The Handbook of Philosophy of Education is a comprehensive guide to the most important questions about education that are being addressed by philosophers today. Authored by an international team of distinguished philosophers, its thirty-five chapters address fundamental, timely, and controversial questions about educational aims, justice, policy, and practices.
Part I (Fundamental Questions) addresses the aims of education, authority to educate, the roles of values and evidence in guiding educational choices, and fundamental questions about human cognition, learning, well-being, and identity. Part II (Virtues of Mind and Character) is concerned with the educational formation of personal attributes that are often seen as essential to flourishing individuals and societies. This section includes chapters on the cultivation of intellectual and character virtues, the nature and formation of expertise, Stoic virtues, and intellectual vices. Part III (Education and Justice) addresses fundamental and emerging issues of educational justice, from equal educational opportunity, racial domination, and linguistic justice in education, to educational problems of mass migration, global educational justice, the education of working children around the world, and the costs of higher education and upward mobility. Part IV (Educational Practices) addresses controversial aspects of contemporary education – pedagogical, curricular, and managerial practices – that deserve careful examination. These include controversies surrounding free speech and instruction in controversial issues; anti-racist, sustainability, and sex education; and the unfulfilled promises and demoralizing impact of high-stakes accountability schemes.
The format and jargon-free writing in this volume ensure that topics are interesting and accessible, helping facilitate the work of advanced students and professionals in Education.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Contributors
Introduction
Randall Curren
PART I: FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS
1. Education for a Challenging World
Philip Kitcher
2. Civic Learning for the 21st Century: Disentangling the "Thin" and "Thick" Elements of Civic Identity to Support Civic Education
Danielle Allen & David Kidd
3. Enabling Everyone to Live Well
Randall Curren
4. Mind, Reason, and Knowledge
David Bakhurst
5. Understanding as an Educational Objective
Catherine Z. Elgin
6. Values and Evidence in Educational Decision-Making
Harry Brighouse & Adam Swift
7. How Should Evidence Inform Educational Policy?
Kathryn E. Joyce & Nancy Cartwright
8. Who Should Make Decisions About Children’s Education?
Harry Brighouse & Adam Swift
9. Theorizing Educational Justice
Meira Levinson
PART II: VIRTUES OF MIND AND CHARACTER
10. Cultivating Intellectual Virtues
Duncan Pritchard
11. Intellectual Character Education: Some Lessons from Vice Epistemology
Heather Battaly
12. The Formation of Expertise
Ben Kotzee
13. Stoic Lessons for an Uncertain Future
Nancy Sherman
14. Character Education
Paul Watts & Kristján Kristjánsson
PART III: EDUCATION AND JUSTICE
15. Equal Educational Opportunity: What Should It Mean?
Gina Schouten
16. Non-Preparatory Dimensions of Educational Justice
Colin M. Macleod
17. Child Work and Education, a Global Perspective
Nico Brando
18. Educational Problems of Mass Migration
Danielle Zwarthoed
19. The Political Ethics of Bilingual Education
Daniel M. Weinstock
20. Global Democratic Educational Justice
Julian Culp
21. Neoliberalism and Education
Lawrence Blum
22. Racial Domination in Education
Quentin Wheeler-Bell
23. The Costs of Upward Mobility
Jennifer M. Morton
24. Who Should Pay for Higher Education? An Educational Aims Perspective
Christopher Martin
25. Toward a Post-Pandemic Higher Education System
Ariel C. Armony & Ann E. Cudd
PART IV: EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES
26. Free Speech and Education
Sigal Ben-Porath & Dustin Webster
27. Democratic Education and the Controversy over Controversial Issues
Johannes Drerup
28. College Teaching, Indoctrination, and Trust
Anthony Simon Laden
29. Climate, Science, and Sustainability Education
Matt Ferkany
30. Is ‘Sex Education’ an Intelligible Concept?
Lauren Bialystok
31. Racial Identity Formation and Antiracist Education
Winston C. Thompson
32. Discipline and Punishment in Schools
Bryan R. Warnick
33. Ability and Ability Grouping
Tammy Harel Ben Shahar
34. Malignant Accountability, False Promises, and the Future of Education
Yael Yuli Tamir
35. Burnout, Demoralization, and Racialized Failures to Recognize Teachers as Moral Subjects
Doris A. Santoro
Index
Biography
Randall Curren is Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Education at the University of Rochester, USA.
"This Handbook is a much-needed contribution to philosophy of education. The authors are top-rank philosophers and educators and, coming from ten countries, they provide a global account of the field. The chapters connect the core issues to twenty-first century social, political, cultural, and educational realities and debates, and are informed by the best current political, moral, and social philosophy, as well as contemporary philosophy of science and philosophy of mind."
Michael R. Matthews, University of New South Wales.
"This new handbook is a must have for academics, students and professionals in education. It is well balanced in every way: it addresses philosophical foundations and education practices and does so from various major philosophical paradigms; it is written by established academics and newcomers, who expertly address questions that have been drawing our attention for a long time and new educational challenges."
Doret de Ruyter, University of Humanistic Studies
"Randall Curren’s latest anthology continues his remarkable record of field-defining collections. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Education is chock-full of authoritative articles, written by a veritable Who’s Who of first-rate philosophers of education and general philosophers, on topics both perennial and contemporary. This volume will help define and advance the field in the coming decades."
Harvey Siegel, University of Miami
"This is a magisterial overview of the state of play in philosophy of education. The 35 essays Curren has commissioned from leading figures in the field offer incisive new treatments of foundational questions about the aims, distribution, content, and conduct of education. The volume is, moreover, the first of its kind to give centre stage to the burgeoning interest among philosophers of education in virtue ethics and virtue epistemology, and to the need for a global perspective on problems of educational justice. An indispensable collection."
Michael Hand, University of Birmingham
"This volume contains a set of brilliant essays by leading philosophers on fundamental questions about education. From freedom of speech issues on campus to the question of who should pay for college, to the role of parents in educational decisions concerning their children, this volume will stimulate discussion and provide new insights on a set of issues of importance to us all."
Debra Satz, Stanford University
