For the first time, Walter Benjamin's critical comments on educator and philosopher Rudolf Steiner are examined in depth. In particular, Benjamin detected protofascist themes within Steiner's seemingly progressive notion of child-centered, arts-based, developmentally appropriate early childhood education. But this does not mean that Benjamin…

Patricia Carini (1932-2021) was a progressive educator and thinker who was among the key figures of open education. This article reflects on her work, illuminating its quality as an art of listening. The idea of listening has been of primary importance within the tradition of progressive education in the United States and internationally.…

How should Deweyan educators teach their students about engaging in efforts to bring about social change in a political context marked by polarization, power differentials, and oppression? In this article, Joshua Forstenzer argues that Deweyan educators must encourage their students to engage in pluralistic and creative experiments rather than…

John Dewey's lifelong quest for a worthy education was characterized by a fervor for collapsing false dualisms. One such dualism -- that between traditional and progressive education -- led him to embrace a vision of the teacher as interpreter and guide of the student. Notwithstanding Dewey's emphasis on the salient role of interpretation, there…

Spain's greatest modern philosopher, José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955), wrote about many aspects of education including its aims; the education of children, nations, and elites; types of pedagogy; the reform of the university; and the challenges facing educators in an era of "triumphant plebeianism." The article examines all aspects of…

The Waldorf schools, founded by Rudolf Steiner, are today among the most successful alternative schools that have emerged in the context of the "Reformpädagogik" (progressive education movement). Despite the increasing number of schools being founded as well as critical comments occurring from time to time in the public, the interest in…

The second of two volumes dedicated to this little-explored topic continues to gather international perspectives to critically assess how Waldorf education has been perceived and discussed in both public and academic arenas. Both books thereby challenge the historic concept of Waldorf education as an international movement championing…

A retired public school teacher recollects and reflects upon her collaboration with Patricia F. Carini, founder of the Prospect School and the Prospect Center for Education and Research. The recollections synthesize her participation in annual Prospect gatherings with an eclectic group of like-minded educators and caretakers from all over the…

In this study, the effect of teachers' educational philosophy tendencies on their curriculum autonomy was investigated using a correlational research design. The study's population consisted of teachers 258 teachers drawn from various schools using a simple random sampling method. The data were collected through Educational Philosophy Tendency…

From 1893 to 1899, "The Progressive Educator" was published and distributed to every teacher in the Republic of Hawai'i. This article explores what the newspaper can teach us about Hawai'i's unique and ongoing contributions to the American progressive education movement. The author focuses on an article from the newspaper originally…

In his acceptance speech of the National Academy of Kinesiology's (NAK) 2008 Hetherington Award, Daryl Siedentop (2008) humbly declared: "I have had the privilege for many years to play a small role in the development of research in the field now universally referred to as sport pedagogy" (p. 10). That declaration encapsulates the manner…

In light of decades of formal denouncement of Deweyan ideas in China and the increasingly authoritarian practices under its current leadership, the recent revival of engagement with Dewey's work among Chinese educators and intellectuals appears extraordinary as well as paradoxical. How is it possible that a project as ardently democratic as…

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…

Through a Foucauldian theoretical framework, this article contests the efficacy of the modern assessable and visible learning curriculum, and analyses how the current education episteme disempowers the ethical subjectification of the individual, dislocating the development of aesthetic agency. It articulates a tension between education for the…

The first of two volumes dedicated to this little-explored topic, this volume gathers international perspectives to critically assess how Waldorf education has been perceived and discussed in both public and academic arenas. The book thereby challenges the historical concept of Waldorf education as an international movement championing…