This article examines the use of biographical narratives in contemporary moral education, with particular reference to the exemplarist moral theory (EMT) of Linda Zagzebski. It distinguishes between classical and modern versions of exemplarist moral education, highlighting the seminal contribution of Augustine's "Confessions." Itself an…

This article explores depictions of religion and religious topics in children's biographies included on the National Science Teacher's Association's Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12 lists from 2011 through 2017. While disagreements and controversies about the role of religion in U.S. public schools are not new, these debates have…

The assassination of Ignacio Ellacuría and seven others at the Universidad Centroamericana José Simeon Cañas (UCA) in San Salvador in 1989 has had a deep and profound impact on the world-wide Jesuit community and the Catholic Church. His philosophy and theology of liberation have been carefully studied, as has his vision and operation of the UCA…

Pedigree analysis has long been an essential tool in human genetics as well as a staple of genetics education. Students of genetics might be surprised to learn that human pedigrees were first popularized in the United States by proponents of eugenics, the pseudoscientific social movement aimed at improving the genetic quality of the human race.…

As a member of the team that created elements 104 and 105 at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, James Andrew Harris [1932-2000] was the first African American credited in the discovery of an element. This factoid has been posted on social media, used in a quiz game, and repeated on numerous Web sites. The story (if any context is offered at all) is…

What do we do with emotion in biographical research: is it an end in itself, a symptom to be explained, a thread to be pulled? This paper presents an experiment in methodology within a field of biographical methods that involved revisiting a single qualitative interview after the elapse of thirty years. The interview with 22 year old Stacey was…

Emerging research suggests autistic people are disproportionately represented in homeless populations. Less is known about how autistic people experience homelessness and what prevents them from exiting homelessness. This article presents findings from a narrative enquiry investigating the link between autism and homelessness. Ten autistic adults…

Biography can be a valuable tool in understanding historical perspectives on adult learning. The purpose of this study was to look at three examples of times throughout Abraham Lincoln's life when he demonstrated a high level of self-directedness in learning in order to solve problems that he faced. Specifically, we examined (a) Lincoln's youth,…

August Heißmeyer was a high-ranking SS officer, a member of Heinrich Himmler's inner circle, husband to Reich women's leader Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, and the driving force behind the pan-European expansion of Nazi elite schools during the Third Reich. In light of Heißmeyer's official pardon by Württemberg state president Dr Gebhard Müller in 1951,…

American government educational policy and leading advocacy groups commonly espouse independence as a primary goal for young people with intellectual disabilities. An extensive philosophical literature of autonomy has focused mostly on analyses of cognition that achieve individual self-governance. But the loosely defined concept of independence…

This article concerns the educational philosophy of S. Margery Fry (1874-1958) and its impact upon the design, organisation and functions of university residences for women in the twentieth century. According to Carol Dyhouse, Fry, the only woman on the University Grants Committee from 1919 to 1947, 'exerted considerable influence over the shape…

T R ('Tim') Miles (1923-2008) was one of the most important pioneers of dyslexia research and treatment in the UK. He worked with dyslexics from the time of his appointment to a lectureship at Bangor in 1949 and later, with his wife, established the Dyslexia Centre there. Miles' professional role and theoretical contribution are reasonably well…

Scholars and practitioners argue that information and communication technology (ICT) provides flexibility of time and place and softens boundaries between students' learning lives. The fluid movement between formal and informal learning contexts afforded by digital technology has prompted a re-definition of higher education learning environments…

In life history methodologies, 'human' lives appear to take primacy over other lives. Within science education literature, life history methods often are approached as reflective tools to make meaning out of teachers' pedagogical practices and commitments. In the present research, we tinker with life history research, to follow its performative…

Purpose: This article explores the childhood, professional life and social activism of Alice Rigney (1942-2017) who became Australia's first Aboriginal woman principal in 1986. Design/methodology/approach: The article draws on interviews with Alice Rigney along with newspapers, education department correspondence and reports of relevant…