Powerful knowledge facilitates students' access to profound understanding and abstract thinking. In this study, disciplinary knowledge practices and their curricular capacity are examined in regions, i.e. interdisciplinary and professionally oriented degree programmes. Interview data on curriculum knowledge were analysed drawing on Basil…

This article argues that an understanding of disciplinary knowledge production helps to underpin a conceptual structure for the humanities curriculum. This is important as a conceptual curriculum more overtly supports knowledge production for both pupils and teachers than one that is solely focused on propositional knowledge. It can mean the…

The aim of the present study was to test whether the content of a gender stereotype concerning general academic achievement matched the characteristics deemed to predict success in the fields of higher education dominated by women and men respectively. A sample of 207 undergraduate students rated the extent to which characteristics ascribed to…

This paper argues that the modern curriculum of academic subject disciplines embodies a rationalist conception of pure, universal knowledge that does little to cultivate, humanise or form the self. A liberal education in the classical humanist tradition, by contrast, develops a personal culture or "paideia", an understanding of the self as a…

It is a pitifully narrow humanities curriculum which focuses on great Western art, as many college humanities sequences have done. Any true consideration of the humanities needs to view mankind in relation to the cosmos. In essence, all one's education needs to be humanistically oriented in the broadest possible sense. (Author/SJL)

With the conviction that a student needs purpose in life and that the humanities as a discipline can contribute most significantly to this achievement, research to determine the extent of higher education programs in this country was undertaken, with the encouraging conclusion that humanities are offered in some form in all institutions surveyed.…

Describes the rationale and course outlines for two college-level courses which integrate scientific and humanistic thought. Available from: Division of Social Sciences, Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas 66801. (Author/AV)

Student unrest stems partially from a desire to find meaning in the education that they are receiving. (CK)

This study was undertaken as a report on a relatively new kind of graduate program. It is intended to present the characteristics of existing general education programs in the humanities for comparison and appraisal. Since this study deals with a relatively new and still experimental field, it should be regarded as a status report, or perhaps even…

Discusses general education as a foundational discipline within the educational sciences. Refers to the Nordic and German traditions of general education, or "Allgemeine Padogogik," which covers what the Anglo-American world refers to as educational theory and philosophy. Reports that today the interest towards the philosophy and theory…

This paper contributes to the debate over whether the university disciplines are the best sources of knowledge for the school curriculum. Among the problematic issues raised in the paper are the distinctions between the university disciplines on one hand and the arts, crafts, trades, and sports on the other, and the distinction between enabling…

Since the rise of science and technology in the latter part of the last century, teachers in the humanities have experienced extreme pressure to justify the place of the humanities in a progressive, scientifically oriented culture. Critics have termed humanists variously as elitist, because they concern themselves with moral priorities rather than…

In an effort to explain the relationship between democracy and education, this article presents three differing definitions of democracy: liberal, communicative, and deliberative. Argues that deliberatively influenced education makes possible a more rational approach to Denmark's debates concerning democratic education. Provides a brief historical…

States that postmodern approaches to the philosophy of education fall under the common denominator of narrative tendencies, key to which is the idea of a contextual, historical, and biographical self who is real in the here and now, who has a name, face and voice. Concludes that philosophical and pedagogical perspectives of the philosophy of…

Distinguishes between curiosity, which is seen as a motive to do exploration within definite and generally accepted frames, and wonder, where doubt about the frames themselves is the underlying factor. Argues that educational institutions need to build on both notions, and that wonder often finds expression in philosophical pursuits. (Contains 16…