Despite the much-touted 'sexual revolution', during the 1960s-70s, at the time most Western education systems avoided sex education. This article identifies contradictory discourses about sex as manifested in two distinct cultural expressions that co-occurred in those years in the UK. The first represented mainstream social conservatism - in the…

"Community" has become a commonplace term in the learning sciences. Alongside this popularization comes the view that communities are, in general, something to strive towards. We draw on contemporary trends to problematize this assumption and motivate a discussion for the productivity of dissent.

Dissent is conceptualized as a largely able-minded political expression. Ashley Taylor argues in this essay that educational philosophers, therefore, lack an understanding of dissent that can capture the politically relevant expressions of students labeled with significant disabilities. While traditional frameworks of dissent may capture many of…

Education is commonly considered to be a transformational practice that contributes both to forging the personality of individuals and to promoting social entanglements. For this reason, education always has a normative character that rests on a particular concept of what humanity and society should be. However, educational policies and practices…

Dissent is vital to the intellectual life of a classroom, just as it is to the health of a school, a school system, or a democracy, explains high school teacher Mike Miller. Rather than being silenced, healthy dissidence should be taught. Miller draws from his classroom experience to illustrate how educators can cultivate a climate that welcomes…

Teaching the social contract tradition to students can be frustrating. Works by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau may seem arcane, abstract, or irrelevant to students. Yet, it is important for students to think about what processes or mechanisms would make consent and dissent legitimate. To address this problem, this paper explains how to use a short…

How does one teach dissent in a classroom which is a disciplinary space? As a pedagogue whose work is to instil philosophical and critical thinking in students, in this article I reflect on the modalities of teaching dissent versus teaching about dissent. While it is very possible that teaching about dissent may create a model for students to…

There was a lot of talk about both the fate of American democracy and American higher education in 2021, but not much consideration about how the two were deeply intertwined. The 1947 report "Higher Education for American Democracy" showed awareness of how race, sex, class, and religious discrimination thwarted the talents and ambitions…

Speech at Australian universities is restricted in various ways. A few of them, such as student protests against visiting speakers, receive lots of attention. Others seldom do, such as defamation threats and cyber harassment. Self-censorship may be more significant than overt censorship. Those who want to raise awareness of hidden limitations on…

Courses: Intercultural Communication, Argumentation and Advocacy, Communication and Education. Objectives: This activity is designed to help students to problem-pose and think critically about policies/laws that influence education. Students will be exposed to U.S. policy and will be able to articulate a critical dissent of such documents.

The global Occupy! actions gave some pause for thought. At first, some thought that this was a global movement that could change the way politics was conducted and maybe see the end of capitalism as we knew it. The hopes for Occupy! were high, but the highest hopes for the movement were short lived. This paper examines Occupy!'s legacy; what…

The nascent democracy in Nigeria is plagued with myriad of intrigues, discordant opinions of the political class. The reason is not farfetched. Every political party sees its manifesto and plans of action as the best for the citizenry. They elbow each other in the process of garnering political recognition and vibrancy. Their unhealthy rivalry…

In the absence of incontrovertible performance data in support of, or opposition to, school vouchers, court decisions on their legality become increasingly important. Analysis of legal challenges provides a rich opportunity for scholars and policymakers to follow arguments for or against their positions. We present a chronicle of the litigation…

This response to Peterson's (2014) "Nonviolent Action as a Necessary Component in Educating for Democracy" enlarges the discussion of the role of the teacher/educator in deciding whether or when it is responsible to facilitate the engagement of students in acts of nonviolent dissent. Ultimately it would seem that the most important of…

Participatory approaches to engaging in research with young children place a great deal of emphasis on children's rights to choose whether or not they wish to be involved. A number of recent studies have reported a range of strategies both to inform children of their research rights and to establish options for checking children's understanding of…