Towards a Posthuman Theory of Educational Relationality critically reads the intersubjective theories on educational relations and uses a posthuman approach to ascribe agency relationally to humans and nonhumans alike. The book introduces the concept of ‘educational relationality’ and contains examples of nonhuman elements of technology and animals, putting educational relationality and other concepts into context as part of the philosophical investigation. Drawing on educational and posthuman theorists, it answers questions raised in ongoing debates regarding the roles of students and teachers in education, such as the foundations of educational relations and how these can be challenged.
The book explores educational relations within the field of philosophy of education. After critically examining intersubjective approaches to theories of educational relations, anthropocentrism and subject-centrism are localized as two problematic aspects. Post-anthropocentrism and intra-relationality are proposed as a theoretical framework, before the book introduces and develops a posthuman theory of educational relations. The analysis is executed through a diffractive reading of intersubjective theories, resulting in five co-concepts: impermanence, uniqueness-as-relationality, proximity, edu-activity, and intelligibility. The analysis provided through educational examples demonstrates the potential of using the proposed theory in everyday practices.
Towards a Posthuman Theory of Educational Relationality will be of great interest to researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of philosophy of education, early childhood education, research methodology and curriculum studies.
PART I: Beginnings CHAPTER 1. Towards a Theory of Educational Relations CHAPTER 2. Haunting Humanism CHAPTER 3. Framing Posthumanism CHAPTER 4. Creating Diffractive Patterns PART II: Diffractions CHAPTER 5. Relationality CHAPTER 6. Education PART III: Examples CHAPTER 7. Literacy Dogs CHAPTER 8. Augmented Reality Technology CONCLUSION. Towards New Beginnings
Biography
Simon Ceder is lecturer in Education at Konstfack, University of Arts, Crafts and Design, and co-founder of the Swedish think tank 'Relationsinstitutet'.
"At a time when dominant western philosophy is being increasingly challenged for its narrow focus, Ceder furnishes us with an exciting and robust discussion on how other-than-human phenomena come to bear on education. This book is a timely addition to a growing theme that seeks to explain education in ways other than as simply a teacher-student relationship. I for one look forward to referring to Ceder’s book for my own research and teaching."
Dr Carl Mika, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Waikato.
