Over recent years, it has been claimed that we live in a 'post-truth' age: a moment in history where the ideal of truth seems to have been abandoned. The prevailing attitude towards truth is not one of antagonism but of "indifference." Should this bother us? If so, why? What might we mean by 'truth'? How is truth relevant to education?…

Departments of Arts and Humanities globally face increasing financial threat from falling enrolment, rising costs, and 'strategic realignment' at university level. In the UK, in particular, cuts to the Arts and Humanities sector are becoming endemic, with complex ramifications for prospective students as well as academic and professional staff. In…

The great hope of dialogical pedagogy such as the Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CoPI) as advocated for by practitioners of philosophy for and with children (P4C) was to cultivate critical thinkers who would be guided by epistemic and moral virtues in their engagement with one another in an effort to uncover truth. And, further, that those…

As the sustainability imperative looms, mainstream educational research in the English-speaking world continues a long tradition of failing to see food as integral to education. Japan's tradition of "Shokuiku" (food education) stands in stark contrast, providing an external reference point to direct critical attention on Anglo-American…

At a time when there are renewed expressions of concern about how our societies are organised and the health of our democracies, this paper focuses on the role of education in a democracy. Informed by John Dewey's and Martin Buber's accounts of what it is to be educated, and Homi Bhabha's concept of third space work, the paper presents the case…

This critical paper posits that an ongoing reconceptualising of educational aims and values is necessary and desirable, especially so given the multiple complexities of current times and the associated need to reappraise the overarching pedagogical principles that inform contemporary education. We propose that phenomenology can yield incisive…

In his belated reply to my 2006 article 'Against autonomy as an educational aim', Christian Wendelborn advances two objections to my argument and proposes two new candidates for an educational aim deserving of the name autonomy. I show here that his objections miss their mark and that neither of his new candidates is appointable. [For the reply,…

This paper draws on the Chinese and English literature on the Chinese idea of "tianxia" (literally meaning all under heaven), with the objective of shedding new light on the discussion of the global in global higher education (studies). It argues that the "tianxia" idea embodies an approach to viewing the world that is…

Michael Hand argues in his article 'Against autonomy as an educational aim' that the project of erecting autonomy as an educational aim is wrongheaded. I argue that his argument fails. I discuss two lines of his argument that deal with different senses of autonomy. The first line of argument trades on an ambiguity. As soon as we disambiguate, we…

One response to the coronavirus pandemic has been for educators, public health experts and politicians to emphasise the importance of empathy, compassion, care, or similar human qualities in tackling the crisis. We explore these claims philosophically in regard to education. What moral attributes are relevant to a crisis such as a pandemic? How…

During the past thirty years, student (or pupil) voice has gained attention in education policy especially in many Western countries, accelerated by both the acceptance of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1990 and an emphasis on accountability in schools. Multifaceted and complex, student voice in schools…

This article analyses, mingles and blends divergent and complementary strands from the thinking of Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) and Sir Alec Clegg (1909-1986), two contemporaneous but different influential public figures and thinkers in the post-World War Two period. The paper uses these strands to construct a critique of the current colonisation of…

As a host of published books, journal articles and opinion pieces attest, the university lecture is now distinctly out of step with contemporary Higher Education discourse. Academics across university disciplines confidently proclaim the format's obsolescence, arguing that only inertia and familiarity could satisfactorily account for the lecture's…

The article moves from a theorisation of the global scale in higher education and knowledge to a critical review of actual global imaginings and practices. Geo-cognitive scales such 'the global' or 'the national' are constituted by three elements: pre-given material structures, the imaginings and interpretations of agents, and the social practices…

This paper introduces and summarises a programme of German research into teaching started 20 years ago. This research draws on Herbart's analysis of teaching with its focus on 'Bildung' (formation) which is distinguished from the measurement/psychometric tradition. It offers the possibilities of a deeper empirical understanding of pedagogical…