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New Directions in the Philosophy of Education

About the Book Series

This book series is devoted to the exploration of new directions in the philosophy of education. After the linguistic turn, the cultural turn, and the historical turn, where might we go? Does the future promise a digital turn with a greater return to connectionism, biology and biopolitics based on new understandings of system theory and knowledge ecologies? Does it foreshadow a genuinely alternative radical global turn based on a new openness and interconnectedness? Does it leave humanism behind or will it reengage with the question of the human in new and unprecedented ways? How should philosophy of education reflect new forces of globalization? How can it become less Anglo-centric and develop a greater sensitivity to other traditions, languages, and forms of thinking and writing, including those that are not routed in the canon of Western philosophy but in other traditions that share the ‘love of wisdom’ that characterizes the wide diversity within Western philosophy itself. Can this be done through a turn to intercultural philosophy? To indigenous forms of philosophy and philosophizing? Does it need a post-Wittgensteinian philosophy of education? A postpostmodern philosophy? Or should it perhaps leave the whole construction of 'post'-positions behind?

In addition to the question of the intellectual resources for the future of philosophy of education, what are the issues and concerns that philosophers of education should engage with? How should they position themselves? What is their specific contribution? What kind of intellectual and strategic alliances should they pursue? Should philosophy of education become more global, and if so, what would the shape of that be? Should it become more cosmopolitan or perhaps more decentred? Perhaps most importantly in the digital age, the time of the global knowledge economy that reprofiles education as privatized human capital and simultaneously in terms of an historic openness, is there a philosophy of education that grows out of education itself, out of the concerns for new forms of teaching, studying, learning and speaking that can provide comment on ethical and epistemological configurations of economics and politics of knowledge? Can and should this imply a reconnection with questions of democracy and justice?

This series comprises texts that explore, identify and articulate new directions in the philosophy of education. It aims to build bridges, both geographically and temporally: bridges across different traditions and practices and bridges towards a different future for philosophy of education.

24 Series Titles


Radical Schooling for Democracy Engaging Philosophy of Education for the Public Good

Radical Schooling for Democracy: Engaging Philosophy of Education for the Public Good

1st Edition

By Neil Hooley
January 08, 2018

Radical Schooling for Democracy proposes that formal education around the world has a serious philosophical weakness: as the ideology of neoliberalism increasingly dominates economic and as a consequence, educational and social life, formal education has adopted a narrow, rational and economic ...

Between Truth and Freedom Rousseau and our contemporary political and educational culture

Between Truth and Freedom: Rousseau and our contemporary political and educational culture

1st Edition

By Kenneth Wain
December 22, 2017

This book engages in a broad reading of Rousseau’s writings on educational and political thought in order to explore and address the competing demands of the enculturation and individuation of the young in Western societies. Although Rousseau’s Emile has been frequently utilised in educational ...

Democratic Education and the Public Sphere Towards John Dewey’s theory of aesthetic experience

Democratic Education and the Public Sphere: Towards John Dewey’s theory of aesthetic experience

1st Edition

By Masamichi Ueno
December 21, 2017

This book considers John Dewey’s philosophy of democratic education and his theory of public sphere from the perspective of the reconstruction and redefinition of the dominant liberalist movement. By bridging art education and public sphere, and drawing upon contemporary mainstream philosophies, ...

Social Justice and Educational Measurement John Rawls, the history of testing, and the future of education

Social Justice and Educational Measurement: John Rawls, the history of testing, and the future of education

1st Edition

By Zachary Stein
December 21, 2017

Social Justice and Educational Measurement addresses foundational concerns at the interface of standardized testing and social justice in American schools. Following John Rawls’s philosophical methods, Stein builds and justifies an ethical framework for guiding practices involving educational ...

Edusemiotics Semiotic philosophy as educational foundation

Edusemiotics: Semiotic philosophy as educational foundation

1st Edition

By Andrew Stables, Inna R. Semetsky
March 03, 2017

Edusemiotics addresses an emerging field of inquiry, educational semiotics, as a philosophy of and for education. Using "sign" as a unit of analysis, educational semiotics amalgamates philosophy, educational theory and semiotics. Edusemiotics draws on the intellectual legacy of such philosophers as...

Childhood, Education and Philosophy New ideas for an old relationship

Childhood, Education and Philosophy: New ideas for an old relationship

1st Edition

By Walter Kohan
February 07, 2017

This book explores the idea of a childlike education and offers critical tools to question traditional forms of education, and alternative ways to understand and practice the relationship between education and childhood. Engaging with the work of Michel Foucault, Jacques Rancière, Giorgio Agamben ...

Thomas Jefferson's Philosophy of Education A utopian dream

Thomas Jefferson's Philosophy of Education: A utopian dream

1st Edition

By M. Andrew Holowchak
January 19, 2017

Thomas Jefferson had a profoundly advanced educational vision that went hand in hand with his political philosophy - each of which served the goal of human flourishing. His republicanism marked a break with the conservatism of traditional non-representative governments, characterized by birth and ...

Henri Lefebvre and Education Space, history, theory

Henri Lefebvre and Education: Space, history, theory

1st Edition

By Sue Middleton
December 20, 2016

During his lifetime Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991) was renowned in France as a philosopher, sociologist and activist. Although he published more than 70 books, few were available in English until The Production of Space was translated in 1991. While this work - often associated with geography - has ...

Buber and Education Dialogue as conflict resolution

Buber and Education: Dialogue as conflict resolution

1st Edition

By W. John Morgan, Alexandre Guilherme
November 07, 2016

Martin Buber (1878-1965) is considered one of the 20th century’s greatest thinkers and his contributions to philosophy, theology and education are testimony to this. His thought is founded on the idea that people are capable of two kinds of relations, namely I-Thou and I-It, emphasising the ...

African Philosophy of Education Reconsidered On being human

African Philosophy of Education Reconsidered: On being human

1st Edition

By Yusef Waghid
January 20, 2016

Much of the literature on the African philosophy of education juxtaposes two philosophical strands as mutually exclusive entities; traditional ethnophilosophy on the one hand, and ‘scientific’ African philosophy on the other. While traditional ethnophilosophy is associated with the cultural ...

On Study: Giorgio Agamben and educational potentiality

On Study: Giorgio Agamben and educational potentiality

1st Edition

By Tyson E. Lewis
December 18, 2015

In an educational landscape dominated by discourses and practices of learning, standardized testing, and the pressure to succeed, what space and time remain for studying? In this book, Tyson E. Lewis argues that studying is a distinctive educational experience with its own temporal, spatial, ...

Education, Experience and Existence Engaging Dewey, Peirce and Heidegger

Education, Experience and Existence: Engaging Dewey, Peirce and Heidegger

1st Edition

By John Quay
July 16, 2015

Education, Experience and Existence proposes a new way of understanding education that delves beneath the conflict, confusion and compromise that characterize its long history. At the heart of this new understanding is what John Dewey strove to expound: a coherent theory of experience. Dewey’s ...

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