Emery J. Hyslop-Margison – författare

This book addresses a critically important question regarding human capital learning in our present neo-liberal schooling context: How can contemporary career education programs be integrated into public school curricula without impacting negatively on the liberal learning, intellectual autonomy, and democratic citizenship of students? To alleviate the enduring curriculum tension between liberal and vocational study, the book recommends adopting Aristotelian and Deweyan approaches to career education. While Aristotle offers a philosophy of education whose ultimate aim remains sensitive to the critical emphasis of liberal study, its content and practice must also address production objectives. Dewey was an ardent supporter of vocational education, but he rejected the social efficiency view that students should be prepared to meet the narrow human capital requirements of industry. He believed that vocational education must respect principles of democratic learning and broaden future occupational opportunities for students. Ultimately, this book suggests that the choice is not the traditional bifurcated one between liberal and vocational education, but between vocational education that is liberal and democratic, and that which is not.

Education for living or earning a living? To what degree should schooling be the same for all students? What is the critical part that school has to play as a core democratic institution in educating citizens who are ready to engage and commit themselves to the idea of social change and progress toward increased levels of social equality? The answers to these questions have preoccupied generations of philosophers, educational planners and prac- tioners. Recently, neo-liberal ideology has succeeded in focusing the answer on human capital preparation and instrumental learning as the panacea to the inequalities created by the present global economic order which serves the few at the expense of the many. Through a careful analysis of the historical evidence and based on ideas from progressivism, liberal education and critical theory. The authors reclaim career and vocational education for thick democracy. This definition of democracy has at its core social and economic equality. It means that students have the right to an education that will give them the tools needed to participate in creating the conditions of their career and vocational experience as future workers and citizens.

Education for living or earning a living? To what degree should schooling be the same for all students? What is the critical part that school has to play as a core democratic institution in educating citizens who are ready to engage and commit themselves to the idea of social change and progress toward increased levels of social equality? The answers to these questions have preoccupied generations of philosophers, educational planners and prac- tioners. Recently, neo-liberal ideology has succeeded in focusing the answer on human capital preparation and instrumental learning as the panacea to the inequalities created by the present global economic order which serves the few at the expense of the many. Through a careful analysis of the historical evidence and based on ideas from progressivism, liberal education and critical theory. The authors reclaim career and vocational education for thick democracy. This definition of democracy has at its core social and economic equality. It means that students have the right to an education that will give them the tools needed to participate in creating the conditions of their career and vocational experience as future workers and citizens.

We presently live in an era dominated by scientism, an ideology that believes that science (and its rationalist foundation in modern epistemology) has an undeniable primacy over all other ways of seeing and understanding life and the world, including more humanistic, mythical, spiritual, and artistic interpretations. In being critical of scientism as I am, I am not against science per se: modern science and its ways of understanding and knowing the world are valuable, and we should be grateful for them. But it is the hegemony of the habits of mind that manifest pervasively in education that privilege science education, career, and research over other modes and branches of learning and knowing that I have problems with. I have too often witnessed parents overtly or subtly discouraging their children from following artistic or humanistic aspirations and pushing them for training and careers in Science, Math, Business, and Technology. In this society we say in a thousand and one ways that money, security, power, and ultimately fulfillment reside in these disciplines and not in the Arts, Humanities, and Philosophy. We valorize scientists, and even when they speak on subjects outside their domain of expertise, we take their opinions and pronouncements as definitively authoritative. When Science speaks, people listen. This hegemonic attitude towards Science and other subjects that require the exercise of our rational and intellectual faculty is reflected in educational research as well.

We presently live in an era dominated by scientism, an ideology that believes that science (and its rationalist foundation in modern epistemology) has an undeniable primacy over all other ways of seeing and understanding life and the world, including more humanistic, mythical, spiritual, and artistic interpretations. In being critical of scientism as I am, I am not against science per se: modern science and its ways of understanding and knowing the world are valuable, and we should be grateful for them. But it is the hegemony of the habits of mind that manifest pervasively in education that privilege science education, career, and research over other modes and branches of learning and knowing that I have problems with. I have too often witnessed parents overtly or subtly discouraging their children from following artistic or humanistic aspirations and pushing them for training and careers in Science, Math, Business, and Technology. In this society we say in a thousand and one ways that money, security, power, and ultimately fulfillment reside in these disciplines and not in the Arts, Humanities, and Philosophy. We valorize scientists, and even when they speak on subjects outside their domain of expertise, we take their opinions and pronouncements as definitively authoritative. When Science speaks, people listen. This hegemonic attitude towards Science and other subjects that require the exercise of our rational and intellectual faculty is reflected in educational research as well.

Education for living or earning a living? To what degree should schooling be the same for all students? What is the critical part that school has to play as a core democratic institution in educating citizens who are ready to engage and commit themselves to the idea of social change and progress toward increased levels of social equality? The answers to these questions have preoccupied generations of philosophers, educational planners and prac- tioners. Recently, neo-liberal ideology has succeeded in focusing the answer on human capital preparation and instrumental learning as the panacea to the inequalities created by the present global economic order which serves the few at the expense of the many. Through a careful analysis of the historical evidence and based on ideas from progressivism, liberal education and critical theory. The authors reclaim career and vocational education for thick democracy. This definition of democracy has at its core social and economic equality. It means that students have the right to an education that will give them the tools needed to participate in creating the conditions of their career and vocational experience as future workers and citizens.

We presently live in an era dominated by scientism, an ideology that believes that science (and its rationalist foundation in modern epistemology) has an undeniable primacy over all other ways of seeing and understanding life and the world, including more humanistic, mythical, spiritual, and artistic interpretations. In being critical of scientism as I am, I am not against science per se: modern science and its ways of understanding and knowing the world are valuable, and we should be grateful for them. But it is the hegemony of the habits of mind that manifest pervasively in education that privilege science education, career, and research over other modes and branches of learning and knowing that I have problems with. I have too often witnessed parents overtly or subtly discouraging their children from following artistic or humanistic aspirations and pushing them for training and careers in Science, Math, Business, and Technology. In this society we say in a thousand and one ways that money, security, power, and ultimately fulfillment reside in these disciplines and not in the Arts, Humanities, and Philosophy. We valorize scientists, and even when they speak on subjects outside their domain of expertise, we take their opinions and pronouncements as definitively authoritative. When Science speaks, people listen. This hegemonic attitude towards Science and other subjects that require the exercise of our rational and intellectual faculty is reflected in educational research as well.

The primary mission of this text is clarifying many of the misconceptions about Paulo Freire’s theories, concepts and his implications for education. It revisits his ideas and explains more fully the philosophical influences that shaped concepts such as problem posing, conscientization and praxis.The fundamental thesis, then, is that the present absence of in-depth philosophical analysis leaves an unacceptable void in the literature addressing Freire’s work, while also promoting frequent misconceptions and superficial understandings about his relationship to contemporary education. Indeed, the philosophical assumptions contributing to Freire’s critical pedagogy require identification, unravelling and ultimately evaluation on the basis of their epistemic and moral tenability. Most existing applications of Freire’s pedagogy are unfortunately superficial because they simply sloganize terms such as banking education, conscientization, praxis, and humanization. A slogan in education popularizes a concept or idea in a positive way, but offers very little in terms of critical reflection or analysis. In order to understand these terms and their origin and apply them as Freire intended, a far richer and more in depth examination of Freire is desperately needed. This text will provide precisely that type of examination.

The primary mission of this text is clarifying many of the misconceptions about Paulo Freire’s theories, concepts and his implications for education. It revisits his ideas and explains more fully the philosophical influences that shaped concepts such as problem posing, conscientization and praxis.The fundamental thesis, then, is that the present absence of in-depth philosophical analysis leaves an unacceptable void in the literature addressing Freire’s work, while also promoting frequent misconceptions and superficial understandings about his relationship to contemporary education. Indeed, the philosophical assumptions contributing to Freire’s critical pedagogy require identification, unravelling and ultimately evaluation on the basis of their epistemic and moral tenability. Most existing applications of Freire’s pedagogy are unfortunately superficial because they simply sloganize terms such as banking education, conscientization, praxis, and humanization. A slogan in education popularizes a concept or idea in a positive way, but offers very little in terms of critical reflection or analysis. In order to understand these terms and their origin and apply them as Freire intended, a far richer and more in depth examination of Freire is desperately needed. This text will provide precisely that type of examination.

As we move forward well into the 21st century most citizens around the globe seemingly accept the rudiments of a democratic citizenship. And yet in spite of this broad acceptance, a clear articulation of what democratic citizenship entails remains somewhat elusive. In this book, Hyslop-Margison and Thayer achieve two critically important objectives in response to this problem. First, they successfully articulate the threat to democracy posed by current citizenship education programs that adopt a largely instrumental framework fostering passivity and compliance by protecting the established parameters of neo-liberal social design. Second, they show a way out of this anti-democratic trap by illustrating how critical theory, with its marvelous ability to provide trenchant critiques of capitalism and turn those critiques into concrete political action, provides the ideal pedagogical approach to educate our students effectively as future democratic citizens. The authors critique the conditions of modern democratic citizenship and distinguish a robust, or thick, version of citizenship based on citizen agency and participation in the construction of social reality from contemporary models that undermine citizen engagement. They contend that it is only through critical theory and the political agency it inspires that meaningful democratic change can and must occur. Hence, the role of education in their view is not merely to prepare students for a new economic reality, but to prepare them instead to shape that reality in more progressive and socially just ways. This book eloquently argues that the citizenship mission of schools ought to teach students what is possible rather than simply objectifying them as human capital being prepared for the inevitable impact of the policies determined by others.

The primary mission of this text is clarifying many of the misconceptions about Paulo Freire’s theories, concepts and his implications for education. It revisits his ideas and explains more fully the philosophical influences that shaped concepts such as problem posing, conscientization and praxis.The fundamental thesis, then, is that the present absence of in-depth philosophical analysis leaves an unacceptable void in the literature addressing Freire’s work, while also promoting frequent misconceptions and superficial understandings about his relationship to contemporary education. Indeed, the philosophical assumptions contributing to Freire’s critical pedagogy require identification, unravelling and ultimately evaluation on the basis of their epistemic and moral tenability. Most existing applications of Freire’s pedagogy are unfortunately superficial because they simply sloganize terms such as banking education, conscientization, praxis, and humanization. A slogan in education popularizes a concept or idea in a positive way, but offers very little in terms of critical reflection or analysis. In order to understand these terms and their origin and apply them as Freire intended, a far richer and more in depth examination of Freire is desperately needed. This text will provide precisely that type of examination.