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…

In the current essay, Kevin Burke and Adam Greteman challenge this thing called love by looking at how we might instead "like" in education. Within education, multiculturalism can be viewed as a way of loving, or learning to love, diversity and, as such, learning to love the self; this tendency is notably apparent in the recent rise of concern…

A recent report on the UK's higher education system by Lord John Browne exemplifies the dominant trend in education policy initiatives toward a focus on education primarily for employment and for the acquisition of skills. In this essay, Alison Assiter argues that such an entrepreneurial approach neglects essential aspects of the processes of…

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 review essay, Mark Brenneman and Frank Margonis address three recent book-length contributions to the ongoing discussion around cosmopolitanism and educational thought: Mark Olssen's "Liberalism, Neoliberalism, Social Democracy: Thin Communitarian Perspectives on Political Philosophy and Education," Sharon Todd's "Toward an Imperfect…

Philosophers of education have had a longstanding interest in the nature and value of reason. Literature can provide an important source of insight in addressing questions in this area. One writer who is especially helpful in this regard is Fyodor Dostoevsky. In this essay Peter Roberts provides an educational reading of Dostoevsky's highly…

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 ideal of personal autonomy enjoys considerable support in educational theory, but close analysis reveals serious problems with its core analytical and psychological components. The core conception of autonomy authorizes individuals to employ their imaginations in troubling and unhealthy ways that clash with sound ideals of moral character.…

The state's commitment to educating all children can be framed as a matter of human capital development, or the economic benefits accrued to individuals and society as a result of educational attainment; it can be framed as a matter of capabilities, or the development of functionings that enable human flourishing; and it can be framed as a matter…

In this article Sarah Stitzlein highlights an educational right that has been largely unacknowledged in the past but has recently gained significance given renewed citizen participation in displays of public outcry on our streets and in our town halls. Dissent is typically conceived of as a negative right--a liberty that guarantees that the…

Analyzing Montaigne's triptych painting, "Of the Education of Children," reveals a series of ever-morphing, Dorian Gray-like canvases that depict metaphor mutations through which Montaigne defined education by distinguishing between schooling a child into a learned man and educating him into an able, active, and gentle person. Montaigne used…

Since the 1960s, the influence of economic thought on education has been steadily increasing. Taking Jean-Jacques Rousseau's educational thought as a point of departure, Tal Gilead critically inquires into the philosophical foundations of what can be termed the economic approach to education. Gilead's focus in this essay is on happiness and the…

One of the mantras of progressive education is that genuine learning ought to be exciting and pleasurable, rather than joyless and painful. To a significant extent, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is associated with this mantra. In a theme of "Emile" that is often neglected in the educational literature, however, Rousseau stated that "to suffer is the first…

Educational authority is an issue in contemporary democracies. Surprisingly, little attention has been given to the problem of authority in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "Emile" and his work has not been addressed in the contemporary debate on the issue of authority in democratic education. Olivier Michaud's goals are, first, to address both of these…