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Departments of Arts and Humanities globally face increasing financial threat from falling enrolment, rising costs, and 'strategic realignment' at university level. In the UK, in particular, cuts to the Arts and Humanities sector are becoming endemic, with complex ramifications for prospective students as well as academic and professional staff. In light of these structural and ideological challenges, this paper proposes a revisiting of the philosophical work of Richard Rorty. Rorty has argued compellingly for the morally educative importance of the arts as well as the distinct gift of a liberal education more generally. Ultimately, however, we argue that Rorty's liberal ideals are radically threatened in the present context of neoliberalism and that they have been particularly problematised in philosophical and literary work since Rorty's death in 2007. The theoretical writings of Lauren Berlant as well as the literary fiction of Nicole Flattery and Natasha Brown are our key exemplars here. Through our analysis of these texts, we interrogate what we might desire of education beyond the liberal paradigm underpinning Rorty's thought; and we sketch a framework for the Arts and Humanities perhaps more responsive to the crises of our contemporary age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reinvention of the university as a research-focused institution has transformed the way in which research is defined in practice. It is now widely explained in terms of a narrow set of performative expectations. This paper draws on historical literature to trace the hollowing out of research from a broad, though often sceptical, conception shaped by the liberal education tradition to one that is now expressed and evaluated almost exclusively in terms of publication, grant getting, and doctoral completions. In so doing it is argued that there is a need to challenge neo-liberal assumptions about the purposes of higher education and reclaim what Truscot referred to as the 'spirit of research'. This is essential both for authentic higher education teaching and as a set of scholarly, epistemic virtues. Such a conception, compatible with both the liberal education and Humboldtian traditions of the university, values research awareness over research productivity and provides a more secure link between research and teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports an investigation into how secondary student participants in Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement related this particular political experience to their learning of Liberal Studies. Questionnaire-based surveys and interviews were conducted to probe their interpretations of Liberal Studies’ impact on their political involvement and their perceptions of national versus local identity. The results indicate that students perceived the subject to have offered them background knowledge necessary for comprehending the movement rather than functioning as the cause of their participation against the backdrop of wider socio-economic conflicts in the community at large. Moreover, the current Liberal Studies curriculum seems to have reinforced students’ sense of a dichotomy between their local and national identities. Further examination of that dichotomy sheds light on both the review of Liberal Studies and another recently proposed, but swiftly shelved, curriculum: Moral and National Education. The study’s broad implications for citizenship education worldwide are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Booker T. Washington was born a slave in the American South, rising remarkably in the period after slavery to become a leader of his race. His advocacy of appeasement with the Southern white establishment incurred the ire of his black peers, given the withdrawal of the franchise from ex-slaves in southern states after a brief period of positive social reforms in the years immediately following the end of the civil war, and the widespread violence meted out to blacks at the time. Equally controversial was his advocacy of vocational education for ex-slaves, a pursuit that became his life’s work at Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, the school he founded. Antagonists, especially W.E.B. Du Bois, accused Washington of offering vocational education in lieu of liberal education which they felt could be the basis of a new class of blacks who could be leaders and professionals. In this paper I examine Washington’s vocationalist philosophy viewing it as misunderstood in his time. I show his belief in the liberal prospects of the subject to be an early forerunner of a new movement to reform the subject in keeping with a global shift in the conception of skill to reflect a new knowledge economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Scottish Enlightenment is celebrated for its many contributions to the natural sciences, the social sciences and the moral sciences. But for all this attention, one aspect of the Scottish Enlightenment has been almost entirely neglected: its educational theory. This paper aims to illuminate the relationship between the educational theory of the Scottish Enlightenment and the moral psychology and political theory of commerce, corruption and the civilising process that have long been recognised as distinguishing features of Scottish thought in the 18th century, giving special attention to the educational treatises of George Turnbull, David Fordyce and Henry Home, Lord Kames. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper offers an assessment of two 12th-century theories of education, Hugh of St Victor's Didascalicon and John of Salisbury's Metalogicon, maintaining that their works both draw on traditional Christian teachings and respond to contemporary pedagogical interests in systematising knowledge and integrating classical learning. The two works are examined in the light of the significant influence of Augustine's De Doctrina Christiana, and it is argued that both Hugh and John offer distinctive adaptations of Augustine's thought that are less willing to subordinate the liberal arts to Scriptural study. Hugh's treatise emphasises that all education, whether based on secular or sacred texts, contributes to the rebuilding of sinful humanity, while John promotes the teaching of wisdom and eloquence not so much for the improvement of preaching as for the building up of 'happiness' within the larger human community. The final section of the chapter focuses on the implications these ideas have for political thought by examining in particular the continuity between the Metalogicon and John's other major theoretical work, the Policraticus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the educational method-the elenchos-of Plato's Socrates, arguing, against some prominent interpretations, that it is love, both eros and philia, that is the key that links Socrates' philosophy with his education. This analysis, of course, raises some difficult questions regarding the relationship between teacher and student. The interpretation is contrasted with scholarly readings that emphasise the significance of Socrates' religion; and it is put into the context of problems of twenty-first century pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Incentives have been proposed as a method to improve attendance in adult literacy classes. In the UK, several areas have piloted the use of incentives to promote attendance at adult literacy classes. To date no rigorous evaluation of this policy has been undertaken. This paper describes (as far as we are aware) the only UK-based randomised controlled trial to evaluate the use of financial incentives in order to promote attendance in classes for adult learners. Methods: We used a cluster-randomised design. Twenty-nine adult literacy classes were randomised in two groups using minimisation. Intervention group learners received £5 (US$10) for each class attended. The main outcome was class attendance; the secondary outcome was literacy scores. Results: After allocation, one class was found to be ineligible for the study. In the 28 remaining classes there was a statistically significant reduction of about 1.5 sessions (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.28, 2.79; p = 0.019) attended by the intervention group compared with control, after adjusting for cluster size and baseline scores. The difference in reading scores between the intervention and control group, conditioned on baseline scores, was -2.38 (with controls scoring higher than the intervention group), but this difference was not statistically significant (95% CI -7.40 to 2.57, p = 0.33). Conclusion: Payments to attend adult literacy classes had an adverse effect on attendance. This trial needs urgent replication, ideally with a larger incentive, before this approach is widely used by policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]