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202Anarchism, Utopias and Philosophy of EducationJournal of Philosophy of Education 35 (4): 627-646. 2001.This paper presents a discussion of some central ideas in anarchist thought, alongside an account of experiments in anarchist education. In the course of the discussion, I try to challenge certain preconceptions about anarchism, especially concerning the anarchist view of human nature. I address the questions of whether or not anarchism is utopian, what this means, and what implications these ideas may have for dominant paradigms in philosophy of education.
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193Tiger Mothers and Praise Junkies: Children, Praise and the Reactive AttitudesJournal of Philosophy of Education 47 (1): 1-19. 2013.In this article, I look at some discussions of praising children in contemporary parenting advice. In exploring what is problematic about these discussions, I turn to some philosophical work on moral praise and blame which, I argue, indicates the need for a more nuanced response to questions about the significance of praise. A further analysis of the moral aspects of praise suggests a significant dimension of the parent-child relationship that is missing from, and obscured by, the kind of parent…Read more
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196Lessons from a new science? On teaching happiness in schoolsJournal of Philosophy of Education 42 (3-4): 575-590. 2008.Recent media reports about new programmes for 'happiness lessons' in schools signal a welcome concern with children's well-being. However, as I shall argue, the presuppositions of the discourse in which many of these proposals are framed, and their orientation towards particular strands of positive psychology, involve ideas about human life that are, in an important sense, anti-educational.
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128Parents as ‘educators’: languages of education, pedagogy and ‘parenting’Ethics and Education 6 (2): 197-212. 2011.In this article, we explore to what extent parents should be ‘educators’ of their children. In the course of this exploration, we offer some examples of these practices and ways of speaking and thinking, indicate some of the problems and limitations they import into our understanding of the parent–child relationship, and make some tentative suggestions towards an alternative way of thinking about this relationship.
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128Shovelling smoke? The experience of being a philosopher on an educational research training programmeJournal of Philosophy of Education 40 (4). 2006.This paper is a reflective account of the experience of designing and teaching a philosophy module as part of a research training programme for students studying for research degrees in education. In the course of the discussion, I address various problems and questions to do with the relationship between philosophy and educational research, the nature of philosophy of education and the role of the foundational disciplines in educational research.
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106Borrelli, mill, Emily and meJournal of Philosophy of Education 38 (3). 2004.In this paper, I explore the insights suggested by Michele Borrelli's ‘The Utopianisation of Critique’ in the context of a real-life educational encounter that involves an attempt at being ‘critical’. Borrelli's observation that all positive utopian critique implies an inevitable degree of dogmatism takes on a new—and less depressing—significance when examined in the light of such an encounter. Acknowledging the tensions suggested by Borelli's analysis is, I argue, what makes a particular educat…Read more
