In this article, I attempt to bring some colour to a discussion of fraught topics in education. Though the scenes and stories (from education and elsewhere) that feature here deal with racism, the discussion aims to say something to such topics more generally. The philosophers whose work I draw on here are Stanley Cavell and Judith Butler. Both…

What is analytical philosophy of education (APE)? And what has been its place in the history of the subject over the past 50 years? In a recent essay in "Ethics and Education" (Vol. 2, No. 2, October 2007) on 'Rival conceptions of the philosophy of education', Paul Standish described a number of features of APE. Relying on both historical and…

On 10 December 2007 the Akron City School Board--following the precedent set by many school systems across the United States and the world--instituted a policy of mandatory school uniforms for all students in grades K-8. The measure was met with mixed reviews. While many parents supported the measure, a small group of parents from a selective,…

An influential view of education is that it prepares young people for adult life, usually in the areas of civic engagement, leisure and contemplation. Employment may be a locus for learning some worthwhile skills and knowledge, but it is not itself the possible locus or one of the possible loci of a worthwhile life. This article disputes that view…

When talk of philosophy of pedagogy comes up today, it is common to hear the names of Aristotle, Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey, or Paulo Freire, but the name of Paul Goodman, who campaigned vigorously for pedagogical reform much of his life, is seldom mentioned. In spite of neglect of his work, Goodman had much to say on pedagogical practice that…

School anti-violence programs are united in their radical condemnation of aggression, generally equated with violence. The programs advocate its elimination by priming children's emotional and cognitive controls. What goes unrecognized is the embeddedness of aggression in human beings, as well as its positive psychological and moral functions. In…

This study investigates the effectiveness of pedagogical practices used to teach business ethics. The business community has greatly increased its demands for better ethics education in business programs. Educators have generally agreed that the ethical principles of business people have declined. It is important, then, to examine how common…

The aim of this article is to examine ways in which localized research runs the risk of becoming a boundary discourse in a negative sense. The exaggerated emphasis on immanent critique, contextualization and incommensurability may lead discourse and disciplines to an isolationist self-understanding that leaves unchallenged or even entrenches…

Illustrating the tensions and possibilities that the notion of the ethic of care as a democratic and citizenship issue may have in discourses of citizenship education in western states is the focus of this article. I first consider some theoretical debates on the definition of an ethic of care, especially in relation to issues of justice and…

Education as a practice in its own right (or "sui generis" practice) invokes quite a different set of ethical considerations than does education understood as a subordinate activity--i.e. prescribed and controlled in its essentials by the current powers-that-be in a society. But the idea of education as a vehicle for the "values" of a particular…

Among the latest trends in moral educational theory, several authors have suggested that a sociocultural approach to moral education is an improvement over the dominant cognitive-developmental and character educational paradigms. This approach draws its inspiration from the work of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. In the 1920s, Vygotsky…

Against the background of current reforms in higher education, we analyze the traditional education of Japanese doctoral students in philosophy of education from Western and Japanese perspectives by focusing on learning as self-education, on being and learning with others, on the socialization into the profession, and on the study of the foreign…

Educating the gaze is easily understood as becoming conscious about what is "really" happening in the world and becoming aware of the way our gaze is itself bound to a perspective and particular position. However, the paper explores a different idea. It understands educating the gaze not in the sense of "educare" (teaching) but of "e-ducere" as…

This article is a discussion of a dominant (and mostly taken-for-granted) discourse of multicultural education (the phrase "intercultural education" is sometimes used). My aim is, simply, to highlight two issues which, I think, are insufficiently dealt with in relation to multicultural education: the observation that differences can be…

When assessing North American students' oral participation in classes, should all students be subject to the same evaluation criteria or should teachers make reasonable allowances for Asian students practicing humility? How do we weigh the promotion of "courage" through character education initiatives with traditional Asian dispositions? Viewing…