In this essay, Robert Davis argues that much of the moral anxiety currently surrounding children in Europe and North America emerges at ages and stages curiously familiar from traditional Western constructions of childhood. The symbolism of infancy has proven enduringly effective over the last two centuries in associating the earliest years of…

Due to a number of radical changes in society, the role of parents in the upbringing of their children has been redefined. In this essay, Paul Smeyers argues that "risk" thinking, and the technologization that goes with it in the context of child rearing, naturally leads to the rights discourse, but that thinking about the relation between parents…

In this essay, Nancy Vansieleghem starts from the observation that parents nowadays are addressed as individuals in need of parental expertise and advice. She maintains that the notion that we are living in a permanently changing society has created a context in which parents feel that they no longer "know" what is good or bad for their children.…

In this essay David Bridges argues that since most families choose to realize their responsibility for the major part of their children's education through state schools, then the way in which the state constructs parents' relation with these schools is one of its primary levers on parenting itself. Bridges then examines the way in which…

In this essay, Richard Smith observes that being a parent, like so much else in our late-modern world, is required to become ever more efficient and effective, and is increasingly monitored by the agencies of the state, often with good reason given the many recorded instances of child abuse and cruelty. However, Smith goes on to argue, this begins…

In this essay James Conroy raises the question of how far the state should engage in the rearing of children, looking in particular at homeschooling as a site for contestation. He considers this question by looking specifically at recent developments in the United Kingdom around the elision of child safeguarding issues with concern about the…

School shootings are traumatic events that cause a community to question itself, its values, and its educational systems. In this article Bryan Warnick, Benjamin Johnson, and Samuel Rocha explore the meanings of school shootings by examining three recent books on school violence. Topics that grow out of these books include (1) how school shootings…

The idea of emancipation plays a central role in modern educational theories and practices. The emancipatory impetus is particularly prominent in critical traditions and approaches where the aim of education is conceived as that of emancipating students from oppressive structures in the name of social justice and human freedom. What is needed to…

Today, many liberal philosophers of education worry that certain kinds of education may frustrate the development of personal autonomy, with negative consequences for the individuals concerned, the liberal state, or both. Autonomy liberals hold not only that we should promote the development of autonomy in children, but also that this aim should…

Scholars from multiple disciplines have commented on the divided nature of childhood as a historical construction: a period of life to be valued in itself as well as a means to adulthood. In this essay, James Stillwaggon considers George Orwell's "Such, Such Were the Joys," an autobiographical account of his childhood education, as a site of…

When hopelessness and helplessness become recurring themes in teacher education scholarship, this signals a conceptual problem with the question of autonomy in the profession. In this essay, Alice Pitt argues that breakdowns of professional life belong to what is most subjective in the profession. Pitt opens her analysis of this conundrum by…

Encouraging debate on inclusion and equity can meet with awkward silences, particularly across disciplinary boundaries. In disability studies, for example, it can be difficult to build dialogue with other disciplines; as a consequence, the different disciplinary groups within the field of education often end up working in their own "equity" silos.…

Given the reality of diversity, particularly religious diversity, in the contemporary world, Marion Larson and Sara Shady explore how educators can help students (and ourselves) consider the following question: How do I balance my own belief commitments with my responsibility to be genuinely open to and challenged by the other's perspective?…

In this review essay, William Proefriedt argues that it may be possible to reformulate three apparently irreconcilable stances in a manner that would allow more interaction among the elements championed within each stance. The arguments addressed are (1) the argument for the efficacy of educational reform; (2) the argument that social and economic…

According to a number of authors, character is dead. On their view, the evidence is in, and all of our attempts to inculcate character in our students have not only failed, but are in fact destined to fail for various reasons. They base their conclusions in part on a number of experimental results that have been obtained since the 1920s,…