This paper uses John Furlong's analysis of student disaffection written over 20 years ago as a basis for building new analyses in changing contexts for schooling. Specifically, Furlong's observation of the dominance of psychological based explanations for student disruption and disengagement in education policy making holds--albeit an…

Sam Hillyard's (2010) recent article has the value of highlighting the issue of theory development in interactionism, ethnography, and the sociology of education. It also reminds of a fruitful, and unique, research programme in educational research that stretched from the early 1960s into the 1990s. However, in the author's view Hillyard's…

Catharine Macaulay and Mary Wollstonecraft are linked by intellectual and political bonds; for both, education is a philosophical and political preoccupation in its own right, and also interacts with philosophical questions of morality, social power, theology, truth and human action. Macaulay's philosophical and political engagements with Hobbes,…

The aims of education, and the appropriate means of realising them, are a recurring preoccupation of utopian authors. The utopian socialists Robert Owen (1771-1858) and Charles Fourier (1772-1837) both place human nature at the core of their educational views, and both see education as central to their wider objective of social and political…

This article examines some of the conversations that took place between women's rights advocates on the subject of female education. The relationship between Victorian feminism and educational reform was a complex one, and historians have long argued over whether campaigns for women's schools and colleges can be termed "feminist". This article…

The Scottish Enlightenment is celebrated for its many contributions to the natural sciences, the social sciences and the moral sciences. But for all this attention, one aspect of the Scottish Enlightenment has been almost entirely neglected: its educational theory. This paper aims to illuminate the relationship between the educational theory of…

As the brain sciences make advances in our understanding of how the human brain functions, many educators are looking to findings from the neurosciences to inform classroom teaching methodologies. This paper takes the view that the neurosciences are an excellent source of knowledge regarding learning processes, but also provides a warning…

John Locke is often taken to be a staunch defender of parents' rights in the realm of education. In fact, Locke's pedagogical reasons for preferring home education to school education do not necessarily apply to similar choices in modern contexts. Locke's political argument for defining education as a duty of parents rather than the state does not…

This paper focuses on the educational method--the "elenchos"--of Plato's Socrates, arguing, against some prominent interpretations, that it is love, both "eros" and "philia", that is the key that links Socrates' philosophy with his education. This analysis, of course, raises some difficult questions regarding the relationship between teacher and…

This paper offers an assessment of two 12th-century theories of education, Hugh of St Victor's "Didascalicon" and John of Salisbury's "Metalogicon", maintaining that their works both draw on traditional Christian teachings and respond to contemporary pedagogical interests in systematising knowledge and integrating classical learning. The two works…

The humanist movement of the Northern Renaissance--often called "Christian humanism" or "Erasmian humanism" (after its most famous member, Desiderius Erasmus)--had a lasting impact on many areas of European intellectual and cultural life. This paper reviews the contribution of Erasmus and his circle to the theory and practice of education. After…

Over one half of Darren Webb's article on the concept of utopia in contemporary educational theory (Webb, 2009) reviews critically the "utopian realist" approach the author has advocated in various publications about education over the past nine years. The conception of utopianism to which the author subscribes also stresses the role of patient…

This paper explores the way in which the concept of utopia is employed within contemporary educational theory. Confronted with the relentless marketisation and managerialisation of education, there is a growing willingness to embrace utopianism as a means of bolstering hope, opening up new possibilities and catalysing change. At the same time,…

In this article I synthesise and apply elements of political and reading theory to demonstrate how central themes in learners' lives (such as freedom, faith, autonomy, equality, rationality and rights) can be read and interpreted differently. I suggest that policy and pedagogy for citizenship and democratic education informed by research into…

The dominant discourse in research, management and teaching is one that may loosely be characterised as that of prediction and control. The objective of research is to identify causal correlations within policy, management, teaching strategies and educational outcomes that are sufficiently robust as to be able to predict outcomes and make…