Addressing the problem of rampage school gun violence, this article aims to problematize how we think about agency, in this case when we assign agency to individual shooters but not to networks or objects. In it, Samantha Deane, working within the new materialist and critical vein of pragmatism, situates agency as both limited and widely…

We turn to experience when confronted by a problem, or so John Dewey's oeuvre suggests. Yet, what use is experience when the problem falls outside the boundaries of the known? Drawing upon a range of thinkers -- from Alain Badiou to Elaine Scarry to Maggie Nelson -- John Buethe takes Dewey's familiar thesis one step further to interrogate…

Drawing on the work of Simone Weil, this article argues that the human purpose of reading is the creation of meaning through interpretive activity. In the context of institutionalized schooling, however, the activity of reading has been alienated from this purpose. As a result, some contemporary pedagogies of reading might keep us from learning…

The concept of responsibility is both omnipresent and highly ambivalent in the field of education. On the one hand, the term is considered to be one of the key concepts of pedagogical ethics, intended to enable a reflection on pedagogical authority. On the other hand, it is inextricably linked to the concept of accountability, which, in fact,…

In this article, Ilya Zrudlo unpacks the educationally limiting effects of conflicting visions of the good embedded in Western modernity and offers a developmental vision of modernity for education that is more coherent and productive of student agency. Drawing on Charles Taylor's work, Zrudlo disarticulates four aspects of Western modernity --…

In "Market Movements," Tom Pedroni argues that educational progressives often analyze neoliberal school choice policies by highlighting the negative impact such policies have upon Blacks. Implicit in this approach is the assumption that all Blacks should oppose neoliberalism. This assumption prevents scholars from investigating why…

Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis's "Schooling in Capitalist America," a classic book in the field of education, has become more influential in the last twenty years than it was during the first several years following its publication. Interestingly, however, there are some widespread misconceptions about the book. In this paper, Jianguo…

Liminal spaces operate as thresholds, as spaces "lodged between all … spaces defined and governed in any specific biocultural ecosystem." While these spaces offer interesting prospects for study, liminal spaces in schools have received very little scholarly attention. In labeling and considering the school cafeteria in U.S. schools as a…

In this paper, Matthew Cowley advances a theoretical approach toward higher education drawn from critical race theory (CRT) and Black Marxism. After an overview of CRT and Black Marxism, Cowley builds a working understanding of two recent (re)conceptualizations of race and class analysis that draw from both: (1) "economies of racism" and…

In this essay, Drew Chambers argues that the implementation of modern security technology in American schools (also known as target hardening) may do more harm than good, especially when such technologies represent the primary mode of risk responsiveness. In using technological measures to reduce risk, schools may inadvertently undermine both…

In this contribution, Sharon Todd moves beyond the bounds of what she calls "strong" instrumentalism (one that posits education in a mechanistic fashion and operates politically through a marrying of national educational policies with economic interests) and explores the intrinsic purpose of educational practice specifically through an…

The topic of instrumentalism has engaged many scholars of contemporary educational thought. One can distinguish the positions of anti-instrumentalism from those that stress noninstrumental values of education, both conceived in the context of neoliberal/neoconservative and consumption-driven reality. In this text, Maria Mendel enters into this…

In contemporary societies, there is a strong push toward seeing education as an instrument for the delivery of particular societal agendas. On such a view, the only questions that remain are how effective education is at delivering such agendas and how its effectiveness can be increased. While this might be a desirable way forward for those who…

In this article, Claudia Ruitenberg argues that the debate for or against instrumentalism in education is less fruitful than (a) a debate about the ends worth striving for, regardless of whether education is the best means to that end; and (b) a debate about the educational practices that are currently valued in and of themselves, regardless of…

In this article, F. Tony Carusi considers the politics of instrumentalism performed between educational policy and research that figures the teacher as the primary means to raise student achievement. By reducing teachers to a means toward an end, policy and research work together to collapse what teachers are into what teachers are for, and in…