Since the mid-1980s, universities have been faced with the rising prominence of the economic mandate in relation to the university's academic mission. In large measure, this has resulted from governments using universities to promote national competitiveness, economic development and employment readiness. To some, universities, themselves, now…

The "profane" meaning of conformism is first provided by American philosopher and liberal thinker William Penn, in his work dated from around 1700. According to Penn, conformity is a civil virtue whose price is the loss of freedom. The description of conformity as deprivation of freedom becomes stronger in 20th century philosophy from…

In politics and philosophy, the question of horizons, the vanishing point that is always out of reach, but provides direction and guidance, underpins utopic thinking. This is a strange phenomenon since, as Jodi Dean suggests, horizons are 'real' insofar as they exist both spatially and temporally. Dean invokes the Lacanian concept of the real to…

As an avid advocator of education reform in the 1850s, Emerson was long neglected in the history of American educational thought. This paper, through the investigation from four aspects, namely the Transcendental Educational Thought, the Puritanical Educational Thought, the Romantic Educational Thought, and the Confucian's Educational Thought,…

This article explores how Jean François Lyotard reflects on affect as unrepresentable in relation to contemporary affect theory and specifically post-Deleuzian perspectives and non-representational theories suggesting that we need to invent new theoretical ways of addressing our more-than-textual, multisensual worlds. The essay leans on this…

Beginning in earnest in the late 1990s, educational researchers devoted increasing attention to the study of "active learning," leading to a robust literature on the topic in the scholarship of teaching and learning. Meanwhile, during largely the same period, political theorists discovered the radical philosophy of Giorgio Agamben, which…

This article proposes a distinct role for solitude in education, specifically as a means of promoting self-realisation. Solitude is understood as a willed disengagement, as described by Koch, and its relationship to loneliness and to silence is explained. Notwithstanding a degree of disengagement, solitude can be and often is experienced as…

The term 'transformation' and its cognates can be found appended to almost every key term in the contemporary educational lexicon. In educational psychology, teachers are urged to adopt the methods of 'transformational teaching'. In adult education, the theory of 'transformative learning' defines the current research paradigm. Social justice…

In this paper, I explore how mathematics education research is always already entangled with and in ontological, epistemological, and ethical considerations--that is, philosophical considerations--of the researcher (or research team) from beginning to end. The danger in too much of the existing mathematics education research, however, is limited…

George Spencer-Brown's Laws of Forms was first published in 1969. In the fifty years since its publication, it has influenced mathematicians, scientists, philosophers, and sociologists. Its influence on mathematics education has been negligible. In this paper, I present a brief introduction to the theory and its philosophical underpinnings. And I…

This piece maintains that, despite 50+ years of successful practice and development, Philosophy for Children (henceforward, P4C) is undervalued--but that, suitably re-presented, it may yet become the most important agent of educational change of the 21st century: a change that is essential, if not existential, given the challenges facing humanity.…

This book comprises a series of engaging and provocative essays directed towards an optimistic consideration of hope, informed by practices that can be nurtured in school education and other sites of learning and are associated with courage and wisdom. Written from a range of perspectives and experiences each essay brings to the reader a positive…

This paper addresses 'distractions' in the way English language education is discussed and practiced in one of the most debated systems of education in the world today: Finnish primary education. Distractions are considered as 'makers of disturbance' in educational ideologies by the authors. Examining the 2014 National Core Curriculum and…

Theoretical approaches to policy have started considering the ontological dimensions of policy. Concern for the ontological work performed by policy has introduced questions about what policy is apart from its instrumentality. There exists some research in policy studies proposing the possibility of non-instrumental and ontological features of…

Rousseau is among the most influential and important public moralists of the eighteenth century. His popular treatise on education, Emile, argues that parents should ideally rear their own children. It is small wonder, therefore, that his decision to place his own children in a foundling hospital has exposed Rousseau to the charge of hypocrisy and…