This article explores the work of history and philosophy in publications by Willystine Goodsell, professor of history and philosophy at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the entanglement of Goodsell's approach to scholarship with that of her doctoral supervisor John Dewey. The article experiments with diffractive reading to examine…

Wittgenstein explores learning through practice in the "Philosophical Investigations" by means of an extended analogy with games. However, does this concern with learning also necessarily extend to "education," in our institutional understanding of the word? While Wittgenstein's examples of language learning and use are always…

The paper argues that what is left behind in the current era of accountability is the educational content. The authors present "shedding the content" as the great challenge of teaching and learning in today's schools. They turn to the tradition of "Bildung" and outline the theoretical background for the "content-focused…

This historical-themed critical paper utilises writings by John Dewey to review how constructions of social democracy might benefit conceptions of contemporary physical education. The review focuses on Dewey's early ethics writings which considered that society functioned best when collective moral purposes merged with individual freedoms in a…

This study contrasts the moral development theory of Lawrence Kohlberg with the Augustinian structure represented in the work of James K. A. Smith. Where Kohlberg emphasizes cognition and rational ability, Smith focuses on the formation of loves acquired by habits. The theories differ ontologically and teleologically, which results in wide…

Until recently teacher education in England has always contained a 'philosophical' element -- to do with what education is for in the light of human nature. The paper traces its history since 1839, through inspirational approaches -- based first on religion and later on psychology -- to the critical approach of R S Peters and his colleagues in the…

This paper outlines how ethics and democracy can be conceived procedurally within the context of education for global citizenship, using the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead as a starting point. Education for global citizenship aims to create active individual consciousness within a community and a commitment to build upon values and…

Although often labelled obsolete and ethically dubious, twentieth-century behaviourist principles of learning have been central to the development of instructional technology and the design of modern learning environments. Using Andrew Pickering's philosophy, this article addresses behaviourism as a mangle of practice to highlight the conceptual…

In South Africa, indigenous (African) knowledge is at the heart of a single detailed national Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (2012). Against this background, the study on which this article is based, examined two long-standing genres of philosophy: Western philosophy, as a critical academic discipline and African philosophy, as a…

This paper reports on the findings from a multi-site case study conducted in Australia, Finland and Jamaica which explored the conditions that enabled and constrained the autonomy of school principals. Systematic data collection was carried out in the form of interviews of school principals and the data was analysed using a qualitative approach.…

Responding largely to the impact of industrialization and urbanization on American society, educators across the country embraced the "school gardening" and "nature study" movements advocated by Dewey. Promoted in varying degrees as ways to enhance learning, yield food for their schools, build character, and improve…

The present study is a descriptive research conducted with the quantitative research method and aimed to determine and analyze the educational philosophy trends among pre-school teachers and the effects of various variables on their educational philosophy orientations. The study was conducted with 381 pre-school teachers attending Inönü…

This paper examines Theodor W. Adorno's notion of democratic pedagogy and the role of emotions in re-educating and democratizing a society, particularly in light of the current political situation in many countries around the world in which right-wing extremism is on the rise. The paper revisits Adorno's educational thought on critical…

This study explored primary teacher's philosophical orientation towards teaching, here defined as a teacher's set of interrelated beliefs that they develop and utilize when teaching. Teachers are expected to conflate epistemological beliefs, instructional training and societal expectations of effective instruction to construct a single perceptual…

This theoretical piece explores the frame of mind required for a Science, Technology, Education and Mathematics (STEM) education in an uncertain time. Predominantly argued from an epistemic standpoint, this paper analyses the relationship between environment, anthropomorphism, the essence of education, and our presumed mastery of nature. In the…