Pub Date : 2021-03-01DOI: 10.1177/14778785211009105
L. Burkholder
Does the moral requirement that medical research comparing the effectiveness of two treatment methods be done only when there is community level equipoise also apply to research in teaching and learning comparing the effectiveness of two instructional methods? This article argues that it does. It evaluates three claims that the requirement does not apply to research in teaching and learning. One is the idea that the equipoise standard mixes up the ethical rules for practice with those for research. So it applies neither to research in medicine nor research in teaching and learning. The second is the idea that research in teaching and learning is different than research in medicine. The ethical basis for the equipoise requirement in medical research does not exist for research in education and so does not apply. Finally, the point is sometimes made that satisfying the equipoise requirement can be outweighed or more than compensated for by other factors when evaluating the ethics of research. For example, the knowledge gained about the comparative merits of different methods of teaching and learning might be so significant that it offsets any moral demand for equipoise or uncertainty.
{"title":"Equipoise and ethics in educational research","authors":"L. Burkholder","doi":"10.1177/14778785211009105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14778785211009105","url":null,"abstract":"Does the moral requirement that medical research comparing the effectiveness of two treatment methods be done only when there is community level equipoise also apply to research in teaching and learning comparing the effectiveness of two instructional methods? This article argues that it does. It evaluates three claims that the requirement does not apply to research in teaching and learning. One is the idea that the equipoise standard mixes up the ethical rules for practice with those for research. So it applies neither to research in medicine nor research in teaching and learning. The second is the idea that research in teaching and learning is different than research in medicine. The ethical basis for the equipoise requirement in medical research does not exist for research in education and so does not apply. Finally, the point is sometimes made that satisfying the equipoise requirement can be outweighed or more than compensated for by other factors when evaluating the ethics of research. For example, the knowledge gained about the comparative merits of different methods of teaching and learning might be so significant that it offsets any moral demand for equipoise or uncertainty.","PeriodicalId":46679,"journal":{"name":"Theory and Research in Education","volume":"19 1","pages":"65 - 77"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/14778785211009105","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43457068","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-02-25DOI: 10.1177/1477878521996237
J. Fennell, Timothy L. Simpson
What would we have the school teach? To what end? In the name of democracy, and building on the pioneering epistemology of Michael Polanyi, Harry S. Broudy, a leading voice in philosophy of education during the twentieth century, calls for a liberal arts core curriculum for all. The envisioned product of such schooling is a certain sort of person. Anticipating the predictable relativistic challenge so much on display in our own time, Broudy justifies the selection of subject matter (and thus the envisioned character formation and cultivation of moral imagination) by reference to the authority of experts in the disciplines. This response fails to fully repel the assault, thereby revealing the need for a dimension of Polanyi’s thought whose significance exceeds even that of the epistemology that Broudy so effectively invokes.
{"title":"A Polanyian rationale for a liberal arts core curriculum","authors":"J. Fennell, Timothy L. Simpson","doi":"10.1177/1477878521996237","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878521996237","url":null,"abstract":"What would we have the school teach? To what end? In the name of democracy, and building on the pioneering epistemology of Michael Polanyi, Harry S. Broudy, a leading voice in philosophy of education during the twentieth century, calls for a liberal arts core curriculum for all. The envisioned product of such schooling is a certain sort of person. Anticipating the predictable relativistic challenge so much on display in our own time, Broudy justifies the selection of subject matter (and thus the envisioned character formation and cultivation of moral imagination) by reference to the authority of experts in the disciplines. This response fails to fully repel the assault, thereby revealing the need for a dimension of Polanyi’s thought whose significance exceeds even that of the epistemology that Broudy so effectively invokes.","PeriodicalId":46679,"journal":{"name":"Theory and Research in Education","volume":"19 1","pages":"19 - 39"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1477878521996237","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48233150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-02-23DOI: 10.1177/1477878521996235
J. Dahlbeck
The purpose of this article is to add to the debate on the normative status and legitimacy of indoctrination in education by drawing on the political philosophy of Benedict Spinoza (1632–1677). More specifically, I will argue that Spinoza’s relational approach to knowledge formation and autonomy, in light of his understanding of the natural limitations of human cognition, provides us with valuable hints for staking out a more productive path ahead for the debate on indoctrination. This article combines an investigation into the early modern history of political ideas with a philosophical inquiry into a persistent conceptual problem residing at the heart of education. As such, the aim of the article is ultimately to offer an account of indoctrination less fraught with the dangers of epistemological and political idealism that often haunt rival conceptions.
{"title":"Spinoza on the teaching of doctrines: Towards a positive account of indoctrination","authors":"J. Dahlbeck","doi":"10.1177/1477878521996235","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878521996235","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of this article is to add to the debate on the normative status and legitimacy of indoctrination in education by drawing on the political philosophy of Benedict Spinoza (1632–1677). More specifically, I will argue that Spinoza’s relational approach to knowledge formation and autonomy, in light of his understanding of the natural limitations of human cognition, provides us with valuable hints for staking out a more productive path ahead for the debate on indoctrination. This article combines an investigation into the early modern history of political ideas with a philosophical inquiry into a persistent conceptual problem residing at the heart of education. As such, the aim of the article is ultimately to offer an account of indoctrination less fraught with the dangers of epistemological and political idealism that often haunt rival conceptions.","PeriodicalId":46679,"journal":{"name":"Theory and Research in Education","volume":"19 1","pages":"78 - 99"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1477878521996235","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44801107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-11-01DOI: 10.1177/1477878520985997
Ashley Taylor
{"title":"Book review: Meira Levinson and Jacob Fay (eds), Democratic Discord in Schools: Cases and Commentaries in Educational Ethics","authors":"Ashley Taylor","doi":"10.1177/1477878520985997","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878520985997","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46679,"journal":{"name":"Theory and Research in Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"369 - 370"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1477878520985997","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48890757","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-11-01DOI: 10.1177/1477878520981303
H. Pettersson
It is widely recognised among educational theorists, educators and policy makers alike, that critical thinking should claim a superordinate place in our system of educational objectives. In the philosophical literature on this topic, critical thinking is often conceptualised as the educational cognate of rationality, which in turn is analysed as being comprised of the relevant skills and abilities to assess reasons and evidence, together with the intellectual dispositions to actively use these proficiencies in practice. The resulting picture is in many respects normative and idealised, following the style of philosophical theorising commonplace in the tradition of analytic philosophy of education. In contrast, certain recent empirical findings related to the rational performance of actual human beings seem to cast doubts on the extent to which we can expect people to fulfil these idealised normative standards of rationality. After introducing the relevant philosophical theories and psychological results, I ruminate on the implications these ideas have on our pedagogical views pertaining to critical thinking education.
{"title":"De-idealising the educational ideal of critical thinking","authors":"H. Pettersson","doi":"10.1177/1477878520981303","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878520981303","url":null,"abstract":"It is widely recognised among educational theorists, educators and policy makers alike, that critical thinking should claim a superordinate place in our system of educational objectives. In the philosophical literature on this topic, critical thinking is often conceptualised as the educational cognate of rationality, which in turn is analysed as being comprised of the relevant skills and abilities to assess reasons and evidence, together with the intellectual dispositions to actively use these proficiencies in practice. The resulting picture is in many respects normative and idealised, following the style of philosophical theorising commonplace in the tradition of analytic philosophy of education. In contrast, certain recent empirical findings related to the rational performance of actual human beings seem to cast doubts on the extent to which we can expect people to fulfil these idealised normative standards of rationality. After introducing the relevant philosophical theories and psychological results, I ruminate on the implications these ideas have on our pedagogical views pertaining to critical thinking education.","PeriodicalId":46679,"journal":{"name":"Theory and Research in Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"322 - 338"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1477878520981303","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42143069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-11-01DOI: 10.1177/1477878520980197
Tania Clarke
Research conducted in England over the last decade has documented sustained, significant decreases in children’s wellbeing. While recent changes to curriculum policy promoting children’s wellbeing have been introduced, a notable feature of the discourse surrounding the promotion of children’s wellbeing is that wellbeing is regarded as opposed to, or in tension with, children’s academic achievement. Recently, Gabriel Heller-Sahlgren proposed that there is an inevitable ‘trade-off’ between children’s ‘wellbeing’ and their academic achievement. Using PISA 2012 data, Heller-Sahlgren argues that pupil happiness and high achievement do not go hand in hand; implying policymakers have a decision to make about which they uphold as the priority. In this article, I discuss the theoretical assumptions underpinning transnational comparisons of children’s wellbeing and review evidence from psychology and education to ascertain whether a trade-off is empirically supported. I argue that far from being incompatible, children’s wellbeing and achievement are positively associated. However, this relationship is not straightforward and requires careful disentangling of the hedonic and eudaimonic components of wellbeing. I underline four main gaps in current knowledge of the wellbeing-achievement relationship to date: the need for (1) multidimensional conceptualisation and measurement of wellbeing, (2) exploration of mediating mechanisms/constructs explaining the wellbeing-achievement relationship, (3) objective operationalisation of achievement, and (4) investigation of developmental differences. To conclude, I argue that when making policy recommendations researchers should avoid ‘all or nothing’ thinking which lures governments into false dichotomies.
{"title":"Children’s wellbeing and their academic achievement: The dangerous discourse of ‘trade-offs’ in education","authors":"Tania Clarke","doi":"10.1177/1477878520980197","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878520980197","url":null,"abstract":"Research conducted in England over the last decade has documented sustained, significant decreases in children’s wellbeing. While recent changes to curriculum policy promoting children’s wellbeing have been introduced, a notable feature of the discourse surrounding the promotion of children’s wellbeing is that wellbeing is regarded as opposed to, or in tension with, children’s academic achievement. Recently, Gabriel Heller-Sahlgren proposed that there is an inevitable ‘trade-off’ between children’s ‘wellbeing’ and their academic achievement. Using PISA 2012 data, Heller-Sahlgren argues that pupil happiness and high achievement do not go hand in hand; implying policymakers have a decision to make about which they uphold as the priority. In this article, I discuss the theoretical assumptions underpinning transnational comparisons of children’s wellbeing and review evidence from psychology and education to ascertain whether a trade-off is empirically supported. I argue that far from being incompatible, children’s wellbeing and achievement are positively associated. However, this relationship is not straightforward and requires careful disentangling of the hedonic and eudaimonic components of wellbeing. I underline four main gaps in current knowledge of the wellbeing-achievement relationship to date: the need for (1) multidimensional conceptualisation and measurement of wellbeing, (2) exploration of mediating mechanisms/constructs explaining the wellbeing-achievement relationship, (3) objective operationalisation of achievement, and (4) investigation of developmental differences. To conclude, I argue that when making policy recommendations researchers should avoid ‘all or nothing’ thinking which lures governments into false dichotomies.","PeriodicalId":46679,"journal":{"name":"Theory and Research in Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"263 - 294"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1477878520980197","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47192187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-11-01DOI: 10.1177/1477878520981296
J. Mckenna
In her Exemplarist Moral Theory, Linda Zagzebski argues that we can empirically discover the meaning of moral terms like ‘virtue’ and ‘the good life’ by direct reference to moral exemplars – those people we admire as morally exceptional. Her proposal is promising, because (1) moral exemplars play an important motivating role in moral education, and (2) her use of direct reference means we may be able to avoid the contentious descriptivism that accompanies moral terms like ‘good’ and ‘virtue’. In this article, I argue that Zagzebski’s theory fails regarding (2), because her direct reference method must use presupposed descriptions and leads to circular identification of moral exemplars.
{"title":"The circularity of moral exemplarity","authors":"J. Mckenna","doi":"10.1177/1477878520981296","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878520981296","url":null,"abstract":"In her Exemplarist Moral Theory, Linda Zagzebski argues that we can empirically discover the meaning of moral terms like ‘virtue’ and ‘the good life’ by direct reference to moral exemplars – those people we admire as morally exceptional. Her proposal is promising, because (1) moral exemplars play an important motivating role in moral education, and (2) her use of direct reference means we may be able to avoid the contentious descriptivism that accompanies moral terms like ‘good’ and ‘virtue’. In this article, I argue that Zagzebski’s theory fails regarding (2), because her direct reference method must use presupposed descriptions and leads to circular identification of moral exemplars.","PeriodicalId":46679,"journal":{"name":"Theory and Research in Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"339 - 351"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1477878520981296","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44583938","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-11-01DOI: 10.1177/1477878520988432
S. Coulombe, Kendra Hardy, Rachel Goldfarb
Youth wellbeing is a pressing international problem, and it is a key concern of educational institutions, considering the substantial amount of time that youth spend in school. Educators require empirically validated and theoretically sound methods to support students’ wellbeing. This article critically examines the literature on youth wellbeing and interventions in positive education and proposes an innovative, social ecological approach to promoting wellbeing in education. Personal Projects Analysis is a complementary approach addressing several gaps identified in existing interventions (e.g. lack of consideration of ecological and cultural contexts, need for a person-centred approach to support unique goals of diverse students). Implications and applications are discussed to demonstrate how school leadership and educators can apply Personal Projects Analysis to promote the wellbeing of all students.
{"title":"Promoting wellbeing through positive education: A critical review and proposed social ecological approach","authors":"S. Coulombe, Kendra Hardy, Rachel Goldfarb","doi":"10.1177/1477878520988432","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878520988432","url":null,"abstract":"Youth wellbeing is a pressing international problem, and it is a key concern of educational institutions, considering the substantial amount of time that youth spend in school. Educators require empirically validated and theoretically sound methods to support students’ wellbeing. This article critically examines the literature on youth wellbeing and interventions in positive education and proposes an innovative, social ecological approach to promoting wellbeing in education. Personal Projects Analysis is a complementary approach addressing several gaps identified in existing interventions (e.g. lack of consideration of ecological and cultural contexts, need for a person-centred approach to support unique goals of diverse students). Implications and applications are discussed to demonstrate how school leadership and educators can apply Personal Projects Analysis to promote the wellbeing of all students.","PeriodicalId":46679,"journal":{"name":"Theory and Research in Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"295 - 321"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1477878520988432","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46717714","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-13DOI: 10.1177/1477878520957835
Johannes Drerup
In this highly readable and densely written book, Michael S. Merry develops a constructive critique of contemporary conceptions of educational justice. The book is subdivided into three main parts. The first part provides an introduction to the complex debate about educational justice in political philosophy and philosophy of education while presenting the theoretical underpinnings of his own critique. This critique rests on three interrelated methodological pillars, focusing on central blind spots of the currently dominant liberal egalitarian paradigm in the debate about educational justice. The first pillar concerns the debate between ideal and non-ideal theory. According to Merry, one of the major shortcomings of controversies over educational justice is the lack of a sufficiently complex integration of principled normative theorizing and empirical social research. While he repeatedly emphasizes that we cannot and should not do without ideal theory tout court, Merry plausibly argues that with respect to real-world problems standard ideal theories provide only very limited orientation for an adequate, empirically informed assessment of what educational justice requires. Throughout the book, Merry shows how difficult and messy things get in any serious attempt to apply normative frameworks and principles in concrete contexts (as opposed to often stylized, hypothetical cases). Confronted with empirical evidence, liberal egalitarian arguments and assumptions indeed in some cases seem to be based on more or less fantastic, ahistorical constructions (for instance, the ‘ideal’ public school), bearing little resemblance to actual sociopolitical conditions and functions of the educational systems in most, if not all, contexts. This point alone makes the book an absolute rarity in the debate about educational justice and non-ideal theory, especially if the latter is more than just a label which merely signifies that one also and often highly selectively takes empirical research into account in order to confirm one’s normative beliefs. This problem is related to the second pillar, which constitutes an ideology critique: Merry assumes that currently dominant modes of theorizing educational justice within the liberal paradigm are prone to a variety of unconscious biases and related unquestioned empirical assumptions. These include, for instance, cognitive dissonance as the tendency to downplay the relevance of countervailing empirical evidence which does not fit into one’s normative framework. Due to these and other tendencies to which we 957835 TRE0010.1177/1477878520957835Theory and Research in EducationBook reviews book-review2020
{"title":"Book review: Michael S. Merry, Educational Justice: Liberal Ideals, Persistent Inequality, and the Constructive Uses of Critique","authors":"Johannes Drerup","doi":"10.1177/1477878520957835","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878520957835","url":null,"abstract":"In this highly readable and densely written book, Michael S. Merry develops a constructive critique of contemporary conceptions of educational justice. The book is subdivided into three main parts. The first part provides an introduction to the complex debate about educational justice in political philosophy and philosophy of education while presenting the theoretical underpinnings of his own critique. This critique rests on three interrelated methodological pillars, focusing on central blind spots of the currently dominant liberal egalitarian paradigm in the debate about educational justice. The first pillar concerns the debate between ideal and non-ideal theory. According to Merry, one of the major shortcomings of controversies over educational justice is the lack of a sufficiently complex integration of principled normative theorizing and empirical social research. While he repeatedly emphasizes that we cannot and should not do without ideal theory tout court, Merry plausibly argues that with respect to real-world problems standard ideal theories provide only very limited orientation for an adequate, empirically informed assessment of what educational justice requires. Throughout the book, Merry shows how difficult and messy things get in any serious attempt to apply normative frameworks and principles in concrete contexts (as opposed to often stylized, hypothetical cases). Confronted with empirical evidence, liberal egalitarian arguments and assumptions indeed in some cases seem to be based on more or less fantastic, ahistorical constructions (for instance, the ‘ideal’ public school), bearing little resemblance to actual sociopolitical conditions and functions of the educational systems in most, if not all, contexts. This point alone makes the book an absolute rarity in the debate about educational justice and non-ideal theory, especially if the latter is more than just a label which merely signifies that one also and often highly selectively takes empirical research into account in order to confirm one’s normative beliefs. This problem is related to the second pillar, which constitutes an ideology critique: Merry assumes that currently dominant modes of theorizing educational justice within the liberal paradigm are prone to a variety of unconscious biases and related unquestioned empirical assumptions. These include, for instance, cognitive dissonance as the tendency to downplay the relevance of countervailing empirical evidence which does not fit into one’s normative framework. Due to these and other tendencies to which we 957835 TRE0010.1177/1477878520957835Theory and Research in EducationBook reviews book-review2020","PeriodicalId":46679,"journal":{"name":"Theory and Research in Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"364 - 366"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1477878520957835","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49342563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-20DOI: 10.1177/1477878520944712
C. Bellolio
body), but also itself constitutes an ideology which obscures rather than clarifies what may be feasible and ignores more straightforward policies to counteract educational injustice, independently of how ‘diverse’ students are. In the third part, Merry engages with three debates about educational justice in the context of the debate about the inclusion of autistic children in the public school system, the debate about Islamic schools, and the debate about sound selection procedures for admissions to schools. In his detailed reconstructions of each of these cases, Merry outlines the many dilemmas and complexities one has to deal with, if one wants to provide normatively sound, empirically informed, and feasible suggestions for policies that may foster educational justice in real-world conditions. Throughout his discussion of these debates, he points out both the practical limits of policies that aim to enhance educational justice within the context of broader socioeconomic and political injustices and the limits and shortcomings of existing policy proposals, which in some cases are based on dogmatic beliefs and myths rather than empirical evidence. Nevertheless, pointing out these practical constraints, tensions, and obstacles does not imply cynicism and hopelessness with respect to the possibility of counteracting educational injustice. On the contrary, according to Merry, a realistic take on the relevant problems and an awareness of the many empirical uncertainties are necessary prerequisites to identify viable, justice-enhancing policies. Merry provides a compelling and nuanced critique of established and long-held assumptions concerning both the methodology of theorizing educational justice in general and core beliefs and dogmas of liberal egalitarian conceptions of justice in particular. This critique – even if one does not accept all the arguments and assumptions (e.g. concerning radical critiques of public schools) – is certainly long overdue in light of the fact that quite a few of Merry’s arguments have been aired for decades in the sociology of education as well as in other educational philosophies and sciences (and not only by more radical left-wing types). Merry provides ample reasons for the view that we need a methodological shift away from the liberal paradigm, if we want to provide a theoretically clear and empirically informed idea of what is actually required by educational justice in the world we live in. In short, this is an excellent book. It represents empirically informed philosophy at its best and is a must-read for everyone interested in debates about educational justice.
{"title":"Book review: John Tillson, Children, Religion and the Ethics of Influence","authors":"C. Bellolio","doi":"10.1177/1477878520944712","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878520944712","url":null,"abstract":"body), but also itself constitutes an ideology which obscures rather than clarifies what may be feasible and ignores more straightforward policies to counteract educational injustice, independently of how ‘diverse’ students are. In the third part, Merry engages with three debates about educational justice in the context of the debate about the inclusion of autistic children in the public school system, the debate about Islamic schools, and the debate about sound selection procedures for admissions to schools. In his detailed reconstructions of each of these cases, Merry outlines the many dilemmas and complexities one has to deal with, if one wants to provide normatively sound, empirically informed, and feasible suggestions for policies that may foster educational justice in real-world conditions. Throughout his discussion of these debates, he points out both the practical limits of policies that aim to enhance educational justice within the context of broader socioeconomic and political injustices and the limits and shortcomings of existing policy proposals, which in some cases are based on dogmatic beliefs and myths rather than empirical evidence. Nevertheless, pointing out these practical constraints, tensions, and obstacles does not imply cynicism and hopelessness with respect to the possibility of counteracting educational injustice. On the contrary, according to Merry, a realistic take on the relevant problems and an awareness of the many empirical uncertainties are necessary prerequisites to identify viable, justice-enhancing policies. Merry provides a compelling and nuanced critique of established and long-held assumptions concerning both the methodology of theorizing educational justice in general and core beliefs and dogmas of liberal egalitarian conceptions of justice in particular. This critique – even if one does not accept all the arguments and assumptions (e.g. concerning radical critiques of public schools) – is certainly long overdue in light of the fact that quite a few of Merry’s arguments have been aired for decades in the sociology of education as well as in other educational philosophies and sciences (and not only by more radical left-wing types). Merry provides ample reasons for the view that we need a methodological shift away from the liberal paradigm, if we want to provide a theoretically clear and empirically informed idea of what is actually required by educational justice in the world we live in. In short, this is an excellent book. It represents empirically informed philosophy at its best and is a must-read for everyone interested in debates about educational justice.","PeriodicalId":46679,"journal":{"name":"Theory and Research in Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"366 - 368"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1477878520944712","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48307387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：