A preoccupation with technology has helped bury the philosophical question: What is the point of education? I attempt to answer this question. Various answers to the question are surveyed and it is shown that they depend upon different conceptions of the self. For example, the devotional-self of the 12th century (which was about becoming master of…

Joining the European Union is a process largely based on meeting a number of pre-requirements associated with a number of factors; the most important being economy. Other factors are associated with trade, education, environment, quality indicators, effectiveness and efficiency. Establishing knowledge and evidence base societies on common grounds…

In this commentary on Brayboy and Castagno's paper, published in this volume, we discuss, on the one hand, many points of agreement between their proposal of culturally responsive schooling for indigenous youth and El-Hani and Mortimer's proposal of culturally-sensitive science education. On the other hand, we focus on a key disagreement, not only…

The purpose of this article is to suggest how philosophy might play a key, if precisely delineated, role in the shaping of policy that leads educational development. The argument begins with a reflection on the nature of confidence in the relationship between philosophy and policy. We note the widespread resistance to abstract theorising in the…

In this essay the importance of spirituality (or ethics) in the life of a research scientist is explored. The following four questions are considered: a) Why should the problem be studied? What are the benefits? and For whom? b) How should we approach this problem? c) What if the results of this investigation contradict other theories? What should…

Phenomenography is best known as an empirical research approach for investigating variation in conceptions of different educational phenomena--including learning, teaching and particular disciplinary concepts such as price in economics and motion in physics. It is less well-known for its theoretical basis, in terms of its epistemological and…

The purpose of this article is to propose theory and knowledge from the peripheral space. Through an analysis of historical and contemporary perspectives of curriculum, the intent of this article is to make explicit the story of curriculum, and the influence of poststructuralist, postmodern, and postcolonial paradigms on the development of…

Historians of comparative education have ordinarily viewed the development of that field as having progressed in stages, from impressionistic traveller tales to systematic investigations, with each stage eclipsing the previous one in rigour and acceptability. In this essay, I show that this common "Darwinian" view is simplistic and distorts the…

There is a longstanding difficulty in distinguishing philosophy (and philosophy of education) from other kinds of writing. Even the notions of clarity and rigour, sometimes claimed as central and defining characteristics of philosophy at its best, turn out to have ineliminably figurative elements, and accounts of philosophical method often display…

This article takes a closer look at Ralph Waldo Emerson's educational philosophy and its relationship to cooperative learning. Emerson believed that human beings should learn to think on their own, rather than solely acquire the craft of imitation or conformity by repeating the speech of their teachers. A liberating education, to Emerson, gives…

Since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, teachers and parents have witnessed a series of heated debates on the most basic issues of literacy assessment-what to assess and how to assess it. In particular, the controversy rages over DIBELS and OSELA, two popular early literacy assessment instruments. The purpose of this article is to address the…

Recent research shows that research programmes (quantitative, qualitative and mixed) in education are not displaced (as suggested by Kuhn) but rather lead to integration. The objective of this study is to present a rationale for mixed methods (integrative) research programs based on contemporary philosophy of science (Lakatos, Giere, Cartwright,…

Children as learners need adults who love them, even when the children are unable to give anything in return. Furthermore, adults should be able to make wise judgements concerning what is good for the children. The clarification of these principles and of their educational import has to start within our own cultural tradition. "Agape"…

In this response we address some of the significant issues that Tony Brown raised in his analysis and critique of the Special Issue of "Educational Studies in Mathematics" on "Semiotic perspectives in mathematics education" (Saenz-Ludlow & Presmeg, Educational Studies in Mathematics 61(1-2), 2006). Among these issues are conceptualizations of…

Liberal day schools in the United States have long championed the ideology of integration between Jewish and secular subjects and values, and have made the "integration" of these subjects and values with one another a cornerstone of their curriculum. In recent years, the ideology of integration has been called into question, and an alternative…