While its purported aims are noble, the field of study abroad -- or education abroad as it is increasingly known -- is not immune from, and indeed embraces, discourses and practices that are, to use Gert Biesta's term, "learnified." Biesta defines learnification as "the translation of everything there is to say about education in…

While questions surrounding the relationship between education and technology have captured the attention of philosophers of education in recent decades, such concerns have assumed new import. Although educational technology had become an increasingly ubiquitous facet of schooling in the years preceding COVID-19, the swift shift to remote…

According to Bryan Warwick, policy can cause tragedy. A famous example is the tragedy described in Sophocles' play "Antigone." In this play, Creon, the political leader of ancient Thebes, causes tragedy in his quest to educate his people about civic loyalty. The conflict engendered by his educational policy eventually brings death and…

Philosophers of education have long contemplated how the normative charge of education might include disruption of the status quo. Thinking about our work as being in battle with the status quo, though, is problematic. Partly, the author agrees with thinkers like George S. Counts that education can be a vehicle for social reconstruction. But he is…

The ongoing attempts to measure educational quality, to hold schools responsible for their performance against these measures, and to use the resulting data to design improvement initiatives have yet to yield the promised results. A universal definition of "good education" seems to elude our grasp. Despite broad public support for…

In this essay, the author proposes that the field of Philosophy of Education is in search of its own second wind and can find guidance in the work and life of William James. This paper is meant to invite conversation on the challenges faced and provide potential solutions in the field. The goal is to find the "cash-value" of the field…

Educational discourse, particularly since the advent of recent educational reform initiatives, has become saturated with a discourse of "high expectations." One can hardly hope to hold a conversation regarding the problems facing American schools without someone innocently remarking that of course students need to be held to "high…

The small school movement originated in the democratic ideology of Deborah Meier, who sought to create schools that gave students, parents, teachers, and all stakeholders in the communities they served a voice in education. In New York City, Meier's vision was implemented haphazardly by a group of business and political elites able to pour…

In this paper, the author contends that the ability to create a political realm is dependent upon one's state of freedom. She questions what it means to be free and whether assumptions of the definitions of this concept are always good or beneficial. After discussing some of the known theories about freedom, she states that schools are some…

This article examines whether religious education plays a role in the promotion of harmonious international relations, arguing that a broad religious education with a dialogical approach goes to the heart of what it means to be a citizen in a global community. Christian theologian Hans Kung argues in his book "Judaism: Between Yesterday and…

Henry A. Giroux claims this to be the "worst of times" for US public education. Not alone in this judgment, numerous other scholars stand in agreement with him. These thinkers view the current corporate/accountability/testing movement, with its iron grip on public school policies, as disfiguring and disparaging the US system of public…

In his presidential address, which is included in this collection of papers, Kip Kline suggests that the time has arrived to redirect the work of philosophy of education away from the path of critical theory, and thus to depart from what he described as the discourse of "parrhesia." The author takes Kline's critique of critical philosophy of…

In this comparative essay, the author discusses the opposing educational theories of John Dewey and Gregory Bateson. While Dewey believed that the scientific method was the dominant method of solving problems and thereby acquiring knowledge that mattered, Bateson warned that this one-sided approach would lead to actions that could destroy the…

In this essay, the authors propose that there are certain psychoanalytic insights, at the intersection of the clinical and of critical social theory, which become crucial at precisely the point of recognizing the hidden curriculum. They contend that it is at this point that a political actor, and an educator or educational theorist interested in…

In the last decade, educational researchers and scholars have turned new attention to the theory and practice of community organizing as a method for addressing education injustices. While there are diverse traditions of community organizing work, by far the most influential model in US contexts is that of Saul Alinsky, whose "Rules for Radicals"…