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In this essay, Barbara Thayer-Bacon considers the arguments made in favor of "zero tolerance" for immigration at the United States-Mexican border as an example of principled ethics, and she contrasts this position with a caring ethical response. She compares the U.S.'s current zero-tolerance immigration policy to the zero-tolerance approach U.S. public schools adopted in response to violence in schools. The zero-tolerance policies implemented by schools in the wake of several high-profile incidents serves as a strong illustration of the moral dilemmas that zero-tolerance policies create generally. Both examples illustrate that zero-tolerance policies are not an effective moral response to ethical dilemmas; on the contrary, such policies lead to a lack of attention to context, subjectivity, positionality, and institutional power, which in turn generates a range of new and different ethical quandaries. Ultimately, Thayer-Bacon argues that taking a zero tolerance approach to serious, complicated problems such as immigration policy is misguided; developing fair, humane, caring, and just immigration policies requires a more nuanced approach that attends to the full complexity of the issues involved.

Just as Dewey argued during the industrial revolution, from the 1890s-1930s, and Martin argued in the 1960s-1990s with our "second wave" working revolution (when middle class women joined the work force in significant numbers): today's times are out of joint, potentially dangerous conflicts exist, and teachers have some responsibility in making things right. We are in another social revolution, as work is changing significantly again, due to advances in technology. Let's call these current changes in work the technology revolution. Again, we need to rethink our school structures, curriculum, and pedagogy. In an effort to contribute to that process, I direct our attention to the need to redefine work, and re/examine the connections between work and education in this paper.

The purpose of this descriptive study was to discover the perceptions and barriers of four female agriculture educators across generations in a non-traditional field of agriculture. The United States Department of Labor (2006b) defined a non-traditional job as any occupation where one gender comprises 25% or less of the total employment. Four female agriculture teachers across three generations were interviewed with the open-ended question: "What have been your personal and professional experiences in teaching agricultural education?" The teachers selected were from three generations: early Baby Boomer (Vietnam Generation), late Baby Boomer (Me Generation), Generation Xer, and Millennial. The themes revealed in the study were: qualifications to teach agricultural education, challenges in teaching agricultural education, stress in teaching agricultural education, and stereotyping of agricultural education teachers. Females teaching high school agricultural education expressed they needed to prove they were qualified; prove women can perform agricultural education duties; overcome resentment from students; balance family and work; and break the stereotype of a high school agricultural education teacher.

Highlander Folk School is an adult education center located in eastern Tennessee that was formed in 1932 by Myles Horton and continues today. Myles Horton (1905-1990) hoped to create an independent adult learning center where people could come together and address their problems. He wanted to create a public space where people could learn from each other and use education as a means to challenge the unjust social systems affecting their lives. Highlander was built on principles of democracy; however, Horton resisted definitively defining democracy throughout his lifetime. In The Long Haul, he tells us people get angry with him for not carefully defining what he means by democracy, but he says, "I've never been able to define democracy. ... it's a growing idea." Horton began Highlander Folk School by relying on Dewey's concept of a democratic society as "a society which makes provisions or participation in its good of all its members on equal terms and which secures flexible readjustment of its institutions through interaction of the different forms of associated life." A democratic society is one with shared interests and fullness and freedom of interaction within the group as well as with other groups. In this article, the author revisits the legacy of Myles Horton in creating a school where "people could learn from each other and use education as a means to challenge the unjust social system affecting their lives." She interrogates both the practices undertaken at the Highlander Folk School and the "theoretical implications their practice has to teach one about a relational, pluralistic democratic theory." She ends with a number of recommendations for public schools that might make them more democratic social institutions. (Contains 25 notes.)

In "A Pluralistic Universe," James argues that the world we experience is more than we can describe. Our theories are incomplete, open, and imperfect. Concepts function to try to shape, organize, and describe this open, flowing universe, while the universe continually escapes beyond our artificial boundaries. For James and myself, the universe is unfinished, a "primal stuff" or "pure experience." However, James starts with parts and moves to wholes, and I want to start from wholes and move to parts and back to wholes again. This is an issue between us I further consider, for while he describes himself as a "radical empiricist," emphasizing the parts, my descriptions are in terms of w/holism. I use this opportunity to explore James's contributions to my metaphor of "pure experience" as being like an infinite Ocean and the fishing nets we create represent our ontologies and epistemologies that help us catch up our experiences and give them meaning. I also make the case for why a better understanding of ontology matters for us as educators, using Maria Montessori's curriculum and instruction design, Dinè Primary School, and Cajete's theology of place and culturally based science as examples of relational fishing nets we could be using to teach our children.

In "Democratic Foundations of Spiritually Responsive Pedagogy," Lingley worried that talk of spirituality is taboo in U.S. public school classrooms. Lingley pointed out that the dominant narrative demands silence on the topic. She wanted to make the case for spiritually responsive pedagogy as vital to an inclusive democracy. I begin this responsive essay by describing Lingley's argument, and then I strengthen her argument through my work on relational ontologies. When we equate spirituality with ontology, we realize it is impossible to avoid teaching spirituality in our schools, for we begin passing on to our children our fishing nets to help sustain them within our families and communities as soon as they are born (one could even argue prior to birth). That passing on of basic categories of Being, through our various ways of describing our/their world, begins in the home and continues in our schools. I am in agreement with Lingley's aim, and I find her work an exciting contribution to discussions on democracy and spirituality. [For "Democratic Foundations of Spiritually Responsive Pedagogy," see EJ1120095.]

Thayer-Bacon uses this opportunity to further explore Ranciere's ideas concerning equality as described in "The Ignorant Schoolmaster" and their connection to democracy, as he explains in "Hatred of Democracy". For Ranciere, intelligence and equality are synonymous terms, just as reason and will are synonymous terms. Ranciere recommends the only way to really teach a student is by viewing the student as an equal. Thayer-Bacon learned to view students as equals through her experience as a Montessori teacher, and so she brings Montessori into conversation with Ranciere to further explore the idea of equality between teachers and students, as well as between citizens in a democracy. There are problems with both Ranciere's perspective and Montessori's that feminist theory, in the form of a relational ontology and epistemology, can help us solve by finding our way out of the paradoxes of democracy and on to trusting our students, our future democratic citizens. (Contains 3 notes.)

Thayer-Bacon tells her story in a conversational tone that traces her personal and professional roots as she describes various chapters of her life: first as a philosopher, how she became involved in education, and then how that involvement became a career as a philosopher of education, in a large teacher education program, and now at a research institution. She sketches her philosophical contributions, as a pragmatist, feminist, postmodernist, and cultural studies scholar, to philosophy, philosophy of education, and education.

My article aims to develop a relational, pluralistic political theory that moves beyond standard theories of liberal democracy, and to consider how such a theory translates into our public school settings. I use a narrative style argument to share stories that focus on homogeneity and diversity from my visit to a Japanese elementary school, as I consider, drawing on the work of Chantal Mouffe, the important role harmony and disagreement, and a tension between homogeneity and diversity, play in encouraging citizens to contribute to their school and their larger communities in a democracy-always-in-the-making. I argue that there is much we can learn from Japanese educational practices. (Contains 4 notes.)

This article presents the author's response to Jim McKenzie's commentary on her article, "Closing the Split between Practical and Theoretical Reasoning: Knowers and the known." In her response, the author wishes to point readers to the book that the article is derived from, for the original article clearly points readers to the preface and chapters 1, 2, and 7 of "Transforming Critical Thinking: Thinking constructively". If the reader goes to "Transforming Critical Thinking", s/he will find many references to feminist philosophers, for the text is a feminist argument for the need to transform critical thinking, and the author offers a redescription of critical thinking as constructive thinking.

Explores the central pragmatist and feminist philosophical assumption that knowers cannot be separated from what is known, that there is a dialectical relationship between social beings and ideas. Argues for embracing pluralistic and democratic commitments on epistemological and moral grounds. (KS)

Offers the image of the quilting bee as a contrasting representation of critical thinking (or constructive thinking), comparing the two images, discussing a quilting bee representation of knowledge construction in terms of the tools used by quilters (knowers), and summarizing the transformation of critical thinking theory that a quilting bee image represents. (SM)

Byline: Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon (1) Author Affiliation: (1) Cultural Studies Program, University of Tennessee, 335 HPER Building, Knoxville, TN, 37996-2700, USA Article History: Registration Date: 11/10/2004

In this essay, Barbara Thayer‐Bacon considers the arguments made in favor of "zero tolerance" for immigration at the United States–Mexican border as an example of principled ethics, and she contrasts this position with a caring ethical response. She compares the U.S.'s current zero‐tolerance immigration policy to the zero‐tolerance approach U.S. public schools adopted in response to violence in schools. The zero‐tolerance policies implemented by schools in the wake of several high‐profile incidents serves as a strong illustration of the moral dilemmas that zero‐tolerance policies create generally. Both examples illustrate that zero‐tolerance policies are not an effective moral response to ethical dilemmas; on the contrary, such policies lead to a lack of attention to context, subjectivity, positionality, and institutional power, which in turn generates a range of new and different ethical quandaries. Ultimately, Thayer‐Bacon argues that taking a zero tolerance approach to serious, complicated problems such as immigration policy is misguided; developing fair, humane, caring, and just immigration policies requires a more nuanced approach that attends to the full complexity of the issues involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]