This paper argues that applied ethics can itself be morally problematic. As illustrated by the case of Peter Singer's criticism of social practice, morally loaded communication by applied ethicists can lead to protests, backlashes, and aggression. By reviewing the psychological literature on self-image, collective identity, and motivated reasoning…

Purpose: This paper describes oral language as a multi-faceted and unconstrained phenomenon, including its social purpose in societies and the implications of this for education. It provides a critique of the concepts of oral language which have come to dominate literacy and language education policy across the Organisation of Economic…

The notion of family resemblance has recently emerged as a promising and fruitful approach to characterising the nature of science (NOS) in science education research, offering solutions to some perplexing challenges such as capturing both the domain-general and domain-specific features of science with a single framework. At the same time,…

In this paper we combine a philosophical theoretical analysis with human movement science empirical studies, in order to provide a better understanding of the possible links between free play and creativity. We deal in particular with some dialectical dynamics inherent to free play: the relation between rules and freedom, spontaneity which often…

While a mutually agreed-upon definition of STEM education remains elusive, there is no doubt that instructional models and ideas put forward with the STEM label have had a tremendous impact on thinking, debate, and practice in schools worldwide. At issue is the degree to which some or all the STEM disciplines must be taught in a concurrent or…

The theme of childhood and education in Lyotard's philosophy provides an interesting field of reflection combining education studies and continental philosophy. Childhood in Lyotard's thought is mostly understood as "infantia," a concept that appears towards the end of his work. The claim of this article is that childhood in Lyotard's…

This paper reflects on a slow re-reading of Maggi Savin-Baden's "Impact of Transdisciplinary Threshold Concepts on Student Engagement in Problem-Based Learning" and its relation to the author's experiences as a teacher and curriculum developer in Techno-Anthropology at Aalborg University. It explores four transdisciplinary threshold…

Inspired by the call to question (critical) assumptions underpinning frameworks for "seeing" (Lather, 1993) and ground criticality in alternative forms of knowing (Pennycook, 2018), this paper examines critical frameworks for approaching identity, experience, and (in)equity in "English" language teaching (ELT), with a focus on…

With STEM education garnering an increasing share of educational budgets and press, humanities teachers should consider how to respond to the growing power of math and science. Should humanists read the writing on the wall and tether themselves to the economic engine of STEM? Or should humanists separate themselves, retreating securely into their…

The Integrated Concentration in Science (iCons) 4-year program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst was designed to promote interdisciplinary STEM collaboration in the solution of real-world problems and encourage student independence and interdependence through a student-centered teaching approach that structures all projects as group…

Teacher identity provides useful insights into the learning and practices of teachers. The complexity of identity, however, makes it difficult to use in empirical research. An analytical framework with two components is presented. This analytical framework comprises a framework for identity as an embedder-of-numeracy, which clearly defines a…

A common recommendation in critiques of datafication in education is for greater conversation between the two sides of the (critical) divide -- what might be characterised as sceptical social scientists and (supposedly) more technically-minded and enthusiastic data scientists. This article takes the form of a dialogue between two academics…

This article places William Newell's work on interdisciplinary studies (IDS) within the larger landscape of definitions, theories, and practices of interdisciplinarity. It begins by benchmarking three of his major contributions to the field of interdisciplinary studies read in the context of expanding literature on related topics: specifically his…

This paper presents a fresh conceptualisation of critical action learning by energising critique in action and in learning, embedding this as integral to Continuous Professional Development (CPD). The criticality that action learning promotes could be most impactful, in fostering a mode of learning -- "Learning in Crisis" -- that…

The idea of the university has undergone a conceptual evolution that has lasted nearly one thousand years. In inspecting this historical discourse more closely, it becomes clear that it is a conversation led by academics and that some voices in our university communities are in fact absent from the dialogue. This raises a number of interesting…