This paper takes as its starting point the two paradigms for educational research discussed by Richard Pring in an earlier edition of this journal. The focus is on the role of language and how it might function in relation to research. Drawing on the work of Charles Taylor it is argued that language can legitimately be conceived as constitutive of certain aspects of reality. Taylor's position, it is suggested, indicates a possible relationship between language and reality which (...) transcends both representationalism and inferentialism. Some indications of the implications of this perspective for education are briefly considered. (shrink)

This paper examines the function of language in the domain of education and it‘s vice versa. As we are aware of the fact that language and education are endemic elements of human development and evolution. According to Gandhi, education is the recognition of mind-body, soul and spirit. It is the attainment of the values through morality and ethics. Gandhi accepts communicative aspect of language where as Wittgenstein accepts analytical and conceptual aspect of language. Wittgenstein realized that (...) education is the constituent of what we know, believe and learn. Gandhi asserts on Mother tongue, primary- secondary languages and national languages whereas Wittgenstein emphasis on the natural languages, meta-languages and ideal languages. In this paper I shall demonstrate the problems of language which becomes hurdles in the process of education. For both Gandhi and Wittgenstein, there are problems not in language but in its ordinary usage, speaking, writing, meaning and communication. (shrink)

Taking up Wittgenstein’s critique of the modern worldview, the author gives an account of the assumptions behind it and of its presence in educational institutions. This worldview is easily perpetuated and instilled in new generations through the influence of unconscious assumptions held by educators and institutions. The author argues that in order to halt its perpetuation, educators can use the classroom to change the way students think, specifically by transforming the use of language in the classroom. This paper outlines (...) Wittgenstein’s critique of modernity and suggests alternative ways to view the function of language in the world, arguing that Wittgenstein’s insights are of singular value to this project. The use of a new language in teaching and learning transforms the classroom into a site of creative engagement rather than a continuation of the modern worldview. (shrink)

This paper takes as its starting point the two paradigms for educational research discussed by Richard Pring in an earlier edition of this journal. The focus is on the role of language and how it might function in relation to research. Drawing on the work of Charles Taylor it is argued that language can legitimately be conceived as constitutive of certain aspects of reality. Taylor's position, it is suggested, indicates a possible relationship between language and reality which (...) transcends both representationalism and inferentialism. Some indications of the implications of this perspective for education are briefly considered. (shrink)

The relationship between national languages and schooling is a recurring theme in Derrida’s writings on education, playing an important role in the challenge he mounts to traditional understandings of the French State’s involvement in the teaching of philosophy. In this essay, I follow this thread of thinking across several of Derrida’s texts, paying specific attention to his diagnoses of positions arguing for a universal philosophical language on the one hand, and those elevating French as the proper language of (...) philosophy on the other. I demonstrate how, against these positions, an alternative understanding of relation between language and philosophical education starts to emerge in Derrida’s work, one in which translation is a key element. (shrink)

Language and technology are both culture-bound. While technology arises from the needs of a particular culture, language helps in the storage, preservation, and transmission of both the culture and the technology from one generation to another. Language is one of man’s most powerful developmental tools. Language determines to a large extent how one’s thought processes and brain functionality are wired. It determines how one perceives, interprets, reconstructs, and transforms their immediate environment into a more conducive habitat. (...) However, a fundamental problem is that many learn and receive formal education today in the languages foreign to them. This, to some extent, hampers perception and understanding during instructional delivery, especially in areas where there is a discrepancy between the daily mode of communication and the official channel of academic instruction. The world would be richer if all people were to revert to their indigenous languages or to those of their earliest upbringing where they feel most natural and comfortable firsthand. The primary objective of this article therefore is to underline the irreplaceable and indispensable necessity of the need for academics and educational policymakers to prioritize once more the appropriateness of promoting as tools for teaching and learning, both the so called international languages and the indigenous ones. The immense spiritual density of local or indigenous languages provides them with such non-negligible keys for unlocking greater human potentialities over the ages in less time than their exclusion could ever achieve. (shrink)

Language plays a central role in the life and activities of our world. This article is a theoretical analysis of the dynamic powers of language in driving possible value-based orientations in higher education. The multilingual nature of the continent of Africa and its bilateral lingual experiences during the colonial eras should be considered as both factual and impacting factors in evaluating language dynamics within value orientations and learning in the African case study. To this end, the article (...) attempts to contribute to the fact that there is a need to find or reinstate value in Africa’s linguistics dynamics and its complexities, as well as give them properly structured orientations within the new phase of repositioning Africa in the global spaces. (shrink)

Presenting a range of data obtained from secondary schools in the UK and US, this path-breaking book explores the role played by language in constructing sexual identities. Analysing the often complex ways in which homophobia, heterosexism and heteronormativity are enacted within school contexts, it shows that by analysing language, we can discover much about how educators and students experience sexual diversity in their schools, how sexual identities are constructed through language, and how different statuses are ascribed to (...) different sexual identities. (shrink)

P S Wilson; Interests, Values and Educational Language, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 10, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 147–166, https://doi.org/10.1.

This article search, from a situation of classroom, to interpret the reality of the processes of felt learning and constitution of a child in initial phase of acquisition of the written language. This passage will be constructed from the notion of similarity, language and experience in Benjamin and Agamben. For in such a way the one notion `inversion' of logic in the frequent way that we think the education and that we look at the school seems necessary, in (...) this perspective some axles if they become central offices, the first one is a look on the knowledge idea and to learn as in relation the notion of `to teach finally' and third, from an approach on infancy and a look on the film “The Villa” of Shiamallan, appears a necessity of ‘pedagogy of childhood’, that is, the indicative for walking for an education that of the pedagogy inferiorly. (shrink)

Bourdieu and Education details the practical applications of Bourdieu's theories in a series of specific pedagogic research studies, showing how his ideas can be put into practice. Language, gender, career decision-making and the experience of higher education students are all covered. Questions are also raised concerning research methodology. The authors also examine Bourdieu's interest in the position of the researcher within the research process. Bourdieu's influence is traced in aspects of both theory and practice. Finally, principles, approaches, methods and (...) techniques that may be derived from Bourdieu are suggested, and assessed, for practical use in research. (shrink)

P S Wilson; Interests, Values and Educational Language, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 10, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 147–166, https://doi.org/10.1.

Antonio Gramsci and his concept of hegemony are often invoked in current debates concerning cultural imperialism, globalisation and global English. However, these debates are rarely cognizant of Gramsci's own university training in linguistics, the centrality of language to his writings on education and hegemony, or his specific engagement with language politics in his own day. By paying much greater attention to Gramsci's writings on language and education, this article attempts to lay the groundwork for an adequate approach (...) to the current politics of global English.While Gramsci may have left formal education and his studies in linguistics at Turin University as a young man to become a full time journalist and political activist, he certainly did not ‘jettison’ his study of language as is commonly implied. It has been widely accepted that Gramsci had an expansive conception of education which would curtail any suggestion that ‘education’ must be limited to formal schooling or university. Likewise, this article demonstrates the importance of Gramsci's lifelong analysis of language, its role in education and the development of hegemony. It argues that Gramsci's writings on language policy in Italy, specifically la questione della lingua[the language question] and his concern with linguistics, are an integral part of his approach to education and hegemony. (shrink)

The aim of this article is twofold. Against the traditional interpretation of ‘the conscience of Huckleberry Finn’ (for which Jonathan Bennett's article with this title is the locus classicus) as a conflict between conscience and sympathy, I propose a new interpretation of Huck's inner conflict, in terms of Huck's mastery of (the) moral language and its integration with his moral feelings. The second aim is to show how this interpretation can provide insight into a particular aspect of moral education: (...) learning a moral language. A moral education that has a proper regard for the flexibility of moral language and the importance of the integration of moral language and (pre-)moral feelings should prevent such conflicts as Huck experienced from arising. (shrink)

This paper analyses the national key stage 2 test results for 2300 11?year?old pupils in an inner London LEA. A range of concurrent pupil background data was also collected, including whether pupils spoke English as an additional language (EAL), and if so, their stage of fluency in English. EAL pupils at the early stages (1?3) of developing fluency had significantly lower KS2 test scores in all subjects than their monolingual peers. However, EAL pupils who were fully fluent in English (...) achieved significantly higher scores in all KS2 tests than their monolingual peers. The negative association with attainment for the early stages of fluency remained significant after controls for a range of other pupil characteristics, including age, gender, free school meal entitlement, stage of special educational need and ethnic group, although these factors effectively explained the higher attainment of the ?fully fluent? group. We conclude that EAL is not itself a good guide to levels of attainment, and a measure of stage of English fluency is necessary to interpret associations with test performance. Alternative measures which focus only on the very early stages of English proficiency, such as the QCA ?language in common? steps, are inadequate to assess the impact of bilingualism for all but the very earliest learners of English. Given the uneven distribution of EAL pupils across the country, those schools and local education authorities with high concentrations of pupils in the early stages of learning English are likely to be adversely affected in school achievement and attainment tables. The policy implications for national data collection and for the use of such data are considered. (shrink)

P S Wilson; Interests, Values and Educational Language, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 10, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 147–166, https://doi.org/10.1.

In this article, we explore to what extent parents should be ‘educators’ of their children. In the course of this exploration, we offer some examples of these practices and ways of speaking and thinking, indicate some of the problems and limitations they import into our understanding of the parent–child relationship, and make some tentative suggestions towards an alternative way of thinking about this relationship.

Publication date: 2 May 2019 Source: Author: Oleg Tarnopolsky The article discusses an innovative course taught to students majoring in English at Ukrainian universities. The course called “Specific Features of the English Language and English-Speaking Nations’ Cultures in the Context of International Communication” was designed to eliminate the lack of a number of issues that must be included in the curriculum of English language and culture studies to be learned by such students but which are ordinarily not included (...) there because each of them cannot make the subject matter of a separate university course and does not fit into the traditionally taught courses. The issues in question embrace: the specific role of English among other languages of international communication; World Englishes, International English and English as a lingua franca and how to choose the variety of English to be taught as a foreign language; the specifics of business negotiations in English in intercultural contexts, business presentations in English, and business telephoning in English in such contexts; communicative behavioral etiquette in intercultural communication in English; lifestyle communicative behavioral patterns of the English-speaking nations. The paper shows how teaching these issues enriches and improves the English language and culture education of English major students expanding that education and relevant practical training to fit much better the international and intercultural contexts of communication in English. (shrink)

Paul H Hirst; Language and Thought, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 1, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 63–75, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.1967.tb.

Since the methods employed during teacher-learner interchange are constrained by the internal structure of a discipline, a study of the interaction amongst verbal language, technical language and structure of disciplines is at the heart of the classic problem of transfer in teaching-learning situations. This paper utilizes the analytic method of philosophy to explore aspects of the role of language in mathematics education, and attempts to harmonize mathematical meanings exposed by verbal language and the precise meanings expressed (...) by the mathematics register (MR) formulated in verbal language. While focusing on the integration of language use and meaning construction in mathematics education, the paper explores the relationship between the conceptual understanding revealed by the mathematics register and the procedural knowledge that refers to the mathematical content through ordinary discourse. (shrink)

Owing to the growing internationalisation of research, educational researchers in the Netherlands are increasingly expected to publish through the medium of the English language. Though this undoubtedly benefits the communication between scholars, there are also side-effects. This paper discusses problematic issues from three perspectives: (i) the use of a non-native language for communication between scholars in the area of education; (ii) the use either exclusively, or not, of a publication record of such publications for purposes of recruitment and (...) promotion of staff; (iii) the relationships between research groups of different disciplines and/or universities. It will be argued that the demand to publish exclusively in a non-native language has damaging effects as far as the context of education is concerned. Not only will it lead to a denial of one's own background and culture, but the uniformisation, (which is the result of it), will also stifle the rich educational landscape by allowing the publication only of items of international interest. The model of the natural sciences is not adequate for the context of education because of the necessarily more local character of the content of educational problems and production of strategies to deal with these. Thus it will become clear that the integrity of the educational researcher is at stake as the research area is selected. (shrink)

This first book-length collection on Levinas and education gathers new texts written especially for this volume by an international group of scholars well known for their work in philosophy, educational theory, and on Levinas. It provides an introduction to some of Levinas's major themes of ethics, justice, hope, hospitality, forgiveness and more, as its contributing authors address some fundamental educational issues such as: what it means to be a teacher; what it means to learn from a teacher; the role of (...) language in the curriculum; literature, ethics, and education; moral education and human relations in schools; ethics of responsibility and philosophical-pedagogical discourse; educational hospitality and interculturalism; unconditional responsibility and education; educating for participatory democratic citizenship; the pedagogy of peace; logic, rationality, and ethics; connecting teaching to spirituality. Levinas always insisted that his aim was not to provide "a program," and accordingly, it is not the intent of the authors to look in Levinas's texts for a set of guidelines, rules, or precepts to be applied to education. Rather, this study invites educators, and researchers in philosophy and philosophy of education, to a thoughtful and critical reading of Levinas, and to engage with his unique style of analysis and questioning as they uncover with these authors the necessity and the possibility of thinking education anew in terms of ethics, justice, responsibility, hope and faith. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine the mission and education of the Korean Orthodox Church in the process of migration and settlement of Koreans in the Primorsky Krai from the 1860s to the 1910s and to discuss the historical background and sociocultural significance of it. This study summarizes the history of Korean maritime migrants in chronological order in the late 19th century. In this study, Russian, Russian-Korean bilingual and Korean translation used by the Russian Orthodox Church were discussed. (...) At the time of the 19th century, the Russian Orthodox Church was the ideological background of the ruling Russian emigration. The Russian orthodox education that Koreans received was the first Western-style education acceptance of Koreans. The Orthodox Church conducted missions and education for Koreans through Russian language education, Korean-Russian bilingual education, and Korean-speaking Korean missions. Koreans accepted sophistication for survival and adjustment in Russia, or spiritual influence, and expressed enthusiasm for education. Russian Orthodox was bilingual, reflecting the dialect used by Koreans in Russia, and standard Korean of Seoul area. Although the educational environment was poor and the political situation was always changing rapidly, the role of the Orthodox Church was great in that it provided opportunities for Koreans to play an active role in the Primorsky Krai by finding out the talents of Koreans through education and by knowing their potentials themselves. (shrink)

Tracing the deep connections between philosophy and education, Ryan McInerney argues that we must use philosophy to reflect on the significance of educational practice to all human endeavour. He uses a broad approach which takes in the relationships governing philosophy, education, and language, to reveal education's fundamental achievements and metaphysical significance. The realization of educational ideals and policies are read alongside growing skepticism regarding the theoretical and practical significance of philosophical thinking, and the emphasis on resource efficiency and measurable (...) outcomes which characterise schooling today. It is from this context that McInerney defends the value inherent to the philosophy of education. Drawing upon contemporary continental and analytic thinkers including Nietzsche, Gadamer, and Wittgenstein, McInerney charts the role of education in shaping the child's metaphysical transformation through language acquisition. Connecting early years and primary school education, McInerney pinpoints rationality as the crucial factor which produces critical, thinking beings. He presents the pursuit of philosophically minded education as a rational pursuit which enables us to philosophise and educate others in turn, dispensing with the epistemological and conceptual foundationalisms of the past. (shrink)

In this article, the authors explore the interaction of language and culture through a metaphorical analysis of the ideas written of in Gregory Stock's book, Metaman, as well as explain how education shares the implicit assumptions of Metaman, thus perpetuating and strengthening a modern-day discourse that embeds a technological manifest destiny enveloped in deficiency as a guiding metaphor.

Through a series of writings from international scholars, _Gramsci and Educational Thought_ pays tribute to the educational influence of Antonio Gramsci, considered one of the greatest social thinkers and political theorists of the 20th century. Represents sound social theory and a broad application and reinvention of Gramsci’s ideas Covers important areas such as language and education, community education, and social work education Features perspectives from different geographical contexts.

Paul H Hirst; Language and Thought, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 1, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 63–75, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.1967.tb.

Kneller's main concern is that, "If we are to understand the problems, policies, and concepts of education, we must first examine carefully the language of educational discourse." This book is a sober and readable review of several problems in modern philosophy, in which are revealed some of the strategies used by the giants of language philosophy to analyze difficult philosophical propositions and paradoxes. Each chapter of historical exposition is paralleled with a chapter of applications to problems in educational (...) philosophy. The early part of the book is a review of John Dewey's central theses, plus a few words on research methodology in general, both of which are related to the conduct of classroom lessons; the second part of the book, which Kneller calls "Formal Analysis," is an exceedingly competent precis of work in the philosophy of science, especially Wittgenstein's and Carnap's, followed by a series of important caveats to educational researchers, reminding them of some of the serious problems of inference and generalization in the behavioral sciences; the third section, featuring Ryle, Austin, and Strawson, is called "Informal Analysis," and is principally a discussion of "ordinary language" philosophy, with applications to the familiar clichés and slogans of school administrators and politicians. Kneller favors this last group, since he feels that informal analysis is more "practical and humane," and his feelings are supported by some current conflicts between hard and soft educational research. The basic exhortation of this book, though, is that people who talk and think about education should be more philosophically competent about it, even if their philosophical blunders have not yet affected their ability to teach and make policy. He maintains that educational philosophy will not add anything new to the educational universe, but rather, clarify what is already there.—E. H. W. (shrink)

A middle-school classroom of English as a Second Language (ESL) for Somali and Vietnamese refugees is examined here. With Lefebvre's (1991) theory of the production of space and an additional help of postcolonial criticism (Fanon 1967; Willinsky 1998), this article first reviews how interplays among national flags, teaching and learning activities, and classroom arrangements served to nationalize a curriculum that ?walls? (Marcuse and von Kempen 1995) these students in national margins. Second, to further critiques and practices, the author argues (...) that an Other is critical in making a triad for becoming and the emergence of alternative transnationalism. More than defending differences in terms of originality, such transnationalism and the purpose of its pedagogy (Said 1994; Spivak 1997) reconceptualize the relations among culture, people, and place (Gupta and Ferguson 1992), and pursues more diverse trajectories of Becoming Others. (shrink)

From the beginning of the 1990s, the Swedish society has been affected by various changes at various levels. This modified social, political and economic context led to several reforms implemented in the educational arena. These reforms dealt with decentralisation, choice, use of market forces and privatisation. All these aspects had an impact on language education. This article will focus upon the social, ideological/political and educational parameters having affected language?in?education policy in Sweden these last years. It will investigate the (...) present?day position of languages ? Swedish, minority languages, English and other foreign languages ? in the Swedish educational milieu. It is based upon the following main assumption: an investigation into the position of these languages in education highlights the new trends observed in the educational sphere since the 1990s. These new trends themselves echo the various changes Sweden has been experiencing lately in several domains. (shrink)

In his most recent book, Ermanno Bencivenga offers a stylistically and conceptually exciting investigation of the nature of language, mind, and personhood and the many ways the three connect. Bencivenga, one of the most iconoclastic voices to emerge in contemporary American philosophy, contests the basic assumptions of analytic (and also, to an extent, postmodern) approaches to these topics. His exploration leads through fascinating discussions of education, courage, pain, time and history, selfhood, subjectivity and objectivity, reality, facts, the empirical, power (...) and transgression, silence, privacy and publicity, and play—all themes that are shown to be integral to our thinking about language. Relentessly bending the rules, Bencivenga frustrates our expectations of a "proper" theory of language. He invokes the transgressions of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein even as he appropriates the aphoristic style of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Written in a philosophically playful and experimental mode, A Theory of Language and Mind draws the reader into a sense of continual surprise, therapeutic discomfort, and discovery. (shrink)

The contribution that may come from the general science of signs, semiotics, to the planning and development of education and learning at all levels, from early schooling through to university education and learning should not be neglected. As Umberto Eco claims in the “Introduction” to the Italian edition of his book Semiotica and Philosophy of Language (1984: xii, my trans.), “[general semiotics] is philosophical in nature, because it does not study a particular system, but posits the general categories in (...) light of which different systems can be compared. And for general semiotics philosophical discourse is neither advisable nor urgent: it is simply constitutive.” To the title of their book Semiotic Theory of Learning, at the centre of our attention in the present text, Andrew Stables, Winfried Nöth, Alin Olteanu, Sébastien Pesce, and Eetu Pikkarainen, rightly add the subtitle New Perspectives in the Philosophy of Education. This multivoiced contribution to research in learning and education in a semiotic framework has a unifying reference in the semiotics of Charles S. Peirce, but without disregarding an array of other distinguished exponents of the teaching and education sciences from different disciplines, semioticians and philosophers alike. This book, a polyphonic effort, with its appeal to “act otherwise,” and to do so investing in learning and education, no doubt makes a significant contribution in such a direction: education for transformation, for humanizing social change. Beyond evidencing what to us are particularly interesting aspects of the topics under discussion in Semiotic Theory of Learning, we also propose to continue and amplify this multivoiced dialogue. While highlighting still other aspects and contributions made by the same semioticians and philosophers presented by the authors of this book, involving such figures as Charles Peirce, Charles Morris, Thomas Sebeok, John Deely, etc., we have further introduced other voices made to resound throughout, whether directly or indirectly, like that of Victoria Welby, Mikhail Bakhtin, Emmanuel Levinas, Adam Schaff, Ferruccio Rossi-Landi, Marcel Danesi, Augusto Ponzio, and Genevieve Vaughan. (shrink)

When analyzing complex longitudinal data, especially data from different educational settings, researchers generally focus only on the mean part (i.e., the regression coefficients), ignoring the equally important random part (i.e., the random effect variances) of the model. By using Project English Language and Literacy Acquisition (ELLA) data, we demonstrated the importance of taking the complex data structure into account by carefully specifying the random part of the model, showing that not only can it affect the variance estimates, the standard (...) errors, and the tests of significance of the regression coefficients, it also can offer different perspectives of the data, such as information related to the developmental process. We used xxM (Mehta, 2013), which can flexibly estimate different grade-level variances separately and the potential carryover effect from each grade factor to the later time measures. Implications of the findings and limitations of the study are discussed. (shrink)

In the World Library of Educationalists series, international experts themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces--extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and/practical contributions--so the work can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers will be able to follow the themes and strands of their work and see their contribution to the development of a field. A developmental psychologist by training, Howard Gardner has spent the last 30 years researching, thinking (...) and writing about the development and education of the mind. He has contributed over 30 years researching, thinking and writing about the development and education of the mind. He has contributed over 30 books and 700 articles to the field. He is best known for his critique of the notion that intelligence is one single human intelligence that can be assessed through psychometric tests. Instead Gardner developed the theory of "multiple intelligence" which states that an individual has eight relatively autonomous intelligence: · Language · Music · Emotional · Logical-mathematical · Spatial · Kinesthetic · Creative · Interpersonal (understanding oneself) This theory has proved popular, particularly with those who see the IQ testing a relatively narrow set of abilities. In this book, he brings together over 20 of his key writings in one place. The book begins with a specially written Introduction, which gives an overview of Howard's career and contextualizes his selection in this book. Through his selection we can see the development of his thinking as well as the development of the field. This is the only book that offers this insight into this great scholar's work. (shrink)