A century ago, John Dewey remarked that when home changes radically, school must change as well. With home, family, and gender roles dramatically altered in recent years, we are faced with a difficult problem: in the lives of more and more American children, no one is home. The Schoolhome proposes a solution. Drawing selectively from reform movements of the past and relating them to the unique needs of today's parents and children, Jane Martin presents a philosophy of education that (...) is responsive to America's changed and changing realities. As more and more parents enter the workforce, the historic role of the domestic sphere in the education and development of children is drastically reduced. Consequently, Martin advocates removing the barriers between the school and the home--making school a metaphorical "home," a safe and nuturant environment that provides children with the experience of affection and connection otherwise missing or inconsistent in their lives. In this proposition, the traditional schoolhouse where children are drilled in the three Rs is transformed into a "schoolhome" where learning is animated by an ethic of social awareness. At a time when many school reformers are calling for a return to basics and lobbying for skills education and quick-fix initiatives, Martin urges us to reconsider the distinctive legacies of Dewey and Montessori and to conceive of a school that integrates the values of the home with those of social responsibility. With cultural diversity and gender equality among its explicit goals, the schoolhome expands upon Dewey's edict to educate the "whole child," seeking instead to educate all children in the culture's whole heritage. Martin eloquently challenges reformers to reclaim the founding fathers' vision of the nation as a domestic realm, and to imagine a learning environment whose curriculum and classroom practice reflect not merely an economic but a moral investment in the future of our children. More than a summons to action, this remarkable book is a call to rethink the assumptions we bring to the educational enterprise, and so, to act wisely. (shrink)

Examines the theories of Plato, Rousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft, Catherine Beecher, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman concerning the education of women.

As philosophers throughout the ages have asked: What is justice? What is truth? What is art? What is law? In _Education Reconfigured_, the internationally acclaimed philosopher of education, Jane Roland Martin, now asks: What is education? In answer, she puts forward a unified theory that casts education in a brand new light. Martin’s "theory of education as encounter" places culture alongside the individual at the heart of the educational process, thus responding to the call John Dewey made over (...) a century ago for an enlarged outlook on education. Look through her theory’s lens and you can see that education takes place not only in school but at home, on the street, in the mall—everywhere and all the time. Look through that lens and you can see that education does not always spell improvement; rather, it can be for the better or the worse. Indeed, you can see that education is inevitably a maker and shaper of both individuals and cultures. Above all, Martin’s new educational paradigm reveals that education is too important to be left solely to the professionals; that it is one of the great forces in human society and, as such, deserves the attention and demands the vigilance of every thoughtful person. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Missing Women A Case Study of Cultural Loss Cultural Wealth Regained Making the Cultural Wealth Work Agenda for the Future.

The thesis of this paper is that we are now in the early stage of a revolution even more transformative than the Copernican. That great upheaval brought about a radical shift in the way men and women conceptualized their place in the universe. The revolution now under way entails a sea change in the way we think about ourselves in relation to the planet we inhabit—itself not a simple matter—and also the reeducation of our attitudes, values, feelings, emotions, patterns of (...) behavior, and modes of living. All of which is to say that it requires us to become very different people from the ones we now are. (shrink)

The great Western political and social philosophers had no doubts about the importance of education. Feminist philosophers of the past also understood the significance for their own projects of educational theory and philosophy. Today, however, there is an education gap in the feminist philosophy text. Books in the field pay little attention to the subject of education and rarely cite feminist research in this area. Widely circulated bibliographies of feminist philosophy and overviews of the field have tended, in turn, to (...) make this whole area of feminist philosophical research invisible. The feminist theorist/activist Charlotte Bunch once wrote that feminist theory must, among other things, hypothesize how to change what is to what there should be. She did not say – nor would I – that every feminist who puts forward an account of what there should be must also address the practical issue of how to achieve the hoped‐for results. One wonders, however, if it is possible to achieve the transformations of marriage, family, reproduction, workplace, science, society, not to mention gender itself, that feminist philosophers espouse without effecting a correspondingly great transformation of this culture's educational theory and philosophy. (shrink)

A preeminent philosopher of education in the United States, Jane Roland Martin challenges conventional wisdom that education consists of small, incremental changes. Using case studies of personal transformations, or metamorphoses, Martin examines Malcolm X, Shaw's Eliza Doolittle, Victor of Aveyron and others to demonstrate how education is a fundamental determinant of the human condition.

The legendary Greek figure Orpheus was said to have possessed magical powers capable of moving all living and inanimate things through the sound of his lyre and voice. Over time, the Orphic theme has come to indicate the power of music to unsettle, subvert, and ultimately bring down oppressive realities in order to liberate the soul and expand human life without limits. The liberating effect of music has been a particularly important theme in twentieth-century African American literature. The nine original (...) essays in Black Orpheus examines the Orphic theme in the fiction of such African American writers as Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, James Baldwin, Nathaniel Mackey, Sherley Anne Williams, Ann Petry, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Gayl Jones, and Toni Morrison. The authors discussed in this volume depict music as a mystical, shamanistic, and spiritual power that can miraculously transform the realities of the soul and of the world. Here, the musician uses his or her music as a weapon to shield and protect his or her spirituality. Written by scholars of English, music, women's studies, American studies, cultural theory, and black and Africana studies, the essays in this interdisciplinary collection ultimately explore the thematic, linguistic structural presence of music in twentieth-century African American fiction. (shrink)

An examination of the growing literature on gender and science leads to the conclusion that Richardson (1984) has underestimated the significance for philosophy of science of ideological critique. After describing one segment of this literature, namely, gender-based analyses of particular branches of scientific research, this paper argues that the function of at least gender ideological critique goes beyond explanation and that its explanatory function itself is broader than Richardson suggests. The paper also questions the thesis that the isolation of an (...) ideological component in scientific research never in itself discredits that work. In so doing, it casts doubt on the adequacy of L. Laudan's taxonomy of scientific problems. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has witnessed an increase and amplification of anti-Asian racism and violence across the globe. Stop AAPI Hate1 in the United States and the COVID-19 Racism Incident Report2 i...

Explores a provocative alternative vision of education based on an analysis of the feminist educational thought of Jane Roland Martin. Emergent thinking on gender, knowledge, and caring is highlighted, with particular attention to gender-sensitive education and cultural wealth and the implications they hold for the school curriculum.

Jane Roland is evidently right when she points out that "knowing the rule" or "knowing that one ought" sometimes does and sometimes does not constitute having a tendency to behave according to the rule; and right also in her claim that when it does the contradiction she mentions between knowing the rule and frequently disobeying it arises. But the distinction she offers between a tendency and a capacity is not defensible.

Recently, feminists like Jane Roland-Martin, Elizabeth Young-Bruehl, and others have advocated a conversational metaphor for thinking and rationality, and our image of the rational person. Elizabeth Young-Bruehl refers to thinking as a “constant interconnecting of representations of experiences and an extension of how we hear ourselves and others. There are numerous disadvantages to thinking about thinking as a conversation.We think there are difficulties in accepting the current formulation of the conversational metaphor without question. First, there is danger that (...) we will lose important dialectical connections like that between the self and society. Second, the conversational metaphor alone cannot fully express the way conversations are constructed. We will want to take up the notion of narrative as a metaphor for thinking advocated by Susan Bordo, Alasdair MacIntyre, Jerome Bruner, and others, including Mary Belenky and her colleagues.Eventually, we want to champion narrative and the dramatic narrative of culture as a metaphor for thinking that involves such expressions as sights, insights, silences, as well as sounds, moments of mood and poetic moments. The dramatic narrative provides the structural possibilities needed to criticize certain kinds of conversations, in order to talk about the relations of public and private, self and society and most importantly, about the drama of our lives within and without.The dramatic narrative for thinking helps dispel the dangerous dualisms of mind and body that not even conversation or narration alone can banish, and allows us to frame questions about education that do not require us to separate mind from body. The dramatic narrative metaphor for thinking lets us show who we are, act out what we think, and reconstruct rationality to reflect what many women, and some men, do. (shrink)

Reflecting upon Simone Weil’s conception of beauty as food, this essay proposes musical hunger as a metaphoric way of understanding a particular species of “cultural miseducation” as conceived by Jane Roland Martin, that disadvantages children musically and perhaps therefore also spiritually. It examines such musical miseducation with regard to an ethical conception of educational achievement as children’s growing capacities and responsibility for learning to love, survive, and thrive despite their troubles, especially their mothers’ absence, before narrating at length (...) an educational autobiography of musical hunger and posing questions about formal and informal secular educative possibilities for musical nourishment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Response to Susan Laird, “Musical Hunger: A Philosophical Testimonial of Miseducation”Estelle R. JorgensenSusan Laird’s lament of her “musical under-education,” her youthful lack of opportunity for the sorts of experiences for which she hungered and its life-long after-effects, and her invocation of hunger as a metaphor for music education raise compelling questions. In a feminized field such as music, particularly piano playing, her hunger is particularly poignant. Also, the (...) notion of “musical taste” takes on new meaning, and the musical, educational, and ethical questions this metaphor evokes reveal its richness as a means of thinking about music education. This metaphor joins others such as Barbara Thayer Bacon’s metaphor of the quilt, Jane Roland Martin’s metaphor of the home, Iris Yob’s metaphor of pilgrimage, Elizabeth Gould’s metaphor of the nomad, Virginia Richardson’s metaphor of the steward, and Randall Allsup’s metaphor of the garage band, each of which illumines music education differently.1 Without one, we miss important insights into the thought and practice of music education; when taken together, they offer a richer view than were we to see music education in terms of one alone. [End Page 75]Although metaphor evokes imaginative thought and practice in music education, it is also limited. As Nelson Goodman aptly puts it, metaphor is a “matter of teaching an old word new tricks” and an “expedition abroad in which associations with one realm are applied in another.”2 Its power lies in its evocative and imaginative quality as it startles and surprises, challenges familiar ways of thinking and doing, and opens new possibilities for how we might think, act, and be differently. Although Laird would not want to literalize musical hunger or equate it with physical hunger—physical and spiritual realms intersect but they are not equivalent—it is possible to freeze a metaphor or literalize the vitality out of it. Testing it systematically, we enter the ground between metaphor and model, or what Iris Yob thinks of as the metaphorical model.3 While metaphor may prompt an intellectual journey, it cannot take us the entire way. In its particularistic and imaginative appeal, it opens reflection though it cannot suffice. A metaphor may also have a dark side. For example, envisaging the teacher’s role as salvific in providing bread for the hungry or preventing gluttony or food addictions may foster a paternalistic view that substitutes the teacher’s view of a student’s long term interests for the student’s directly-known and immediately perceived needs and interests, thereby subverting Laird’s expressed interest in the student’s desires. The educational “sin” of addiction may also be “redeemed” in Schefflerian fashion by pointing to important contributions of musicians who were doubtless excessive in their musical engagements.4 These possibilities suggest that we shall need to examine critically the metaphor and what it means for music education and move beyond the metaphor to its related models of music education.One of the interesting questions that Laird’s metaphor of hunger raises is the possibility of spiritual hunger, especially in a pervasively materialistic world. Matters related to spirituality have been addressed variously by writers in music education, whether it be the “healing” and ecologically-oriented approach of June Boyce-Tillman, the evolutionary and anthropologically grounded holistic approach of Anthony Palmer, the ethically-based approach of David Carr, the introspective and politically-charged writing of Cathy Benedict and Randall Allsup, the feminist perspectives of Elizabeth Gould, Charlene Morton, Roberta Lamb, and Deanne Bogdan, or the religiously grounded work of Iris Yob.5 Notions of spiritual hunger might be seen differently within the various lenses that these writers bring to music education but they all underscore the importance of knowing that goes beyond the literal, utilitarian, generalizable, and vocational to address the life of mind and body that Susanne Langer terms “feeling” and with which the arts, myths, rituals, and religions have to do.6 As such, they rebuke general education that is limited to reading, writing, and arithmetic, and driven by tests, standards, and mandates that often give short shrift to matters of human spirituality. Still, as the recent unanimous resolution in favor of... (shrink)

David Hume and James Madison believed that a republic can secure domestic tranquility by discouraging the development of factions. Modern computer technology shatters these hopes, which rest on the idea that factions will not grow because great distance makes it difficult for individuals to discover that others share their interests or grievances. Today, technology renders geographical distance increasingly irrelevant to communication with others. If Madison and Hume were right about the effects of distance prior to the current development of computer (...) technology, then we may experience the growth of factions and associated violence that Hume and Madison feared. Increased domestic terrorism made more effective by technologically developed weapons of mass death could be the way of the future. I contend that education can modify such developments by giving priority to Jane Roland Martin's suggestion that we adopt an educational aim intent on securing domestic tranquility. I revise the content of her proposal to include features of communicative rationality as an indispensable element of political dialogue. This provides resources by which factional elements can access and influence political discussion. If we are to enjoy a decent degree of domestic tranquility in the future, we must integrate potentially factious elements into the political process. To marginalize such elements, no matter how repugnant their political views, will merely serve to legitimate their use of terror as the only option available to them for political expression. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to develop a theory of peace education through an examination of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. It examines why Japan did not avoid this terrible nuclear disaster. This is an educational issue, because one of the major impacts of Fukushima's catastrophe is that it indicates the failure of peace education. In order to reestablish a theory of peace education, the concept of domestic tranquility is discussed. This article questions whether the Japanese public order is consistent (...) with democratic principles. Jane Roland Martin's examination of the concept of domestic tranquility is shown relevant. Martin's language analysis helps to distinguish whether or not Japanese domestic tranquility under nuclear crisis is democratic. I propose that post-Fukushima disaster peace education should be reformed as consistent with two democratic principles: acceptance of the diversity of peace and continuous negotiation among these different narratives. (shrink)

The editor of this text has brought together fifteen selections representing some of the major contributions philosophers have made to the study of the aims of education. This anthology is organized into three parts: classical, modern and analytic philosophies of education. Each selection is preceded by the editor’s one page introduction, which unfortunately is far too short to prepare the student to deal technically with the material. In the part devoted to classical writings on education, texts from Plato and Aristotle (...) are offered with no regard to the cultural setting, while the excerpts from Locke, Rousseau and Kant seem to be presented principally with a concern for moral education. The five modern selections are far more interesting, particularly those from Dewey and Russell. The material from Maritain and Whitehead is preponderantly practical, though Sidney Hook’s defense of Dewey will afford the student an appreciation of careful argument. By far the most engaging part of the book is the last, comprising significant selections from Scheffler, Ryle and Jane Roland Martin. A portion of R. S. Peters’ Authority, Responsibility and Education is reprinted, but surprisingly enough, Peters’ far better book, Ethics and Education, is neglected. Cahn presents a short essay of his own, "Is There an Analytic Philosophy of Education?" which he probably would have modified had he been acquainted with Peters’ recent work. The likely use of this anthology is the teacher education course commonly referred to coincidentally by the same title. It is to Cahn’s credit that he has attempted to expose the education student to genuine philosophy, yet this anthology presents a mere mass of material without an effort at providing direction, structure or synthesis. The serious philosophical work of systematically analyzing education, culture, self and meaning still remains as much a task as it did before, though now thanks to Cahn some of the working materials for such an endeavor have been made more available.—J. T. K. (shrink)

In _Vibrant Matter_ the political theorist Jane Bennett, renowned for her work on nature, ethics, and affect, shifts her focus from the human experience of things to things themselves. Bennett argues that political theory needs to do a better job of recognizing the active participation of nonhuman forces in events. Toward that end, she theorizes a “vital materiality” that runs through and across bodies, both human and nonhuman. Bennett explores how political analyses of public events might change were we (...) to acknowledge that agency always emerges as the_ _effect of ad hoc configurations of human and nonhuman forces. She suggests that recognizing that agency is distributed this way, and is not solely the province of humans, might spur the cultivation of a more responsible, ecologically sound politics: a politics less devoted to blaming and condemning individuals than to discerning the web of forces affecting situations and events. Bennett examines the political and theoretical implications of vital materialism through extended discussions of commonplace things and physical phenomena including stem cells, fish oils, electricity, metal, and trash. She reflects on the vital power of material formations such as landfills, which generate lively streams of chemicals, and omega-3 fatty acids, which can transform brain chemistry and mood. Along the way, she engages with the concepts and claims of Spinoza, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Darwin, Adorno, and Deleuze, disclosing a long history of thinking about vibrant matter in Western philosophy, including attempts by Kant, Bergson, and the embryologist Hans Driesch to name the “vital force” inherent in material forms. Bennett concludes by sketching the contours of a “green materialist” ecophilosophy. (shrink)

It is a commonplace that the modern world cannot be experienced as enchanted--that the very concept of enchantment belongs to past ages of superstition. Jane Bennett challenges that view. She seeks to rehabilitate enchantment, showing not only how it is still possible to experience genuine wonder, but how such experience is crucial to motivating ethical behavior. A creative blend of political theory, philosophy, and literary studies, this book is a powerful and innovative contribution to an emerging interdisciplinary conversation about (...) the deep connections between ethics, aesthetics, and politics. As Bennett describes it, enchantment is a sense of openness to the unusual, the captivating, and the disturbing in everyday life. She guides us through a wide and often surprising range of sources of enchantment, showing that we can still find enchantment in nature, for example, but also in such unexpected places as modern technology, advertising, and even bureaucracy. She then explains how everyday moments of enchantment can be cultivated to build an ethics of generosity, stimulating the emotional energy and honing the perceptual refinement necessary to follow moral codes. Throughout, Bennett draws on thinkers and writers as diverse as Kant, Schiller, Thoreau, Kafka, Marx, Weber, Adorno, and Deleuze. With its range and daring, The Enchantment of Modern Life is a provocative challenge to the centuries-old ''narrative of disenchantment,'' one that presents a new ''alter-tale'' that discloses our profound attachment to the human and nonhuman world. (shrink)