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This article addresses the issue of the disciplinary status of Educational Studies, which both in the theoretical discourse and in the practice of this area is far from unambiguous. The issue is relevant not only for theoretical reasons but also for practical and social ones. This is because the status of Educational Studies, by having a decisive impact on the very understanding and nature of studies in education, at least in part may impact changes in educational practice. Two main models of Educational Studies can be differentiated (the Anglo-American model and the Continental model), with additional variation within these models. Among the terms most commonly used in discussion of the disciplinary status of Educational Studies, frequent mention is made of the autonomy that exists in various versions (as in the Continental model) and of interdisciplinarity (as in the Anglo-American model). This article proposes a new way of understanding this status, which I call the autonomy of Educational Studies as a second-level discipline, which includes aspects of both of the previously mentioned models (with a predominance of the Continental model), yet also adds certain modifications (among other things concerning the understanding of disciplinarity). In the course of my argumentation, I will conduct a comparative analysis of both traditions, and subsequently justify the proposed thesis (making reference both to notional questions and pragmatic/scientific questions), and finally briefly indicate potential problems which may be generated by this model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In societies that have failed to confront past injustice, the most common justifications for the inclusion of history education within the school curriculum invoke the idea that those who cannot learn from the past are doomed to repeat it; or they appeal to goals such as reconciliation, or to the importance of recognizing and morally redressing the harm done to victims. These justifications are all sound and important. However, they must be supplemented with a justification of a different kind, one that appeals to a different kind of value, namely that of personal and political autonomy. When historical injustice is left unaddressed in school, so this paper argues, all children and adolescents are wronged, including those who were not involved in, or were directly affected by, past injustice. This is not simply because as a result they run the risk of repeating, or of being the victims of, behavior that caused past violence; or because without history education the harm done to their predecessors is left unacknowledged. They are wronged because ignorance of past injustice curtails the full exercise of their autonomous agency. It does so by denying them access to information that is crucial for evaluating their values and commitments. History education in schools can avoid this scenario, promoting autonomy instead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws attention to the tendency of a range of technologies to reduce pedagogical interactions to a series of datafied transactions of information. This is problematic because such transactions are always by definition reducible to finite possibilities. As the ability to gather and analyse data becomes increasingly fine-grained, the threat that these datafied approaches over-determine the pedagogical space increases. Drawing on the work of Hegel, as interpreted by twentieth century French radical philosopher Alexandre Kojève, this paper develops a model of relational pedagogy which highlights three points of incompatibility with a datafied learning environment reduced to finite measures. Firstly: Kojève's accont of authority in Hegel posits two aspects to the mimetic relation between teacher and student: recognition and realisation, which belong to the ipseity or about-self-ness of the subject, and are incompatible with a general definition of data. Secondly, the Hegelian approach to human historical time, in particular the assertion that time and desire are begun in the future, not the past, renders it incompatible with mathematical time as used in data processing. Finally, from these it is possible to derive a distinctive notion of the work of pedagogy, grounded in Kojève's realist reading of Hegel, irreducible to information processing. In consequence of this threefold irreducibility, the paper draws attention to a need for relations of human pedagogical work to be inherent in the design of educational technologies and highlights the dangers of presuming a machine intelligence model in the design of learning environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the practical importance of different forms of paternalism for educational theory and practice. Contrary to the traditional treatment of paternalism as a sometimes necessary and rather messy aspect of educational practices, I demonstrate that paternalism is to be regarded as an 'indigenous concept' (Herbart) of educational theory and as the 'indigenous model of justification' that underlies the structure of educational practices. Based on an analysis of the intricate nexus between autonomy-oriented forms of paternalism and educational forms of autonomy-based perfectionism I furthermore argue that a perfectionistically structured conception of autonomy provides a more adequate evaluative framework for justifying autonomy as an educational aim than alternative educational regimes of autonomy can deliver. Finally, I discuss some major theoretical problems of bridging the gap between general ethical principles and their application in practical fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We establish the thesis that in moral education, particularly in the first years of the child's development, unreflexive acts or unreflexiveness in certain behaviours of adults is a condition for the development of the personality structure and virtues that enable autonomous ethical reflection and a relation to the Other. With the notion of unreflexiveness we refer to resolvedness in the response of adults when it is necessary to establish a limit, or cut, in the child's demand for pleasure, as well as to resolvedness as one of the structurally essential elements in behaviours with which the adult subordinates the child to the symbolic order or language. In philosophy, a symptomatic position in this context is represented by Kant's theory of education. On the basis of the 'traditional' concept of 'negative education', and through Freud's and Lacan's psychoanalytic concepts, we identify two principles that should, in contemporary times, be an essential part of the moral educational behaviours of adults: (1) the principle of a delimited response to the child's demand for the satisfaction of pleasure, and (2) the principle of reasoned, reflected, but nevertheless certain, persevering, resolved unreflexiveness in the subordination of the child's desire to the symbolic order (the discourse). On the basis of the preceding analysis, we highlight certain consequences of this structure of the subject for the contexts of particular theoretical discussions and for school practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the entanglement of the modern concepts of freedom, autonomy, and the modern notion of the subject and how a passion for and insistence on freedom has undermined the reconstruction of human subjectivity in Heidegger and Foucault, and how such passion has also limited the educational effort at addressing the problems brought to education by the modern notion of the subject. Drawing on Levinas, it suggests that a new understanding of freedom as heteronomy will allow us to envision an open subjectivity that is essential for education. Particularly, it looks at Gert Biesta's recent campaigns for 'subjectification' and 'the gift of teaching' to analyze the underlying contradictions caused by the entanglement of freedom and subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since Kant asked: 'How am I to develop the sense of freedom in spite of the restraint?' in his lecture on education, the tension between necessary educational influence and unacceptable restriction of the child's individual development and freedom has been considered an educational paradox. Many have suggested solutions to the paradox; however, this article endorses recent discussions in educational philosophy that pursue the need to fundamentally rethink our understanding of education and upbringing. In this article it is argued that it is incomprehensible to describe an intervention of an educator as a constraint on a child's actions and that such an intervention would be in need of justification; as Kant and many others after him have done. Educational intervention should not be understood as a restriction of a child's endeavour to learn, because any educational intervention is educational. Furthermore, it is argued that the notion of restraint is based on the concept of human beings as radically separated which lead to the assumption that education is restrictive per se. In contrast, this article argues that indoctrination, manipulation, and coercion are rather phenomena within our educational forms of life. Recognizing the interrelations between human beings should play a constitutive part in the conceptualisation of individual freedom. A bond with others is the foundation upon which a child develops its own identity and an understanding of itself as an agent who can express its own will and takes responsibility for its words and actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines and critiques the notion of autonomy, as developed within liberal theory. Provision of materials by Foucault and Lyotard; Existence of a free and autonomous chooser acting as a consumer of education in New Zealand; Relative explanatory information.

Discusses philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's views on personal autonomy as the aim of education. Hierarchical model of the self and its autonomy; Community view on meaning as significance; Ideal of authenticity and education.