Taking its point of departure from some critical remarks about some of the most important recent theorising of learning, this article presents an alternative framework for theorising learning as a subjective process in a social and societal context, based on life history research. The key concepts of subjectivity and experience, derived from…

In architectural design education, students develop drawing, conceptual, and critical skills which are informed by their ability to reflect upon the production of ideas in design processes and in the urban, environmental, social, historical, and cultural context that define architecture and the built environment. Reflective actions and thinking…

In this paper, I recall previous arguments for a hermeneutic approach to science and claim that such an approach necessitates attention to the development of dispositions. I undertake an analysis of Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics to identify and describe dispositions relevant to a hermeneutic approach to science. I then apply…

In this article, the author reflects on keywords in Statement Two of the Australian Association for the Teaching of English (AATE) "Statements of Belief". The second statement says, "We believe students come to understand themselves and their work through engagement with a range of cultures and the ways these cultures represent…

This collaborative piece written by a philosopher/action researcher and an action researcher/philosopher explores the use of practical philosophy as a tool in action research. The paper explores the connection to be made between what we refer to, roughly, as "theory" and "practice" (while never losing hold of either). The…

This article is an attempt to critique some of the limitations of dominant school reform discourses in education, drawing upon the work of Michel Foucault, Michael Apple, Maxine Greene, and Dennis Carlson, in addition to writers in the emerging field of what might be called "eco-progressivism." The intersections between ecology and education can…

This article addresses drug users' identity construction, and invites counsellors, psychotherapists, researchers and others who work with drug misusers to notice how cultural and societal discourses can shape drug misusers' stories, and the positions from which helpers listen and respond to them. By representing and analysing parts of two life…

In this essay, the author "maps" a town that has grown in what was formerly frontier: he looked at twenty-four essays focusing on grammar instruction from "Teaching English in the Two-Year College (TETYC)," published between 1987 and 2006, with a goal of identifying key areas of focus--town squares. While he found several trends and foci, most…

Hans-Georg Gadamer has been criticized by a wide range of feminist scholars who argue that his work neglects feminine aspects of understanding, many of which are essential to sound theorizing about educational contexts. In this essay, Linda O'Neill employs Virginia Woolf's classic gender analysis both as a foil for Gadamer's philosophical…

This article was authored by a university educator and a twelve year-old child. The first author was a visiting teacher to a small, rural, state primary school in Queensland Australia. She spent one day per week for nineteen weeks fostering an inquiry-based stance to teaching and learning. The second author is a student within the researched…

This book seeks to address the educational significance of philosophy as a subject in the K-12 curriculum, and includes a range of issues from the teaching of philosophy to the improvement of thinking, the nature of a community of inquiry, and the educational significance of grade school philosophy. The book is divided into 6 sections with 15…

In contrast to overly cognitive and excessively reductive information models of communication, Hans Georg Gadamer provides a viable alternative for discussing conversation. There seems to be a competition in Gadamer's writings between conversation and text, so that his project of textual interpretation has an important impact on his treatment of…

Ten different methods of inquiry are outlined in this overview of research methodologies currently being employed in the field of curriculum studies: (1) philosophical, (2) historical, (3) scientific, (4) artistic, (5) moral, (6) religious, (7) interpretive, (8) instrumental, (9) deliberative, and (10) action oriented. Each of the 10 methods is…

This paper claims that leadership, as a topic, has been disguised in behaviorism and obscured by organizational theory and management. The article examines the theories or metanarratives that have dominated educational administration and shows how they have covered and disguised leadership. It argues that the metanarratives--trait theory,…

Explores an integration of the theory and practice of writing across the curriculum. Looks at the usefulness of rhetorical concepts emerging from common language in building transdisciplinary theoretical dialogues about writing across the disciplines. (TB)