This article argues that revisions of curricula in teacher education, undertaken in response to the UN's Agenda 2030, goal 4.7, and the OECD's The Future of Education and Skills, need to consider new ways of teaching topics related to current environmental issues. Grounded in ecocriticism and dialogic teaching practices, this article promotes…

In this study, we explore discussions of literature in a high school English Language Arts (ELA) classroom, examining how students read rhetorically. Reading rhetorically considers the ethical effects of narrative content as it is mediated through character dialogue and action, narrator discourse, and the author's organization: a narrative as a…

This introduction to my "Interpreting Kant in Education: Dissolving Dualisms and Embodying Mind" begins with a disturbing puzzle. Immanuel Kant is one of the most significant thinkers of modern times, with unrivalled influence, but he receives a great deal of criticism in educational theory. The widespread, supposedly 'Kantian' picture…

In this contribution to the Special Issue on the instrumentalisation of education, we focus on the relation between politics and education, as today there is a dominant discourse on rendering education subservient to the realisation of political aims. Rather than analysing the many ways in which such instrumentalisation takes place, we propose to…

The aim of the article is to posit the question whether, or under what conditions 'instrumentalism' can be seen as a viable target of the philosophical critique of education. Firstly, I will briefly review and compare three critical conceptions in modern philosophy that interpreted Western civilization as a form of instrumentalism, yet, at the…

Curriculum change is an intricate, lengthy process, requiring commitment, cooperation and compromise amongst the agencies and stakeholders involved; its development is more complex in divided societies, particularly when the subject content is open to contention. The addition of Local and Global Citizenship (LGC) to the Northern Ireland (NI)…

Philosophy for Children (henceforth P4C) is a program and a pedagogy for teaching philosophy in k-12 school that was first developed by Matthew Lipman and Ann Margaret Sharp. The P4C approach is generally presented as a valuable form of education for democratic citizenship. This relationship is so obvious that it often remains underdeveloped: P4C…

The theme of childhood and education in Lyotard's philosophy provides an interesting field of reflection combining education studies and continental philosophy. Childhood in Lyotard's thought is mostly understood as "infantia," a concept that appears towards the end of his work. The claim of this article is that childhood in Lyotard's…

'Mindfulness' is a term which holds increasing currency within educational research, policy and practice. However, there is substantial variation in its use, especially with respect to its historical roots in the Buddhist tradition. I develop a conceptual distinction between 'thin' mindfulness and 'thick' mindfulness, with attendant ontological,…

People generally recognize the benefits of responding to failures with self-compassion (i.e., with self-kindness, a sense of common humanity, and mindfulness) rather than self-criticism. In this research, we replicated this effect with passionate students who had all reported that academics was a pursuit that they enjoyed and was important to…

Art educators are adept at using images to communicate and spark dialogues. But what happens when the conversations that are needed in classrooms concern topics that are intentionally silenced or repeated so often that contradictions become invisible? The dilemma of visibility is central when talking to students about Whiteness, which White people…

The authors describe Literary Analysis and Writing, an integrated instructional routine, developed through a formative experiment research project, that prompts students to uncover the deeper meanings of literary texts. The routine weaves together brief preteaching of carefully selected vocabulary words, whole-class assisted reading of text, close…

This article explores how key ideas from the critical theory of Oskar Negt can be utilized to address critiques and further enhance Mezirow's theory of transformative learning. The implications of Negt's work on the dialectical nature of experience are identified. So too are the connections he makes between experience, social structures, and…

In the past years, there has been an intensive discussion on the topic of academic freedom in the university. More precisely, it has been criticized that the university is confronted with a growing intolerance and the request to limit free speech. This contribution takes a case at a German university as point of departure. It shows how the current…

An abundance of literature exists that explores the potential applications of grit in predicting several academic outcomes. Regardless, the concept of grit has been heavily criticised due to the number of inconsistencies among current research. Fully understanding the usefulness of grit in an educational context is a worthwhile pursuit and could…