Thornton, Simone, Eco-rational education: An educational response to environmental crisis, (Routledge: London; New York) 2024

Eco-Rational Education proposes an educational response to climate change, environmental degradation, and destructive human relations to ecology through the delivery of critical land-responsive environmental education. The book argues that education is a powerful vehicle for both social change and cultural reproduction. It proposes that the prioritisation and integration of environmental education across the curriculum is essential to the development of ecologically rational citizens capable of responding to the environmental crisis and an increasingly changing world. Using philosophical analysis, particularly environmental philosophy, pragmatism, and ecofeminism, the book develops an understanding of contemporary issues in education, especially inquiry-based learning as pedagogy, diversifying knowledge, environmental and epistemic justice, climate change education, and citizenship education. Eco-Rational Education will be of interest to researchers and post-graduate students of social and political philosophy, educational philosophy, as well as environmental philosophy, ethics, and teacher education.

https://www.routledge.com/Eco-Rational-Education-An-Educational-Response-to-Environmental-Crisis/Thornton/p/book/9780367700782

Masamichi Ueno, Philosophy of Education in Dialogue between East and West: Japanese Insights and Perspectives, (Routledge) 2023

Ruyu Hung, Nature, Art, and Education in East Asia: Philosophical Connections, (Routledge) 2023

This volume explores the deeply interwoven connection of education, art and nature in the context of East Asia.

With contributions from authors in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, the book considers unnoticed but significant themes involved in the interplay of nature, art, and education. It manifests how nature and art can educate, and how education and nature play the role of art. The chapters explore a range of themes relevant to East Asian characteristics, including skill acquisition, Japanese calendar arts and ritual of feelings, garden architecture, the ritualised body, collaborative poetry art, translational language between humans and nature, the Confucian classical Six Arts, the artistic embodiment of the Kyoto School, and the heritage art based education in Korea. The authors examine these themes in novel ways to bring to light the relevance of the East Asian insights to the contemporary global world.

This book is an outstanding resource to all researchers, scholars, and students interested in educational aesthetics, philosophy of education, East Asian studies, comparative education and intercultural education.

https://www.routledge.com/Nature-Art-and-Education-in-East-Asia-Philosophical-Connections/Hung/p/book/9781032294216

Wei, Flora Liuying , Zehou Li and the Aesthetics of Educational Maturity, (Routledge) 2023

This book articulates a unique conception of aesthetic educational philosophy and its relation to the Chinese world, drawing on the works of the prominent contemporary Chinese philosopher Zehou Li.

The book outlines an aesthetics approach to educational maturity that recognises both the contributions of Western Enlightenment ideals and Chinese traditions, paving the way for an inclusive and post-comparative philosophy. It offers a nuanced discussion of Zehou Li’s thought and how his work can be framed at the border between traditional and modern China, between China and the West. The book combines a discussion of aesthetics with educational theory and considers their combined implications for educational practice (in particular in the first-person perspectives of students, parents and teachers), in both local and global contexts.

Providing a way of doing philosophy of education that carefully considers interactions and overlaps between Western and Chinese civilisation, the book will be of great interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of educational philosophy, educational theory, and Chinese and cross-cultural philosophy.

https://www.routledge.com/Zehou-Li-and-the-Aesthetics-of-Educational-Maturity-A-Transcultural-Reading/Wei/p/book/9781032294049

D'Olimpio, L., Paris, P., & Thompson, A., Educating Character Through the Arts, (Routledge: London) 2022

This volume investigates the role of the arts in character education. Bringing together insights from esteemed philosophers and educationalists, it looks to the arts for insight into human character and explores the arts’ relationship to human flourishing and the development of the virtues.

Focusing on the moral value of art and considering questions of whether there can be educational value in imaginative and non-narrative art, the nine chapters herein critically examine whether poetry, music, literature, films, television series, videogames, and even gardening may improve our understanding of human character, sharpen our moral judgement, inculcate or refine certain skills required for virtue, or perhaps cultivate certain virtues (or vices) themselves.

Bringing together research on aesthetics, ethics, moral and character education, this book will appeal to students, researchers and academics of philosophy, arts, and education as well as philosophers of education, morality, aesthetics, and teachers of the arts.

https://www.routledge.com/Educating-Character-Through-the-Arts/DOlimpio-Paris-Thompson/p/book/9780367709938

Gert Biesta, World-Centred Education: A View for the Present, (Routledge) 2021

This book makes an intervention in a long-standing discussion by arguing that education should be world-centred rather than child-centred or curriculum-centred. This is not just because education should provide students with the knowledge and skills to act effectively in the world, but is first and foremost because the world is the place where our existence as human beings takes place.

In the seven chapters in this book Gert Biesta explores in detail what an existential orientation to education entails and why this should be an urgent concern for education today. He highlights the importance of teaching, not understood as the transmission of knowledge and skills but as an act of (re)directing the attention of students to the world, so that they may encounter what the world is asking from them. The book thus shows why teaching matters for education. It also highlights the unique position of the school as the place where the new generation is given the time to meet the world and meet themselves in relation to the world. The extent to which society is still willing to make this time available, is an important indicator of its democratic quality.

https://www.routledge.com/World-Centred-Education-A-View-for-the-Present/Biesta/p/book/9780367565527#

Stolz, Steven, The Body, Embodiment, and Education: An Interdisciplinary Approach, (Routledge: London) 2022

Notions of the body and embodiment have become prominent across a number of established discipline areas, like philosophy, sociology, and psychology. While there has been a paradigmatic shift towards this topic, there is a notable gap in the literature as it relates to education and educational research.

The Body, Embodiment and Education addresses the gap between embodiment and education by exploring　conceptualisations of the body and embodiment from interdisciplinary perspectives. With contributions from international experts in philosophy, sociology, and psychology, as well as emerging areas in related fields, such as embodied cognition, neuroscience, cognitive science, this book sets a new research agenda in education and educational research. Each chapter makes a case for expanding the field and adds to the call for further exploration.

The Body, Embodiment and Education will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students who are interested in the body and embodiment and/or its relationship with education or educational research.

https://www.routledge.com/The-Body-Embodiment-and-Education-An-Interdisciplinary-Approach/Stolz/p/book/9780367694951

Quay, J., Bleazby, J., Stolz, S., Toscano, M., & Webster, S. , Theory and Philosophy in Education Research: Methodological Dialogues, (Routledge: London) 2018

The issue of methodology is a fundamental concern for all who engage in educational research. Presenting a series of methodological dialogues between eminent education researchers including Michael Apple, Gert Biesta, Penny Enslin, John Hattie, Nel Noddings, Michael Peters, Richard Pring and Paul Smeyers, this book explores the ways in which they have chosen and developed research methods to style their investigations and frame their arguments.

These dialogues address the specialized and technical aspects of conducting educational research, conceptualize the relationship between methodology and theory, and provide in-depth discussion of concerns including falsifiability, openness, interpretation and researcher judgement. Foregrounding the researchers’ first-hand experience and knowledge, this book will provide future and current researchers with a deeper comprehension of the place of theory in education research.

An illuminating resource for undergraduate and postgraduate researchers alike, Theory and Philosophy in Education Research confronts the intricate complexities of conducting education research in a highly engaging and accessible way.

https://www.routledge.com/Theory-and-Philosophy-in-Education-Research-Methodological-Dialogues/Quay-Bleazby-Stolz-Toscano-Webster/p/book/9780815386025

Stolz, S., & Webster, S. , Measuring Up in Education, (Routledge: London) 2021

Cultures of measurement are often considered to dominate educational practices, to the degree that, as Biesta (2010) has identified in Good Education in an Age of Measurement we no longer measure what we value, but rather we have become conditioned to value what is measured. A clear example of this occurs when institutions and staff "teach to the test" by emphasising narrow conceptions of learning and of knowledge, simply because the consequences of high-stakes assessments have important implications regarding funding, resources, and even tenure.

This collection explores, via various philosophical means, how valuable educational practices can occur within and beyond cultures of measurement. What seems to be required is for practitioners in education to regain their relationship to the overall purposes of education, such as the furthering of justice and democracy for both individual students and societies as a whole. Such a reconnection has the potential to re-humanise curricular experiences for students, which may have become dehumanised through particular cultures of measurement. It is argued that certain legitimate measures can advance justice and democracy, and so careful attention must be assigned to their validity and value.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory.

https://www.routledge.com/Measuring-Up-in-Education-Philosophical-Explorations-for-Justice-and-Democracy/Stolz-Webster/p/book/9781032088440