The purpose of this paper is to illustrate and highlight the continued suffrage of Latino families as they have struggled to provide their children with an equal education. Through providing an overview of court cases that have directly impacted the interface between Latino families and the American educationaI system, the paper provides the reader with a historical, social and cultural understanding of the politics of educating Latino children. Moreover, this backdrop provides asound foundation for illustrating the educational and (...) family research that has focused on Latino families and school partnerships and its impact on the politics of educattng Latino children. The authors end the paper by providing insight to the future of the Latino Intelegensia and the impIications it has for Latino families, schools and their communities. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate and highlight the continued suffrage of Latino families as they have struggled to provide their children with an equal education. Through providing an overview of court cases that have directly impacted the interface between Latino families and the American educationaI system, the paper provides the reader with a historical, social and cultural understanding of the politics of educating Latino children. Moreover, this backdrop provides asound foundation for illustrating the educational and (...) family research that has focused on Latino families and school partnerships and its impact on the politics of educattng Latino children. The authors end the paper by providing insight to the future of the Latino Intelegensia and the impIications it has for Latino families, schools and their communities. (shrink)

Prompted by what is seen as a missing analysis in the discussions about passion and affect in education, this essay attempts to clarify and provide a context for understanding the contribution of Foucault in the discourse of passion. In particular, the author traces the politics of passion in Foucault's work. A ‘politics of passion’ is the analysis that challenges the cultural and historical emotional rules with respect to what passion is, how it is expressed, who gets to (...) express it and under what circumstances. It is argued that a discussion of Foucault's ideas on passion provides a way of sharpening and clarifying his politics on affect, particularly what is relevant to individual and collective emotional control in education. (shrink)

Educating students for emotional wellbeing is a vital task in schools. However, educating emotions is not straightforward. Emotional processes can be challenging to identify and control. How emotions are valued varies across societies, while individuals within societies face different emotional expectations. For example, girls face pressure to be happy and caring, while boys are often encouraged to be brave. This text analyses the best practices of educating emotions. The focus is not just on the psychological benefits of emotional regulation, but (...) also on how calls for educating emotions connect to the aims of society. The book explores psychology's understanding of emotions, 'the politics of emotions', and philosophy. It also discusses education for happiness, compassion, gratitude, resilience, mindfulness, courage, vulnerability, anger, sadness, and fear. (shrink)

Heidegger is now widely recognized as one of the most influential and controversial philosophers of the twentieth century, yet much of his later philosophy remains shrouded in confusion and controversy. Restoring Heidegger's understanding of metaphysics as 'ontotheology' to its rightful place at the center of his later thought, this book demonstrates the depth and significance of his controversial critique of technology, his appalling misadventure with Nazism, his prescient critique of the university, and his important philosophical suggestions for the future of (...) higher education. It will be required reading for those seeking to understand the relationship between Heidegger's philosophy and National Socialism, as well as the continuing relevance of his work. (shrink)

Jacob Neumann provides a thoughtful reading of Paulo Freire in the 21st century: Education, dialogue, and transformation. His comments on the importance of contextualising Freire’s work and the value of openness in engaging Freirean ideas are insightful and helpful. His use of the term ‘apolitical’ is, however, rather more problematic. Drawing on points made in Paulo Freire in the 21st century, and with links to Freire’s wider philosophy and pedagogy, this article argues that education from a Freirean perspective (...) is always political. (shrink)

In recent times, schools have begun to focus on issues of wellbeing, engaging with ideas from various fields such as positive psychology. It is in this context that there is a growing interest in humility, rather than this interest having emerged from debates in moral philosophy and moral education. However, to the extent that education for wellbeing initiatives might promote humility as a virtue, it is important to address the extent to which it can be considered as good. (...) This paper critically explores the shift of humility from vice to virtue in the west with the advent of Christianity. Drawing on historical, religious, and philosophical sources, the status of humility as a moral good is brought into question. It is argued that humility can only be understood, like other virtues, within historical, political, and social context. Thus, it is in how humility is operationalised in contexts of social relations that we can evaluate its moral worth. As such, we suggest that educators and schools should take account of the contingent nature of humility, its paradoxes and politics, rather than promoting it as an unquestionable good. (shrink)

Prompted by what is seen as a missing analysis in the discussions about passion and affect in education, this essay attempts to clarify and provide a context for understanding the contribution of Foucault in the discourse of passion. In particular, the author traces the politics of passion in Foucault's work. A ‘politics of passion’ is the analysis that challenges the cultural and historical emotional rules with respect to what passion is, how it is expressed, who gets to (...) express it and under what circumstances. It is argued that a discussion of Foucault's ideas on passion provides a way of sharpening and clarifying his politics on affect, particularly what is relevant to individual and collective emotional control in education. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article argues that Hannah Arendt provides an illuminating perspective on the “crisis” of education. The meaning and purpose of education, in Arendt's view, its fundamental role in civilization, is to impart an old world to new beings, preparing children for “renewing a common world” by establishing an active bond to the past that does not just encumber but enables agency. Because her work does not cohere with either contemporary liberal or contemporary conservative criticisms or justifications of (...) higher education, or with either moral or vocational promises about its merit, Arendt's understanding of education appears less as a competing approach than as simply an eclipsed perspective. By focusing on the meanings and values of the public world we ineluctably inherit, Arendt's reflections on education illuminate the temporal precarity intrinsic to the human condition. (shrink)

Since 1992, Border Crossings has show cased Henry A. Giroux's extraordinary range as a thinker by bringing together a series of essays that refigure the relationship between post-modernism, feminism, cultural studies and critical pedagogy. With discussions of topics including the struggle over academic canon, the role of popular culture in the curriculum and the cultural war the New Right has waged on schools, Giroux identified the most pressing issues facing critical educators at the turn of the century. In this revised (...) edition, Giroux reflects on the limits and possibilities of border crossings in the 21st century. "Borders" in our post 9/11 world have not been collapsing, he argues, but vigorously rebuilt. In order to have a truly critically engaged citizenry the challenges of these new "borders"- such as the increased militarization of public spaces, the rise of neo-liberalism, and the war in Iraq- must play a vital role in any debate on school and pedagogy. (shrink)

In this book, Sean Noah Walsh applies Herbert Marcuse’s observations on counterrevolution to recent developments in education politics. Seemingly disparate issues such as the exercise of state power to reorganize curricula, the derision of intellectuals, the permeation of consumerism into the collegiate experience, and the expansion of online teaching belong to the same strategy in which the faculties of dissent are neutralized before they can develop and dissent is established as the paramount political obscenity.

James Callaghan's 1976 Ruskin Speech is often presented as denoting the end of consensual policy-making in education and a profigurement of Thatcherite educational policies. This paper considers the validity of visualising 1976 as a foothill of New Right thinking about education and expresses some skepticism about interpretations which neglect subterranean politics.

The eight short explorations in the first part of this paper attempt to identify some crucial developments in the history of Western learning which eclipsed pluralist educational practices in their (Socratic) infancy and thereafter, and which contributed to the widespread employment of education as a force for cultural uniformity, or assumed superiority. Drawing together the lessons of the first part with contemporary insights from hermeneutic philosophy, the second part sets forth briefly the promising educational possibilities for human self-understanding and (...) co-existence which are furnished by a newly-inspired reclamation of the long-eclipsed heritage. (shrink)

This article analyzes the evolution of Philosophy of Educationin Spain and its situation at the dawn of the 21st century. Spain'speculiar socio-historical circumstances have largely conditioned thedirection this discipline has taken over the last several decades. So,although during a period there was some approximation towards themethods of analytic philosophy, Philosophy of Education has never fullyrelinquished its normative vocation. To do so would have meant spurningthe hopes and fears that had filled Spanish society by the mid 1970supon the reinstatement of (...) civil liberties and democracy. Indeed,attention to the circumstances and that normative orientation have foundtheir best fit in a practical Aristotelian-based philosophy meant toendow Philosophy of Education with a normative character that do notshun the educator's need for reflection, practical decision-making, andresponsibility. Since the 1990s, new directions have been marked by thechallenge of postmodernism, inasmuch as it affects not only thetechnological positivist model but also the reflective educator's modelof a practical Philosophy of Education. The new directions spread out invarious ways, yet they all fall into a common denominator of narrativetrends. The problem posed by these new languages lies in the extent towhich they are consistent with pedagogic intent. In turn, the answerstake on different profiles depending on whether the stance leans moretowards the philosophical or the pedagogical point of view withinPhilosophy of Education. The complementary nature of both perspectivescharacterizes the current state of the field in Spain. (shrink)

This paper considers a distinction between two types of politics developed by Michael Oakeshott in his book The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism and argues that the theoretical framework proposed supplies an illuminating and productive perspective for examining the notion of political extremism. These positions are linked to two other important aspects of his work, namely his account of 'enterprise' and 'civil' association and his differentiation between abstract philosophical entities and concrete political situations. There (...) is also a discussion of the idea of 'perfectionism' which is central to the politics offaith. The paper concludes with a consideration of some of the implications for political education arising from this analysis. (shrink)

This book introduces students to the broad social, political, and philosophical questions surrounding education theory and practice. Examining five of the most influential philosophers of all time—Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Rousseau, and Dewey—the text provides insight into historical theories of education that have shaped contemporary ideas and debates. By engaging with important thinkers in the philosophical tradition, readers will be better equipped to critically evaluate the role and meanings of education in their own lives, both as students and (...) as teachers. Written in an accessible tone, Foundations of Education engages the reader and invites dialogue and reflection. Each chapter includes excerpts from philosophical writings, learning activities, and discussion questions, and the book also features a glossary of key terms. This volume is ideally suited to undergraduate courses in the philosophy of education and general education theory. (shrink)

This paper considers a distinction between two types of politics developed by Michael Oakeshott in his book The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism (1996) and argues that the theoretical framework proposed supplies an illuminating and productive perspective for examining the notion of political extremism. These positions are linked to two other important aspects of his work, namely his account of 'enterprise' and 'civil' association and his differentiation between abstract philosophical entities and concrete political situations. (...) There is also a discussion of the idea of 'perfectionism' which is central to the politics offaith. The paper concludes with a consideration of some of the implications for political education arising from this analysis. (shrink)

Bernard Stiegler is known as a leading philosopher of technics. He has developed an original interpretation of technics as an externalized epiphylogenetic memory that remembers in the p...

In this ground-breaking analysis, Terry Moe treats Hurricane Katrina as a natural experiment that offers a rare opportunity to learn about the role of power in the politics of institutional reform. When Katrina hit, it physically destroyed New Orleans' school buildings, but it also destroyed the vested-interest power that had protected the city's abysmal education system from major reform. With the constraints of power lifted, decision makers who had been incremental problem-solvers turned into revolutionaries, creating the most innovative (...) school system in the entire country. The story of New Orleans' path from failure to revolution is fascinating, but, more importantly, it reveals the true role of power, whose full effects normally cannot be observed, because power has a “second face” that is hidden and unobservable. Making use of Katrina's analytic leverage, Moe pulls back the curtain to show that this “second face” has profound consequences that stifle and undermine society's efforts to fix failing institutions. (shrink)

In recent years the historical relationship between scientific experts and the state has received increasing scrutiny. Such experts played important roles in the creation and regulation of environmental organizations and functioned as agents dispatched by politicians or bureaucrats to assess health-related problems and concerns raised by the public or the judiciary. But when it came to making public policy, scientists played another role that has received less attention. In addition to acting as advisers and assessors, some scientists were democratically elected (...) members of local and national legislatures. In this essay I draw attention to this phenomenon by examining how liberal politicians and intellectuals used Darwinian cognitive science to conceptualize the education of children in Victorian Britain. (shrink)

Three key contributions of Iris Young to democratic political theory, and three challenges that have arisen in response to Young's theory, are examined here in relation to education. First, Young has argued that oppression and domination, not distributive inequality, ought to guide discussions about justice. Second, eliminating oppression requires establishing a politics that welcomes difference by dismantling and reforming structures, processes, concepts and categories that sustain difference‐blind, impartial, neutral, universal politics and policies. The infatuation with merit and (...) standardized tests, both of which are central to measuring educational achievement, are chief amongst the targets in need of reform. Third, a politics of difference requires restructuring the division of labour and decision‐making so as to include disadvantaged social groups but allow them to contribute without foregoing their particularities. The challenges that have arisen in response to Young's theory are first, that difference is merely another way of getting at inequality of resources or opportunities, and if it is not, then, second, a politics of difference values difference for the sake of difference rather than for the sake of alleviating social disadvantage. Third, in theory and in practice a politics that focuses on difference putatively jeopardizes a politics whose aim is to improve the redistribution of resources. (shrink)

Three key contributions of Iris Young to democratic political theory, and three challenges that have arisen in response to Young's theory, are examined here in relation to education. First, Young has argued that oppression and domination, not distributive inequality, ought to guide discussions about justice. Second, eliminating oppression requires establishing a politics that welcomes difference by dismantling and reforming structures, processes, concepts and categories that sustain difference‐blind, impartial, neutral, universal politics and policies. The infatuation with merit and (...) standardized tests, both of which are central to measuring educational achievement, are chief amongst the targets in need of reform. Third, a politics of difference requires restructuring the division of labour and decision‐making so as to include disadvantaged social groups but allow them to contribute without foregoing their particularities. The challenges that have arisen in response to Young's theory are first, that difference is merely another way of getting at inequality of resources or opportunities, and if it is not, then, second, a politics of difference values difference for the sake of difference rather than for the sake of alleviating social disadvantage. Third, in theory and in practice a politics that focuses on difference putatively jeopardizes a politics whose aim is to improve the redistribution of resources. (shrink)

This book is obviously about much more than education Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr, MD, forensic psychiatrist and author of The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes..

How can educators and their students interrogate the ethics and politics of suffering in ways that do not create fixed and totalized narratives from the past? In responding to this question, this essay draws on J. M. Coeetze’s Disgrace, and discusses how this novel constitutes a crucial site for bearing witness to the suffering engendered by apartheid through inventing new forms of mourning and community. The anti-historicist stance of the novel is grounded on the notion that bearing witness to (...) suffering without betraying it means refusing to represent it, that is, refusing to translate history and speak of it; instead, the novel’s characters remain inconsolable before history. The essay builds on these ideas and considers whether educators and their students need to (re)learn the limits of historicism in comprehending conflict, oppression, otherness and suffering; also, it examines the educational implications of such a pedagogical task. (shrink)

Why has thinking about politics over the centuries been quite so intertwined with thinking about educational theory and practice? This book draws together a fascinating mix of educational pioneers and thinkers to answer this question and more.

In this text I concentrate on semiotic aspects of the theory of political identity in the work of Ernesto Laclau, and especially on the connection between metaphors, metonymies, catachreses and synecdoches. Those tropes are of ontological status, and therefore they are of key importance in understanding the discursive “production” of identity in political and educational practices. I use the conceptions of both Laclau and Eco to elucidate the operation of this structure, and illustrate it with an example of the emergence (...) of the “Solidarność” movement in Poland, expanding its analysis provided by Laclau. I focus on the moment when one of particular demands assumes the representation of totality, which, in Laclau, is left to “circumstantial” determination. This moment inspires several questions and needs to be given special attention if Laclau’s theory is to be used in theory of education. It is so because theory of education cannot remain on the level of the ontological, but has to theorize “non-ontological” dimensions as well, that is the ontic, the deontic, as well as what I call the deontological—the very relation between “what there is” and “what there is not” as the locus of education. (shrink)

This book is an interdisciplinary exploration of the notion of childhood and its place in philosophical education. Childhood is not seen as a developmental state that needs to be overcome, but rather an existential state that constitutes a significant part of being human as well as the (forgotten) dimension of the world itself.

Baez and Boyle provide evidence that educational research is inherently political and shapes how we look at the world, what research questions we ask, and what counts as a valid answer. They show how those who hold powerful governmental and academic positions advocate for and limit funding to research that is positivistic and elevates the natural sciences above all other forms of science. Such an approach not only marginalizes other forms of science but also slights ethical questions of good and (...) right action. Moreover, this narrow view of science guides what research the government, foundations, and corporations fund, what academic journals are held up as most prestigious, which research is published, and what .. (shrink)

This paper critically engages with the theme of ‘process over product’—a theme that is argued to be increasingly problematised as an influential narrative in the construction and transmission of a philosophy of early education. The importance of producing children of ‘competence’ through appropriate educational processes is associated with assumptions regarding what counts as an appropriate educational journey for children before they reach school age. Drawing upon the work of Michel Foucault, and Jean‐François Lyotard, this paper considers the purpose and (...) tensions of articulating process as more important than product in early childhood. It is argued that the articulation of the child as a particular kind of process‐oriented player leads to an uncritical acceptance of technologies of governing the child. Furthermore, discourse asserting the importance of processes of play reveals a crisis in understanding what it means to be a player, and what the purpose of the process of play might be. Process contributes to a narrow understanding of a performative purpose of play as a processing of information. A role of the educator, this paper argues, is then to critically engage with the transmission of the theme of process. (shrink)

For the past half-century, critical pedagogy has represented perhaps the most influential response to traditional ‘banking’ models of education and the political obedience and social conformity they are purported to engender. Precisely because of its lasting impact, however, it has tended to overshadow other possible visions of the critical political potential of education. In this article, I trace the origins and development of a distinctive yet under-discussed concept in Michel Foucault’s late ethical work – psychagogy – to pursue (...) an alternative depiction of education as a critical political practice. Attending to the origins and meaning of psychagogy in Foucault’s work is valuable, I argue, for two reasons. On the one hand, the concept offers a vision of political education that avoids reproducing problematic juridical binaries – truth and ideology, rationality and irrationality, absolved and condemned – that Foucault believed inhered in Enlightenment-era conceptions of emancipation. On the other hand, it demonstrates how political problems of our present might be rendered workable not only through recourse to the authoritative discourses of experts or collective demands of revolutionaries, but also through exercises in subjectivity formation that are rather more quotidian, experiential, and conditional in nature. (shrink)

This paper critically engages with the theme of ‘process over product’—a theme that is argued to be increasingly problematised as an influential narrative in the construction and transmission of a philosophy of early education. The importance of producing children of ‘competence’ through appropriate educational processes is associated with assumptions regarding what counts as an appropriate educational journey for children before they reach school age. Drawing upon the work of Michel Foucault, and Jean‐François Lyotard, this paper considers the purpose and (...) tensions of articulating process as more important than product in early childhood. It is argued that the articulation of the child as a particular kind of process‐oriented player leads to an uncritical acceptance of technologies of governing the child. Furthermore, discourse asserting the importance of processes of play reveals a crisis in understanding what it means to be a player, and what the purpose of the process of play might be. Process contributes to a narrow understanding of a performative purpose of play as a processing of information. A role of the educator, this paper argues, is then to critically engage with the transmission of the theme of process. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Education and Politics The Politics of Identity Rewriting the Curricula Retraining Teachers Rethinking Parental Choices and Demands for Segregation The Limits of Diversity.

_The Politics of Religious Literacy_ challenges popular understandings of religious literacy as an inclusive framework for navigating religious diversity in the public sphere. Offering a new model, this book provides insights into the often-overlooked feelings and practices informing our questionably secular age.

The Demise of California's “Master Plan for Higher Education”After buying a home, a university education is the largest financial investment that most Americans ever make. Universities provide the learning environment to produce an informed electorate, support basic research and train professionals. A college education prepares a skilled workforce but, above all, the main purpose of higher education is to create and transmit knowledge, promote critical thinking and literacy, and prepare students to be enlightened, active citizens. California (...) taxpayers generally considered public higher education one of the best investments they could make in the future of their state. Since 1960…. (shrink)

Abstract:This theoretical inquiry approaches the challenge of reflexivity in the music education profession from the perspective of a collective and social understanding of memory. While memory is typically understood as being an individualistic, psychological, and cognitive phenomenon, in this paper we argue that the perspectives of collective and social memory may be of critical assistance to music teachers and music teacher educators who are facing the problem of increasing diversity. Teachers experience mounting pressure to include a wider selection of (...) available material from the diverse musics of the world in their curriculum. We suggest that understanding the politics of memory–how memory shapes the future and reveals our reflexive capacity in terms of our bonds to, or freedom from, the past–provides new tools and perspectives for considering diversity. Furthermore, we propose that in order to make a difference, the politics of memory require an agonistic engagement in pluralistic societies, with multiple, even conflicting, relationships to memory and time, place, and space. The article argues that a critical politics of memory is not just about combining the past and present, but about re-imagining, re-negotiating, re-working, and re-generating the collective futures of the school, its educational context, and broader society. (shrink)

Existing research on developing countries emphasizes the decisive power of teacher unions in education politics. Yet that power varies, and a full understanding of the roots of union power and the sources of cross-national variation requires deeper analysis of organizational dynamics within unions. This analysis supports four arguments. First, teachers have a range of advantages in overcoming obstacles to collective action. Second, unions are not all alike; they vary widely, from interest groups to powerful political machines. Third, the (...) source of this variation lies in factors that shift power within unions from members to leaders in political-machine unions. Fourth, analyzing the dimensions of variation helps explain the different outcomes of recent reforms to teacher careers in Latin America, especially in highlighting the staunch opposition from political-machine unions. (shrink)