Full Description
What should the relationship between school and society be? Obstinate Education: Reconnecting School and Society argues that education is not just there to give individuals, groups and societies what they want from it, but that education has a duty to resist. Education needs to be obstinate, not for the sake of being difficult, but in order to make sure that it can contribute to emancipation and democratisation. This requires that education always brings in the question whether what is desired from it is going to help with living life well, individually and collectively, on a planet that has a limited capacity for giving everything that is desired from it.
This book argues that education should not just be responsive but should keep its own responsibility; should not just focus on empowerment but also on emancipation; and, through this, should help students to become 'world-wise.' It argues that critical thinking and classroom philosophy should retain a political orientation and not be reduced to useful thinking skills, and shows the importance of hesitation in educational relationships. This text makes a strong case for the connection between education and democracy, both in the context of schools, colleges and universities and in the work of public pedagogy.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Note on the Author
Introduction: The Duty to Resist
1 Responsive or Responsible? Democratic Education for the Global Networked Society
Introduction
The Global Networked Society: Fact or Fiction?
Education for the Global Networked Society: Responsive or Responsible?
Democratic Education for the Global Networked Society?
Conclusion
2 How General Can Bildung Be? Reflections on the Future of a Modern Educational Ideal
Introduction
A Brief History of Bildung
Bildung Lost, Bildung Regained
How General Can Bildung Be?
The Epistemological Interpretation: The General as the Universal
The Interpretation from the Sociology of Knowledge: The General as a Social Construction
A Critical Theory of Bildung and Critical Pedagogy
The Network Approach: The General as the Asymmetrical Expansion of the Local
Concluding Remarks
3 Becoming World-Wise: An Educational Perspective on the Rhetorical Curriculum
Introduction
Education, Paideia and Bildung
Becoming 'Symbol-Wise' or Becoming 'World-Wise'?
Empowerment or Emancipation?
The Challenge
4 Critical Thinking and the Question of Critique: Some Lessons from Deconstruction
Philosophy, Critique, and Modern Education
Critical Thinking and the Question of Critique
Critical Dogmatism
Transcendental Critique
Deconstruction
From Critique to Deconstruction
Conclusion
5 Philosophy, Exposure, and Children: How to Resist the Instrumentalisation of Philosophy in Education
What Might Philosophy Achieve?
Philosophical Enquiry or Scientific Enquiry?
A Performative Contradiction
The Trouble with Humanism, Particularly in Education
A Post-Humanist Theory of Education: Action, Uniqueness and Exposure
Conclusion: A Different Philosophy for Different Children
6 No Education without Hesitation: Exploring the Limits of Educational Relations
Introduction
The Multiple Meanings of 'Education'
'Mind the Gap!'
'Being Addressed'
'You Must Change Your Life'
Concluding Remarks
7 Transclusion: Overcoming the Tension between Inclusion and Exclusion in the Discourse on Democracy and Democratisation
Introduction
Inclusion and Democracy
Making Democracy More Inclusive: The Deliberative Turn
Entry Conditions and Democratic Exclusions
Overcoming Internal Exclusion: Making Democracy More Welcoming
Can Democracy Reach as State of Total Inclusions? And Should It?
From Democracy to Democratisation
Discussion: Marking the Difference between Inclusion and Transclusion
8 Education and Democracy Revisited: Dewey's Democratic Deficit
Introduction
Connecting Democracy and Education: The Moral Argument
Education as Bildung
From the Ethics of Democracy to Democracy and Education
A Democratic Deficit?
From Absolutism to Experimentalism
Overcoming the 'Crisis in Culture'
Concluding Comments: The Missing Link Revisited
9 Making Pedagogy Public: For the Public, of the Public, or in the Interest of Publicness?
Introduction
The Decline of the Public Sphere
Arendt on Action, Plurality, and Freedom
"The Space Where Freedom Can Appear"
For the Public, of the Public, or in the Interest of Publicness?
Conclusion
Conclusion: Looking Back and Looking Forward
Appendix: From Experimentalism to Existentialism: Writing in the Margins of Philosophy of Education
References
Index
