European Educational Research Journal
ISSN 1474-9041
Indexed in SCOPUS – Elsevier’s indexing service
Volume 10 Number 3 2011
(Enlaces a asbtacts rápidos y textos completos)
SPECIAL ISSUE
Philosophy of Education and the Transformation of Educational Systems
Guest Editor: ROLAND REICHENBACH
Roland Reichenbach. Introduction. Philosophy of Education and the Transformation of Educational Systems, pages 287‑291 http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.3.287 VIEW FULL TEXT
Paul Smeyers. Philosophy of … Philosophy and …: taking the conditions we find ourselves in seriously, pages 292‑301
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Amrita Zahir. Content Ditches Method to Save Endangered Species: a plea for dialogue, pages 301‑303
David Bridges. From the Scientistic to the Humanistic in the Construction of Contemporary Educational Knowledge, pages 304‑317
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Christiane Thompson. Relocating Educational Theory: remarks on the fabrication of educational knowledge, pages 318‑321
Paul Standish. Education’s Outside, pages 322‑330
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Norbert Ricken. Education and the Problems of Difference, pages 331‑334
Michel Soëtard. Philosophy of Education: a thorn in the (clay) foot of the educational system, pages 335‑340
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Rita Casale. Philosophy of Education as a Critique, pages 340‑342
Philippe Foray. Philosophy and the Rationalisation of Educative Action: the example of personal autonomy, pages 343‑350
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Bruce Maxwell. Why Does Philosophy have to Defend High-Level Directives for Education?, pages 351‑355
Jan Masschelein. Philosophy of Education as an Exercise in Thought: to not forget oneself when ‘things take their course’, pages 356‑363
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Sharon Todd. Becoming Present in Context: the politics of the gap in educational transformation, pages 363‑366
Anne-Marie Drouin-Hans. Necessary Transformation or Safe Permanence? A Philosophical Approach to the Desire for Change, pages 367‑374
Hans-Christoph Koller. The Research of Transformational Education Processes: exemplary considerations on the relation of the philosophy of education and educational research, pages 375‑382
Volker Kraft. Role and Function of ‘Philosophy of Education’ within the Educational Sciences: a cross-national attempt, pages 383‑389
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James C. Conroy. On Not Abandoning the Marriage of Theory and Practice, pages 389‑392
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Dionysios Gouvias. EU Funding and Issues of ‘Marketisation’ of Higher Education in Greece, pages 393‑406
Mieke Lunenberg, Fred Korthagen & Rosanne Zwart. Self-Study Research and the Development of Teacher Educators’ Professional Identities, pages 407‑420
Kristiina Brunila. The Projectisation, Marketisation and Therapisation of Education, pages 421‑432
Helena Ostrowicka. On the Reception of Foucauldian Ideas in Pedagogical Research, pages 433‑444
Margarida Chagas Lopes & Graça Leão Fernandes. Interruptions and Failure in Higher Education: evidence from ISEG-UTL, pages 445‑460
REVIEW ESSAY
Ana Márcia Pires. Globalization, New Modes of Governance and Educational Challenges: a comparative review, pages 461‑466 http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.3.461 VIEW FULL TEXT
Philosophy of … Philosophy and …: taking the conditions we find ourselves in seriously
PAUL SMEYERS Ghent University & K.U. Leuven, Belgium
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.3.292
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Starting from Peters’ characterization of philosophy of education, the article elaborates the development offered by the Blackwell Guide (i.e. a field of study that involves a variety of approaches, including philosophical analysis with problems rooted in the use of language in educational discourse, addressing the assumptions and values embedded in other disciplinary approaches in the study of education, and exploring what education might be or might become). Taking into account recent developments of educational research, it is argued that room should be made for other forms of study than empirical, be it quantitative or qualitative types of research. A critical discussion of the preoccupation with method – as well as more generally in educational research, in philosophy of education in particular – is offered. It is argued that the conditions we find ourselves in today, for example the demand for performativity in educational contexts, should be taken seriously and that this has implications for what we address in philosophy of education.
From the Scientistic to the Humanistic in the Construction of Contemporary Educational Knowledge
DAVID BRIDGES Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom & Emeritus Professor, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.3.304
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The starting point for this article is a lecture given fifty years ago by C.P. Snow under the title ‘The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution’, in which Snow critiques what he sees as the damaging intellectual division between the arts and humanities on the one side and the sciences on the other. Fifty years later this problem is, perhaps, better considered in terms of the hegemony of science, or, more accurately, in terms of a very restricted notion of science which the author refers to as ‘scientism’. Scientism privileges a very narrow empiricist view of science and in particular experimental methods which allow the measurement of physical and, by extension, human and social phenomena. The article illustrates a number of ways in which such scientism operates to exclude alternative perspectives on experience rooted in the humanities from social and educational enquiry and discourse. It challenges scientism in two ways. First, it argues that it represents an impoverished view of science itself, which, properly understood, draws on a much wider range of methods and methodologies, some of which bring it much closer to humanistic forms of enquiry than the narrow empiricism that is popularly advanced as its defining characteristic. Then the article begins to illustrate, more positively, the sort of contributions to educational understanding that draw essentially from the academic traditions of the humanities. These include: (i) the exploration of human conscious experience and intentionality; (ii) narratives (including auto/biography); (iii) descriptive writing; (iv) normativity; (v) literary, perhaps even ‘romantic’, sensibility.
Education’s Outside
PAUL STANDISH Institute of Education, University of London, United Kingdom
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.3.322
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Is the university to be thought of as in service of society – that is, on the inside? Or should it be regarded rather as its potential critic and prophet of its best prospects, and hence be understood to be on the outside? This is just one example of the multiple ways in which thinking in terms of the inside and the outside figures in educational policy and practice. While the opposition recurs across the broad range of our political and personal lives, it is there in the detail of conceptions of teaching and learning, and of the content of the curriculum. This article seeks to examine some implications of this opposition. It does this by reference to an article by Jacques Derrida in which questions concerning the inside and the outside, of inclusion and exclusion, of purity and contamination, are considered in relation to language itself and to the problems and possibilities of translation.
Philosophy of Education: a thorn in the (clay) foot of the educational system
MICHEL SOËTARD Université Catholique de l’Ouest, France
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.3.335
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The article tries to defend the thesis that our educational systems are not doing well (which is not at all original), that the philosophy of education, more often than not, accompanies, justifies and reinforces the malaise of the system (which is already more original), and that it should, without a doubt, question itself in order to know how to support the betterment of education in our societies in crisis.
Philosophy and the Rationalisation of Educative Action: the example of personal autonomy
PHILIPPE FORAY Université Jean Monnet, St-Etienne, France
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.3.343
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In France, the philosophy of education is not accustomed to reflect on the concept of the ‘education system’. Often, the ‘humanistic’ purposes that it gives to education are far away from the real goals of a systematic education. Often also, it is confined to a critical attitude, whose constructive side is missing. Which form of philosophical practice is desirable vis-à-vis the transformations of the education systems? How to develop an at the same time normative and critical thought, which take account of the current evolutions? This is what this contribution is concerned with, using the limited example of personal autonomy.
Philosophy of Education as an Exercise in Thought: to not forget oneself when ‘things take their course’
JAN MASSCHELEIN University of Leuven, Belgium
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.3.356
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Starting from a distinction between a critical and an ascetic tradition in philosophy and taking into account their different stances towards the present, the article proposes a practice of philosophy of education within the ascetic tradition. In this tradition, the work of philosophy is in the first place a work on the self – that is, putting oneself to ‘the test of contemporary reality’ – implying an enlightenment not of others but of oneself; however, of oneself not as subject of knowledge, but as subject of action. Putting oneself to the test is, therefore, an exercise in the context of self-education. The article indicates how this exercise can be described as an exercise of/in thought, how it has to be conceived not as a private matter but as a public gesture and as a condition for a truth-telling that is in the first place illuminating and inviting. In order to do so, the article first recalls how Hannah Arendt describes her own work and how this indicates what kind of philosophical practice is entailed in the ascetic tradition. In line with this description, a topical example (i.e. the films of the Belgian Dardenne brothers) is offered of how educational philosophical research in this tradition is carried out today. And, finally, it is clarified how this relates to a proposal for doing ‘empirical’ philosophical research and for creating laboratories.
Necessary Transformation or Safe Permanence? A Philosophical Approach to the Desire for Change
ANNE-MARIE DROUIN-HANS University of Burgundy, Dijon, France
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.3.367
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What is proposed is a meditation on the phrase ‘transformation of the educational system’, paying attention to the sense of the words, and showing what the desire for educational change can reveal. After explaining to what extent ‘educational system’ is a quasi-oxymoron, the meaning of ‘transformation’ has to be compared to those of revolution and utopia. The claim to be transforming the educational system is an attempt to adapt education to social and political situations and constraints. The case of the Langevin-Wallon project in France, which was never applied, helps when wondering what has to be adapted to what. What sort of reciprocity is there between school and society? The organisation of knowledge itself can be submitted to a transformation. Jeremy Bentham’s Chrestomathia expresses such a conception through an unheeded and somehow utopian project. The desire for something new is in itself problematical, and the very fact of it being new cannot be an aim.
The Research of Transformational Education Processes: exemplary considerations on the relation of the philosophy of education and educational research
HANS-CHRISTOPH KOLLER University of Hamburg, Germany
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.3.375
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Confronted with the choice of either insisting on the inevitability of philosophic reflection and thus risking being neglected by research funding and the policy of offering chairs or of giving up on its philosophical orientation and also becoming committed to empirical research, this article suggests a third option for the Philosophy of Education, consisting of a combination of philosophic reflection and empirical research. By the example of the concept of transformational processes of Bildung it will be demonstrated that philosophical reflection is indeed indispensible but may be productively combined with empirical research. As this concept takes up the classical idea of Bildung, as it was developed by Wilhelm von Humboldt, first the relation of this suggestion to this tradition will be sketched. In working out the concept of transformational processes of Bildung the article will then refer to Bernhard Waldenfels’ concept of the foreign. As a conclusion the article will indicat what a kind of empirical educational research might look like which aims at researching transformational processes of Bildung.
Role and Function of ‘Philosophy of Education’ within the Educational Sciences: a cross-national attempt
VOLKER KRAFT Hochschule Neubrandenburg, Germany
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.3.383
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Disciplinary structures of education across Europe are rather different mainly due to the fact that education as an anthropological phenomenon is deeply rooted in specific cultural and national contexts. For this reason the role philosophy of education plays within the given national educational sciences is somewhat divergent and not easy to compare. In face of these difficulties the article argues for a cross-national attempt using theorems deriving from modern systems theory. From such a perspective philosophy of education can be regarded as a special ‘knowledge system’ and its function consists in re-including what has been excluded in the process of rationalisation of education; it serves, so to speak, as a special type of reflection knowledge which is as timeless as it is necessary and therefore of meta-national relevance and indispensable for the process of Europeanisation of education.
EU Funding and Issues of ‘Marketisation’ of Higher Education in Greece
DIONYSIOS GOUVIAS Department of the Sciences of Pre-School Education and Educational Design, University of the Aegean, Greece
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.3.393
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In the last 10 years, tens of millions of euros from European Union (EU) funding have started to flow into Greece’s state schools and universities. New departments of higher education have been established all over the country, and a new institutional framework for lifelong learning has been recently set up. Considering the above context, certain questions arise, such as what is the ‘agenda’ behind the EU-funding rhetoric, which has been officially linked to the ‘opening up’ of higher education and the ‘widening’ of opportunities. Initially, the author tries to assess the degree of ‘marketisation’ vis-à-vis EU involvement in the planning of higher education policy making, and to highlight the balance of power in educational policy making in Greece. To this end, special reference will be made to the Greek academics’ response to the new legislation concerning the financing of higher education.
Self-Study Research and the Development of Teacher Educators’ Professional Identities
MIEKE LUNENBERG, FRED KORTHAGEN & ROSANNE ZWART VU University, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.3.407
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This article presents the results of a study on the project ‘Teacher Educators Study Their Own Practices’. Nine teacher educators participated and conducted a self-study into their own practices. The leading question of this article is whether their self-studies contributed to the development of their professional identities. Data sources were digital logbooks, exit interviews, and follow-up questionnaires. The results show that conducting self-study research supports theoretical growth, ongoing development, the production of knowledge, and the enhancement of self-confidence. What these results could mean for the teacher educators themselves and their practices, and for the professional community of teacher educators, is discussed in the final section of this article.
The Projectisation, Marketisation and Therapisation of Education
KRISTIINA BRUNILA Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.3.421
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Publicly funded projects with economic aims and discourses have permeated the public sector, including education. In practice this has meant a shift whereby publicly funded education has evolved into a series of business-oriented projects with individually targeted activities. The rapidly increasing amount of project-based work in education is a result of a shift whereby Finland has become a project society. In this article I will disclose the alliance between projectisation, marketisation and therapisation of education in Finland by analysing project-based equality training in education and project-based training and guidance for young adults. Both activities operate in quite different contexts in the field of adult education but are still targeted by similar forms of power that I aim to analyse in this article.
On the Reception of Foucauldian Ideas in Pedagogical Research
HELENA OSTROWICKA Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.3.433
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The article is devoted to the presentation of the reception of Foucauldian ideas in Polish pedagogical research over the past twenty years. This movement of thought is described as an oscillation between heterotopia and utopia, autonomy and heteronomy, emancipation and repression. As results of this analysis indicate, Polish pedagogues are most interested in those of Foucault’s analyses which undertake an inquiry into the problems of discursive power or reveal the generative conditions shaping particular discursive formations. The concepts of disciplinary and pastoral power are adopted and utilised for analysing power relations inscribed in discourses of gender, market, childhood, youth, disability, homelessness and subjectivity. Apart from this, the article discusses the Polish reception of Foucauldian texts devoted to the critique of the autonomous subject and to his project of heterotopology. In conclusion, the author points to the inspirations issuing from the works of the French philosopher which encourage us to depart from a dualistic mode of reasoning.
Interruptions and Failure in Higher Education: evidence from ISEG-UTL
MARGARIDA CHAGAS LOPES School of Economics and Management and Research Centre in Economic and Organizational Sociology (SOCIUS), Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal (ISEG)
GRAÇA LEÃO FERNANDES School of Economics and Management, and Centre for Applied Mathematics and Economics (CEMAPRE), Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal (ISEG)
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2011.10.3.445
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Failure in higher education (HE) is the outcome of multiple time-dependent determinants. Interruptions in students’ individual school trajectories are one of them, and that is why research on this topic has been attracting much attention these days. From an individual point of view, it is expected that interruptions in school trajectory, whatever the reason, influence success in undergraduate programmes, and this success is measured either by time required to obtain a degree, by the scores obtained in some more ‘critical’ subjects in these programmes, or by the number of enrolment registrations. The study of the impact of interruptions on failure in HE is also important to help education institutions fight this problem, and to support policy measures related to the articulation between upper secondary and HE programmes. In previous research the authors have shed some light on the determinants of failure in the first year of HE studies. In this article, the authors’ major concern is to find some evidence of the effect of interruptions on HE failure among students using a life-cycle approach. They are interested to know whether such effects are related to gender and/or specific graduation programme. They also want to investigate whether work experience may counterbalance the effect of interruption on academic success. They hope to be able to derive some useful recommendations to address policy making in the fields of pedagogic methodologies in HE, articulation between academic and occupational learning in the framework of the Bologna Process, and public funding/fellowship policies in HE.
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