In its attempt to respond to changing historical realities the university has undergone significant transformations, most of which, however, have focused on teaching material, tools, methods or practices adapted to the new demands. Taking as a case study the literary disciplines, this article focuses on the theoretical, mostly implicit,…

This article investigates the long-held assumption that Christian educators need their own curriculum orientation. Seminal documents published by Philip Jackson and Harro Van Brummelen in the nineties are analyzed against the background of a brief history of the field of curriculum theory. The author accepts Jackson's conclusion that curriculum…

In this article, the author talks about power, pleasure and community in a learning society. He argues that the resistance against the grand narratives or universal truths of this age is best achieved through the cultivation and development of local narratives and truths which are subject to continuous debate and critical reflection within a…

This paper discusses what cultural values should be imparted to Kenyan students in the post-colonial era. Traditionalists had argued that an education based on Western culture, i.e. colonial culture, was the root cause of the present social and political problems, and therefore it should be de-emphasised. Such an argument, however, is criticised…

When a doctoral student plans to conduct qualitative education research, the aspect of the dissertation that often becomes problematic is determining which theoretical paradigm(s) might frame the study. In this article, the author discusses how he resolved the quandary through eclecticism. The author begins by describing briefly the purpose of his…

The obesity crisis is a hegemonic discourse that has established common-sense understandings that young people are less active and fit than previous generations. Unquestioning acceptance of links between fitness and obesity in turn leads to unproblematic fitness testing of young people. Argument is made that fitness tests motivate and encourage…

Changing boundaries between categories of knowledge, together with changing relations with propositional and experiential knowledge, demand reconsideration of what counts as learning. Such re-contextualisation processes can be approached from three standpoints: deconstruction-decoding (learning as a differentiated set of related practices),…

In art education we need methods for studying works of art and visual culture interculturally because there are many multicultural art classes and little consensus as to how to interpret art in different cultures. In this article my central aim was to apply the intertextual method that I developed in my doctoral thesis for Western art education to…

This article is adapted from an invited address to the University of Laval, Quebec City, on April 7, 2006. The purpose of the article is to describe an emerging psycho-spiritual paradigm that veers between dogmatic fundamentalism and postmodern nihilism. This "depth" spirituality is based on a rediscovery of our native capacity for…

JK Rowling's "Harry Potter" novels situate their child protagonists in a fantastical world side by side with present day British society. Through the characters' choices and realizations, young readers are introduced to the complexities and ambiguities of the contemporary world. Harry and his friends embrace these qualities of postmodern…

This article describes the ways in which postmodern career facilitation was applied to enhance achievement motivation in a male adolescent from a community with a high unemployment rate. A case study following a mixed-method approach was conducted with a purposefully selected youth and a postmodern career facilitation intervention was developed…

"How do we recapture the magic and myth of education? ... to enable teachers to believe in their importance...so teachers and the public can rediscover the hope schools once held" (Deal and Patterson). The magic must continue in education in order to ensure that schools maintain a strong structure. Postmodernism views the world in such a way that…

The question of whether or not truth exists is at the center of the rationalism versus postmodern debate. Noting the difficulty of defining truth, the author uses the principles of linguistics to show that semantic skewing has resulted in the concept of truth being encoded as a noun, while it is really an attribute (true). The introduction of a…

Discusses two alternative views of language and reality to counseling-theory nomenclature as a basis for postmodern therapeutic practice. Argues that a postmodern view of counseling should recognize both the value and limitations of language, and in doing so should recognize both the value and limitations of counseling as a means of therapy.…

Postmodern approaches to career counselling have been suggested as a viable alternative to traditional career theories that rely on modernist assumptions. However, some of the assumptions that underlie postmodernism may prove to be unhelpful to career development practice in the long run. In this article we examine critiques of postmodern…