This article explores Dewey's understanding of the nature of education through three seminal works written over a 32-year period. In "Democracy and Education" (1916) Dewey developed a concept of education which can be understood through two German words for education, Erziehung and Bildung. Through considering the approach to these…

The following article traces the legacy of John Dewey's "A Common Faith" (1934) and Dewey's concept of "the religious" in the thought of Philip H. Phenix, a prominent philosopher of education during the 1950s and 1960s. Phenix frequently cited "A Common Faith" and echoed Dewey's commitments to naturalism, creativity,…

In this paper, I argue that the dominant assumption that educational research means empirical research narrows the range of possibilities for educational research. More specifically, research methods courses and textbooks exclude philosophy of education as a viable way of going about educational research, which limits what we can know about…

This paper examines the Confucian concept of learning, or xue ([character omitted]), from the perspective of ecological humanism. Through a comparative interpretation, this paper attempts to disclose the significance of Confucian xue conceived as a practice of aesthetic appreciation and creativity, emphasizing in particular its function within an…

Drawing primarily on John Dewey's Experience and Nature, but putting his metaphysical commitments into conversation with pedagogical experience, this article asks: how might a Deweyan understanding of nature and our experience within it support environmental progress? More specifically, how might we respect pluralistic relationships with…

In this paper I draw on my work as a pedagogista to discuss the pedagogical promise of critique, estrangement, and what I call speculative envisioning. I argue that these concepts are themselves modes of engagement, practice, and thinking that are pedagogical and that they can help educators engage with the nondeterministic work of creating…

In response to considerable critique of its rigour and relevance, the field of educational research has sought to prove its validity, both in terms of its scientific legitimacy and its relevance to policy and practice. One result of this has been a heightened concern with methodology, to the extent that a form of methodolatry has developed. In…

What distinguishes the philosophies of education advanced by pragmatists? Does pragmatism have something distinctive to offer contemporary philosophy of education? This paper applies these questions, which Randall Curren asks in "Pragmatist Philosophy of Education" (2009), to a more specific current debate in philosophy of education: the…

Philosophy of education's relevance to schooling and value to society have always been contested within the field. When reading about the state of the field, one often gets the sense that philosophy of education is losing its cache, given the prevalence of data-oriented views about research. But the solution to this crisis is often difficult to…

Taking Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu)" as a literary vehicle, this article uses a psychoanalytic lens to examine the problem of what to do with our desires in the philosophy of education. The article describes an apprenticeship, a personal process of learning in which an ethical rapport with…

This paper suggests ways in which the profile of philosophical research in education could be raised, to demonstrate that it is legitimate and genuinely productive to engage in non-empirical research in education. I begin with some historical context for philosophical research in education, exploring the approach known as "conceptual…

This exploratory essay considers how and why humanities research is excluded, co-opted, or othered in methods courses and methods course offerings for education research at an R1 institution. While not generalizable (ironically?), concerns have also been raised by philosophers of education that philosophy is not taught or is rarely taught as a…

This essay elaborates on the notion of risk in relation to democratically challenging situations in education. This refers to situations in which liberal democratic values are potentially challenged, such as in teaching about controversial issues and in moments of expressions of hurtful speech, which can create in teachers an ambivalence for how…

The pandemic resurrected gender as a central categorization of citizenship. COVID-19 reminds us that gender oppression continues in its traditional, materialist formulations to structure our economic, civic, and political lives. Postfeminism has diversified feminist discourses, and at times been used as a temporal claim -- the "post"…

Philosophical discussions about leisure time often take place on an abstract level. But leisure time does not exist a priori to lived experience in concreate situations. Its existence, or the lack thereof, is often predicated on the material conditions of daily life. In this article the very real conditions of indebted life are the starting point…