ERIC Number: EJ1029300
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2014-Feb
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0309-8249
EISSN: N/A
Neoteny, Dialogic Education and an Emergent Psychoculture: Notes on Theory and Practice
Kennedy, David
Journal of Philosophy of Education, v48 n1 p100-117 Feb 2014
This article argues that children represent one vanguard of an emergent shift in Western subjectivity, and that adult-child dialogue, especially in the context of schooling, is a key locus for the epistemological change that implies. Following Herbert Marcuse's invocation of a "new sensibility", the author argues that the evolutionary phenomenon of neoteny--the long formative period of human childhood and the pedomorphic character of humans across the life cycle--makes of the adult-collective of school a primary site for the reconstruction of belief. After exploring child-adult dialogue more broadly as a form of dialectical interaction between what Dewey called "impulse" and "habit", three key dimensions of dialogic schooling are identified, all of which are grounded in a fourth: the form of dialogical group discourse called community of philosophical inquiry (CPI), which is based on the problematisation and reconstruction of concepts through critical argumentation. As a discourse-model, CPI grounds practice in all of the dialogic school's emergent curricular spaces, whether science, mathematics, literature, art, or philosophy. Second, it opens a functional space for shared decision-making and collaborative governance, making of school an exemplary model of direct democracy. Finally, CPI as a site for critical interrogation of concepts encountered in the curriculum (e.g. "alive", "justice", "system", "biosphere") and as a site for democratic governance leads naturally to expression in activist projects that model an emergent "new reality principle" through concrete solutions to practical problems on local and global levels.
Descriptors: Child Development, Developmental Stages, Interpersonal Relationship, Adults, Children, Communities of Practice, Inquiry, Theory Practice Relationship, Dialogs (Language), Teaching Methods, Discourse Analysis, Persuasive Discourse, Decision Making, Cooperation, Governance, Democracy, Curriculum, Activism
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A