This paper mobilises the psychoanalytic concepts of desire and enjoyment to better understand how processes of education aimed at extending and defending democratic life might respond to and engage with populist politics. I approach this task by engaging with a particular vector of Mouffe and Laclau's political philosophy, moving from a critique…

For the first time, Walter Benjamin's critical comments on educator and philosopher Rudolf Steiner are examined in depth. In particular, Benjamin detected protofascist themes within Steiner's seemingly progressive notion of child-centered, arts-based, developmentally appropriate early childhood education. But this does not mean that Benjamin…

Learning from Freire can be a live-long endeavor, always adding humor, rigorous critical theory, and narrative. This article addresses the theoretical and cognitive ways in which Freire can be embraced. Moving far beyond banking education and fixed ideological notions of Freire's work, it is important to consider the tentative when reading and…

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to provide a clarification of how 'education in a postliberal world' differs from the concept of 'postliberal education;' and second, to contribute to an understanding of the backlash against liberalism and liberal education in recent years. The paper is primarily conceptual and only secondarily…

Nearly everyone recognizes the fact of deep pluralism: it is hard to deny that contemporary America is characterized by widespread diversity of beliefs, practices, and values. We disagree, not on this reality, but on the way we should respond to the pluralism around us. In this paper, Emily G. Wenneborg discusses one of the most common responses…

In this paper I draw on my work as a pedagogista to discuss the pedagogical promise of critique, estrangement, and what I call speculative envisioning. I argue that these concepts are themselves modes of engagement, practice, and thinking that are pedagogical and that they can help educators engage with the nondeterministic work of creating…

In this article Antti Moilanen assesses criticisms of Wolfgang Klafki's model of exemplary teaching made by Meinert Meyer and Hilbert Meyer and by Chi-Hua Chu. "Exemplary teaching" is a style of discovery-based teaching in which students study concrete examples of general principles in such a way that they acquire transferable knowledge…

Is Gert Biesta is a philosopher of Bildung? The answer is "both yes and no. First I argue that Biesta's philosophy is based on a denial of the concept of Bildung, and that he, by the very nature of this fact, cannot be considered as philosopher of Bildung. This conclusion is based on Biesta's roots in the post-structuralist tradition and its…

This paper focuses first on the issue of measuring education. When we consider "education and equity," we tend to quantify educational outcomes and compare these figures with others. While it is necessary to consider "equity" (or inequity) through comparisons with others, if we quantify the achievement of outcomes and evaluate…

Through readings of Jacques Derrida's "Of Grammatology" and 'The Age of Hegel', attention is given to two of the problematic types of relationships that philosophy can have with education (exemplified through Derrida's readings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and G.W.F. Hegel). These engagements, alongside a reading of 'The Antinomies of the…

This paper takes up concepts from John Henry Newman's work to support contemporary educational personalism. Newman's ideas are developed in light of his sharp critique of the pragmatic educational model. This essay focuses on the transcendence assigned to the theological and philosophical foundations of Newman's pedagogical ideas, as well as on…

There are currently two broad forms of critique undergirding environmental education theories: the first is one of subtraction from perceived reality as it seeks to reveal and remove illusions and ideologies, while the other takes the inverse form of adding to reality in the form of investigating how matter comes to matter. We suggest a third form…

This article explores a P4C-style of response to criticisms addressed to P4C's inconsistencies. The main argument against P4C is that, although P4C theory stands for, by, and with children in terms of educational philosophy, P4C advocates do not follow the same approach when they defend P4C theory from criticism. By developing a discussion about…

We appreciate and respond to Cokelet's thoughtful criticisms of our book. First, he points to deliberative forms of practical wisdom as objectionable to anti-rationalist's. In response, we point to non-conscious (yet complex) forms of deliberation that occur as individuals automatically process and respond to virtue-relevant stimuli. Second,…

In this article I develop ideas for supporting character education through sociology and virtue ethics philosophy. A combination of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of habitus together with (neo) Aristotelian virtue ethics philosophy is used to promote a critical form of character education--one that accents the individual as well as the social context…