This article turns to the neglected pedagogical concept of "ingenium" in order to address some shortcomings of the admiration-emulation model of Linda Zabzebski's influential exemplarist moral theory. I will start by introducing the problem of the admiration-emulation model by way of a fictional example. I will then briefly outline the…

This article examines how Zen Buddhism conceives of human suffering, the causes of suffering, and the method by which human suffering can be alleviated and compares these with similar notions within critical social theory and its educational manifestation in the critical pedagogy movement. While both Zen Buddhist and critical theories/discourses…

Dialectics and a dialogical approach constitute two distinct theoretical frameworks with long intellectual histories. The question of relations between dialogue and dialectics provokes discussions in academic communities. The present paper highlights the need to clarify the concepts "dialogue" and "dialectics" and explore their…

The premise of this brief opinion piece is that the fundamental paradigm of education appeared with Plato. It is that there is a co-location in time and space of learners, teachers, and resources. The absence of any of these elements can lead to shortcomings in the meaning of the term "to be educated". Recent events such as COVID-19…

Baumol's cost disease explains rising costs in education without corresponding increase in productivity. The philosophical meaning of it is in the phenomenon of relational labor that is at the core of education. Its productivity remains constant while cost increases. The total size of education as a non-progressive sector will continue to expand,…

According to Galtung, violence can be divided into two kinds: (i) direct violence, which is always physical in a wider sense (e.g. bodily harm or verbal abuse) or (ii) indirect violence that is either structural (i.e. the institution is structurally violent because it is organised so to privilege a group over others; e.g. a strict pyramidal…

There is no standard definition of empathy, but the concept is assumed to be innately pro-social and teachable regardless of factors such as power dynamics or other manifestations of social injustice within a society. Such assumptions in discursive practices, whether academic, popular, or pedagogical, obscure the emergence of two important…

Philosophers of education tend to mention Max Weber's social theory in passing, assuming its importance and presuming its comprehension, but few have paused to consider how Weber's social theory might consciously inform educational theory and research, and none have done so comprehensively. The aim of this article is to begin this…

In discussions of work-based learning in anglophone countries, a relatively new question concerns different learning opportunities for differentially positioned novices in the workplace. Basil Bernstein relates learners' positioning with respect to knowledge and within a community of knowers to variations in a discourse underlying and regulating…

International Baccalaureate (IB) Directors of international schools command a paradoxical space of progressive futures, cloaking injustice and whiteness. This is enacted daily through policy, recruitment, teaching and remuneration which privileges the empowered, exploits the marginalised and thereby delivers a critical education of questionable…

It appears that in September, 2011, Rome experienced much more than a dialogue on dialogic pedagogy but a gladiatorial clash of personalities and ideas. Heat, we are told, was generated (above, p.1) and in the dissipation of this heat on to the page, even the reader gets hot and flushed. We are told that arguments "fail" (above, p.16);…

This article explores the possibility of developing an ethico-politically coherent and practical research framework for studying the learning and knowledge-production and dissemination processes of utopian groups and movements. It seeks to develop understanding of utopias by identifying and conceptualizing their pedagogical aspects. At the same…

Culture has been theorized as pedagogy. In several languages and many contexts "culture" and "education" can be used interchangeably. This issue of the journal "Educational Philosophy and Theory" seeks to explore the dual proposition (1) that pedagogy is central to politicized cultural theory, but (2) that it has been…

In this article, we attempt to honor the rich legacy of Derrick Bell by detailing how exploring his specific contributions to critical race theory (CRT) provided lessons for developing and refining critical race pedagogy (CRP). We examine Bell's racial realism thesis in connection with his pedagogical work. In doing so, we find that he was as…

Contemporary efforts to rethink the philosophical foundation of critical pedagogy are part of the ongoing project to make the field relevant to current struggles against oppression. Inherent to this project is an invitation to account for the plurality of ways and spaces in which privilege is performed in North American society and the troubling…