The Theory and History of Education Monograph Series

Meta-Education: The Attempt to Get Beyond a Politicized Conceptual Framework in Philosophy of Education

2024-02-19T21:03:59+00:00

What does it mean to do philosophy of education? Historically, it has meant to provide philosophical tools for educational issues and problems. These tools include, at a minimum, logic, and argumentative strategies, ‘ways of knowing,’ ‘ways of theorizing,’ and philosophical accounts of various leading thinkers in philosophy and closely allied disciplines. The body of knowledge built up in these encounters with educational theory and practice serve as the ‘content’ of philosophy of education; the body is then driven toward the amelioration or resolution of new and ongoing problems in educational theory and practice.

At the basis of this way of thinking about the role and scope of philosophy of education lies a presumption: philosophy of education, whatever else it is, has its role and function in providing (philosophical) solutions for educational concerns. These concerns are very often political, particularly so in the case of schools and schooling. Education is of course, controversial at its roots; many parties beyond parents and children compete for scare resources as well as control of educational leadership and legislation. Politics is the means by which these differences of opinion (sometimes, acute antagonisms) play out. Here, we have the spectacle of philosophy of education in service to education, broadly considered, with the aim and role of philosophy of education to help ameliorate or solve, manifestly political problems of education.

Philosophy of education generally operates by 1) questioning various presumptions certain thinkers or viewpoints take in making their claims 2) bringing to bear philosophical armament against purportedly anti-democratic standpoints 3) Challenging, through philosophical tools, political or ethical orthodoxies 4) making claims for an adjusted socio-political reality. (These are not exhaustive.) This operation is driven by politics as the end towards which philosophy of education proceeds. And this is the operation this book seeks to criticize. Instead of a philosophy of education driven to political ends, this book provides a different end—an end that is solely developed and followed by philosophy of education, and in no case from outside or beyond. Philosophy of education is to be self-determining and self-determined. The converse of this is philosophy of education susceptible of ideology.

Ideology, then, is the culprit, here. And ideology infects philosophy of education to the degree that almost all the leading schools of thought within are pushed towards a presupposed political end. The way forward is to abandon ideology for self-determination; abandon making the end of philosophy of education equivalent to a political end that educational theory and practice commands. The strategy consists in 1) isolating and identifying ideology and where and how it is practiced in philosophy of education 2) developing a model or framework that is resistant to such ideology 3) Discuss the mechanics and dynamics of this model—its concepts and meta-concepts, in this case 4) Bring this framework or model to bear on the discipline of philosophy of education by suggesting what is and what is not the proper way to go forward if ideology is to be avoided. In the three chapters that make up this book, there is consideration of each and all these sub-strategies.

Ovide Decroly (1871-1932)

2022-09-02T14:26:35+00:00

Notre livre traite de la vie et de l'œuvre d'Ovide Jean Decroly (1871-1932), l'une des figures les plus importantes de l'histoire de l'enseignement en Belgique. Sa volonté d'innovation a été constamment saluée et lui a valu une reconnaissance internationale. Depuis la fin du 19e siècle, il a contribué à façonner le mouvement de « l'Éducation nouvelle » et, à ce jour, des enseignants et des éducateurs bien au-delà de la Belgique travaillent avec son héritage, que ce soit dans les écoles dites Decroly ou ailleurs.

Pourtant, cette « biographie atypique » (composée de 12 chapitres, dont 6 ont déjà été publiés, la plupart dans une autre langue que le français) ne propose pas un récit traditionnel, structuré de manière chronologique. Le fondement de notre ouvrage est une approche « démythologisante », que l'on retrouve également dans la perspective plus large de l'historiographie pédagogique que nous propageons depuis des années, afin de nous libérer en partie de la vision souvent ahistorique de l'histoire de l'éducation.

The Revolution of Georges Cabanis

2022-05-16T20:15:05+00:00

Professor Almeida Filho presents a more detailed assessment of his preliminary hypothesis regarding the roots of the higher education system of contemporary Brazil. He analyzes the direct and indirect effects of the Cabanis Reform in configuring the higher education model which became hegemonic in Latin-American countries, as illustrated by the case of Brazil. In the first part, he briefly discusses the social, ideological, and institutional framework that, simultaneously, restructured the national education system, the health care model, and the new imperial higher education program in post-revolutionary France. With this aim, he presents a summary of biography and oeuvre of Georges Cabanis, with a focus on his forgotten role as a successful reformer of educational systems. Secondly, he discusses the main points of the new organization of the health system and medical education, led by Cabanis and colleagues, highlighting conceptual dimensions, especially in relation to its potential articulation with the education system in general. Third, he outlines curricular and pedagogical aspects of the medical education model based on professionalism, disciplines, and specialization that resulted in a system of higher education without universities. Historical events related to the reorganization of the French education system, in the context of social reforms that began in the Consulate regime, consolidated in the Empire, and were maintained in the Restoration, are described.

Vatican II and Catholic Religious Secondary Education in Ontario

2019-11-16T00:12:47+00:00

This book examines the impact of Vatican II on secondary religious education in Ontario in the context of North America. In order to understand this impact, pre-Vatican II secondary religious education is analysed beginning with the role of the papacy and the eventual imposition of Neo-Thomism on Catholic schools. The conditions of reception for the reforms of Vatican II, in particular for the Declaration on Christian Education, are also examined. During the long sixties, secondary religious education experienced a fundamental shift as both the pre-Vatican II approach to education and the dominant theology of Neo-Thomism were abandoned. Influenced by both the Vatican II reforms and the conditions of reception, secondary religious education shifted from an objective, content-driven approach to a subjective approach that focused on the inner transformation of the individual and the establishment of a Christian community within the school. By the late 1970s, an effort was made to establish a balance between these two approaches as Catholic schools struggled to deal with the pervasive influence of secularism and the collapse of the Catholic classicist culture. This book proposes a new curricular framework aimed at achieving this balance.

New Directions in Research on Education

2019-11-13T02:15:22+00:00

There has been a burgeoning of research on education over the last four decades. This development has been accompanied by a profusion of publications in the form of academic books, chapters, and papers in refereed journals. In their reporting of theoretical and empirical research, there is much that is informative for both generalists and specialists working in the field of education regarding the status quo. Much less prevalent, however, are works that open up broad new areas for deliberation and for research. Those scholars who are exceptions in this regard have provided two types of work. The first of these are works that attempt to open up new research directions within education studies in relation to such matters as education access, participation, pedagogical practices, and outcomes at different education levels (as in primary, secondary and university levels), along with providing expositions on new research approaches.

Much less prominent are works that address a broad range of topics across a broad range of foci. This is understandable since most education research is undertaken from a traditional social science perspective that requires one to engage in empirical inquiry after clearly narrowing down one’s topic and one’s research questions. Yet, works that address a broad range of topics across a broad range of foci are equally valuable for generating streams of consciousness amongst readers, stimulating thought about topical and divergent areas of research, and promoting creative ideas about how to address them.

This book was conceptualised from the latter point of view. It addresses a variety of new directions in research related to education reconstruction in challenging circumstances. While the argument for adopting such an approach is as outlined above, we are also mindful that the exercise should not become one of presenting a set of totally disconnected chapters. Thus, what is offered needs to be seen as being bounded within a broad framework on what constitutes the nature of education studies. Accordingly, the next section of this opening chapter outlines such a framework. Attention then turns to why research conceptualised in relation to it needs to be viewed in terms of the particular context within which it was undertaken. It is important that this point be emphasised at the outset since it is crucial to keep it in mind when considering the chapters offered in the rest of this book.