Better Worlds

Peter Roberts is professor of Education at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He teaches philosophy of education and educational policy studies. John Freeman-Moir is senior lecturer in the College of Education at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, where he teaches utopian social theory, sociology of education, and philosophy of education.

Roberts and Freeman-Moir (both, Univ. of Canterbury, New Zealand) resist the typical notion of utopia as a perfect world. Their central claim is that utopia is a space in which to imagine better worlds. In chapter 1, the authors provide the reader with a substantial foundation from which to understand their central claim and provide examples within education and educational policy to further understand why utopia is important. Subsequent chapters provide examples in art, literature, and, more broadly, aesthetics in order to demonstrate how the notion of utopia can be understood as an important quest for the possible as opposed to the perfect when considering education and policy. A strength of the book is the wide range of examples used to develop the ideas presented. For instance, the authors use works of fiction (e.g., books by Hermann Hesse and Fyodor Dostoevsky), as well as authors often considered more "academic" (e.g., Iris Murdoch and Paulo Freire) to explain the range of possibilities in their claims about utopia. These entry points and various examples are helpful to the reader less familiar with the ideas and provide multiple opportunities to imagine how utopia could lead to the construction of better worlds. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers, upper-division undergraduate students, graduate students, research faculty.

• Introduction: Utopia, Dystopia, and EducationChapter 1: Crafting Experience: William Morris, John Dewey, and UtopiaChapter 2: Art for Dishonour, Utopian Inflection, Sympathy’s EducationChapter 3: Utopia, Dystopia, and the Struggle for Redemption: Iris Murdoch and Educative AttentionChapter 4: Pictures and Particularities: The Uncertain Creativity of ActionChapter 5: Education and the Dream of a Better World: The Pedagogy of Paulo FreireChapter 6: A Golden Age? Dostoevsky, Taoism, and UtopiaChapter 7: Technology, Utopia, and Scholarly Life: Ideals and Realities in the Work of Hermann Hesse