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Philosophies
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New Perspectives in the Philosophy of Education
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New Perspectives in the Philosophy of Education

A special issue of Philosophies (ISSN 2409-9287).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2021) | Viewed by 21074

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Andrew Stables

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Education, University of Roehampton, London SW15 5PJ, UK
Interests: pragmatism; education; semiotics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In a weak sense, “philosophy of education” refers to any set of beliefs that drive educational policy and practice. This very broad umbrella includes many perspectives that lack rigorous investigation. In a stronger, but narrower sense, philosophy of education as an academic discipline has been dominated by analytical work, positioning the philosopher as underlabourer attempting to clarify and critique concepts at play in educational discourse. There are, of course, many other influences on published work in the field, including a range of Continental philosophies, from Hegelianism to poststructuralism, and North American pragmatism. This Special Issue seeks to move beyond this established range to give a platform to some of the most exciting contemporary philosophers of education, incorporating perspectives such gender, deep ecology, non-Western belief systems, posthumanism, and semiotics, drawing on a range of philosophical sources beyond that commonly encountered in the major journals. The focus will not be on educational policy and practice at the level of detail, but rather on a rigorous examination of what should guide them. This is timely, given that educational thinking in much of the world is driven by a narrow performative agenda with scant attention to foundational issues.

Prof. Dr. Andrew Stables
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Philosophies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • philosophy
  • education
  • eclecticism
  • social
  • applied

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

10 pages, 271 KiB  
Article
When Students Rally for Anti-Racism. Engaging with Racial Literacy in Higher Education
by Hari Prasad Adhikari-Sacré and Kris Rutten
Philosophies 2021, 6(2), 48; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies6020048 - 11 Jun 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4609
Abstract
Despite a decade of diversity policy plans, a wave of student rallies has ignited debates across western European university campuses. We observe these debates from a situated call for anti-racism in Belgian higher education institutions, and critically reflect on the gap between diversity [...] Read more.
Despite a decade of diversity policy plans, a wave of student rallies has ignited debates across western European university campuses. We observe these debates from a situated call for anti-racism in Belgian higher education institutions, and critically reflect on the gap between diversity policy discourse and calls for anti-racism. The students’ initiatives make a plea for racial literacy in the curriculum, to foster a critical awareness on how racial hierarchies have been educated through curricula and institutional processes. Students rethink race as a matter to be (un)learned. This pedagogical question, on racial literacy in the curriculum, is a response to diversity policies often silent about race and institutionalised racisms. Students request a fundamental appeal of knowledgeability in relation to race; diversity policy mostly envisions working on (racial) representation, as doing anti-racist work. This article argues how racial literacy might offer productive ways to bridge the disparities between students’ calls for anti-racism and the institutional (depoliticised) vocabulary of diversity. We implement Stuart Hall’s critical race theory and Jacques Rancière’s subjectification as key concepts to study and theorise these calls for anti-racism as a racial literacy project. This project can be built around engagement as educational concept. We coin possibilities to deploy education as a forum of engagement and dialogue where global asymmetries such as race, gender and citizenship can be critically addressed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Perspectives in the Philosophy of Education)
19 pages, 293 KiB  
Article
On Educational Assessment Theory: A High-Level Discussion of Adolphe Quetelet, Platonism, and Ergodicity
by Patrick Francis Bloniasz
Philosophies 2021, 6(2), 46; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies6020046 - 4 Jun 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3442
Abstract
Educational assessments, specifically standardized and normalized exams, owe most of their foundations to psychological test theory in psychometrics. While the theoretical assumptions of these practices are widespread and relatively uncontroversial in the testing community, there are at least two that are philosophically and [...] Read more.
Educational assessments, specifically standardized and normalized exams, owe most of their foundations to psychological test theory in psychometrics. While the theoretical assumptions of these practices are widespread and relatively uncontroversial in the testing community, there are at least two that are philosophically and mathematically suspect and have troubling implications in education. Assumption 1 is that repeated assessment measures that are calculated into an arithmetic mean are thought to represent some real stable, quantitative psychological trait or ability plus some error. Assumption 2 is that aggregated, group-level educational data collected from assessments can then be interpreted to make inferences about a given individual person over time without explicit justification. It is argued that the former assumption cannot be taken for granted; it is also argued that, while it is typically attributed to 20th century thought, the assumption in a rigorous form can be traced back at least to the 1830s via an unattractive Platonistic statistical thesis offered by one of the founders of the social sciences—Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874). While contemporary research has moved away from using his work directly, it is demonstrated that cognitive psychology is still facing the preservation of assumption 1, which is becoming increasingly challenged by current paradigms that pitch human cognition as a dynamical, complex system. However, how to deal with assumption 1 and whether it is broadly justified is left as an open question. It is then argued that assumption 2 is only justified by assessments having ergodic properties, which is a criterion rarely met in education; specifically, some forms of normalized standardized exams are intrinsically non-ergodic and should be thought of as invalid assessments for saying much about individual students and their capability. The article closes with a call for the introduction of dynamical mathematics into educational assessment at a conceptual level (e.g., through Bayesian networks), the critical analysis of several key psychological testing assumptions, and the introduction of dynamical language into philosophical discourse. Each of these prima facie distinct areas ought to inform each other more closely in educational studies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Perspectives in the Philosophy of Education)
22 pages, 927 KiB  
Article
Education, Consciousness and Negative Feedback: Towards the Renewal of Modern Philosophy of Education
by Eetu Pikkarainen
Philosophies 2021, 6(2), 25; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies6020025 - 24 Mar 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3673
Abstract
Among the biggest challenges facing the contemporary human condition, and therefore also education, is responding to the climate crisis. One of the sources of the crisis is assumed to be absent-mindedness, presented by Leslie Dewart as a distortion of the development of [...] Read more.
Among the biggest challenges facing the contemporary human condition, and therefore also education, is responding to the climate crisis. One of the sources of the crisis is assumed to be absent-mindedness, presented by Leslie Dewart as a distortion of the development of human consciousness. Dewart’s poorly-known philosophical consciousness study is presented in this paper in broad outline. The problems in the study of consciousness, the most important of which are the qualitative representations—qualia—and the question of free will, are also briefly discussed. These problems are then examined transcendental analytically, with the question of what one must assume in order to allow the emergence of these phenomena. From the resulting conception of causal relationship, we proceed to the circular causality as a prerequisite for life, namely the homeostatic systems and negative feedback. An organization of action that is essential to animals and humans is presented, using William Powers’ perceptual control theory (PCT), and the role of consciousness in this organization is drafted according to the studies of Martin Taylor. Action is seen as continuous problem solving, in which negative feedback is used to bring perceptions into line with the goals. The fundamental function of consciousness is revealed as the direction and enhancement of learning. Based on PCT, it can be shown that the main practical problems in animal and, especially, human action, are related to adverse side effects of action and the resulting various conflicts. The climate crisis is a typical example of the problematic side effects of collective action. Dewart’s concept of absent-mindedness can therefore be defined as an inability to responsibly account for the side effects of action. Thus, the main task of education is to forestall, through negative feedback and in cooperation with learner consciousness, absent-mindedness and the problems it causes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Perspectives in the Philosophy of Education)
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20 pages, 718 KiB  
Article
A “Strong” Approach to Sustainability Literacy: Embodied Ecology and Media
by Cary Campbell, Nataša Lacković and Alin Olteanu
Philosophies 2021, 6(1), 14; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies6010014 - 15 Feb 2021
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 5010
Abstract
This article outlines a “strong” theoretical approach to sustainability literacy, building on an earlier definition of strong and weak environmental literacy (Stables and Bishop 2001). The argument builds upon a specific semiotic approach to educational philosophy (sometimes called edusemiotics), to which these authors [...] Read more.
This article outlines a “strong” theoretical approach to sustainability literacy, building on an earlier definition of strong and weak environmental literacy (Stables and Bishop 2001). The argument builds upon a specific semiotic approach to educational philosophy (sometimes called edusemiotics), to which these authors have been contributing. Here, we highlight how a view of learning that centers on embodied and multimodal communication invites bridging biosemiotics with critical media literacy, in pursuit of a strong, integrated sustainability literacy. The need for such a construal of literacy can be observed in recent scholarship on embodied cognition, education, media and bio/eco-semiotics. By (1) construing the environment as semiosic (Umwelt), and (2) replacing the notion of text with model, we develop a theory of literacy that understands learning as embodied/environmental in/across any mediality. As such, digital and multimedia learning are deemed to rest on environmental and embodied affordances. The notions of semiotic resources and affordances are also defined from these perspectives. We propose that a biosemiotics-informed approach to literacy, connecting both eco- and critical-media literacy, accompanies a much broader scope of meaning-making than has been the case in literacy studies so far. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Perspectives in the Philosophy of Education)
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16 pages, 261 KiB  
Article
And That’s Not All: (Sur)Faces of Justice in Philosophy of Education
by Marianna Papastephanou
Philosophies 2021, 6(1), 10; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies6010010 - 7 Feb 2021
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 2739
Abstract
Adjectives such as “environmental”, “social”, “cosmopolitan”, “relational”, “distributive”, etc. reflect how scholars discern the many faces of justice and put several claims to, and claimants of, justice in perspective. They have also helped related research to focus on some surfaces of justice, that [...] Read more.
Adjectives such as “environmental”, “social”, “cosmopolitan”, “relational”, “distributive”, etc. reflect how scholars discern the many faces of justice and put several claims to, and claimants of, justice in perspective. They have also helped related research to focus on some surfaces of justice, that is, on spaces that invite justice, localities and formations, such as the state, social policies, social institutions, etc. within which ethical-political challenges unravel. Diverse philosophical perspectives enable context-specific explorations of (sur)faces of justice. However, I argue, there is more to the concept of justice than what perspectives (considered alone or in their sum total) allow us to view. To theorize how this surplus may be more discernible through stereoscopic rather than perspectival optics I first describe how educational-philosophical perspectives, old and new, discuss just education or education for justice; and then I critique the very notion of perspective on which scholarly work relies. Despite their merits, perspectival framings of justice fail to address the interconnectivity of various (sur)faces of justice. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Perspectives in the Philosophy of Education)
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