This essay focuses on epiphanies -- moments when an insight or revelation captures our attention and summons us to become a better version of ourselves. The role of epiphanies in moral transformation, however, raises a potentially troublesome question. Namely, is the cultivation of epiphanies yet another vexed attempt at moral education? Kevin…

Higher education carries the potential to transform the troubled state of affairs--from political discord to social injustice--evident in U.S. society. Benefits to the public good can be realized to the extent that college helps students develop a framework for ethical decision making, socially responsible leadership, compassionate engagement with…

In this essay, I try to make sense out of Kant's unusual concept of grace, particularly as regards its uneasy relationship to education within the context of the effort to overcome evil. The key to the puzzle, I argue, lies in what I call 'moral receptivity'. Part of education's job is to make us morally receptive to grace by preparing us for its…

For Richard Rorty as well as Stanley Cavell, the realm of the literary carries particular educational force. Literature holds the potential to lead the insensitive and the superficial towards the responsive and the detailed. Literature prompts an interrogation of everyday expressions and the felt meanings we decide to invest or not to invest…

Higher education as a personal, intellectual and moral cultivation is a longstanding ideal that is constantly challenged by the view that education is merely the development of specific skills for vocational and personal success. Much research argues that the latter understanding makes education a technical affair that creates an egocentric…

The struggle to become lucid is at the heart of The Myth of Sisyphus. To understand the absurd is to understand that the fit between our conception of the world and the world itself is fraught with uncertainty; lucidity is the elucidation of the absurd. To be lucid is to revolt against the type of certainty that leads to suffering; to revolt…

With the purpose of ending wars, international organizations and governments promote reintegration projects that seek to transform combatants affiliated with illegal armed groups into citizens through education. The assumption behind these efforts is that through education, ex-combatants will become economically independent, overcome…

This article argues that the dominant sustainable development approach fails to acknowledge the interconnectedness and interrelatedness of social and environmental issues, and that sustainability requires a "transformational" approach, involving a fundamental change in how humans relate to each other and to nature. The authors propose…

The authors make the argument that trauma journalism should be taught as part of the postsecondary curriculum in journalism schools. As part of that education, students will learn that coping with the psychological effects of repeated exposure to such events can have long-term impacts on their mental health. As Kohlberg and Rest found, students in…

Aristotelian-inspired accounts of virtue acquisition stress guided practice and habituated action to develop virtue. This emphasis on action can lead to the "paradox of striving". The paradox occurs when we try too hard to act well and thereby spoil our efforts. I identify four forms of striving--forcing, impulsivity, overthinking, and…

The Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire had a great influence on theory and practice of education across the world. Freire presented his theory and work as educational and political, not as moral. In this article, the legacy of Paulo Freire will be analysed from a moral education perspective. Nine pedagogical principles will be presented and the…

Transformative learning is a compelling approach to learning that is becoming increasingly popular in a diverse range of educational settings and encounters. This book reconceptualises transformative learning through an investigation of the learning process and outcomes of International Service-Learning (ISL), a pedagogical approach that blends…

As the population of Latinx students grows in U.S. public schools and our nation seeks to address systemic inequities, racism, and xenophobia, this counternarrative provides inspiration to those wishing to reinvigorate schools and build a more caring and just world. "Authentic Cariño" documents the innovative practices, successes, and…

This article takes its retrospective lead from the oppressive schooling years during the Chinese Cultural Revolution to reflect on the educational significance of artistic activities through considering aesthetic virtues and moral agency cultivated in these activities. Describing an unconventional educational milieu where schooling was…

The concept of "Bildung", sometimes translated as self-cultivation, is located at the core of an influential tradition of educational thought. A key question concerns the relationship between "Bildung" and interculturality. Drawing on Wilhelm von Humboldt and Hans-Georg Gadamer, and on the so-called transformative learning…