Educational Futures – serie

Teaching, Responsibility, and the Corruption of Youth explores the concept and practice of responsibility in education and teaching in the new post-Cold War era after the long run of globalization and liberal internationalism has been disrupted by the rise of populism, anti-immigration sentiments and new forms of terrorism. The old liberal values and forms of tolerance have been questioned. Responsibility is a complex concept in our lives with moral, social, financial and political aspects. It embraces both legal and moral forms, and refers to the state of being accountable or answerable for one’s actions implying a sense of obligation associated with being in a position of authority such as a parent, teacher or guardian having authority over children. First used with schools in 1855, the concept's legal meaning was only tested in the 1960s when student conduct, especially when materially affecting the rights of other students, was not considered immune by constitutional guarantees of freedom.This volume investigates the questions left with us today: What does responsibility mean in the present era? Does loco parentis still hold? What of the rights of students? In what does teacher responsibility consist? Can student autonomy be reconciled with market accountability? To what extent can responsibility of or for students be linked to ‘care of the self’ and ‘care for others’? And, most importantly, to what extent, if any, can teachers be held accountable for the actions of their students?

What should the relationship between school and society be? Obstinate Education: Reconnecting School and Society argues that education is not just there to give individuals, groups and societies what they want from it, but that education has a duty to resist. Education needs to be obstinate, not for the sake of being difficult, but in order to make sure that it can contribute to emancipation and democratisation. This requires that education always brings in the question whether what is desired from it is going to help with living life well, individually and collectively, on a planet that has a limited capacity for giving everything that is desired from it. This book argues that education should not just be responsive but should keep its own responsibility; should not just focus on empowerment but also on emancipation; and, through this, should help students to become ‘world-wise.’ It argues that critical thinking and classroom philosophy should retain a political orientation and not be reduced to useful thinking skills, and shows the importance of hesitation in educational relationships. This text makes a strong case for the connection between education and democracy, both in the context of schools, colleges and universities and in the work of public pedagogy.

Since the first literature about the Threshold Concepts Framework was published in 2003, a considerable body of educational research into this topic has grown internationally across a wide range of disciplines and professional fields. Successful negotiation of a threshold concept can be seen as crossing boundaries into new conceptual space, or as a portal opening up new and previously inaccessible ways of thinking about something. In this unfamiliar conceptual terrain, fresh insights and perceptions come into view, and access is gained to new discourses. This frequently entails encounters with ‘troublesome knowledge’, knowledge which provokes a liminal phase of transition in which new understandings must be integrated and, importantly, prior conceptions relinquished. There is often double trouble, in that letting go of a prevailing familiar view frequently involves a discomfiting change in the subjectivity of the learner. We become what we know. It is a space in which the learner might become ‘stuck’.Threshold Concepts on the Edge, the fifth volume in a series on this subject, discusses the new directions of this research. Its six sections address issues that arise in relation to theoretical development, liminal space, ontological transformations, curriculum, interdisciplinarity and aspects of writing across learning thresholds.

Since the first literature about the Threshold Concepts Framework was published in 2003, a considerable body of educational research into this topic has grown internationally across a wide range of disciplines and professional fields. Successful negotiation of a threshold concept can be seen as crossing boundaries into new conceptual space, or as a portal opening up new and previously inaccessible ways of thinking about something. In this unfamiliar conceptual terrain, fresh insights and perceptions come into view, and access is gained to new discourses. This frequently entails encounters with ‘troublesome knowledge’, knowledge which provokes a liminal phase of transition in which new understandings must be integrated and, importantly, prior conceptions relinquished. There is often double trouble, in that letting go of a prevailing familiar view frequently involves a discomfiting change in the subjectivity of the learner. We become what we know. It is a space in which the learner might become ‘stuck’.Threshold Concepts on the Edge, the fifth volume in a series on this subject, discusses the new directions of this research. Its six sections address issues that arise in relation to theoretical development, liminal space, ontological transformations, curriculum, interdisciplinarity and aspects of writing across learning thresholds.

Inspired by the writings of Michel Foucault, Olssen’s writings traverse philosophy, politics, education, and epistemology. This book comprises a selection of his papers published in academic journals and books over twenty-five years. Taken as a whole, the papers represent a redirection of the core axioms and directions of western ontology and philosophy in relation to how history, the subject, and education are theorised within the western philosophical tradition. Olssen’s writings not only contain a powerful critique and revision of western liberalism from a poststructuralist perspective, they both explicate and extend Michel Foucault’s challenge to the core axioms and assumptions underpinning western thought. As Stephen Ball suggests in his Foreword to this volume, “Olssen uses Foucault to explore issues… Olssen’s Foucault is not a lonely nihilist but a troubled provocateur who encourages in us toward the political project of self-formation – our relation to ourselves and always, to others."

This is an important book on the value of art education and the nature of having the affective dimension at the core of the visual art learning environment. The case studies are powerful and varied providing an unapologetic view of the transformative impact such learning environments can have upon students and the epistemic value of engagement in the visual arts. Moreover, the case studies speak to an emotional level of the reader. The author provides a digestible theoretical support for understanding the journey these students have undergone which can empower educators to rethink their existing pedagogy.

This is an important book on the value of art education and the nature of having the affective dimension at the core of the visual art learning environment. The case studies are powerful and varied providing an unapologetic view of the transformative impact such learning environments can have upon students and the epistemic value of engagement in the visual arts. Moreover, the case studies speak to an emotional level of the reader. The author provides a digestible theoretical support for understanding the journey these students have undergone which can empower educators to rethink their existing pedagogy.

This book provides a distinctive perspective on some of the ways in which performativity, as an expression of neoliberal and managerialist thinking, ‘works’ in specific policy contexts. It pays particular attention to higher education and considers how the logic of performativity reconfigures our sense of what it means to engage in worthwhile research, what it means to be ‘well’, and, ultimately, what it means to be human.Philosophy of education, conceived not just as a domain of scholarly activity but as a way of life, rubs against the grain of performativity. In a performance-driven world, efficiency, measurability and predictability are all important. A philosophical life in education is often unpredictable, uncertain and ‘inefficient’; it creates a kind of intellectual restlessness that can never be fully satisfied.Performativity, Politics and Education: From Policy to Philosophy suggests that the current obsession with productivity, performance and prosperity is misguided. It argues that policies and practices underpinned by the principle of performativity are dehumanising and offers an alternative approach: an orientation to education grounded in a philosophy of hope and underpinned by a commitment to collegiality, constructive critique and ongoing dialogue.

In the twenty years since Ray Land and Erik Meyer published their first paper on Threshold Concepts, there has been a steady stream of papers mulling over their original suggestions that learning, far from proceeding in an orderly fashion, is instead a process of struggle – perhaps alienation and confusion – that puts students in a troublesome liminal ‘in-between’ state. As their understanding develops, liminality gives way to transformational insight whereby a whole field of study comes, often quite abruptly, into focus. There is a gain but often also a loss: in this new world, old certainties, assumptions and even aspects of our identity can be left by the wayside. Threshold Concepts in the Moment is the sixth collection in the series on the subject of Threshold Concepts, following the 8th Biennial Conference held in 2021, anchored at London’s UCL but running online across the world. Its contributors, who range from ‘old hands’ to new members of the community finding their feet, mull over the insights of the threshold concepts framework in higher education, scrutinise their own fields of study, explore the implications of liminality for pedagogy and becoming professional practitioners, and consider the broad implications for pedagogy of factoring in the troublesomeness of knowledge and learning.