This article, which is developed from a keynote given to the Humanists UK RE conference on 28 November 2020 draws attention to the interest groups that operate in and around the world of professional religious education (RE) in England. It argues that reform of RE could still fail. Two factors could spell its end. First is the "politics of…

Post-truth is a social condition that threatens the trust in science and people's critical thinking. This paper analyzes some of the educational responses to post-truth, claiming the potential contributions of Science and Technology Studies (STS). Some of the responses based on traditional epistemology, characterized as "epistemological…

We consider the following hypothesis: whereas, the institutions in charge of the teaching of mathematics for future professional mathematicians (IPM, in short) share a "didactic paradigm" (strongly based on logical arguments), there does not seem to be such a thing in secondary mathematics education. In this work, we analyse the notion…

In this article, the authors explore how their intersectional identities as Black immigrant/immigrant descendent women academics inform their research epistemologies in relation to who they are, what they research, and how they perform research. Through the intersections of race, migration, gender, and class they explore four key themes: (1)…

The use of quantitative methods within realist methodologies are fairly rare. This is perhaps because a realist understanding of the social word as complex and dynamic (messy but not chaotic) does not sit well with traditional variable-based causal analysis which test specific theoretical assumptions, yet cannot account for interaction, moderation…

This paper assumes that educators are now involved in a struggle for their souls and for the souls of their students. The idea of the soul in this case is not the religious one, but the soul invoked by Foucault (1977) to name that aspect of self, (subjectivity, psyche) that 'exists, or is produced … within the body … or born … out of methods of…

We design and research family-based science experiences that provide opportunities to enact discovery-oriented approaches to science learning that challenge dominant conceptions of what counts as science learning by bringing families' sensemaking to the forefront. We engaged two approaches. First, we provided families with simple activity prompts…

The COVID-19 pandemic certainly amplifies the extent to which curriculum is adaptable, responsive, and proactive. These vulnerabilities, while daunting, can perhaps be welcomed as an invitation to reposition curricular priorities. COVID-19 reveals that an overreliance on the "curriculum as planned" and a continued absence of "the…

By encouraging elementary students to work collaboratively, they can gain essential skills such as perspective taking, conflict negotiation, and asking for and receiving assistance. Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA) is an analytic technique that provides an alternative to more typical approaches to analyzing and synthesizing coded dialogue. This…

This study provides two exemplars of how grammatical analysis of language use in elementary science classroom discourse enhances the explication of students' epistemic process in the language use in that discourse. Methodologically, both practical epistemology analysis (PEA) and discourse register analysis (DRA) from systemic functional…

The threshold concept framework is a key contemporary theory in pedagogy. The core idea is that 'threshold concepts' are distinctively 'troublesome' for students and act as gatekeepers to their disciplines. No doubt the theory is compelling because there is surely something right about this. Student difficulty with conceptual material is familiar…

A major strand of opposition to the West's/Global North's scientificising hegemony has recently been retrieved through Santos' reinterpretation of Cusanus' 15th-century doctrine of learned ignorance. Though Cusanus has been marginalised, his doctrine imbues a profound epistemic humility conducive to our present need to reconfigure education.…

The learning process of scientific concepts has been investigated and discussed in several studies in recent decades. However, the understanding of this process may be different depending on the psycho-pedagogical approach adopted. From the perspective of the conceptual profile, the same concept can present more than one mode of thinking and way…

This text is a simultaneously personal and political commentary on those who inhabit the border between worlds, such as those now at war in a viral assemblage. Starting from a general intention of shifting curricular responses away from instrumental and technical solutions toward cultivating the ability to act and think in times of uncertainty,…

Children (N = 278, 34-71 months, 54% girls) were told which of two figurines turned on a music box and also observed empirical evidence either confirming or conflicting with that testimony. Children were then asked to sort novel figurines according to whether they could make the music box work or not. To see whether children would explore which…