- Des Moines, IA
Matthew Hayden
Drake University, Teaching and Learning, Faculty Member
- Educational Philosophy, Philosophy of Education, Cosmopolitanism Ancient And Modern, Ethical Theory, Assessment, Moral Philosophy, and 14 moreEthics, Global Citizenship, Philosophy, Cosmopolitan Democracy, Moral Education, Bonnie Honig, Agonistic Pluralism, Democracy and Citizenship Education, Social Sciences, Discourse Analysis, Agonism, Political Theory, Citizenship and Identity, and Gert Biestaedit
- Currently an Associate Professor and the Director of International Programs in the School of Education at Drake Unive... moreCurrently an Associate Professor and the Director of International Programs in the School of Education at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Completed dissertation titled "Cosmopolitan Education as Moral Education: Forging Moral Beings Under Conditions of Global Uncertainty" for Ph.D. in Philosophy and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
My research focuses on the ethical beliefs and moral obligations found in all forms of human activity. I have explored such beliefs and obligations in education, schooling, teaching, assessment, testing, and teacher evaluation, and my work with cosmopolitan philosophy and international education reflects these inquiries in a global context. For instance, what does it mean to produce a global citizen through schooling? What would that look like (both process and product)?
My current research interests trend toward experimental philosophy wherein empirical data, primarily from psychology and sociology, is used to reveal collective (i.e. socio-political) ethical and moral character. In other words, what do our actions (as individuals) and policies (that guide our actions as a group) reveal about our ethical beliefs and morality? Additionally, to what extent does passive political acceptance or non-participation translate into personal moral obligation and culpability? I have also been interested in trying to uncover the ethical beliefs behind and the moral implications of reform efforts in schooling, particularly those surrounding high stakes testing and teacher evaluation.
I am currently developing research to discover how our schooling and reform efforts frame the ethical worldview of adolescents and to what extent adolescent schooling causes psychological harm. In light of high stakes testing and value-added models of assessing teacher quality, what are the moral implications of our efforts? Are we subjecting both student and teachers to immoral processes? Is schooling itself harmful to students and teachers?
Lastly, I am also interested in political manipulation of education and the ethical issues that result, and the willful ignorance seen in conscious choices to NOT learn in both schools and in daily life (largely through a socially and individually cultivated incuriosity) and the resulting civic and moral implications.edit
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This chapter examines the decline of philosophy of education from the angle of the increasing influence of technocratic and quantitative approaches to teaching and learning. Recovering humanistic and qualitative approaches to education... more
This chapter examines the decline of philosophy of education from the angle of the increasing influence of technocratic and quantitative approaches to teaching and learning. Recovering humanistic and qualitative approaches to education would require a revival of philosophy in educational studies and teacher preparation. Hayden finds a source for such change in the work of the philosopher Jürgen Habermas. According to Hayden, Habermas’s theory suggests a model of teacher education that would balance technique, practice, and emancipatory interests. The goal is to train the “whole teacher” and fully enlist teachers in the moral agency they are called upon to work as professionals and community leaders.
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... Experience 46 9.5 22 6.7 24 5.6 26 7.8 118 7.5 Phil of Ed 32 6.6 22 6.7 37 8.7 23 6.9 114 7.3 Science 45 9.3 18 5.5 28 6.6 23 6.9 114 7.3 ... ''Reading Giroux Through a Deweyan Lens'' (Demetrion 2001) or... more
... Experience 46 9.5 22 6.7 24 5.6 26 7.8 118 7.5 Phil of Ed 32 6.6 22 6.7 37 8.7 23 6.9 114 7.3 Science 45 9.3 18 5.5 28 6.6 23 6.9 114 7.3 ... ''Reading Giroux Through a Deweyan Lens'' (Demetrion 2001) or ''Derrida on teaching: The economy of erasure'' (Bingham 2008) are ...
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ABSTRACT In their article, Publish yet perish: On the pitfalls of philosophy of education in an age of impact factors, the authors want to bring to our attention (a) the increased use of quantitative metrics to measure scholarly output of... more
ABSTRACT In their article, Publish yet perish: On the pitfalls of philosophy of education in an age of impact factors, the authors want to bring to our attention (a) the increased use of quantitative metrics to measure scholarly output of academics, (b) that such measurements are not only incomplete, but that they disadvantage philosophy of education scholars in particular, and (c) that an alternative form of evaluation—one that focuses on comparisons of philosophy of education scholars within their own sub-discipline—might be a better option. The case is made by examining journal publishing efforts and evaluation systems in three countries: Netherlands, South Africa, and Norway. The first two countries each represent a different side of the same coin: the complicated nature of isolating impact and value of philosophy of education research given its applicability to multiple disciplines and the lack of an empirically substantiated sub-disciplinary identity, and the recognition that the emphasis ...
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Cosmopolitanism has recently received increased interest and representation in educational discourse and theory. Given the global and international emphases in cosmopolitanism, international schools might provide some clues and... more
Cosmopolitanism has recently received increased interest and representation in educational discourse and theory. Given the global and international emphases in cosmopolitanism, international schools might provide some clues and illustrations of cosmopolitanism influence in schooling. The way an international school articulates its purpose can provide insight into the general discourse about international schools and what each thinks its purpose is, real or imagined. Thus, the mission statements of sixty-seven international schools were analysed to measure the extent to which these schools articulated purposes consistent with dominant typologies and characteristics of cosmopolitanism. The data shows that while international schools show a dominant predilection toward cognitive and academic development, they also contain a significant number of cosmopolitan characteristics and an orientation toward the development of attitudes and emotional development that aid in intercultural unders...
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Cosmopolitan education has been much theorized, discussed, and proposed, but what, exactly, might it look like and what specific processes might it involve? Cosmopolitanism’s recognition of shared humanity and the subsequent entailment of... more
Cosmopolitan education has been much theorized, discussed, and proposed, but what, exactly, might it look like and what specific processes might it involve? Cosmopolitanism’s recognition of shared humanity and the subsequent entailment of democratic inclusion make explicit the moral and political nature of cosmopolitan education and philosophy. As an ethico-political process, existing political and ethical processes can be brought to bear on its educational manifestations. The political concepts of epistemological restraint, discourse ethics, and agonistic pluralism are offered as models for cosmopolitan education in agonistic morality: epistemological restraint is used to address the need for prioritization of moral inquiry over moral belief; discourse ethics addresses the necessity of inclusive and democratic dialogue; agonistic pluralism offsets the implications of the inevitability of pluralism in educational inquiry. All three combine to form a process of cosmopolitan education...
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Schooling has become a technology of efficiency and acculturation that privileges a specific worldview—namely that of technical and capital interests—that informs and encapsulates the totality of the schooling experience at the exclusion... more
Schooling has become a technology of efficiency and acculturation that privileges a specific worldview—namely that of technical and capital interests—that informs and encapsulates the totality of the schooling experience at the exclusion of other possibilities. This article discusses one way in which schooling has been commodified and one particular way to resist commodification. Marx’s conception of living labor is converted into “dead labor” through the dominance of capitalist ideology and Habermas’s technical interest, reducing education in schooling to an exchange of commodities. Technical interests manifest in technocratic practices of schooling reform, empirical measurement, and use value, stripping learning of its meaning and undermining the potentiality of teachers and students. Habermas’s conception of emancipatory interest is offered as a potential medium for teacher resistance and subversion of the technocratic hegemony.
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This chapter examines the decline of philosophy of education from the angle of the increasing influence of technocratic and quantitative approaches to teaching and learning. Recovering humanistic and qualitative approaches to education... more
This chapter examines the decline of philosophy of education from the angle of the increasing influence of technocratic and quantitative approaches to teaching and learning. Recovering humanistic and qualitative approaches to education would require a revival of philosophy in educational studies and teacher preparation. Hayden finds a source for such change in the work of the philosopher Jürgen Habermas. According to Hayden, Habermas’s theory suggests a model of teacher education that would balance technique, practice, and emancipatory interests. The goal is to train the “whole teacher” and fully enlist teachers in the moral agency they are called upon to work as professionals and community leaders.
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Cosmopolitan education has been much theorized, discussed, and proposed, but what exactly might it look like and what specific processes might it involve? Cosmopolitanism’s recognition of shared humanity and the subsequent entailment of... more
Cosmopolitan education has been much theorized, discussed, and proposed, but what exactly might it look like and what specific processes might it involve? Cosmopolitanism’s recognition of shared humanity and the subsequent entailment of democratic inclusion make explicit the moral and political nature of cosmopolitan education and philosophy. As an ethico-political process, existing political and ethical processes can be brought to bear on its educational manifestations. The political concepts of epistemological restraint, discourse ethics, and agonistic pluralism are offered as models for cosmopolitan education in agonistic morality: epistemological restraint is used to address the need for the prioritization of moral inquiry over moral belief; discourse ethics addresses the necessity of inclusive and democratic dialogue; and agonistic pluralism reframes the effects of pluralism in educational and moral inquiry. All three combine to form a process of cosmopolitan education in agonistic morality.
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This chapter is a review of contemporary themes in cosmopolitan education that revisits the commonly used taxonomy developed my Kleingled & Brown in order to propose a new taxonomy that reflects the expanding diversity of research on... more
This chapter is a review of contemporary themes in cosmopolitan education that revisits the commonly used taxonomy developed my Kleingled & Brown in order to propose a new taxonomy that reflects the expanding diversity of research on cosmopolitan philosophy applied to education and schooling.
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This article revisits John Wilson’s “first steps” in moral education—a conceptual analysis of morality—and what he calls an education in morality. Education in morality focuses on morality as a form of life with a specific domain in which... more
This article revisits John Wilson’s “first steps” in moral education—a conceptual analysis of morality—and what he calls an education in morality. Education in morality focuses on morality as a form of life with a specific domain in which it aims to initiate students, and on education as a growth-oriented, progressive activity. Arendt’s conception of natality in education is then used to show how it provides a catalyst for growth, discovery, and tradition-trumping newness, and acts as a stepping-stone to public action as morality and recognition of the plurality of human life. It becomes clear that the inherent sociability of morality forces the consideration of it as a public and social act. Education in morality must preserve the potential for the capacity to contribute to the development of morality and concurrently develop that capacity through the production of plurality that follows and the negotiations necessary for its preservation. Morality, then, must not be taught as a static set of immutable principles, but rather as an inclusive, adaptive process by and through which groups govern their associations.
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Cosmopolitan education aims to transmit cosmopolitan forms of life in order to participate morally in the world community. The primary characteristics of this cosmopolitan education are its acceptance of the shared humanity of all persons... more
Cosmopolitan education aims to transmit cosmopolitan forms of life in order to participate morally in the world community. The primary characteristics of this cosmopolitan education are its acceptance of the shared humanity of all persons as a fact of human existence and as a motivating guide for human interaction, and the requirement of democratic inclusion in deliberations of the governance of those interactions, including morality. Such an education in cosmopolitan morality requires means that befit its core components. This paper contrasts the concepts of strict and moderate cosmopolitanism, empirical and deliberative morality, and structural and dispositional cosmopolitanism to show that the moderate, inclusive and deliberative processes of deliberative dispositional cosmopolitanism are more suited to cosmopolitan education in morality than strong, empirical-focused structural cosmopolitan efforts. Though strong, structural and empirically based forms may be more likely to guarantee preferred outcomes in the learning of specific morals or the implementation of institutional norms, they are also more likely to run afoul of the core components of cosmopolitanism because they will privilege outcomes over processes, and are thus more likely to be less inclusive and more coercive. In contrast, and even though they are less certain to guarantee preferred moral outcomes or actions, moderate, deliberative dispositional forms of cosmopolitan education embody the morality they seek to inform, and are more likely to find sustained internalised support over time.
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Despite the diversity of cosmopolitan philosophical thought, two constants remain: the significance of shared humanity and the idea that this fact should shape the way people live with each other. I will argue that Hannah Arendt’s... more
Despite the diversity of cosmopolitan philosophical thought, two constants remain: the significance of shared humanity and the idea that this fact should shape the way people live with each other. I will argue that Hannah Arendt’s conceptions of the human conditions of plurality, natality, and action offer cosmopolitan educators an improved grounding for their theoretical foundations and crucial points of emphasis for teacher education in opposition to the educationally destructive effects of standardization in education. Cosmopolitan characteristics such as democratic inclusion, openness, and dynamic engagement emerge as embodiments of morality wherein the preservation of the human condition of natality is vital for the public expression (action) of one’s humanity. Arendt’s conditions serve as the ‘is’ to cosmopolitan education’s ‘ought,’ wherein the human conditions of plurality, natality, and action support the creativity, fluidity, and unpredictability of lived lives and frame the context in which cosmopolitan teacher education responds, offering teacher educators a theoretical foundation and language to forestall or reverse the educationally devastating effects of standardization in education.
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Cosmopolitanism has recently received increased interest and representation in educational discourse and theory. Given the global and international emphases in cosmopolitanism, international schools might provide some clues and... more
Cosmopolitanism has recently received increased interest and representation in educational discourse and theory. Given the global and international emphases in cosmopolitanism, international schools might provide some clues and illustrations of cosmopolitanism influence in schooling. The way an international school articulates its purpose can provide insight into the general discourse about international schools and what each thinks its purpose is, real or imagined. Thus, the mission statements of sixty-seven international schools were analysed to measure the extent to which these schools articulated purposes consistent with dominant typologies and characteristics of cosmopolitanism. The data shows that while international schools show a dominant predilection toward cognitive and academic development, they also contain a significant number of cosmopolitan characteristics and an orientation toward the development of attitudes and emotional development that aid in intercultural understanding and cosmopolitan ways of being.
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We constantly hear people say that aesthetics is more than just art, more than just paintings and music and sculpture. I want to suggest that we think more about how to help pre-college students who are not interested in art (as typically... more
We constantly hear people say that aesthetics is more than just art, more than just paintings and music and sculpture. I want to suggest that we think more about how to help pre-college students who are not interested in art (as typically defined) come to understand and appreciate aesthetics. Scientific and mathematical experiences of nature can provide access points to understand aesthetic experiences for those for whom visual art holds little or no sway.
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This paper examines the use of the results of student outcome assessments (OA) to evaluate teachers using an argument about fairness to students in OA by Randall Curren. Since student OA results are significantly influenced by effects... more
This paper examines the use of the results of student outcome assessments (OA) to evaluate teachers using an argument about fairness to students in OA by Randall Curren. Since student OA results are significantly influenced by effects that are beyond student control, effects he calls ‘constitutive luck,’ they should not be held accountable for these results in ways that affect their long term academic and professional lives. This paper argues that the use of OA in teacher evaluation is plagued by this same problem and that tying OA to teacher evaluation results in more controlling pedagogies by teachers and a subsequent decrease in student OA performance. I conclude by using Curren’s recommendations for fairness to students to formulate recommendations for OA use in fairness teachers.
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What is philosophy of education? This question has been answered in as many ways as there are those who self-identify as philosophers of education. However, the questions our field asks and the research conducted to answer them often... more
What is philosophy of education? This question has been answered in as many ways as there are those who self-identify as philosophers of education. However, the questions our field asks and the research conducted to answer them often produce papers, essays, and manuscripts that we can read, evaluate, and ponder. This paper turns to those tangible products of our scholarly activities. The titles, abstracts, and keywords from every article published from 2000 to 2010 in four journals of educational philosophy were analyzed to find out what kind of research is being published in the field of philosophy of education. Over 143 different concepts were identified and analyzed from 1,572 articles. The data suggests that philosophy and education, while primarily concerned with theory, teaching, and learning, tackles a diversity of subjects in a slightly narrowing band of thematic topics
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Recent trends in student assessment have been dominated by standardized quantitative learning assessments (SQLA), and particularly those in high stakes testing (HST) contexts. Framing an analysis of SQLA using Biesta’s work on... more
Recent trends in student assessment have been dominated by standardized quantitative learning assessments (SQLA), and particularly those in high stakes testing (HST) contexts. Framing an analysis of SQLA using Biesta’s work on evidence-based research to think with Gadamer about prejudice, foreknowledge, and interpretation helps us better understand the problems with using SQLA in HST. An examination of the role of statistical analysis of SQLA and the consideration of the self-determination theory of motivation reveals a troubling and negative influence of such testing on learning. It becomes clear that SQLA are not only ill-suited for the task assigned, but in fact may play a central role in defining what learning is, compounding the difficulties, and existing deficiencies, in learning assessment.
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This paper is motivated by the fear that the protected status of dissent and public protest may be endangered by the emergence of new hand-held technologies and the lack of civility in political discourse: both encourage reaction without... more
This paper is motivated by the fear that the protected status of dissent and public protest may be endangered by the emergence of new hand-held technologies and the lack of civility in political discourse: both encourage reaction without deliberation and privilege expression over agonistic dialogue and may lead to a protest culture that risks undermining its own legitimacy. My thinking here is largely informed by Hannah Arendt’s descriptions of the intersection of politics, public action, and morality to argue that schools and teachers have a moral obligation to engage students in explorations of the role of dissent in democracy and the crucial part that protest movements have played in the expansion of rights for US citizens, and minority groups in particular, but that motivations for dissent and protest must be humanized and de-politicized
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This paper asks if adolescent schooling is moral. Recent research in adolescent brain development and psychology suggests that adolescent schooling exposes adolescents to a specific subset of psychosocial harms precisely when they are... more
This paper asks if adolescent schooling is moral. Recent research in adolescent brain development and psychology suggests that adolescent schooling exposes adolescents to a specific subset of psychosocial harms precisely when they are most vulnerable to them. Combining this empirical research "which shows the adolescent brain as it is rather than how we wish it was" with ideas of adolescent education from Rousseau, I conclude that parents, educators, and policymakers have a moral obligation to reconsider current forms of adolescent schooling, solutions for which might include redesigning adolescent schooling or constructively de-schooling during early adolescence.
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Using a cosmopolitan philosophical framework, Wilson’s education in morality and Arendt’s natality, thinking, action, and the public space of politics combine to demonstrate that morality is public and political. Epistemological... more
Using a cosmopolitan philosophical framework, Wilson’s education in morality and Arendt’s natality, thinking, action, and the public space of politics combine to demonstrate that morality is public and political. Epistemological restraint, discourse ethics, and agonistic pluralism provide pathways to promote active and flexible engagement in moral inquiry and embrace plurality. Shared humanity emerges as a collective possession of Arendt’s ‘human condition’—the conditions of plurality, natality, action, and one I add, uncertainty. These conditions frame processes that can enable an education in morality to encourage the development of ‘moral agonism,’ equipping students to participate in the development of morality.
The intermingling of moral perspectives in our daily lives creates an educational imperative to forge new and better ways of discussing morality when moral foundations are dissimilar. Scholars and teachers of moral education must find... more
The intermingling of moral perspectives in our daily lives creates an educational imperative to forge new and better ways of discussing morality when moral foundations are dissimilar. Scholars and teachers of moral education must find ways to accommodate multiple conceptions of the good and yet still offer forms of judgment through useful and meaningful educational experiences. Cosmopolitan philosophy has often been called upon to respond to this imperative. Unlike common forms of moral education in which morals are either predetermined and students are guided to their adoption, or forms in which morality is ‘talked about’ and space given to students to judge for themselves, a cosmopolitan education in morality allows students and teachers the latitude for judgment without dogmatism by inhabiting a practical and intellectual space called moral agonism.
Cosmopolitanism is grounded in the fact of shared humanity and recognizes what Arendt calls the human condition of plurality. From the individual, brimming with natality and moral possibility, to the collective embedding of culture, language, tradition, and religion, human plurality results in many moral forms and actions. In cosmopolitanism the search for understanding requires “a capacity for agonistic respect” wherein people to see themselves as actors within a larger group of actors, all of whom have the same right of participation. ‘Agonism’ comes from the Greek word agon—a contest in which excellence is sought. In Agonism one’s adversary is actually a partner in finding that excellence. The combination of agon with a cosmopolitan orientation to others and human moral plurality results in moral agonism.
In moral agonism the fact of moral pluralism precludes final, immutable answers to moral questions, but it does not preclude the possibility of civility. Moral agonism converts zero-sum competition of winners and losers into collaboration in which all participants ‘win’ when the presumptive excellence is found and shared. ‘Antagonism’ as conflict between enemies is converted into ‘agonism’ as conflict between adversaries and takes place within a political and moral relationship. Agonism is “in fact [democracy’s] very condition of existence,” by virtue of limitless plurality and possibility for dissent.
Whatever the process produces, however, is not final since pluralism necessarily frustrates the unreachable goal of final or permanent consensus. Any consensus reached through agonism is a temporary stabilization of power that “always entails exclusion.” Thus pluralism survives, ‘the political’ re-engages, and the domesticating services of ‘politics’ are engaged yet again. In moral agonism, a decision will “always be open to question and answer, demand and response, and negotiation.”
Deliberations in moral agonism take place in a context in which judgments can be made, but are understood as judgments ‘for now,’ subject to future alteration, and maintains the processes of democratic deliberation, collaboration, and contestation. Adversaries collaborate to contest each other’s ideas, enriching both the processes in deliberative morality and the outcomes produced. The need for constant engagement with each other is vital to social deliberation in morality and is ensured by both agonism and cosmopolitanism, which give action to the moral obligations of shared humanity.
Cosmopolitanism is grounded in the fact of shared humanity and recognizes what Arendt calls the human condition of plurality. From the individual, brimming with natality and moral possibility, to the collective embedding of culture, language, tradition, and religion, human plurality results in many moral forms and actions. In cosmopolitanism the search for understanding requires “a capacity for agonistic respect” wherein people to see themselves as actors within a larger group of actors, all of whom have the same right of participation. ‘Agonism’ comes from the Greek word agon—a contest in which excellence is sought. In Agonism one’s adversary is actually a partner in finding that excellence. The combination of agon with a cosmopolitan orientation to others and human moral plurality results in moral agonism.
In moral agonism the fact of moral pluralism precludes final, immutable answers to moral questions, but it does not preclude the possibility of civility. Moral agonism converts zero-sum competition of winners and losers into collaboration in which all participants ‘win’ when the presumptive excellence is found and shared. ‘Antagonism’ as conflict between enemies is converted into ‘agonism’ as conflict between adversaries and takes place within a political and moral relationship. Agonism is “in fact [democracy’s] very condition of existence,” by virtue of limitless plurality and possibility for dissent.
Whatever the process produces, however, is not final since pluralism necessarily frustrates the unreachable goal of final or permanent consensus. Any consensus reached through agonism is a temporary stabilization of power that “always entails exclusion.” Thus pluralism survives, ‘the political’ re-engages, and the domesticating services of ‘politics’ are engaged yet again. In moral agonism, a decision will “always be open to question and answer, demand and response, and negotiation.”
Deliberations in moral agonism take place in a context in which judgments can be made, but are understood as judgments ‘for now,’ subject to future alteration, and maintains the processes of democratic deliberation, collaboration, and contestation. Adversaries collaborate to contest each other’s ideas, enriching both the processes in deliberative morality and the outcomes produced. The need for constant engagement with each other is vital to social deliberation in morality and is ensured by both agonism and cosmopolitanism, which give action to the moral obligations of shared humanity.
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Despite the diversity of cosmopolitan philosophical thought, two constants remain: the significance of shared humanity and the idea that this fact should shape the way people live with each other, both of which lead to a philosophy that... more
Despite the diversity of cosmopolitan philosophical thought, two constants remain: the significance of shared humanity and the idea that this fact should shape the way people live with each other, both of which lead to a philosophy that is essentially a moral philosophy, and in education, to a moral education. However, the concept of ‘shared humanity’ has been the focus of many critiques of cosmopolitanism and may not be adequate on its own. What is ‘humanity,’ what does it mean to ‘share’ it, and what prescriptions follow, particularly in education? I will argue that Hannah Arendt’s conceptions of thinking and morality within the domains of the human conditions of plurality, natality, and action, offer cosmopolitan educators an improved grounding of their theoretical foundations. Cosmopolitan characteristics such as democratic inclusion, openness, and dynamic engagement emerge as embodiments of morality wherein the preservation of the human condition of natality is vital for not only moral thought, but the more important component of moral action, the necessarily public manifestation of which suggests that pluralistic and inclusive morality itself is a human condition. Further, shared humanity is conceptually static while plurality and natality are concepts that embody the creativity, fluidity, and unpredictability of lived lives. Arendt’s recognition of the complex synthesis of morality and politics in lived lives shows that plurality and natality provide a more significant and tenable position from which to embark on a cosmopolitan educational project than simply shared humanity and being a ‘citizen of the world.’
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The panel is centered around my recent article "What Do Philosophers of Education Do? An Empirical Study of Philosophy of Education Journals" and brings together the four managing editors of the journals in the study. The panelists will... more
The panel is centered around my recent article "What Do Philosophers of Education Do? An Empirical Study of Philosophy of Education Journals" and brings together the four managing editors of the journals in the study. The panelists will discuss the findings of the project, their reactions to these findings, and the implications for both publishing and research. If the article asks “What do philosophers of education do,” or rather, “What do philosophy of education journals publish?” then this panel hopes to answer the question “What do the managing editors of these journals do with the data they now have?” PES member scholars will be encouraged to ask these editors questions relevant to publishing decisions and the state of the field of philosophy of education.
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The use of assessments in schooling to evaluate the skills and learning of students has long been practiced, as has been the evaluation of teacher effectiveness in teaching. However, recent schooling reform movements have focused on the... more
The use of assessments in schooling to evaluate the skills and learning of students has long been practiced, as has been the evaluation of teacher effectiveness in teaching. However, recent schooling reform movements have focused on the use of the results of student assessments to evaluate teachers. I will begin with Randall Curren's work on 'constitutive luck' in student achievement, and apply it to teachers to show that if we seek fairness and justice for students, then we must do so for teachers, too. In this paper I will show not only that using the results of outcome assessments for evaluating teachers is ineffective and inaccurate, but that it also undermines the stated goals of its advocates. I conclude with alternative ideas for teacher evaluation.
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A common objection to moral education in schooling is that teacher-neutrality is both essential and impossible. This paper examines Nagel’s ‘view from nowhere’—his account of objectivity and subjectivity in morality—and then discusses... more
A common objection to moral education in schooling is that teacher-neutrality is both essential and impossible. This paper examines Nagel’s ‘view from nowhere’—his account of objectivity and subjectivity in morality—and then discusses impartiality and its role in justification for moral debate through the utilization of ‘epistemological restraint. When these are combined with ‘agonistic pluralism’ they form an approach to moral inquiry I call ‘moral agonism,’ which provides the space to confront moral questions that will not directly threaten the content of personal ideologies or beliefs nor indoctrinate students.
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Continued increases in the global intermingling of moral systems and perspectives in our daily lives create an imperative to forge new and better ways of discussing morality in educational contexts. Cosmopolitan education offers a way... more
Continued increases in the global intermingling of moral systems and perspectives in our daily lives create an imperative to forge new and better ways of discussing morality in educational contexts. Cosmopolitan education offers a way forward by recognizing that inquiring into morality with other people requires dynamic engagement and openness to inclusive, collaborative deliberation through which how we talk about morality is at least as important as what we determine morality to be. By prioritizing the inquiry into morality over moral belief and action, and by recognizing our shared humanity and social conditions of existence, cosmopolitan moral education utilizes processes described in discourse ethics and agonistic pluralism, inhabiting what I call moral agonism. Through moral agonism, cosmopolitan education becomes an inquiry into and about morality that is itself an embodiment of inclusive democratic and moral engagement that can produce moral dispositions.
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The accelerating pace of globalization places an imperative on formal schooling to figure out how to educate students for the rapidly changing world that today reaches even into the smallest towns and regions of our shared globe. This... more
The accelerating pace of globalization places an imperative on formal schooling to figure out how to educate students for the rapidly changing world that today reaches even into the smallest towns and regions of our shared globe. This project attempts to respond to that imperative by examining the moral component of schooling, and specifically, what might be the best way to provide moral education. I begin from a premise that prevalent existing moral education constructs fall short of this task because they consist of either pre-determined morals that students are expected to learn and adopt or they teach about morality systems without analyzing their merits, preventing the development of the important skill of judgment. In a world of significantly different cultures and ways of living, such forms of moral education are simply incapable of providing the kind of education in morality that can withstand and accommodate the diversity that exists and the new forms of life that are yet to come.
Cosmopolitan education, based in cosmopolitan philosophy, is posited as a possible answer to this question. Beginning with cosmopolitanism’s grounding in the principle of shared humanity I show how cosmopolitan education might offer a more mutually beneficial response to evolving global conditions. This project uses conceptual analysis to examine the concepts of an education in morality and Hannah Arendt’s work on natality, thinking, action, and the public space of politics to show that an education in morality is public and political. As a result, cosmopolitan education can use the processes found in Thomas Nagel’s epistemological restraint, Jürgen Habermas’s discourse ethics, and Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic pluralism to help students acquire a disposition that both promotes active and flexible engagement in moral inquiry, as well as in other educational experiences, and embraces plurality and diversity by recognizing the positive contribution that others can make in one’s life. Shared humanity emerges as a collective possession of what Arendt calls ‘the human condition,’ which is essentially a collection of the human conditions of plurality, natality, action, and one that I add, the condition of uncertainty. Through a cosmopolitan lens, these conditions frame the way political processes can be utilized in an education in morality to encourage the development of a disposition that I call ‘moral agonism,’ which equips students to inquire into and participate in the development of morality in the face of constantly evolving and uncertain conditions in the world.
Cosmopolitan education, based in cosmopolitan philosophy, is posited as a possible answer to this question. Beginning with cosmopolitanism’s grounding in the principle of shared humanity I show how cosmopolitan education might offer a more mutually beneficial response to evolving global conditions. This project uses conceptual analysis to examine the concepts of an education in morality and Hannah Arendt’s work on natality, thinking, action, and the public space of politics to show that an education in morality is public and political. As a result, cosmopolitan education can use the processes found in Thomas Nagel’s epistemological restraint, Jürgen Habermas’s discourse ethics, and Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic pluralism to help students acquire a disposition that both promotes active and flexible engagement in moral inquiry, as well as in other educational experiences, and embraces plurality and diversity by recognizing the positive contribution that others can make in one’s life. Shared humanity emerges as a collective possession of what Arendt calls ‘the human condition,’ which is essentially a collection of the human conditions of plurality, natality, action, and one that I add, the condition of uncertainty. Through a cosmopolitan lens, these conditions frame the way political processes can be utilized in an education in morality to encourage the development of a disposition that I call ‘moral agonism,’ which equips students to inquire into and participate in the development of morality in the face of constantly evolving and uncertain conditions in the world.
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A review of Peim, N. (2018). Thinking in Educational Research: Applying Philosophy and Theory. Bloomsbury Academic Press.
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A review of Aristotelian Character Education, Kristján Kristjánsson, 2015, New York, Routledge, 185 pp.
Research Interests:
Review of Osler, A. (2016). Human rights and schooling: An ethical framework for teaching for social justice, and Coysh, J. (2017). Human rights education and the politics of knowledge.