This paper is a reflective response to Tena Thau's suggestion -- in her 2024 piece 'Moral Philosophy as War Propaganda' -- that philosophy has little to teach about the war in Gaza (and, by extension, similar cases of widespread, horrific human suffering). I first reconstruct one of the arguments that Thau makes in her piece. I then show that her…

This article addresses the ongoing debate over which criteria should determine what teachers ought to teach as controversial. I argue that this debate rests on false assumptions. It is a mistake to assume that (1) there should be a context-transcending criterion, (2) such a criterion can be prescribed "a priori" and…

Gibbs's detailed description of decision-making around teaching war in a school that taught the children of active-duty soldiers provides an important glimpse into the numerous factors influencing their curricular and pedagogical choices. Gibbs rightly argued that the limited perspective of patriotism that resulted from the teachers' reluctance to…

This article is from a talk that was given on April 16, 2021, as the author's contribution for the anti-racism panel "Undoing BIPOC Erasure in the Academy: A Conversation about Race and Anti-Racism." The panel was hosted by the University of California Merced. Minor edits for print and publication have been made to the article for…

First, I review the context for the need of new deliberative models, specifically agonistic deliberative models, for public discourse and for use in training students for public discourse. I then highlight five specific points that I trouble and enrich, principally through the work of Giroux, Arendt, Biesta, and Duarte. While I agree that there is…

The authors, Bertha Alvarez Manninen, a pro-choice associate professor of philosophy at Arizona State University, and Jack Mulder Jr., a pro-life professor of philosophy at Hope College in Michigan have argued with each other since graduate school about abortion and other issues, while respecting each other's stances and friendship. In the current…

Christine Sleeter wrote this essay in response to the topic "Even Laureates Were Beginners Once: Lessons Learned Along the Way," which was the title of the Laureate Panel at the Kappa Delta Pi Convocation in October 2017.

This is a response to Ásgeir Tryggvason's argument that the deliberative critique of the agonistic approach to citizenship education is based on a misreading of the main concepts in agonistic theory--a misreading that has important implications for any attempt to bring closer agonism and deliberation in citizenship education. My aim in this…

In a time of hyperpolarization and hyper partisanship, preparing students to deliberate about their differences becomes even more important. In this interview, Diana Hess, dean of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-author of The Political Classroom, describes the challenge of ensuring that students have access to…

Purpose: Even as sites for higher education work to transform curricula and strive for greater diversity among students and faculties, little is done to create safe, inviting environments for people to openly discuss the contradictions and challenges in teaching about differences. The authors' purpose is to examine multiple and intersecting…

This article is a response to Michael Hand's critique in this issue of my response to his use of the epistemic criterion as the sole means for identifying whether or not an issue should be identified as controversial. I argue that he has misunderstood my intention in suggesting that I was seeking to replace the epistemic criterion. Rather my…

A recent article in "The Weekly Standard," "Kenyon College Cancels Play About Immigration; Starts 'Whiteness Group,'" describes a current call for censorship. Wendy MacLeod's play, "The Good Samaritan," is about an immigrant family in the U.S. surviving "without pay and living in dire conditions," according…

In his 2014 paper Potgieter presented a number of pertinent questions on education in a post-modern world. In this article I not only challenge some of the views informing these questions but also raise additional questions for debate and critical analysis. Two pertinent issues, both with religious undertones, are addressed, viz.: a) whether the…

In this article we elaborate on the relationship between morality, moral development, moral education and capitalism. Based on Narvaez's (EJ1111256) correct critique of the Western way of life, which is destroying the environment and may one day lead to extinction of life on Earth, we argue that this critique should not be stripped of its…

The 11th International Conference of the International Association for Citizenship, Social and Economics Education IACSEE, took place the 2nd-4th of July 2015 at Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, Germany. The conference addressed the role and potential of citizenship, social and economic education, both theoretically and empirically in the…