This article examines the modernisation of universities in the U.K., arguing that heterogeneous policy objectives and strategies have become condensed in the construction of higher education as a governable system and the university as a corporate enterprise. It argues that managerialism has displaced and subordinated professional and…

The author titled this article "No Child Left Thinking" because for the past 10 years he has been studying the effects of education initiatives such as the U.S. "No Child Left Behind Act" or the various provincial testing and accountability policies in Canada and their impact on teachers' ability to teach critical thinking and…

In this paper, the author outlines what No Child Left Behind policy might mean first in personal then in philosophical terms. First, the author will trace a bit of Obama's own educational development: how he was first set on a personal educational journey and how, proceeding along with that journey, he eventually came to successfully elicit…

Critical scholarship frequently depicts literacy education as an "initiation into passivity." Disconnected from the lives of students and reduced to strategies for scoring points on tests, literacy becomes an exercise in the reproduction of a moral economy of discipline, compliance, and productivity. Yet people also recognize that the modern world…

This article reflects on the potentialities of education practices guided by the idea of sustainability and how they can contribute to the reformulation of the contents and methods of learning and to the quality of education. Sustainability entails the transformation of all aspects of school life, from preschool to the university. The article also…

This article explores Earth Charter education as a form of values education that is integral to education for sustainable development. Initially, it outlines how Earth Charter education rests on an ecocentric worldview and a social analysis of ecojustice--terms that are defined and explained. Moving from this rationale, the article explores issues…

Despite growing interest in Emmanuel Levinas's ethics in educational theory and practice, little has been done with the fact that for over 30 years Levinas served as director of a teacher education school in Paris, and that he taught classes there for more than 40 years. I attempt here to begin to fill that gap by focusing on Levinas's classroom…

This paper assesses the historical meaning and contemporary significance of Aristotle's educational ideas. It begins with a broad characterisation of the project of Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" and "Politics", which he calls "political science" ("he politike episteme"), and the central place of education in his vision of statesmanship. It…

The philosophies behind teachers education programs and the classrooms where their students have their field experiences may be very different, especially in elementary classrooms since passage of NCLB. For students at Berea College, an institution with a unique history and mission, the disconnect can interfere with the prospective teacher's…

Background/Context: The background of the article is the continued interest in the ideas of Hannah Arendt. In her book The Human Condition, Arendt draws on sources of ideas drawn from Ancient Greece to deliver a critique of modernity. The main burden of her criticism is that the imperatives of work and labor have virtually supplanted the ideal of…

There is a feeling among many design educators today that the discipline has reached a crisis in its development, and that change is needed immediately in the way that design educators articulate their epistemology and their methodology. The architectural studio can be seen as the model for design education, and its culture is exemplary. Donald…

Encouraging debate on inclusion and equity can meet with awkward silences, particularly across disciplinary boundaries. In disability studies, for example, it can be difficult to build dialogue with other disciplines; as a consequence, the different disciplinary groups within the field of education often end up working in their own "equity" silos.…

This paper attempts to illuminate a central concept and idea in special education discourse, namely, "special needs". It analyses philosophically what needs are and on what grounds they are defined as "special" or "exceptional". It also discusses whether sorting needs into ordinary and special is discriminatory. It is argued that individualistic…

Kola Babarinde's article opens with a quotation on the theory of change credited to one of the master of classical tradition in the history of the idea. Heraclitus of Ephesus flourished about 500 B.C. Although, little is known about him, he became famous for his metaphysical doctrine that everything is in a state of flux, his comparing all things…

In a turn on the familiar notion that learning is inquiry, Dennis Senchuk suggests in this essay that an otherwise exemplary educational curriculum could benefit from the inclusion of some distinctively skeptical modes of inquiry. Senchuk construes two pertinent varieties of skepticism as inquiries into inquiry--one involving an inquiry into the…