Critical thinking (CT) is frequently mentioned as a key competence in sustainability curricula. In this context our era is often diagnosed as being 'post-truth', indicating an epistemic concern. However, emerging 'post-sustainable' views in education indicate that environmental crises are posing increasingly existential concerns, which might…

In the past ten years radical educators have developed several theories around the notions of reproduction and resistance. In this article, Henry Giroux critically analyzes the major positions of these theories, finding them inadequate as a foundation for a critical science of schooling. He concludes by outlining the directions for a new theory of…

This paper examines Henry Giroux's critical pedagogy, and explores the interconnections among education, democracy, and hope. Whereas critical pedagogy rejects foundationalism, it still requires a normative foundation to criticise oppressive situations and pose a vision of the future. Giroux rejects foundationalism and regards oppressive force…

Projecting itself as the inheritor of China's past greatness, the CCP regime increasingly seeks to boost politico-cultural confidence in education and society and turn students and ordinary people into self-confident Chinese. This article identifies the oscillation of focus from victimhood to confidence in state nationalism and patriotic education…

The purpose of this paper is to critique current women-only coach education initiatives, before suggesting an alternative approach to dealing with gender discrimination in coaching provision. Having increased in popularity over recent years, primarily through justifications as being "safe spaces" for participants, such initiatives have…

This paper investigates the philosophical tensions between secular-liberalism and Islam, and reviews Islamic conceptualisations of knowledge, personhood and education, in order to conceptualise "shakhsiyah Islamiyah" as an authentic and credible form of personal agency within an Islamic worldview. It begins by examining the liberal…

The normative aim of childhood studies is to show that children are and should be recognized as active shapers of their lifeworlds. In this article, we discuss which concept can best be used to accomplish this. Our thesis is that the agency concept ubiquitous in childhood studies only inadequately advances the field's normative agenda. Mostly…

In this article Daniel Brodén explores the ambivalence in teaching about art and aesthetics in the humanities. By comparing and contrasting Gert J. J. Biesta's educational theory and Jacques Rancière's writing on aesthetics, he hopes to bring some of the particularities of aesthetic experiences into focus and to discuss a tension in educational…

In this article, I focus on a group of people whose voices in archival materials are especially hard, or very unusual, to find. This group comprises intellectually "abnormal" children. Using the example of German-speaking Switzerland and focusing on the late 19th and early 20th centuries, I will show the types of materials produced on…

This paper studies how Emerson's 'Self-Reliance' offers a meaningful account of political and moral self-education in Western democracies. Emerson's moral perfectionism involves an ethical, political and democratic individualism that needs to be reconsidered. This paper explores a perfectionist interpretation of the modern forms of self-education…

This article attempts to rethink agency for childhood studies, drawing on Foucault's theorisations of power, Deleuze and Guattari's concept of assemblage, Bennett's vital materialism and Grosz's account of Bergson's conception of freedom. I argue that (1) agency is ambivalent, that is, it has no intrinsic ethical value; (2) agency is not a…

Several philosophers and psychologists of education have taken the position that wellbeing should be at theheart of our educational system, if not its primary goal. The aim of this paper is to outline, question, andchallenge this position. It starts by discussing the main approaches that consider student wellbeing as theprimary goal of the…

How is one to navigate between a thinking grounded in the individual and a claim for communality? In Emerson, this kind of difficulty comes into view in familiar sentences such as Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense.' How does the relationship between the personal and the universal look and function? In this paper, it…

Science education reforms seek to increase student inquiry, peer collaboration, and making student thinking visible in order to better support science learning. Yet each of these ingredients assumes that students will choose to actively participate in various classroom activities. This article highlights key considerations to support agency -- or…

Education has to emphasize the characteristics which define Western democratic societies. In addition, it has to ensure the active and participative inclusion of each person in social life, where respect for human rights prevails over the person's preferred ideology. Promoting these values in citizens not only guarantees the stability of the…