This paper takes a critical look at the applicability of the Jungian view on individuation and imagination. While Jungian ideas can bring something fresh and necessary into educational practice, personal enthusiasm might blind us to a dissonance between educational goals and the therapeutic goal of analytical psychology. The case is made with…

This paper addresses the unconscious dimension as articulated in Carl Jung's depth psychology and in Gilles Deleuze's philosophy. Jung's theory of the archetypes and Deleuze's pedagogy of the concept are two complementary resources that posit individuation as the goal of human development and self-education in practice. The paper asserts that…

This article investigates the biopolitical dimensions that have grown out of the union between biocapitalism and current science education reform in the US. Drawing on science and technology study theorists, I utilize the analytics of promissory valuation and salvationary discourses to understand how scientific literacy in the neo-Sputnik era has…

This paper argues for the utility of ANT as a philosophical and methodological approach to policy analysis. It introduces the key features of a recent educational policy reform initiative, Skills for Life and illustrates the argument by looking at three "moments" (in Callon's 1986 terminology) in the life of this initiative, applying the…

This article describes a number of human cohort studies based on the concept of brain-science and education. These studies assess the potential effects of new technologies on babies, children and adolescents, and test hypotheses drawn from animal and genetic case studies to see if they apply to people. A flood of information, virtual media,…

In this article, I review recent findings in cognitive neuroscience in learning, particularly in the learning of mathematics and of reading. I argue that while cognitive neuroscience is in its infancy as a field, theories of learning will need to incorporate and account for this growing body of empirical data.

The past decade has seen major advances in cognitive, affective and social neuroscience that have the potential to revolutionize educational theories about learning. The importance of emotion and social learning has long been recognized in education, but due to technological limitations in neuroscience research techniques, treatment of these…

In adult education there is always a problem of prefabricated and in many respect fixed opinions and views of the world. In this sense, I will argue, that the starting point of radical education should be in the destruction of these walls of belief that people build around themselves in order to feel safe. In this connection I will talk about…

This paper, drawing on original sources, provides an overview of and a discussion on those writings and ideas, in Antonio Gramsci's huge corpus of work, that are relevant to the education of adults. This should provide a fitting tribute to this major social theorist of the 20th century on the 70th anniversary of his death. Among the topics…

This paper investigates the role of the lifelong learning discourse in actual governmentality. Starting with a description of the origins of lifelong learning in the discussions about alternative education in the 1960s and 1970s, the current adoption of lifelong learning by the European Union is used to show its critical components. Along with the…

This article is concerned with understanding continuity and stability in teaching, and their significance. It looks particularly at the work of Anthony Giddens on structure and agency, that of Martin Heidegger on the limits of discursive and theoretical analysis, and the communitarian strand within ethics. It applies this discussion to…

The following paper outlines the historical and philosophical development of, "community of inquiry" in educational discourse. The origins of community of inquiry can be found in the philosophical work of C. S. Peirce. From Peirce the notion of community of inquiry is adopted and developed by educational theorists of different orientations.…

Critical educational research offers the researcher a position and an ethos of comfort. Even the declared recognition of the relativity of principles, norms or criteria so characteristic of much critical research does not prevent it from looking immediately for a way out of this uncomfortable situation i.e. to keep to the idea that comfort (for…

All professional workers need to be "developed." Moreover, there should be no end to this process--the true professional knows that learning is for life. The author wants to explore how these two propositions have come to be true for academics and other professional workers at the beginning of the new millennium, and with what effects. In doing…