Jan Masschelein | KU Leuven (original) (raw)
Papers by Jan Masschelein
During the last years, MOOCs (massive open online courses) are part of the most discussed develop... more During the last years, MOOCs (massive open online courses) are part of the most discussed developments in educational technology. MOOCs swept the landscape of educational technology in no time. However, through all this enthusiasm , it is difficult to see the contribution of MOOCs to computer-based education. Even though there is a surge in MOOCs as well as in MOOC-research, it is unclear how an effective MOOC-pedagogy can be developed. What is this MOOC-phe-nomenon? And how can we, as educators, teachers, pedagogues, educational researchers, develop MOOC-pedagogy? In the first part of this paper, we'll start with an overview of the MOOC-phenomenon. In the second part, we'll discuss the implicit philosophical attitudes towards educational technology that underlies much of the MOOC-debates. We then argue that, rather than a theoretically grounded approach to educational technology, common sense attitudes of essentialism and instrumentalism prevail. In the last part of the paper, we suggest to concentrate on the educational design of technology and on the development of practices of study necessary to deal with technology, in order to develop a meaningful educational practice.
The essays in this collection address the relation between education and politics in new ways. Ra... more The essays in this collection address the relation between education and politics in new ways. Rather than understanding education simply as the object of political decision-making, or as preparation for politics, the authors of this volume see education as implicated in social conflicts and in the political processes that produce and change social structures. Education, then, is a practice that reconfigures the relations between subjectivities and the political. The collection focuses on several critical cases and theoretical debates where the relation between education and politics demands new articulations. It explores the potential of theoretical languages proposed by Rancière, Laclau, Derrida, Mouffe, Bakhtin, and other thinkers whose work has not yet been fully recognized in its pedagogical meaning.
Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 2011
Foucauldian research, as it is currently practised, is generally unwilling to offer a vision of a... more Foucauldian research, as it is currently practised, is generally unwilling to offer a vision of alternative futures. This article examines the recent work (2007 and 2009) of Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons which appears to be an exception. They offer a critique of contemporary trends in higher education and propose an alternative model: the ‘world university’. However, as I argue, their scheme for a world university is of limited use in its current form precisely because it is an anti-utopian recommendation. This reflects a deep suspicion of utopian thought that is typical of Foucauldian research. After examining the reasons for Foucault’s aversion to openly normative, futuristic thought, I suggest that the making of anti-utopian proposals can only lead a Foucauldian analysis into paradox. It seems that those who adopt a Foucauldian approach must either remain silent when it comes to the future, or they must adapt their use of Foucault to embrace a substantial utopian dimension.
Based on some texts by Rancière, this paper tries to elaborate a difference between pedagogy and ... more Based on some texts by Rancière, this paper tries to elaborate a difference between pedagogy and the pedagogical. Such a difference implies a distinction between the pupil/student and 'childhood' where childhood would designate the void separating the pupil from herself. This void can be understood as power and ex-position. Exposition includes the charge to respond, which is an invitation to get oneself going. Pedagogy can thus be defined as a travel leading to a dis-charge, or the oblivion of the charge. In contrast, the pedagogical space opens up with the interruption of pedagogy and the manifestation of childhood. Only in this space may the 'mas ter' appear and appear as the one who, in a certain sense, keeps the individual into her childhood, putting his own childhood at stake.
Ethics and Education, 2010
We walk, not in order to arrive at a promised land, but because walking itself is the revolution ... more We walk, not in order to arrive at a promised land, but because walking itself is the revolution (Subcommandante Marcos) [For Foucault] to think always meant to think about the limits of a situation. But it also meant to see (Deleuze) I. Gllr-Ze 'ev, The Possibility/Impossibility ofa New Critical Language in Education, 275-291.
Studies in Philosophy and Education, 1996
It is commonly supposed that acting and judging ought to rest on a community-wide, binding defini... more It is commonly supposed that acting and judging ought to rest on a community-wide, binding definition of what is right and respectable, that is, a substantial consensus. Such consensus is thought possible only when we engage shared values and criteria, when we use knowledge and abilities appropriated through education. On this view, education deals with the reproduction of consensus and, hence, with the passing on of traditions and norms. On my view, we need to question the framework in which the debate over social erosion takes place. I take a cue from remarks of Hannah Arendt and question the presupposition that acting and judging in a right way requires both common values and the appropriation of what we call ‘knowledge’ of criteria and principles. I do not suggest that ‘knowledge’ has nothing to do with acting and judging. Rather, I wish to draw attention to (Arendt's concept of) thinking as a condition for acting and judging. Here, thinking has nothing to do with knowledge or with appropriation. Rather, it has to do with living-together with somebody. Educa-tion for thinking is, then, a ‘public thinking’ which leads out of the serf and into communal responsibility. On this treatment, the educator is to be a ‘faithful guardian’ of this calling out into responsibility.
Studies in Philosophy and Education, 2011
Inspired by Hannah Arendt, this contribution offers an exercise of thought as an attempt to disti... more Inspired by Hannah Arendt, this contribution offers an exercise of thought as an attempt to distil anew the original spirit of what education means. It tries to articulate the event or happening that the word names, the experiences in which this happening manifests itself and the (material) forms that constitute it or make it find/take (its) place. Starting from the meaning of scholè as ‘free time’ or ‘undestined and unfinished time’ it further explores scholè as the time of attention which is the time of the regard for the world, of being present to it (or being in its presence), attending it, a time of delivery to the experience of the world, of exposure and effacing social subjectivities and orientations, a time filled with encounters. Education, then, relates to forms of profanation, suspension and attention and can be articulated as the art (the doing) and technology that makes scholè happen.
Interchange, 1998
The ambiguous meaning of the concept of life is considered by recalling along with Hannah Arendt ... more The ambiguous meaning of the concept of life is considered by recalling along with Hannah Arendt the old distinction between zoé and bios. Life as bios is the life of someone and always intrinsically relational and worldly, thus bound to the existence of a world. The first question for life as bios being not happiness, but meaning. Life as zoé, as bare life — sacred to the credo of our time and constituting the silent premise underlying much social theory and philosophy — in turn must be defended in its own name and for the sake of happiness against everything that is durable and limits its growth and fertility and therefore it includes deafness to the question of meaning and destruction of the world, that is, of the conditions of human existence as bios. In order to help the preservation of a human life, the question of meaning has to be heard and the world has to be taken seriously. Accordingly, education should not so much orient itself towards the acquisition of the value of (bare) life, but above all help to avoid the time and space in which the question of meaning arises be occupied.
The feature films of the Belgian directors the Dardenne brothers are one of the most lauded bodie... more The feature films of the Belgian directors the Dardenne brothers are one of the most lauded bodies of work in contemporary world cinema (They have twice won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival). Their films can be seen as educational cinema in a number of ways. On one hand, they investigate in an intriguing way the contemporary reality of education and, more particularly, the actual relationship between adolescents and adults. Their films can be seen as empirical philosophical studies that ask questions of essential educational situations and matters: What does it mean to be a child, an adult, a father, a son, a mother, a daughter, a teacher, a schoolmaster, a pupil? What does it mean, not in general, but in the concrete (and sometimes extreme) situations and conditions that society presents today? (See Masschelein 2011, in press).
The aim of this chapter is to reconsider the concepts ‘educationalization’ and ‘the grammar of sc... more The aim of this chapter is to reconsider the concepts ‘educationalization’ and ‘the grammar of schooling’ (see also Depaepe, 2005) in the light of the overwhelming importance that is ascribed to ‘learning‘ today. Indeed, the word ‘learning’ has come to be indispensable for speaking about ourselves, others and society. A whole range of human activities, from childrearing, having sex, eating or communication to travelling and using free time, being a citizen and an employee, are regarded as competence based. It is therefore felt that they require a prior learning process.
Ethische Perspectieven, 2007
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2010
The article presents an introduction to the Special Issue on the French philosopher Jacques Ranci... more The article presents an introduction to the Special Issue on the French philosopher Jacques Rancière who raises a provocative voice in the current public debate on democracy, equality and education. Instead of merely criticizing current practices and discourses, the attractiveness of Rancière's work is that he does try to formulate in a positive way what democracy is about, how equality can be a pedagogic or educational (instead of policy) concern, and what the public and democratic role of education is. His work opens up a space to rethink and to study, as well as to ‘re-practice’, what democracy and equality in education are about. He questions the current neutralisation of politics that is motivated by a hatred of democracy. This questioning is for Rancière also a struggle over words. Against the old philosophical dream of defining the meaning of words, Rancière underlines the need for the struggle over their meaning. The aim of the article is to clarify how and why education, equality, and democracy are a major concern throughout his work and to offer an introduction to the articles collected in the Special Issue.
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2010
This article takes up a text that Rancière published shortly after The Ignorant School Master app... more This article takes up a text that Rancière published shortly after The Ignorant School Master appeared in French, ‘École, production, égalité’[School, Production, Equality] (1988), in which he sketched the school as being preeminently the place of equality. In this vein, and opposed to the story of the school as the place where inequality is reproduced and therefore in need of reform, the article wants to recount the story of the school as the invention of a site of equality and as primordially a public space. Inspired by Rancière, we indicate first how the actual (international and national) policy story about the school and the organizational technologies that accompany it install and legitimate profound inequalities, which consequently can no longer be questioned (and become ‘invisible’). Second, the article recasts and rethinks different manifestations of equality and of ‘public-ness’ in school education and, finally, indicates various ways in which these manifestations are neutralized or immunized in actual discourses and educational technologies.
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2010
Starting from a Foucaultian perspective, the article draws attention to current developments that... more Starting from a Foucaultian perspective, the article draws attention to current developments that neutralise democracy through the ‘governmentalisation of democracy’ and processes of ‘governmental subjectivation’. Here, ideas of Rancière are introduced in order to clarify how democracy takes place through the paradoxical process of ‘political subjectivation’, that is, a disengagement with governmental subjectivation through the verification of one's equality in demonstrating a wrong. We will argue that democracy takes place through the paradoxical process of political subjectivation, and that today's consensus society tends to depoliticize all processes of subjectivation. A final step in the argumentation is to introduce the concept of ‘pedagogic subjectivation’—to be understood as the experience of potentiality—that is to be distinguished from governmental subjectivation and also from political subjectivation. The concept ‘pedagogic subjectivation’ is proposed as a way of thinking of the school as a public place.
International Journal of Inclusive Education, 2011
One of the core characteristics of inclusionary discourses and practices is their emphasis on liv... more One of the core characteristics of inclusionary discourses and practices is their emphasis on living in the presence of others. Despite this self-evident character, the question of what is understood by living in the presence of others only sporadically has been the object of critical inquiry. By turning ourselves towards Stengers’ conceptual figure of the idiot and the work of a rather unknown French educator Fernand Deligny, we – opposed to what contemporary scholars and professionals tend to think – will argue that space still occupies an important role in inclusive discourses and practices. Deligny’s remarkable reappraisal of the word ‘asylum’ in particular seems fruitful in order to think the relations between space, inclusion and living in the presence of others anew. In line with Stengers’ idiot, Deligny’s polishing of the word ‘asylum’ leads to an alternative presentation of inclusion as something which has to do with creating (1) spatial interstices in one’s own thinking while living in the presence of others, and (2) places where the other can find refuge against the dominant languages of divergent contemporary professionals and disciplines.
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2011
Nowadays, the cell phone is omnipresent in our society, certainly amongst youngsters. Its presenc... more Nowadays, the cell phone is omnipresent in our society, certainly amongst youngsters. Its presence, and the possibility to be in constant touch, have some profound consequences on our experience (of our selves, of others and the world) and self-understanding. It is important for educators and scholars in the field of education to understand such consequences and develop an awareness of how students relate to the world they inhabit. Starting from the observation that people often want to know the position of the party they call, this explorative study reports on an analysis of text messages of 10 participants and tries to couple this and related questions heuristically to an environmental self-understanding, wherein a particular environmental kind of positioning becomes a major need and/or obsession. Results point to a particular potential dealing with the present and the future.
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2005
Critical educational research offers the researcher a position and an ethos of comfort. Even the ... more Critical educational research offers the researcher a position and an ethos of comfort. Even the declared recognition of the relativity of principles, norms or criteria so characteristic of much critical research does not prevent it from looking immediately for a way out of this uncomfortable situation i.e. to keep to the idea that comfort (for the researcher) is needed and desirable. However, we suggest that this uncomfortable condition is constitutive for critical educational research and may be even for education as such. Therefore the article can be considered as a genealogical analysis of this comfortable critical research, in which we show how the birth of the milieu of the modern school goes together with the instauration of two forms of a comfortable research ‘ethos’: a research ethos rooted in a pastoral milieu and a research ethos rooted in a bureaucratic milieu. In the last section of the article we indicate that another ‘experimental’ ethos of research is possible, including the acceptance of discomfort. This is the ethos of a critical researcher as an inhabitant of a coming research community and as being exposed to the present.
Europe, more than other parts of the world, depends on the brains and the creativity of its peopl... more Europe, more than other parts of the world, depends on the brains and the creativity of its people to guarantee its future prosperity and its model of society. 1
European Educational Research Journal, 2009
During the last years, MOOCs (massive open online courses) are part of the most discussed develop... more During the last years, MOOCs (massive open online courses) are part of the most discussed developments in educational technology. MOOCs swept the landscape of educational technology in no time. However, through all this enthusiasm , it is difficult to see the contribution of MOOCs to computer-based education. Even though there is a surge in MOOCs as well as in MOOC-research, it is unclear how an effective MOOC-pedagogy can be developed. What is this MOOC-phe-nomenon? And how can we, as educators, teachers, pedagogues, educational researchers, develop MOOC-pedagogy? In the first part of this paper, we'll start with an overview of the MOOC-phenomenon. In the second part, we'll discuss the implicit philosophical attitudes towards educational technology that underlies much of the MOOC-debates. We then argue that, rather than a theoretically grounded approach to educational technology, common sense attitudes of essentialism and instrumentalism prevail. In the last part of the paper, we suggest to concentrate on the educational design of technology and on the development of practices of study necessary to deal with technology, in order to develop a meaningful educational practice.
The essays in this collection address the relation between education and politics in new ways. Ra... more The essays in this collection address the relation between education and politics in new ways. Rather than understanding education simply as the object of political decision-making, or as preparation for politics, the authors of this volume see education as implicated in social conflicts and in the political processes that produce and change social structures. Education, then, is a practice that reconfigures the relations between subjectivities and the political. The collection focuses on several critical cases and theoretical debates where the relation between education and politics demands new articulations. It explores the potential of theoretical languages proposed by Rancière, Laclau, Derrida, Mouffe, Bakhtin, and other thinkers whose work has not yet been fully recognized in its pedagogical meaning.
Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 2011
Foucauldian research, as it is currently practised, is generally unwilling to offer a vision of a... more Foucauldian research, as it is currently practised, is generally unwilling to offer a vision of alternative futures. This article examines the recent work (2007 and 2009) of Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons which appears to be an exception. They offer a critique of contemporary trends in higher education and propose an alternative model: the ‘world university’. However, as I argue, their scheme for a world university is of limited use in its current form precisely because it is an anti-utopian recommendation. This reflects a deep suspicion of utopian thought that is typical of Foucauldian research. After examining the reasons for Foucault’s aversion to openly normative, futuristic thought, I suggest that the making of anti-utopian proposals can only lead a Foucauldian analysis into paradox. It seems that those who adopt a Foucauldian approach must either remain silent when it comes to the future, or they must adapt their use of Foucault to embrace a substantial utopian dimension.
Based on some texts by Rancière, this paper tries to elaborate a difference between pedagogy and ... more Based on some texts by Rancière, this paper tries to elaborate a difference between pedagogy and the pedagogical. Such a difference implies a distinction between the pupil/student and 'childhood' where childhood would designate the void separating the pupil from herself. This void can be understood as power and ex-position. Exposition includes the charge to respond, which is an invitation to get oneself going. Pedagogy can thus be defined as a travel leading to a dis-charge, or the oblivion of the charge. In contrast, the pedagogical space opens up with the interruption of pedagogy and the manifestation of childhood. Only in this space may the 'mas ter' appear and appear as the one who, in a certain sense, keeps the individual into her childhood, putting his own childhood at stake.
Ethics and Education, 2010
We walk, not in order to arrive at a promised land, but because walking itself is the revolution ... more We walk, not in order to arrive at a promised land, but because walking itself is the revolution (Subcommandante Marcos) [For Foucault] to think always meant to think about the limits of a situation. But it also meant to see (Deleuze) I. Gllr-Ze 'ev, The Possibility/Impossibility ofa New Critical Language in Education, 275-291.
Studies in Philosophy and Education, 1996
It is commonly supposed that acting and judging ought to rest on a community-wide, binding defini... more It is commonly supposed that acting and judging ought to rest on a community-wide, binding definition of what is right and respectable, that is, a substantial consensus. Such consensus is thought possible only when we engage shared values and criteria, when we use knowledge and abilities appropriated through education. On this view, education deals with the reproduction of consensus and, hence, with the passing on of traditions and norms. On my view, we need to question the framework in which the debate over social erosion takes place. I take a cue from remarks of Hannah Arendt and question the presupposition that acting and judging in a right way requires both common values and the appropriation of what we call ‘knowledge’ of criteria and principles. I do not suggest that ‘knowledge’ has nothing to do with acting and judging. Rather, I wish to draw attention to (Arendt's concept of) thinking as a condition for acting and judging. Here, thinking has nothing to do with knowledge or with appropriation. Rather, it has to do with living-together with somebody. Educa-tion for thinking is, then, a ‘public thinking’ which leads out of the serf and into communal responsibility. On this treatment, the educator is to be a ‘faithful guardian’ of this calling out into responsibility.
Studies in Philosophy and Education, 2011
Inspired by Hannah Arendt, this contribution offers an exercise of thought as an attempt to disti... more Inspired by Hannah Arendt, this contribution offers an exercise of thought as an attempt to distil anew the original spirit of what education means. It tries to articulate the event or happening that the word names, the experiences in which this happening manifests itself and the (material) forms that constitute it or make it find/take (its) place. Starting from the meaning of scholè as ‘free time’ or ‘undestined and unfinished time’ it further explores scholè as the time of attention which is the time of the regard for the world, of being present to it (or being in its presence), attending it, a time of delivery to the experience of the world, of exposure and effacing social subjectivities and orientations, a time filled with encounters. Education, then, relates to forms of profanation, suspension and attention and can be articulated as the art (the doing) and technology that makes scholè happen.
Interchange, 1998
The ambiguous meaning of the concept of life is considered by recalling along with Hannah Arendt ... more The ambiguous meaning of the concept of life is considered by recalling along with Hannah Arendt the old distinction between zoé and bios. Life as bios is the life of someone and always intrinsically relational and worldly, thus bound to the existence of a world. The first question for life as bios being not happiness, but meaning. Life as zoé, as bare life — sacred to the credo of our time and constituting the silent premise underlying much social theory and philosophy — in turn must be defended in its own name and for the sake of happiness against everything that is durable and limits its growth and fertility and therefore it includes deafness to the question of meaning and destruction of the world, that is, of the conditions of human existence as bios. In order to help the preservation of a human life, the question of meaning has to be heard and the world has to be taken seriously. Accordingly, education should not so much orient itself towards the acquisition of the value of (bare) life, but above all help to avoid the time and space in which the question of meaning arises be occupied.
The feature films of the Belgian directors the Dardenne brothers are one of the most lauded bodie... more The feature films of the Belgian directors the Dardenne brothers are one of the most lauded bodies of work in contemporary world cinema (They have twice won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival). Their films can be seen as educational cinema in a number of ways. On one hand, they investigate in an intriguing way the contemporary reality of education and, more particularly, the actual relationship between adolescents and adults. Their films can be seen as empirical philosophical studies that ask questions of essential educational situations and matters: What does it mean to be a child, an adult, a father, a son, a mother, a daughter, a teacher, a schoolmaster, a pupil? What does it mean, not in general, but in the concrete (and sometimes extreme) situations and conditions that society presents today? (See Masschelein 2011, in press).
The aim of this chapter is to reconsider the concepts ‘educationalization’ and ‘the grammar of sc... more The aim of this chapter is to reconsider the concepts ‘educationalization’ and ‘the grammar of schooling’ (see also Depaepe, 2005) in the light of the overwhelming importance that is ascribed to ‘learning‘ today. Indeed, the word ‘learning’ has come to be indispensable for speaking about ourselves, others and society. A whole range of human activities, from childrearing, having sex, eating or communication to travelling and using free time, being a citizen and an employee, are regarded as competence based. It is therefore felt that they require a prior learning process.
Ethische Perspectieven, 2007
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2010
The article presents an introduction to the Special Issue on the French philosopher Jacques Ranci... more The article presents an introduction to the Special Issue on the French philosopher Jacques Rancière who raises a provocative voice in the current public debate on democracy, equality and education. Instead of merely criticizing current practices and discourses, the attractiveness of Rancière's work is that he does try to formulate in a positive way what democracy is about, how equality can be a pedagogic or educational (instead of policy) concern, and what the public and democratic role of education is. His work opens up a space to rethink and to study, as well as to ‘re-practice’, what democracy and equality in education are about. He questions the current neutralisation of politics that is motivated by a hatred of democracy. This questioning is for Rancière also a struggle over words. Against the old philosophical dream of defining the meaning of words, Rancière underlines the need for the struggle over their meaning. The aim of the article is to clarify how and why education, equality, and democracy are a major concern throughout his work and to offer an introduction to the articles collected in the Special Issue.
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2010
This article takes up a text that Rancière published shortly after The Ignorant School Master app... more This article takes up a text that Rancière published shortly after The Ignorant School Master appeared in French, ‘École, production, égalité’[School, Production, Equality] (1988), in which he sketched the school as being preeminently the place of equality. In this vein, and opposed to the story of the school as the place where inequality is reproduced and therefore in need of reform, the article wants to recount the story of the school as the invention of a site of equality and as primordially a public space. Inspired by Rancière, we indicate first how the actual (international and national) policy story about the school and the organizational technologies that accompany it install and legitimate profound inequalities, which consequently can no longer be questioned (and become ‘invisible’). Second, the article recasts and rethinks different manifestations of equality and of ‘public-ness’ in school education and, finally, indicates various ways in which these manifestations are neutralized or immunized in actual discourses and educational technologies.
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2010
Starting from a Foucaultian perspective, the article draws attention to current developments that... more Starting from a Foucaultian perspective, the article draws attention to current developments that neutralise democracy through the ‘governmentalisation of democracy’ and processes of ‘governmental subjectivation’. Here, ideas of Rancière are introduced in order to clarify how democracy takes place through the paradoxical process of ‘political subjectivation’, that is, a disengagement with governmental subjectivation through the verification of one's equality in demonstrating a wrong. We will argue that democracy takes place through the paradoxical process of political subjectivation, and that today's consensus society tends to depoliticize all processes of subjectivation. A final step in the argumentation is to introduce the concept of ‘pedagogic subjectivation’—to be understood as the experience of potentiality—that is to be distinguished from governmental subjectivation and also from political subjectivation. The concept ‘pedagogic subjectivation’ is proposed as a way of thinking of the school as a public place.
International Journal of Inclusive Education, 2011
One of the core characteristics of inclusionary discourses and practices is their emphasis on liv... more One of the core characteristics of inclusionary discourses and practices is their emphasis on living in the presence of others. Despite this self-evident character, the question of what is understood by living in the presence of others only sporadically has been the object of critical inquiry. By turning ourselves towards Stengers’ conceptual figure of the idiot and the work of a rather unknown French educator Fernand Deligny, we – opposed to what contemporary scholars and professionals tend to think – will argue that space still occupies an important role in inclusive discourses and practices. Deligny’s remarkable reappraisal of the word ‘asylum’ in particular seems fruitful in order to think the relations between space, inclusion and living in the presence of others anew. In line with Stengers’ idiot, Deligny’s polishing of the word ‘asylum’ leads to an alternative presentation of inclusion as something which has to do with creating (1) spatial interstices in one’s own thinking while living in the presence of others, and (2) places where the other can find refuge against the dominant languages of divergent contemporary professionals and disciplines.
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2011
Nowadays, the cell phone is omnipresent in our society, certainly amongst youngsters. Its presenc... more Nowadays, the cell phone is omnipresent in our society, certainly amongst youngsters. Its presence, and the possibility to be in constant touch, have some profound consequences on our experience (of our selves, of others and the world) and self-understanding. It is important for educators and scholars in the field of education to understand such consequences and develop an awareness of how students relate to the world they inhabit. Starting from the observation that people often want to know the position of the party they call, this explorative study reports on an analysis of text messages of 10 participants and tries to couple this and related questions heuristically to an environmental self-understanding, wherein a particular environmental kind of positioning becomes a major need and/or obsession. Results point to a particular potential dealing with the present and the future.
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2005
Critical educational research offers the researcher a position and an ethos of comfort. Even the ... more Critical educational research offers the researcher a position and an ethos of comfort. Even the declared recognition of the relativity of principles, norms or criteria so characteristic of much critical research does not prevent it from looking immediately for a way out of this uncomfortable situation i.e. to keep to the idea that comfort (for the researcher) is needed and desirable. However, we suggest that this uncomfortable condition is constitutive for critical educational research and may be even for education as such. Therefore the article can be considered as a genealogical analysis of this comfortable critical research, in which we show how the birth of the milieu of the modern school goes together with the instauration of two forms of a comfortable research ‘ethos’: a research ethos rooted in a pastoral milieu and a research ethos rooted in a bureaucratic milieu. In the last section of the article we indicate that another ‘experimental’ ethos of research is possible, including the acceptance of discomfort. This is the ethos of a critical researcher as an inhabitant of a coming research community and as being exposed to the present.
Europe, more than other parts of the world, depends on the brains and the creativity of its peopl... more Europe, more than other parts of the world, depends on the brains and the creativity of its people to guarantee its future prosperity and its model of society. 1
European Educational Research Journal, 2009
In the age of web 2.0, the university is constantly challenged to re-adapt its ‘old-fashioned’ pe... more In the age of web 2.0, the university is constantly challenged to re-adapt its ‘old-fashioned’ pedagogies to the new possibilities opened up by digital technologies. This article proposes a rethinking of the relation between university and (digital) technologies by focusing not on how technologies function in the university, but on their constituting a meta-condition for the existence of the university pedagogy of inquiry. Following Ivan Illich’s idea that textual technologies played a crucial role in the inception of the university, we will first show the structural similarities between university thinking and the text as a profanation of the book. Secondly, we describe university thinking as a type of critical thinking based on the materiality of the text-on-the-page, explaining why the text has been at the centre of university pedagogy since the beginning. In the third part, we show how Illich came to see the end of the culture of the text as a challenge for the university, by describing the new features of the text-as-code incompatible with the idea of reading as study. Finally, we challenge this pessimistic reading of Illich’s and end with a call for a profanatory pedagogy of digital technologies that could mirror the revolutionary thinking behind the mediaeval invention of the text.