One of the more long-standing and commonly held views among educational theorists maintains that schools are one of the primary sites of social and cultural reproduction--sites where students are corralled and organized for the reproduction of the existing social arrangement. In this article author Gregory Bourassa argues that if this…

Education under neoliberal reform has been targeted as an indispensable source of profit. Market-based reforms have commodified education and are transforming public school into a corporatized industry concerned not with democracy but with the smooth functioning of the capitalist economy. Targeting public schooling as a site in which to accumulate…

Historians need social theories to conduct their research whether they are acknowledged or not. Positivist social theories underpinned the professionalization of the writing of history as well as the establishment of the social sciences as "disciplines," in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. August Comte's "science of society" and…

In this essay, the author discusses schooling in the context of war, privatization, and the general neo-liberal shift in education. Specifically, the author reflects on the experiences of three schools in Medellin, Colombia, that are found in the cross-hairs of an ongoing civil conflict. In contrast to the prevailing ideologies and social…

Echoing conflicts in society, some observers argue social work education should exclude religious students while others argue social work education should exclude gay students. Instead of perpetuating this conflict, I suggest educators should transcend it and affirm the voices of both religious believers and lesbians and gay men. After noting…

The book "China Is Unhappy" that made the list of best sellers not so long ago is blowing like an icy wind in spring and is poisoning the nation's mental state as though laden with a virus of unhappiness. Those who are most susceptible to it are groups of underage persons with mentalities that are still fragile and young people who have…

In this article, the author, after reviewing current educational trends, suggests that what really needs to happen is to "abandon education altogether." He contends that the worst problems of our times result from education, or, at least, what passes for education. The contemporary world's most intractable, most destructive, most…

Describes the nature and distinctiveness of critical theory and discusses it according to the viewpoints of Raymond Geuss and Jurgen Habermas. The logical status of a Habermasian critical theory is examined, defended from some traditional criticisms, and contrasted with both historical versions of critical theory and purely scientific theories.…

By focusing on concepts of power, culture, and ideology in light of new socio-cultural and anthropological interpretations with regard to their use in international, intercultural, and cross-cultural communication research, an outline for the framework of a more hermeneutic-interpretive approach to the study of communication and socio-cultural…

Postmodernism is an articulation of a tension between contingency and commitment. Since this commitment is typically pedagogical, education has a strong reason to stay within postmodernism. The paper reviews the feminist debate on postmodernism, examining how postmodernism contributes to the emancipatory interests of education. The public-private…

This article discusses the fundamental difference between the poststructuralist and evolutionary perspective of the postmodern emphasis on multiculturalism. The author discusses how Michael Foucault's relativistic view of the episteme is useful to the extent that it describes how individuals and groups of people generate knowledge, but because it…

Describes the emergence of scholarly thought that puts considerations of children and childhood at the center of the profound rethinkings of nationalism and the nation-state that have taken place within the last several decades. Introduces the international conference on children and nationalism from which articles in this journal derive, and…

Asserts that modern ideas about the nation can be characterized by an emphasis on outer boundaries, and that contemporary Norwegians put questions of units and boundaries into the foreground with particular force. Describes how boundaries are important in Norwegians' everyday lives, most notably in current debates about raising children and about…

James's moral theory, primarily as set out in "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life" (in his "The Will To Believe" (1897)), is presented here as having a two-level structure, an empirical or historical level where progress toward greater moral inclusiveness is central, and a metaphysical or end-of-history level--James's "kingdom of…

Discusses the relationship of ideology, social theory, critical analysis, hegemony, and objectivity in the work of educational historians. Comments that the training of educational historians often neglects intensive ideological analysis of historical research. Argues that study of historiographical methodology and consciousness of its dimensions…