Critics like Leonard Waks argue that video games are, at best, a dubious substitute for the rich classroom experiences that John Dewey wished to create and that, at worst, they are profoundly miseducative. Using the example of "Fate of the World," a climate change simulation game, David Waddington addresses these concerns through a…

Hannah Arendt's essays about the 1957 crisis over efforts of a group of youth, the "Little Rock Nine," to desegregate a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, reveal a tension in her vision of the "public." In this article Aaron Schutz and Marie Sandy look closely at the experiences of the youth desegregating the school,…

The popularity of Jacques Rancière in recent work in educational philosophy has rejuvenated discussion of the merits and weaknesses of Socratic education, both in Plato's dialogues and in invocations of Socrates in contemporary educational practice. In this essay Jordan Fullam explores the implications of this trend through comparing…

On grounds of autonomy, is comprehensive education -- an approach to education that attempts to facilitate the acceptance of certain beliefs and ways of life as being correct, and refuses to sympathetically expose students to contrary beliefs and ways of life -- ethically suspect? Recently, Bryan R. Warnick has argued that it is. In this essay,…

In this article, Rebecca Tarlau attempts to build a more robust theory of the relationship between education and social change by drawing on the conceptual tools offered in the critical pedagogy and social movement literatures. Tarlau argues that while critical pedagogy has been largely disconnected from its roots in political organizing, social…

The notion of competencies has been a familiar feature of educational reform policies for decades. In this essay, Padraig Hogan begins by highlighting the contrasting notion of capabilities, pioneered by the research of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. An educational variant of the notion of capabilities then becomes the basis for exploring…

In this article, Aislinn O'Donnell offers a set of reflections on the relation between therapy and education. In the first section, she examines criticisms of therapeutic education, mobilizing the example of prison education to highlight the difficulties that arise from imposing prescriptive modes of subjectification and socialization in…

In this essay Robert Rhoads, Jennifer Berdan, and Brit Toven-Lindsey examine some of the key literature related to the open courseware (OCW) movement (including the emergence and expansion of massive open online courses, or MOOCs), focusing particular attention on the movement's democratic potential. The discussion is organized around three…

In this essay Sarah Galloway considers emancipation as a purpose for education through examining the theories of Paulo Freire and Jacques Ranciere. Both theorists are concerned with the prospect of distinguishing between education that might socialize people into what is taken to be an inherently oppressive society and education with emancipation…

The diversity of contemporary democratic nations challenges scholars and educators to develop forms of education that would both recognize difference and develop a shared foundation for a functioning democracy. In this essay Sigal Ben-Porath develops the concept of shared fate as a theoretical and practical response to this challenge. Shared fate…

In this article, Rosa Bruno-Jofre and Jon Igelmo Zaldivar examine Ivan Illich's own critique of "Deschooling Society", and his subsequent revised critique of educational institutions and understanding of education, within the context of both his personal intellectual journey and the general epistemological shift that started to take shape in the…

In this article, Matthew Johnson examines the possibility of using elements of John Gray's work to advance a means of evaluating cultures, in order to inform the development of pluralist perfectionist forms of public policy and, in particular, educational programs. Johnson engages critically with elements of Gray's value pluralism, such as his…

In this essay, Ian Hardy argues that a research process involving generalizing from professional educational practice can and should inform the work of educators, including academic researchers, policymakers, and practitioners, but that these generalizations need to be derived from, and in dialogue with, the complexity and specificity of actual…

The current educational discourse on Emmanuel Levinas's concept of subjectivity has focused on the pure openness and subjection of the self to the other. Based on such an understanding, some educational theorists hold that Levinas's work has given us new hope for the mission of education, while others deny its relevance. I suggest that this…

Public schools are functionally provided through structural arrangements such as government funding, but public schools are achieved in substance, in part, through local governance. In this essay, Kathleen Knight Abowitz explains the bifocal nature of achieving public schools; that is, that schools are both subject to the unitary Public compact of…