This article briefly considers current positions about whether the inclusion of the perspectives and interests of marginalised groups in the construction of knowledge is of epistemic value. It is then argued that applied social epistemology is the proper epistemic stance to take in evaluating this question. Theorists who have held that diversity…

Patricia White ("Stud Philos Educ" 18:43-52, 1999) argues that the virtue gratitude is essential to a flourishing democracy because it helps foster universal and reciprocal amity between citizens. Citizens who participate in this reciprocal relationship ought to be encouraged to recognize that "much that people do does in fact help to make…

Historians often identify Horace Mann and other middle-class reformers of the mid-nineteenth century as the catalysts of the Common School Movement, the forerunner of today's public school systems. Despite education historians' focus on Mann and his ilk as the original advocates of common schooling, the notion of free universal public education…

Few scholars have achieved the level of recognition and respect among the wider public as Howard Zinn. This should not come as a surprise, given the "unconventional" ways that Zinn embodied and enacted his scholarship. He often took his teaching and writing into those seemingly restricted spaces of popular protest, converting words into…

China engages in massive and persistent citizenship education. (MM)

Describes the Close Up Foundation, a nonpartisan civic organization, and its approaches to citizenship education. Indicates that the Foundation's goal is to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that encourage greater civic participation and that its approach stresses the diversity of participants, active learning, a balance of viewpoints,…

This paper explores the varying definitions of civic education through time. The essay provides a framework through which to view the 1916 seminal report of the National Education Association's Committee on Social Studies by examining the competing visions of civic education during the 18 years prior to the report. The conceptualizations of civic…

Compares the political and educational alternatives offered by Thomas Hobbes and Gerrard Winstanley. Sees Hobbes's educational approach, based on negative liberty and state sovereignty, in tension between demands of liberty and conformity. Considers Winstanley's educational approach devoted to independent civic judgment, premised upon positive…

Discusses, editorially, the role of formal education in developing understanding and knowledge to enable people to live successful lives. (SL)

The Foxfire approach may be an example of how elementary and secondary students can be prepared by their education to live in a democracy. Core practices of the Foxfire approach include: work initiated by student interest and desire; active involvement in planning, implementing, and evaluating all learning activities; peer teaching and…

As interest in service-learning increases, there is a concomitant need for a theoretical base for it. Reviews aspects of John Dewey's educational and social philosophy relevant to the development service-learning theory, including learning from experience, reflective thinking, citizenship, community, and democracy. A series of key questions for…

Disciplinary and professional psychology have exercised considerable influence over the ways in which Western individuals and societies understand what it is to be a person. During the last half of the 20th century, educational psychologists advanced scientific and humanistic conceptions of the self that removed personhood from the historical,…

Every year, historians in the United States attend the American Historical Association (AHA), a conference that has met annually since 1884. The AHA draws scholars from all specializations, and it is the primary organization through which the profession is represented. In 1969, the conference met at the Sheraton Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. At…

Martin argues that the accepted interpretation of Rousseau's philosophy of education, as revealed in "Emile," is fundamentally mistaken because it fails to acknowledge his discussion of the education of girls. She proposes that Rousseau intended a production and not a growth model which applies to the education of both sexes. (SK)

Describes and critiques the theory of knowledge that undergirds conventional pedagogy in higher education. Pragmatism is suggested as an alternative epistemology to illuminate the contextual nature of knowledge and affirm community, diversity, and engagement as pedagogical virtues. Comments on the significance and limitations of philosophical…