Part Five of Spinoza's "Ethics" includes a notoriously challenging set of propositions about human perfection. Part of the difficulty in interpreting these elements of the work arises from neglecting important philosophical background for the relevant propositions, namely, medieval Jewish rationalism and Maimonides in particular. Spinoza…

This article develops the ideas of perfection and education in Spinoza and Maimonides. Both thinkers identify human perfection with intellectual knowledge and a transformation in affect. They accordingly envision education in terms of enhancing cognition and shaping the desire to know. The first steps are a critical evaluation of imagination and…

Research indicates that students' developmental capacity must be accounted for if postsecondary institutions' various diversity programs, pedagogies, and related efforts are to be successful. One such effort that has increased in prevalence in recent years, intergroup dialogue (IGD), is a pedagogy that brings together diverse groups of students to…

Education plays a central role in preparing young people to engage thoughtfully in civic and community issues and to wrestle with complex dilemmas in the public domain. As a democracy, our system of governance offers multiple pathways through which people living in the country can influence how civic issues and dilemmas are addressed.…

To create a socially just teaching method in higher education (HE), we used Fraser's social justice framework to create a new pedagogical method called student voice for social justice (SVSJ). SVSJ emphasizes student voice and empowerment by developing a co-constructed learning space where students can influence the procedure and content of the…

It has been argued that the distinction between factivity and non-factivity is more fundamental to mental state understanding than that between false beliefs and reality. The present study examined children's growing understanding of all possible contrasts between the factive verb "know" and the non-factive verbs "think" and…

The purpose of this article is to show how the philosophical theory of inferentialism can be used to understand students' conceptual development in the field of mathematics. Based on the works of philosophers such as Robert Brandom, an epistemological theory in mathematics education is presented that offers the opportunity to trace students'…

This book answers key questions about Carol Dweck's theory of Mindset--What is a 'growth mindset' and what difference can it make? Why are growth mindset interventions not working in schools (yet) and what can be done to change this? What is a 'failure mindset' and why is it more influential than an adult's fixed or growth mindset? Drawing on…

History teaching and learning make intellectual demands on both teachers and students, requiring them to travel back in time and engage with complex issues and distant lifestyles. History education research advocates the use of approaches that portray History as an intellectually engaging subject but the application of cognitive research to…

Questioning others is one of the most powerful methods that children use to learn about the world. How does questioning develop? How is it socialized? And how can questioning be leveraged to support learning and education? In this volume, some of the world's leading experts are brought together to explore critical issues in the development of…

This article seeks to provide researchers and practitioners in laboratory education, particularly those involved in the curriculum design and implementation of teaching laboratories at university level, with a conceptual framework and a working model for an integrated assessment of learning domains, by attending to a more holistic approach to…

Testimony is a valuable source of information for young learners, in particular if children maintain vigilance against errors while still being open to learning from imperfectly knowledgeable sources. We find support for this idea by examining how children evaluate individual speakers who present very different epistemic risks by being previously…

Using the metaphors "body" and "voice" and drawing on critical contributions on biopolitics, this article interrogates children's participation rights in a knowledge culture of 'evidencing'. With child welfare and protection practice as an empirical example, I analyse written assessment reports from a Swedish child welfare…

Kohlberg's theory of moral development has maintained a dominant position in cognitive moral development literature over several decades. This universal influence has been particularly evident in its application to moral education literature and policy. A closer assessment of Kohlberg's theoretical conceptualization suggests the application of…

In this article, I examine changes in the field of cognitive development and in my own thinking over the past 40 years. The review focuses on three periods. In the first, Piaget's theory was dominant, and my research and that of many others was aimed at understanding the many fascinating changes in children's thinking that Piaget documented and at…