Reflects on the basic conditions of social and educational interaction in the world, drawing on writings in the field of sociological theory and social philosophy, most notably those of Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann, using these insights to analyze the elementary problem of establishing a social relationship with educational purposes. Both…

Asserts that a positivist philosophical orientation makes the information literacy framework for school library research incompatible with emergent concepts of knowledge and epistemology for digital and online environments, reviewing government policy documents and research promoting information literacy as an antidote to information overload and…

Explores the interplay of local and global environmental concerns, noting that bioregion-based education cannot cultivate meaningful bioregional sensibility without addressing political and economic globalization; examining connections between bioregion-based and critical global education; asserting that the integration of the two must consider…

Asserts that "teachability" is a speculative concept that has for its form and content the absolute, suggesting that its dialectical movement and speculative significance are mis-recognized when the illusionary nature of its constitutive moments is suppressed. The essay outlines the speculative nature of the master/slave relationship in Hegel's…

Reviews Carol Gilligan's research on women's moral development through the lens of education, examining the educational process and the resulting transformative experiences undergone by the women in her study in order to foster a deeper understanding of what John Dewey meant by "growth" and "transformation." After offering a different way of…

Examines the place of emotion in teacher identity formation, discussing the political dimension of how emotions constitute identities and how these identities are assigned to teachers through discourses, practices, and performances. Using the work of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Nikolas Rose on strategies of resistance and self-formation,…

This second research paper on science education in Maori-medium school contexts complements an earlier article published in this journal (Stewart, 2005). Science and science education are related domains in society and in state schooling in which there have always been particularly large discrepancies in participation and achievement by Maori. In…

The goal of this article is to differentiate initiation from indoctrination, and to return a positive significance to the notion of initiation, as a pedagogy that contributes not only to the perpetuation of a particular form of life or community, but that provides the next generation with means to advance that knowledge beyond its existing…

This article presents a discussion of how postmodernist, poststructuralist and critical educational thinking relate to different theories of power. I argue that both Critical Theory and some poststructuralist ideas base themselves on a concept of power borrowed from a modernist tradition. I argue as well that we are better off combining a…

Currently, global society is delicately poised on a civilisational threshold similar to that of the feudal era. This is a time when outmoded institutions, values, and systems of thought and their associated dogmas are ripe for transcendence by more relevant systems of organization and knowledge (Davidson, 2000). The foundations of the modern era…

This work contributes to the philosophical debate on the normative dimension of postcolonial education in Zimbabwe. The work is a reaction to revelations made by the Commission of Inquiry into Education and Training of 1999 and its concomitant recommendations. Among its many observations, the Commission noted that there was a worrisome development…

Many teachers in teacher education programs are cursorily introduced to Dewey's "epochmaking" ideas on interest and effort through discussions based on the need for child-centered pedagogies that utilize students' interests. Unfortunately, this strategy often tacitly encourages teachers to over-rely on students' interests. In this paper, I…

This paper problematizes contemporary cultural understandings of autism. We make use of the developmental psychology concepts of "Theory of Mind" and "mindblindness" to uncover the meaning of autism as expressed in these concepts. Our concern is that autism is depicted as a puzzle and that this depiction governs not only the way Western culture…

Current critical pedagogical scholarship has theorized the epistemological and social intersection between globalization and educational technology according to two distinct positions. For some, this intersection offers new liberatory knowledges and opportunities that can subvert social homogenization and economic disparity. For others, this…

A historically feminized profession, education in North America remains remarkably unaffected by feminism, with the notable exception of pedagogy and its impact on curriculum. The purpose of this paper is to describe characteristics of feminism that render it particularly useful and appropriate for developing potentialities in education and music…