Philosophy of Education: The Promise of Education and Grief

A special issue of Education Sciences (ISSN 2227-7102).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2021) | Viewed by 29315

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Department of Teacher Education, Østfold University College, BRA veien 4, 1757 Halden, Norway
Interests: new enlightenment; the posthuman subject; posthuman knowledge creation and subjectivation; relational ontology and ontology of movement; speculative philosophy and foresight in research; slow scholarships and writing; research with critical concepts; affective pedagogies; sensed democracy; deep learning; the digital society
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

For decades, the promise of education has been seen as critical to knowledge creation, democracy, justice, human welfare, and economic and social change. However, our education systems are produced within and simultaneously constrained by powerful political discourses. New Public Management approaches to running public service organizations and, lately, brahmanization (Piketty, 2019) of left-wing parties and policies are examples of this preventing—through polarization and liberal–illiberal bifurcation—substantial and conflictual but productive transformation. Further, and for better or worse, we live in a time in which knowledge production no longer exclusively belongs to academic and formal scientific and educational institutions, ultimately challenging opinions isolating learning as something primarily academic and linguistic. It leaves the educational field in stasis as a condition of educational grief, grief as a consequence of love.

Given this, we need to think and work with education in general and philosophy of education specifically in a scientifically profound new ways. Not as a civilization critic of, let us say, Western philosophies and policies as such, but as a break with views of education and sciences as purely goal-oriented, causal, and teleological, views of knowledge as representational, and corresponding ways of telling stories of science and research as constant improvements, constantly higher levels of rationality.

This Special Issue on Philosophy of Education is aimed at academics who are critiquing the discursive production of policies. Creating openings toward expanded meaning fields making it possible for us to talk about, e.g., preliminary and approximate causality, as well as about situated causality. Raising the level of data literacy amongst learners and institutions nourishing a valuable diversity of onto-epistemic cultures, embracing class, ethnicity, gender, and generation conflicts, and empowering learners to raise critical questions. The goal is to shape society to collaboratively embrace the strife and conflict that these processes require.

The key areas of this Special Issue include, but are not limited to: New Enlightenment; posthuman and/or new material knowledge; relational ontology and ontology of movement and subjectivation; practical philosophy and affective pedagagogies; eternal consciousness; education and health; affective computing and digitalization; deep learning and critique; environmental and social sustainability; foresight in educational sciences; habits and change; and affective languaging.

References: 

Braidotti, R. (2019). Posthuman Knowledge. Cambridge: Polity Press. 

Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and Repetition. New York: Columbia University Press. 

Deleuze, G. (1988). Spinosa: Practical Philosophy. (R. Hurley, Trans.) San Fransisco: City Lights Books 

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1994). What is philosophy? (H. Tomlinson & G. Burchill, Trans.). London: Verso. 

Dewey, J. (1957). Reconstruction in Philosophy. Boston: Beacon Press. 

Dewey​, J. (1922). Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology​. New York: Modern Library. 

Guattari, F. (1995). Chaosmosis: An ethico-aesthetic paradigm: Indiana University Press. 

Guattari, F. (2014). The Three Ecologies (I. P. a. P. Sutton, Trans.). London: Bloomsbury Academic. 

Macgilchrist, F., Allert, H. & Anne Bruch (2020). Students and society in the 2020s. Three future ‘histories’ of education and technology, Learning, Media and Technology, 45(1), pp. 76-89, doi:10.1080/17439884.2019.1656235 

Peirce​, C.S. (1998). The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings. Vol. 2. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. 

Piketty, T. (2019) Capital et Idéologie. Paris: Seuil. 

Ravaisson​, F. ([1838] 2008). ​Of Habit.​ Translated from the French by C. Carlisle and M. Sinclair. New York and London: Continuum. 

Stenger, I. (2018). Another Science is possible. A manifesto for Slow Science. Cambridge: Polity Press. 

Stengers, I. (2008). Experimenting with refrains: Subjectivity and the challenge of escaping modern dualism. Subjectivity, 22(1), 38-59. doi:10.1057/sub.2008.6 

Prof. Dr. Anne Beate Reinertsen
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • Philosophy of Education
  • Practical Philosophy
  • Inquiry as Signature Pedagogics
  • Inclusion and Justice
  • Democracy
  • Environmental and Social Sustainability
  • Education and Health
  • Education as Change
  • Slow Scholarships
  • Affective pedagogies
  • Eternal consciousness
  • Languaging
  • Concilience and transversality
  • Deep Learning
  • The Digital Society

Published Papers (11 papers)

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Editorial

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3 pages, 161 KiB  
Editorial
Philosophy of Education: The Promise of Education and Grief
by Anne B. Reinertsen
Educ. Sci. 2022, 12(1), 32; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/educsci12010032 - 07 Jan 2022
Viewed by 1459
Abstract
This is a collection of articles preoccupied with the future of education [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy of Education: The Promise of Education and Grief)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

14 pages, 3085 KiB  
Article
Lost and Found—Unfolding and Refolding Aesthetic Learning Processes
by Annika Hellman and Ulla Lind
Educ. Sci. 2021, 11(12), 778; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/educsci11120778 - 30 Nov 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1922
Abstract
The ongoing marketisation of education is a great loss for visual arts education since explorative learning processes are marginalised in favour of more goal-oriented learning. The empirical material analysed in this research derives from the visual art portfolio of a student from an [...] Read more.
The ongoing marketisation of education is a great loss for visual arts education since explorative learning processes are marginalised in favour of more goal-oriented learning. The empirical material analysed in this research derives from the visual art portfolio of a student from an elective university course in visual arts education. Working within Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophical framework, we examine the folding, unfolding, and refolding of aesthetic learning processes, suggesting productive concepts and practices. The analysis made us aware of our own pedagogical ideals and the loss of having to disassemble them, in line with the new curricula. The student’s visual learning process showed us how to reassemble new and explorative learning processes, assigning aspects of sustainability and an ethics of care in relation to environmental and social questions. We suggest strategies for learning in the folds, where educators are called upon to prepare students for an uncertain future. This demands a creative imagination, an ethical standpoint for negotiating the curriculum in line with differentiation by forming, inventing, and fabricating new concepts and images. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy of Education: The Promise of Education and Grief)
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13 pages, 235 KiB  
Article
Oxymoroning Education: A Poem about Actualizing Affect for Public Good
by Anne B. Reinertsen
Educ. Sci. 2021, 11(11), 663; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/educsci11110663 - 20 Oct 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1355
Abstract
An oxymoron is a self-contradicting or incongruous word or group of words as in Lord Byron’s (1788–1824) line from his satirical epic poem Don Juan; “melancholy merriment”, An oxymoron is a rhetorical and epigrammatic device for effect, often revealing paradox. The [...] Read more.
An oxymoron is a self-contradicting or incongruous word or group of words as in Lord Byron’s (1788–1824) line from his satirical epic poem Don Juan; “melancholy merriment”, An oxymoron is a rhetorical and epigrammatic device for effect, often revealing paradox. The effect I aim for here is the actualization of affect; affect made relevant and useful for education as a public good. Oxymoroning as an immediate edging of knowledge into experience, hence a way to access a proto subjective level of the affective power of X. The prefix proto indicating the first, original or earliest. I ask how we can become materially identifiable subjects for one another and what would it take to move from a mechanistic approach to education to a more machinic one. It is a view of change that does not steal my powers or affective force away. Furthermore, are the abstractions one attempts to move from imitation to imagination abstract enough? I aim for expansions in our educational rationales for social and natural sustainability. It implies an educational philosophy of multiplicity ready to support and join a creative pluralism of organization and pedagogies and simultaneously counteract predetermined and controlling pluralism of organization and pedagogies. The overarching contribution of this poem is political, pragmatic and ethical and concerns the constitution of subjectivity for education in inter- and intra-generational perspectives through taking part in polysemantic ambiguity, envisioning a modest view to the child as a knowledgeable and connectable collective. Ultimately, a view of the child is our primary measurement indicator for educational quality. The competence most important to develop for educators is impression tenderness in order to meet the expressions of the child. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy of Education: The Promise of Education and Grief)
10 pages, 226 KiB  
Article
Humble Hopes in Mentorship and Education: Thinking with Temporality
by Bente Ulla and Ann Sofi Larsen
Educ. Sci. 2021, 11(10), 635; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/educsci11100635 - 13 Oct 2021
Viewed by 1738
Abstract
This article juxtaposes mentoring with an extended concept of time, arguing against the idea of mentoring as a unilaterally forward-moving progression. We discuss how time and temporality unfold in mentoring in the teaching profession. We further explore how temporality might create different potentialities [...] Read more.
This article juxtaposes mentoring with an extended concept of time, arguing against the idea of mentoring as a unilaterally forward-moving progression. We discuss how time and temporality unfold in mentoring in the teaching profession. We further explore how temporality might create different potentialities of hope. Ultimately, we suggest the necessity of destabilising narratives of mentoring as constant and linear improvements. We use an example of an inheritance from the past as an analogy in order to provide a thematic starting point for our discussion. This example supports the exploration of how mentorship programme assignments are experienced as well as how conversations are constantly filtered through time. The article builds on the empirical elements of a study of a mentorship programme to explore potentialities that are of importance in mentorship and education. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy of Education: The Promise of Education and Grief)
16 pages, 273 KiB  
Article
Knowledge versus Education in the Margins: An Indigenous and Feminist Critique of Education
by Anna Lydia Svalastog, Shawn Wilson and Ketil Lenert Hansen
Educ. Sci. 2021, 11(10), 627; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/educsci11100627 - 11 Oct 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2528
Abstract
This article highlights the perceptions and expectations of knowledge that many people, including educators and policy makers, take for granted. Our focus of understanding is Indigenous studies and gender studies. Our aim is to show how modern education undermines these fields of studies. [...] Read more.
This article highlights the perceptions and expectations of knowledge that many people, including educators and policy makers, take for granted. Our focus of understanding is Indigenous studies and gender studies. Our aim is to show how modern education undermines these fields of studies. We use an autoethnographic method, reflecting more than 75 years as pupils/students and more than 90 years as educators. We have carefully chosen narratives of exposure to knowledge outside the educational system, as well as narratives of limitations posed upon us by the educational system. This narrative approach makes it possible for us to investigate and discuss our grief about areas of knowledge that society cries for, but the educational system continuously finds ways to resist. Our conclusion is that crucial knowledge is located outside the educational system, where individuals, groups, and communities cherish, protect, and guard knowledge that the educational system marginalises or excludes. As this knowledge is fundamental for life, our message is that the educational system needs to re-evaluate its strategies to stay relevant. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy of Education: The Promise of Education and Grief)
20 pages, 623 KiB  
Article
The Impact of the Performance Appraisal Process on Job Satisfaction of the Academic Staff in Higher Educational Institutions
by Chamila H. Dasanayaka, Chamil Abeykoon, R. A. A. S. Ranaweera and Isuru Koswatte
Educ. Sci. 2021, 11(10), 623; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/educsci11100623 - 11 Oct 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 7121
Abstract
Performance appraisal is one of the key management tools which identifies employees’ strengths and weaknesses. Usually, this is the major mechanism of gathering information for rewarding/training employees based on their performance, and hence a key to achieve organisational goals by creating a satisfied [...] Read more.
Performance appraisal is one of the key management tools which identifies employees’ strengths and weaknesses. Usually, this is the major mechanism of gathering information for rewarding/training employees based on their performance, and hence a key to achieve organisational goals by creating a satisfied workforce. Therefore, this study was aimed at examining the effects of the Performance Appraisal Process on job satisfaction of the university academic staff. The information collected within one of the largest universities in the UK via questionnaires and semi-structured interviews showed that the existing appraisal process majorly aligned with the requirements of the research-excellence-framework of the UK, which is greatly concerned with research rather than teaching. Furthermore, it was found that there is no clear link between promotions, salary increments, and rewards, etc. with staff performance within the current appraisal process. Eventually, it was realised that the majority of the academic staff of the source university were dissatisfied with the current performance appraisal process, and this could be the situation in the majority of universities in the UK. Therefore, further research in this area is highly recommended to explore extensive information to create a favourable work/study environment for both staff and students within the universities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy of Education: The Promise of Education and Grief)
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13 pages, 247 KiB  
Article
Encounters in and with Summer Camps—Happy Childhood, Alternative Bildung, or What?
by Iuliia Afonkina, Werner Bigell, Valerii Chernik, Torun Granstrøm Ekeland, Tatiana Kuzmicheva, Kirsten Elisabeth Stien and Herbert Zoglowek
Educ. Sci. 2021, 11(10), 567; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/educsci11100567 - 23 Sep 2021
Viewed by 2204
Abstract
Although they commonly are associated with recreation, summer camps for children can be seen as educational arenas that both supplement and challenge school education. Summer camps provide education in a broad sense of bildung. The article aims at describing what is experienced [...] Read more.
Although they commonly are associated with recreation, summer camps for children can be seen as educational arenas that both supplement and challenge school education. Summer camps provide education in a broad sense of bildung. The article aims at describing what is experienced in summer camps and proposes various theoretical frames for these bildung processes. The main focus is on summer camps in Russia, and we interviewed Russian informants who participated in summer camps. The findings were that learning in the camps tends to be non-instrumental, allowing room for play and experimentation for both pupils and teachers. Social learning is marked by collective elements such as camp rituals and spontaneous solidarity, both forming an individual personality. Outdoor activities are important because they connect children to nature and develop a sense of place marked by biophilia. Furthermore, nature’s materiality creates a sense of being in the world, which means developing a sense of multiple relational settings, spanning from the materialities of geography, place, and objects to experiencing new social settings in the form of solidarity, ritual, and friendship. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy of Education: The Promise of Education and Grief)
12 pages, 226 KiB  
Article
Pedagogy of Happiness: A Russian View
by Valerii Chernik, Iulia Afonkina and Tatiana Kuzmicheva
Educ. Sci. 2021, 11(9), 503; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/educsci11090503 - 04 Sep 2021
Viewed by 1792
Abstract
For thousands of years the topic of happiness has attracted attention from the representatives of various sciences. However, until now there has been no unity in understanding the essence, sources, and components of happiness. Quite often, the interpretation of the phenomenon of happiness [...] Read more.
For thousands of years the topic of happiness has attracted attention from the representatives of various sciences. However, until now there has been no unity in understanding the essence, sources, and components of happiness. Quite often, the interpretation of the phenomenon of happiness is limited to the analysis of the works of philosophers of antiquity, the European Middle Ages, modern and recent history, and many researchers are in a kind of Eurocentric captivity. Consciously or accidentally, the works of Russian thinkers are often not considered. This hinders the creation of a holistic and more objective picture of such an important aspect of every person’s life. In order to overcome this Eurocentric bias, this study suggests tracing back the main stages of the development of the idea of happiness in Russia from the era of Peter the Great to the present. For this purpose, the authors used the methods of theoretical, comparative, and retrospective analysis. The authors believe that currently the pedagogy of happiness is being actively formed. To educate happy people, teachers should master the art of the pedagogy of happiness. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy of Education: The Promise of Education and Grief)
16 pages, 264 KiB  
Article
The Ontology of Becoming: To Research and Become with the World
by Bosse Bergstedt
Educ. Sci. 2021, 11(9), 491; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/educsci11090491 - 01 Sep 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3310
Abstract
This article aims is to explore a perspective of the ontology of becoming, that makes it possible to study the emergence of phenomena and thereby broaden the understanding of how knowledge is created. It is written in close connection with research in posthumanism [...] Read more.
This article aims is to explore a perspective of the ontology of becoming, that makes it possible to study the emergence of phenomena and thereby broaden the understanding of how knowledge is created. It is written in close connection with research in posthumanism and new materialism. What hat has been lacking in these perspectives has been a clearer connection to ontological points of departure. It is therefore the purpose of this article to describe, based on ontological positions, both philosophical points of departure and methodology and research practice. The article is structured in three parts, where the introductory part describes basic ontological starting points. The second part describes how a research apparatus can be constructed and used to carry out analyses based on the ontology of becoming. A research apparatus where the body’s senses and mobility are given a prominent role through a haptic sensorium. The third part describes examples of phenomena that can be explored with an onto-analysis of becoming. Among these, special focus is placed on the border phenomenon of sound. The result of the article is a perspective that can contribute to renewed insights into how phenomena are created with the world. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy of Education: The Promise of Education and Grief)
12 pages, 244 KiB  
Article
The Justice of Theory: How and What Do Educational Skills Distribute?
by Andrew John Thomas
Educ. Sci. 2021, 11(9), 478; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/educsci11090478 - 30 Aug 2021
Viewed by 1513
Abstract
Do educational theories affect enfranchisement asymmetrically? This article analyses two sets of thinking skills in religious education as apparatuses, taking observations and political documents as a starting point. The thinking skills are described in terms of the roles they allocate, the attention and [...] Read more.
Do educational theories affect enfranchisement asymmetrically? This article analyses two sets of thinking skills in religious education as apparatuses, taking observations and political documents as a starting point. The thinking skills are described in terms of the roles they allocate, the attention and affect they direct, values and truth-criteria they foster, and the extent to which they make aspects of religion visible and invisible. Taking a cue from Butler’s question, “When is Life Grievable?”, attention is paid more to the distribution of an apparatus than its validity or effectiveness. How do sets of thinking skills distribute opportunities to make particular strategic choices? When is learning truly and equally shared? Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy of Education: The Promise of Education and Grief)
15 pages, 281 KiB  
Article
Epistemic Disobedience and Grief in Academia
by Carla C. Ramirez
Educ. Sci. 2021, 11(9), 477; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/educsci11090477 - 30 Aug 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2424
Abstract
Drawing on conversations with foreign women in academic positions at one major University in Norway, this article is inspired by Barad’s and Haraway’s theorizing on how matter and discourse are mutually constituted through a diffractive approach. Understanding diffraction as an embodied engagement, a [...] Read more.
Drawing on conversations with foreign women in academic positions at one major University in Norway, this article is inspired by Barad’s and Haraway’s theorizing on how matter and discourse are mutually constituted through a diffractive approach. Understanding diffraction as an embodied engagement, a becoming with the data through shared entanglements, this article argues that the researcher’s personal background cannot be separated from the data produced. Departing from the decolonial theorist Castro-Gómez concept ‘hubris of zero-point epistemology’, the existence of an abstract and transcendental western universalism, where ‘the observer observes without been observed’ (Domínguez 2020; Mignolo 2009), assemblages of foreign female academics are explored through posthuman feminism and decolonial perspectives (Jackson and Mazzei 2012; Taguchi 2012; Puwar 2004). Through immersion in assemblages of contradictions, strength, and resistance, this article contends that policymakers’ good intentions of diversity in higher education, and the existence of different bodies, are shaking the world of academia, albeit slowly. Academia is still immersed in zero-point epistemology, favoring western, upper-class, paternalist, and meritocratic thought, detached from academics’ embodied knowledge. This brings into existence ‘bodies out of place’, re/producing grief, resistance, and epistemic disobedience when some academics are not suitable of becoming real academics. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy of Education: The Promise of Education and Grief)
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