In this article, David Lewin examines the processes of educational representation, simplification, and selection, proposing the term "pedagogical reduction" in order to clarify the role these processes play within pedagogy. Although this term is virtually unknown among Anglo-American educational theorists, it reflects a substantial…

The article discusses the allegedly decontextualized and ahistorical traits in positivist educational research and curriculum by examining its emergence in early twentieth-century empirical education. Edward Lee Thorndike's educational psychology is analyzed as a case in point. It will be shown that Thorndike's positivist educational psychology…

This editorial introduces the "European Educational Research Journal" special issue that hosts four articles co-authored by emerging researchers in the field of educational research in Europe who participated in the Summer School in European Education Studies. We present the Summer School in European Education Studies project, its…

Education entails conflicting perspectives about its subject matter. In the late 1980s, the conflict developed into a war between interpretive and causal paradigms. Did the confrontation result in a balance between these warring sides? We use text analysis to identify research trends in 137,024 dissertation abstracts from 1980 to 2010 and relate…

Dewey was perhaps the foremost theorist and advocate of participatory democracy as an ethical ideal based on a belief and faith in human experience as a general theory of education that would generate the requisite aims and methods for what he called "organized intelligence" and what we might call today "collective…

In the United States, presidential election cycles tend to bring with them a spate of proposals for how the federal government can address adequacy and equity issues in K-16 education. The overall cost, complex web of independent funding mechanisms in play, and the lack of appetite for giving up more local (or state) control tends to temper those…

The past 40 years have witnessed significant developments in ELT research, reflecting the changes in learners' language needs and the extensive development of various language learning/teaching methods in different times and places. The aim of this study is to provide a systematic and comprehensive account of changing ELT methods (oral-structural…

Debates in science seem to depend on referential language-games, but in other senses they do not. Language works in more complex ways, even in work that purports to be purely scientific. This article investigates the scope and limitations of language-games in educational history and theory. The study addresses concepts and pictures as examples of…

Place-based pedagogy, the incorporation of local dynamics into the classroom as a step toward bridging the school-community gap, is becoming increasingly popular as educating for sustainability gains traction in schools. However, little attention has been paid to the role Appalachia has played in creating our modern sense of place-based pedagogy…

The relationship between socioeconomic mobility and school levels has been thematized since the generalization of modern institutionalized education systems. The demand for Chilean quality education is associated with exitism and the formation of Human Capital, crashing with mismatches between public policies, the crisis of legitimization of…

The article addresses and provides an introduction to "pedagogy" in its capacity of science and a university discipline in the field of "education sciences." Nowadays not only teacher education programmes are embedded in theories and follow transitions of "pedagogy." These have become even more complex, therefore,…

Essentialism is an approach assuming that people and things have natural and essential common characteristics which are inherent, innate and unchanging. Thus, it is regarded as an educational philosophy. However, having the common essence and the same essentials at the same levels can lead to undesired practices in real life too. Even nouns and…

This chapter explores the theoretical and conceptual history of the global rise of the U.S. community college model, focusing on the common missing ingredient that remains elusive among the increasing numbers of these community-based institutions.

One of the critical challenges that faces societies today is how to educate children and young people to cope with the ever demanding contexts in which they live. This education must include the relationships and support that facilitate socio-emotional development. This writing explores the work of Pestalozzi, a pioneering pedagogue, who, over two…

In John Dixon's account of Dartmouth, experience is seen as central to the business of English as a school subject. Experience, for Dixon, is the raw material that is worked on in the classroom. What kinds of theory inform this emphasis on experience, and what are the curricular and pedagogic implications of this version of English? How does…