This interview attempts to articulate what it might mean to speak for "Padagogik" in an era where new trends in education run the risk of marginalizing "Padagogik" as an independent academic discipline. This trend can be found in several European countries and is judged by Herner Saeverot and Gert Biesta to be a development…

This article explains how teachers might navigate inquiry learning despite the experience of a constant tension between abandoning their students and controlling them. They do this by conceiving of themselves as guides who decide the path with students, not for them. I build on a conception of teaching as guiding from Burbules, and argue that…

A central element of Richard Peters' philosophy of education has been his analysis of "education as initiation". Understanding initiation is internally related to concepts of community and what it may mean to be a member. The concept of initiation assumes a mutually interdependent, dynamic relationship between the individual and community that…

In the field of higher education there are few places reserved for philosophical exploration, and this, this author argues, can limit and distort the cartography. Higher education research tends to be framed as the empirical process of collecting and analysing qualitative or quantitative data. But this conception of research leaves little space…

It is report card time at your child's school. You are curious as to how your child is being perceived and how well the teacher is meeting his or her needs. As you expect, there is a neat line of good grades. At the bottom is written this note: "(Your child) is doing well on her school work, but she does not suffer fools gladly."…

A certain conception of the relevance of virtue epistemology to the philosophy of education is set out. On this conception, while the epistemic goal of education might initially be promoting the pupil's cognitive success, it should ultimately move on to the development of the pupil's cognitive agency. A continuum of cognitive agency is described,…

Schools in England are radically changing their organization and governance, casting aside the founding principle of the 1944 Education Act that education is a public service and abandoning the ideal of education as nurturing a sense of community. This book presents a portrait of a successful comprehensive school, between the years 1980 and 2000.…

The author reflects upon the specific character of ethics as a domain of knowledge that came into being in order to gather truths, which would help human beings to wisely take care of themselves. She argues that the ethical perspective should be taken into account while planning the lifelong learning activities. Further, she notes that if the goal…

Twietmeyer (2012) reviews the historical and contemporary state of kinesiology and appraises what he calls unexamined philosophical commitments. He begins with a historical and philosophical review of the foundations of kinesiology, beginning with Aristotle's ancient influences and Polanyi's and C. P. Snow's modern influences. He then focuses on…

Research into the relationship between the Anglican tradition and its schools is relatively undeveloped in England. The research reported here draws on Benne's (2001) significant components of the relationship between educational institutions and their founding religious tradition to examine whether these components are a helpful way of describing…

This article discusses the nature, power and effects of neo-liberal rationale in educational settings. By introducing discourse analysis of two cases, the influence of neo-liberal ideology on contemporary curricula and school programs were examined. The analysis showed that dominant discourses based on neo-liberal rationale presented themselves as…

Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is well known for enhancing students' problem solving skills and teamwork, while the role of PBL tutors is to facilitate discussion rather than teach. This study used four focus groups to explore PBL tutors' motivation, challenges and support mechanisms, and the relationship between these. The study found that there…

This study stems from research on the "Standing Conferences of Rectors and Vice-Chancellors of the European Universities" (1948-), an experimental initiative for co-operation among European universities, emphasising the reformative ideal that appeared in international circles in the years following the Second World War. These conceptions…

Since public schooling was introduced in the nineteenth century, teachers in many western countries have endeavoured to achieve professional recognition. For a short period in the latter part of the twentieth century, professionalism was seen as a discourse of resistance or the "enemy" of economic rationalism and performativity. However,…

We establish the thesis that in moral education, particularly in the first years of the child's development, unreflexive acts or "unreflexiveness" in certain behaviours of adults is a condition for the development of the personality structure and virtues that enable autonomous ethical reflection and a relation to the Other. With the…