While some researchers argue that theories and abstract knowledge are unreliable bases for teachers' work, a wide range of research stresses the need to overcome the gap between theory and practice, or abstract academic knowledge and experience-based knowledge. Here, Silvia Edling maintains that it is relevant to ask why the relationship is…

The late Edward Said sought to place critique and, indeed, self-critique at the heart of humanism. While the posthuman critiques surrounding the (im)possibility of humanism in postmodern times tend to focus on human autonomy, rationality, and essentialism, Stephen Chatelier here explores the idea that Said's writing on humanism could help us shift…

In this review essay, K. Peter Kuchinke uses three recent publications to consider the question of how to educate young people for work and career. Historically, this question has been central to vocational education, and it is receiving renewed attention in the context of concerns over the ability of schools to provide adequate preparation for…

When Dewey scholars and educational theorists appeal to the value of educative growth, what exactly do they mean? Is an individual's growth contingent on receiving a formal education? Is growth too abstract a goal for educators to pursue? Richard Rorty contended that the request for a "criterion of growth" is a mistake made by John Dewey's…

This article is designed to show how Whitehead's most technical philosophical work leads directly to practical applications in education, applications which have the advantage of squaring with direct experiences of teachers and pupils. (IAH)

Questions about the philosophy of education, such as its relationship to the discipline of philosophy, to educational policy and practice, and to the concerns of society are addressed. The essay distinguishes between three contexts in which philosophical thinking about education takes place; the intellectual, institutional, and ideological…

This educational perspective views the individual, society, and knowledge as a tripartite structure making up a whole. Suggests that there are two kinds of theoretical and methodological perspectives of major concern to pedagogy and recommends accepting the situation and recognizing the complementarity of the two outlooks. (SM)

This essay presents three claims: (1) that the educational ideas of Dewey and the pragmatists still have value; (2) that experimentalist ideas are the foundation of democratic school practices; and (3) that aspects of the new developments in educational practice require careful philosophic analysis. (MT)

Introduces a collection of papers that examine the past, present, and future of the journal, Educational Theory, and the field of educational theory, highlighting the 1950s-90s. The essays focus on: being and doing; memory and forgetfulness; diversity and divergence; and deconstruction and reconstruction. Several recurrent themes evident…

Presents a historical survey of the dialectic, a heuristic device which enables teachers, researchers, and students to transform hierarchies of relations regarding class, race, and gender. The article discusses Hegel, Marx, and Engels, and presents a critique of misperceptions of the dialectic and an analysis of the laws of dialectics. (SM)

Effective deliberation in teaching relies upon situational appreciation. This article examines some of the central issues and confusing claims in the current debate over the notion of practical arguments as a way of better understanding how teachers think when they deliberate about what to do in the classroom. (IAH)