The purpose of this research was to explore and describe the development, implementation, and impact of the Dallas Independent School District's (ISD) Aspiring Principals Program. This study of principal preparation has relevance as a K-16 issue for two primary reasons. First, K-12 schools are focused on graduating students who are college and…

The focus of this article is on Finnish pre-school curricula from the early pioneering years to the start of the new millennium (1972-2000). Pre-school has been part of the Finnish education system for nearly 40 years. It has been undergoing a challenging reconstruction process and changes influenced significantly by the increasing call for…

To improve quality, teacher education programs in Brunei were recently eliminated at the undergraduate level and changed to master of teaching degree courses. Prospective teachers are required to obtain content-rich initial degrees prior to applying for teacher training. This study argues that the high entry qualification to teaching may, in…

In this essay Samuel Rocha primarily addresses, and challenges, the modern conception of reason and the lowly place of intuition, feeling, and love in what has become traditional philosophy and education. Drawing upon the rich thought of William James and Jean-Luc Marion, Rocha introduces the reader to a certain harmony between their ideas, most…

In this essay, Leonard Waks reviews three recent books on cosmopolitan education: Kwame Anthony Appiah's "Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers"; Neil Burtonwood's "Cultural Diversity, Liberal Pluralism, and Schools: Isaiah Berlin and Education"; and Thomas Popkewitz's "Cosmopolitanism and the Age of School Reform: Science, Education and…

In "Moderating the Debate: Rationality and the Promise of American Education," Michael Feuer counsels reformers to "satisfice": moderate their expectations and accept that flawed reforms can be good enough. Implicit in Feuer's view of satisficing is the assumption that moderating expectations entails eschewing ideals and replacing optimal goals…

This paper is a philosophical study of the nature of thinking based on the philosophies of Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Steiner. For Heidegger, the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers exemplified genuine thinking, appreciating the meaning of Being. But this kind of philosophy was soon replaced by the onto-theological approach, in which Being was…

In this article the author has followed an approach of "epistemological defamiliarisation" by looking with new eyes at education. The author wants to follow an approach that "challenges the prevailing common sense" in the hope that it will lead to a new vantage point from where a fresh view of the educational landscape is…

If asked to define the idea of "place" one might struggle. Yet people across time and cultures readily share examples of important places or safe places or "foreign" places with one another and offer heartfelt descriptions in literature and art of childhood places, favorite places, strange places. Akinbola Akinwumi, paraphrasing Yi-Fu Tuan,…

The debate on knowledge in New Education is generally dominated by two opposed Anglo-Saxon positions held by Dewey and Thorndike. This paper presents another line of division. Claparede and Vygotsky, two representative European figures of New Education are both scientists constructing a theory of psychological functioning, and heavily engaged in…

R.S. Peters' arguments for the worthwhileness of theoretical activities are intended to justify education per se, on the assumption that education is necessarily a matter of initiating people into theoretical activities. If we give up this assumption, we can ask whether Peters' arguments might serve instead to justify the academic curriculum over…

In my remarks about elitist knowledge production, I firstly try to adjust the perspective from which the university could be analysed; I specifically explore the functions of the university in relation to Habermas's categorisation of knowledge. Secondly, with reference to Derrida's reflections on the university, I reformulate a conception of the…

John Dewey has been portrayed as a sort of villain in Rosenow's (1997) article which appeared in this journal, apparently because he was unfairly opposed to God and to religion, and also because he deliberately usurped religious language to "camouflage" his secular ideas. By drawing mainly upon similar sources but with some important additions, I…

In his writings on school choice and educational justice, Harry Brighouse presents normative evaluations of various choice systems. This paper responds to Brighouse's claim that it is inadequate to criticise these evaluations with reference to empirical data concerning the effects of school choice.

Questions of a philosophical nature are central to every significant debate in the field of educational theory, policy, practice and research. Of all disciplines, philosophy is perhaps the one in which "analysis, argumentation and critique" are given most central, systematic and comprehensive attention. In addition, philosophy is…