Argues that the question of knowledge must be reconceptualized in order for sociology to make its potential contribution to current debates about the curriculum. Reviews dominant assumptions underlying contemporary curriculum policy. Draws on recent research in the sociology of science to develop a social realist approach to knowledge. Provides…

Romanticism's valuing of love and the life of the imagination, combined with its belief in human potential taken heroically to and beyond its limits, provides a way of addressing differently and fruitfully certain issues to do with pedagogy in schools, making in particular better sense of what it means to be an effective teacher and a productive…

Historians and philosophers of education tend to emphasise the contribution of Rousseau to the development of individualistic trends in modern education. However, other eighteenth-century thinkers also took part in the quest to bring the individual and his happiness to the centre of contemporary educational discourse. The work of some of these…

The Belgian psycho-pedagogue Ovide Decroly (1871-1932) acquired worldwide renown as one of the pioneers of the New Education Fellowship. In the period between the First and the Second World War, this organization was the forum par excellence for new education in Europe. This article analyzes Decroly's writings in order to examine the…

A 20th-century discipline in American universities, communication has struggled with questions of academic identity: generically, as to whether it is a "humanities" or a "social science", a "practice" or a "technology", and theoretically, as to what sorts of axioms, theorems, research methods or logics, and problems should form its core. This…

Educators hold varied opinions about the nature of the social foundations of education. The social-foundations perspective generally characterizes education as an integrated multidisciplinary approach to the study of education, which focuses on the relationship among social conditions, values, and educational policies. This paper supports the…

This paper examines a typology of metanarratives in educational administration. "Metanarratives" represent "a global, overarching, encompassing set of rules that tell us...the necessary and sufficient conditions for the constructs we use and how to use them." From this perspective, logical positivism is considered one of the…

This collection of documents concerns the Analytical Philosophy of Education (APE) and its history. APE was the dominant approach to philosophy of education during the 1960s and 1970s; it is no longer fashionable. The main paper included in this collection sketches the history of APE and attempts to show its relevance to the idea of…

The inability of teaching to rise to the status of a profession is due to a state of flux in which education, teaching, and teacher education finds itself. Five factors have created a fluxion in teacher education. First, the different institutions in which teacher education has been housed (normal schools, teachers colleges, university based…

A collection of conferences papers examines social studies as an intellectual discipline and focuses on the idea of a social studies discipline. The papers presented are: "A Discipline of Social Studies" (Ronald Evans); "Discipline, Knowledge, and Social Education" (Jack Nelson); "Reflections on a Discipline of the Social Studies" (Wilma…

Twelve conference papers address four educational themes. Three papers on intellectual life in the school deal with the philosophy of George S. Counts; the nature, purpose, and value of liberal education; and educational consequences of the idea of reason. Four papers on educational alternatives treat the educational philosophy of Ivan Illich,…

Beginning with a comparison of American and Western European experiences, an introductory paper by David Parkes comments on Don Morgan's account of the social, economic, and moral context in which American education has developed. This comparative paper includes discussions on these issues: the value of relating American to Western European…

George Beauchamp's 1968 book, "Curriculum Theory," stresses the importance of developing subordinate constructs, or theoretical relationships, with other components of education, until ground rules are laid down through meanings ascribed to the term "curriculum". According to Beauchamp, theories have three functions: to…

This report is a product of the first phase of a multiyear program of research addressing the subject matter of vocational education. It presents a synthesis of the deliberations of a study group on the nature of vocational education conducted over a 4-month period by representatives from a variety of academic disciplines and professional fields.…

Courses in the Foundations of Education are widely perceived as superfluous or out of touch with current needs. One way of correcting these perceptions is to make sure that when students not majoring in education take the classes they get some benefit from them. A course in educational foundations was required of all dental hygiene majors at…