects of epistemic violence by creating an educational habitat in which multiple ways of knowing can flourish. (shrink)

One of the main priorities of current educational systems is a strong connection between education provided by schools and the requirements of a successful integration in the social life and work field. This article offers the teachers’ perspective on the various ways in which outdoor learning can be useful in creating teaching-learning situations that prepare pupils to be active citizens and to have smoother integration in the social life and this way, on the labor market. The findings of a (...) brief study among teachers from Arad County is presented. The method that was used is the survey based on a questionnaire. The main instrument that used was the questionnaire, which was based on a number of 12 variables. The quantitative data obtained was processed in the SPSS statistical program. The preliminary results show that even if teachers have some knowledge on the benefits of outdoor education regarding future involvement of pupils in social life, they tend to rarely use it in their educational practice. This happens because of the lack of correct and valid information they have on this type of education, and also because of the misconceptions of parents, who refuse to cooperate regarding this issue. The present study brings and important contribution in this research field, highlighting the values of outdoor education, both theoretically and practically. (shrink)