This paper argues that sociocultural accounts of learning fail to answer the key question about learning--how is it possible? Accordingly, we should adopt an individualist bootstrapping methodology in providing a theory of learning. Such a methodology takes seriously the idea that learning is staged and distinguishes between a non-comprehending…

This paper aims to make a theoretical contribution to the current debate on intercultural education by focusing on the nature and limits of tolerance. Drawing on contemporary theorisations of the concept, it is suggested that while tolerance appears fundamental for confronting issues of difference, it has several caveats. The paper discusses the…

The need to build an awareness of peace and of peace education is often a message that is difficult to share with the larger society. John Dewey, an acclaimed American philosopher and intellectual, used his public platform to espouse his ideas on democracy and peace as a resolution to global discord during the years preceding and during World Wars…

Student satisfaction measures serve to provide a measure of "quality" in the current audit culture of universities. This paper argues that the form of satisfaction valued within contemporary Higher Education amounts to a form of settling, where the primary aim is to settle the students' expectations, and meet their needs. Drawing…

This article argues that hegemonic cosmopolitan narrativity fails to frame a complex cosmopolitan normativity. The hegemonic cosmopolitan narrative celebrates a mobile selfhood merely hospitable to the encountered, mobile diversity that comes ashore. A recent educational-theoretical "refugee-crisis" initiative serves as an illustration…

This paper aims to interrogate Freirean critical pedagogy via the work of Jacques Lacan in order to shed new light on psychoanalytic issues that arise when engaging in critical pedagogical work. First, through a close reading of Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," the author delineates Freire's conception of the human subject, the…

This paper investigates the intersection of big data and philosophy of education by considering big data's potential for addressing learning via a holistic process of coming-to-know. Learning, in this sense, cannot be reduced to the difference between a pre- and post-test, for example, as it is constituted at least as much by qualities of…

In this article, we read together the work of two philosophers, Alain Badiou and Giorgio Agamben, as profound educational thinkers. This means that their philosophical approaches help us to articulate what is at stake in education today. As a starting point for this discussion we take their work on Saint Paul. This is because, throughout his…

My concern in this essay is not so much with the invisible work or hidden labor produced by neoliberalism, but rather with what Joseph Pieper describes as an emerging culture of "total work" (Pieper, p. 43). More than the sheer (and increasing) number of hours of work, Pieper diagnoses a transformation in the way we view work. Work (or…

Kazimierz Dabrowski's (1902-1980) five-level theory of personality development, the Theory of Positive Disintegration, is one in which the experience of all emotions is essential for the process of individual growth toward the personality ideal. In this article, we introduce the phenomenological and existential influences on Dabrowski, including…

This short paper is a reply to John Tillson's article "The problem of rational moral enlistment" (EJ1148739). It begins by correcting a misreading of my own position on the place of rationality in moral education and continues with a more substantive critique of Tillson's own position on this, as well as that of Michael Hand. It asks…

In an effort to theorize educational logics that are oppositional to capitalism, this article explores what it means to study like a communist. I begin by drawing out the tight connection between learning and capitalism, demonstrating that education is not a subset but a motor of political-economic relations. Next, I turn to the concept of study,…

The loss of friendship can be a frequent occurrence for children as they explore their social worlds and navigate their way through the demands of particular relationships. Given that friendship is a relationship of special regard, and associated with a particular partiality to our friends, the ending of friendship and the subsequent interactions…

There appears to be an irresolvable disagreement between "progressives" and "conservatives" regarding the ultimate aims of education. This paper argues that the dispute is irresolvable as it currently stands because the traditional progressive/conservative dichotomies are false and based on distorted half-truths. The current…

Disciplines are by their very "origin and nature" unstable--always already differed and deferred from themselves--due to their genetic relation to what Jacques Derrida calls "différance". In a sense, "différance" is what makes disciplines possible in the first place, and it can be thought of as the economy or mode of…