This article addresses the problem of two extreme positions in the self-understanding of human beings namely ignoring culture or its over-determination. Though Charles Taylor and Antonio Gramsci are widely known to differ from each other in many respects, we endeavor a congruent reading to evolve a comprehensive perspective. We make avail of their…

This paper aims to explore the relationship between Karl Marx's concept of justice and Martha Nussbaum's capabilities approach. Nusbaum follows the Aristotelian idea of man as a political animal, which is intrinsically consistent with Marx's view of human nature, but she provides us with a new normative perspective to reconsider Marxism. When she…

In this article, David T. Hansen addresses a two-year-long philosophical conversation he initiated with a group of dedicated public school teachers who work in a metropolitan setting. The conversation was part of a larger inquiry pivoting around the questions of what it means to be a person in the world today, and what it means to be a person in…

The concept of human dignity arguably has great relevance to education as it is mentioned in several human rights and education policy documents on the national and international level, providing their moral justification. However, when the concept is discussed within philosophical research, it is often seen as consisting of two different…

This piece describes how the faculty of City-As-School used Descriptive Inquiry to generate shared educational principles during the 2020-21 school year during the coronavirus pandemic. City-As-School is a public experiential learning school in New York City serving older adolescents seeking an alternative to traditional high school. Descriptive…

How do we teach for human dignity in a context where life is, generally speaking, not treated as precious? How do we carve spaces for humanity amidst inhumane contexts? In this paper, five experienced teachers share how they work from the cracks to expand spaces for human dignity in their schools. They write and act as teacher-philosophers, dually…

From the beginning of its existence, the child is articulating an unconditional claim to life. Even in the post-mythic era, or rather in the myth-critical world of the modern age, education is confronted with the difficult task of responding to this claim -- but now without the possibility of being able to legitimise its interventions and actions…

In recent times, schools have begun to focus on issues of wellbeing, engaging with ideas from various fields such as positive psychology. It is in this context that there is a growing interest in humility, rather than this interest having emerged from debates in moral philosophy and moral education. However, to the extent that education for…

In two different occasions in the twentieth century John Dewey and Maxine Greene stressed the point that educators should attend to 'what the known demands of us'. Following this dictum, from a critical perspective and with a constructive pedagogical spirit, in this paper we portray a new paradigm for values education that addresses the major…

In recent years, the reflection on intercultural education has focused on the importance of managing everyday situations in intercultural contexts. This focus is generally recognized as fundamental for the shift from the perspective of multiculturalism to a more interculturalist approach. An example of the interculturalist turn can be found in the…

This essay explores Jacques Maritain's philosophy of education as a means to better understand Pope Francis's recent promotion of a "Global Compact on Education," and in particular Francis's commitment "to make human persons in their value and dignity the center of every educational program." After situating Maritain's…

Offering an ethical foundation for global citizenship education, this paper draws upon the ideas of neo-Confucian thinker Wang Yangming. Focussing on UNESCO's goal to help learners acquire a sense of belonging to a broader community and humanity, this paper elucidates Wang's concept of innate knowledge ("liangzhi"). The article explains…

This paper uses a critical pedagogical lens for evaluating North American theological education within Black and Brown communities. A Latin American epistemology, exemplified in Freire's (2000) concept of "conscientização," is highlighted throughout. Four major pedagogical themes from Latin American Liberation Theology are applied to…

Whilst Kant is one of the most influential figures in the history of philosophy and was also, in his own time, an important theorist of education, he is sometimes regarded with suspicion by contemporary educational theorists. His philosophy, it is often maintained, is fraught with problematic dualisms and other familiar confusions of the…

With increasing influence of illiberalism, freedom should not be considered or interpreted lightly. Post-truth contexts provide grounds for alt-right movements to capture and pervert notions of freedom of speech, making universities battlefields of politicised emotions and expressions (Peters et al., 2019). In societies facing these pressures…