I begin with a quotation from Virginia Held, taking this as a point of departure: "Few feminists identify ourselves specifically as pragmatists, but perhaps most of us could offer more support for pragmatism at its best than most pragmatists realize." Though a passing remark, Held has raised an intriguing question. Could feminism and pragmatism…

Drawing on Bernard Lonergan's "Method in Theology" (1972) I argue that theology can be taught because personal knowledge, of which it is an instance, is at the heart of academic inquiry; and it should be taught because critical engagement with basic ways of taking one's life as a whole (religion in a broad sense) furnishes a critique of the…

Education is interpreted as something basic to our humanity. As part of our primordial way of being human, education is intrinsic to the understanding's functioning. At the same time education involves an originary ethical relation to the other, unsettling the self-directed character of the striving to live. And because of its social setting, the…

In this essay, James Scott Johnston claims that a dispute over moral teleology lies at the basis of the debate between John Dewey and Robert M. Hutchins. This debate has very often been cast in terms of perennialism, classicism, or realism versus progressivism, experimentalism, or pragmatism. Unfortunately, casting the debate in these terms…

In this essay, Johannes Giesinger comments on the current philosophical debate on educational justice. He observes that while authors like Elizabeth Anderson and Debra Satz develop a so-called adequacy view of educational justice, Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift defend an egalitarian principle. Giesinger focuses his analysis on the main objection…

Philosophy for Children arose in the 1970s in the US as an educational programme. This programme, initiated by Matthew Lipman, was devoted to exploring the relationship between the notions "philosophy" and "childhood", with the implicit practical goal of establishing philosophy as a full-fledged "content area" in public schools. Over 40 years, the…

Dealing with traditions is a central issue in music education. I investigate different perspectives on tradition by engaging in a local hermeneutic study surrounding an interpretive event from a viola studio. To understand the function of tradition in this event, I construct a theoretical perspective with roots in hermeneutics and educational…

Is the university to be thought of as in service of society - that is, on the inside? Or should it be regarded rather as its potential critic and prophet of its best prospects, and hence be understood to be on the outside? This is just one example of the multiple ways in which thinking in terms of the inside and the outside figures in educational…

In my review of the articles published in this issue of "SAJHE" I use the notion of "after" in two senses: "in imitation of" and "following in time" (moving beyond) (Schad 2003, x). In the first instance I wish to assess the extent to which contributors have drawn on Paulo Freire's concept of a…

This article explores the material culture of kindergarten in the United States in relation to the production and consumption of materials and kindergarten theory and pedagogy. The focus is on Friedrich Froebel's building gifts as they were manufactured and sold by the Milton Bradley Company from 1869 to 1939. A review of trade catalogues over the…

On the point that, in practices of critical thinking, we respond spontaneously in concrete situations, this paper presents an account on behalf of Wittgenstein. I argue that the "seeing-things-aright" model of Luntley's Wittgenstein is not adequate, since it pays insufficient attention to radically new circumstances, in which the content of norms…

The International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP) was first created in 1980. This article charts its historical origins and growth. It offers a critical overview of the operation of the MYP revealing both its geographical distribution disparities and the current picture in terms of external moderation of student work. There are…

This manuscript draws from a 2-year multiple-case ethnography on the educational experiences of Mexican immigrant families with California middle schools. The article explores the influence of the political landscape and raciolinguistic ideologies surrounding the nature and implementation of a middle school dual language bilingual program, and it…

This article presents the transcript of Peter Webster's 2014 Senior Researcher Award Acceptance Address. Webster comments on several big ideas in music education: (1) The consideration of teaching as a blend of constructivist approaches and direct instruction that values student-centered work primarily as evidence of learning; (2) The…

Scholarly discourse has emphasized the need for culturally competent practices. Additionally, multicultural self-efficacy has been found to be critical in working with clients from diverse backgrounds, however, there is a relative paucity of literature on how to teach counselor trainees to be culturally competent and self-efficacious (Kim &…