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Enhancing agency--or in a more colloquial term, promoting empowerment--is typically viewed as an unquestioned good. International organisations promote the empowerment of girls and other vulnerable groups around the world. Domestically, democracies rely for their legitimacy on the idea that citizens have agency; hence, civic educators aim to strengthen student 'voice' and their inclination to participate. This is all for good reason, as justice does depend in part on the agency of individuals and oppressed groups. But a focus on individual or even collective agency has a dark side. For if people feel that they can change the world, then they also often feel that they should. This sense of responsibility to use one's agency at all times can encourage an instrumental relationship to others and make it difficult to learn receptively, particularly from people with whom we disagree, and especially in moments of crisis.

In this essay I argue, first, that René Arcilla's project in his book "Wim Wenders's Road Movies: Education without Learning," can be understood as an effort to draw the reader away from a conception of personhood grounded in the Enlightenment and towards an expressive-romantic conception. Yet the sense of the person to which Arcilla leads the reader alters the Romantic conception considerably. Arcilla is attentive not only to how a disengaged, instrumental and fragmented approach to life can lead one astray but also to how a highly individualised search for authenticity and truth can sever one's connection to others and the world. In his proposal for a certain kind of education, Arcilla transcends and yet retains key components of the individualism that has troubled so many critics of both strands of the modern identity. The second argument of this essay is that a distinct pedagogical approach can be detected in Arcilla's text, one that is aligned with his conception of the kind of self into which the reader is being educated. In essence, Arcilla enacts the shifted conception of education that his book describes.

A different way of seeing, in the work of René Arcilla, contains the possibility for a different way of being. For Arcilla, it matters whether and how we attend to what is visually presented to us. He developed this idea in his earlier work, "Mediumism" (2011), in which he proposed that modernist visual arts, particularly artwork that draws attention to the medium in which it is conveyed, could invigorate a new form of liberal education. In his most recent book, "Wim Wenders's Road Movie Philosophy: Education without Learning," he has fulfilled the promise that a distinctive form of visual experience could constitute an education that liberates.

The press and scholars alike often bemoan the failure of civil public deliberation. Yet this insistence on civility excludes people who engage in adversarial tactics, limiting the ideas that are heard within deliberation. Drawing on a deliberative dialogue that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the aftermath of the deadly White Supremacist rally of 2017, this article reveals how the capacity of deliberation to be inclusive of diverse voices depends upon deliberators' orientation to learn from people who do not participate in deliberation. While much scholarship attends to learning "for" democracy, as in the preparation of young citizens, this article shows the significance of learning "in" democracy, as in the capacity of adults to learn in the midst of political strife.

Is it always ethical to ask a person to be "open-minded" in volatile political contexts? What might open-mindedness entail and when might such an expectation be harmful? Drawing on observations and interviews related to a controversial dialogue that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia, following the violent Unite the Right rally of August 2017, Rachel Wahl argues, first, that whether we might consider someone "open-minded" has little to do with their participation in processes that formally affirm and even genuinely aim for this virtue. Second, the division between people who view civil dialogue as the key to social progress and people who aver that direct resistance is what is called for is rooted in deeply different conceptions of the social world and what ails the nation. This divide is at once a response to the political moment and to the human condition, as it is a manifestation of an enduring tension between openness and commitment. Third, the disposition to be what one might call "open-minded" about this division is premised on how one understands one's self and life. While popular and philosophical conceptions of this division tend to valorize either openness or commitment, Wahl draws on René Arcilla's conception of a life of education in order to articulate how these might be integrated. The possibility of understanding one's life as an education illustrates what may have made it possible for one exemplary participant in the Charlottesville dialogue to be open-minded even about the value of some expressions of open-mindedness while maintaining his principled commitments.

How can universities cultivate students' capacity to learn across political divides? While many universities affirm the importance of open exchange between people who hold different views, it is unclear whether, what, and how students learn through such conversations. This article draws on observations of a deliberative dialogue between college students who cast a presidential vote for Trump or Clinton as well as on interviews with those students to identify what and how they learn through the conversation as well as what supports that learning. Recent political theorists have argued for including diverse forms of speech in order to expand what deliberation can accomplish. This inquiry suggests, first, that diversifying speech within deliberation can also strengthen traditional forms of deliberative learning (such as the willingness to listen to each others' reasons). Moreover, deliberative speech as it has been traditionally conceived can also accomplish some of what theorists hope alternative speech forms could cultivate, such as shifting relationships between interlocuters. Finally and most simply, the study shows that it is possible for students to learn from politically diverse peers even during a one-time event that occurs outside of the classroom. Three forms of content learning were identified: learning that is 'hermeneutic' deepened students' understanding of other people; 'deliberative' learning increased understanding of political issues and views; and 'process' learning honed students' capacity for these conversations. Learning also varied in quality: it was 'additive' when students added to their existing framework of knowledge or entailed 'new insight' when students shifted in their relationship to a person or idea. These forms of learning are interdependent and provide important support for each other. In particular, universities may enhance students' capacity for hermeneutic and deliberative learning by intentionally combining elements of both in academic settings.

Deliberation has become a defining ideal of democratic theory, and learning is central to robust deliberation. It is challenging for people to learn from each other, however, in contexts of inequality and deep social cleavages--though this is precisely when such learning is most needed. The political theorist Danielle Allen has argued that the cultivation of "political friendships" and the development of verbal empowerment can mitigate the negative effects of difference and inequality in such settings. In this essay, Rachel Wahl uses her fieldwork on deliberation between police and communities of color to illuminate the challenges that are frequently encountered in efforts to adhere to Allen's aims and prescriptions, and also to consider the kind of learning that might make political friendship possible in the most challenging circumstances. Wahl shows how, in the context of divisive and unequal settings, people must develop the capacity not only to learn from those who are different from themselves but even from their sharpest critics. This requires a prior education that cultivates a kind of receptivity that can complement the long-standing focus on agency and self-expression in education for democratic citizenship. Her detailed account of the deliberative dynamics observed at a series of police-community fora reveals the political importance of inner life and of receiving an education that cultivates in individuals the disposition of receptive listening. Complicating deeply ingrained distinctions between the public and private spheres within a liberal society, it points to the value not only of cultivating skills, but also of shaping the person.

In response to a fractured and vitriolic public culture, many civic educators hope to cultivate students' ability to learn from people who are different from themselves. In this article Rachel Wahl illuminates how college students' conceptions of moral order shape their willingness to learn during deliberative dialogue from people whose political views they reject. While openness to difference is common to liberal conceptions of a good society, this inquiry suggests that the secular liberal emphasis on political change driven by individuals can, for principled reasons, constrain students' receptivity to their political opponents. Conversely, the evangelical belief that God is the source of transformation can, in surprising ways, form the basis for an ethics of receptivity. Drawing on Charles Taylor's conception of the primacy of moral identity and his assertion that ideals can be best understood through the study of how people enact them, Wahl argues here that some aspects of the secular liberal imaginary can hinder noninstrumental engagement, but that such engagement may be precisely what is needed to bridge the deepest divides.

Fierce debates over standardized assessments in teacher preparation have revolved around flaws in implementation and the politics of privatization. While important, this focus obscures the philosophical divide between proponents and opponents of standardized assessments. This article examines how faculty in New York State argue for and against a controversial performance assessment for teacher candidates, the edTPA. Revealing the distinctive ways that teacher educators on opposing sides of this debate understand the nature of knowledge, human development, professionalism, and social justice clarifies what is at stake in debates over how to prepare teachers. Such clarification can deepen the discussion on how to evaluate learning and growth as well as enrich the conversation on how to protect the integrity of educational professions and practices.

In this article, we conduct an integrative and rigorous review of theory and research on education in emergencies programs and interventions as international agencies implement them in areas of armed conflict. We ask several questions. How did this subfield emerge and what are the key conceptual frameworks that shape it today? How do education in emergencies programs affect access, learning, and protection in conflict-affected contexts? To answer these questions, we identify the conceptual frameworks and theoretical advances that have occurred since the inception of the field in the mid-1990s. We review the theories that frame the relationship between education and conflict as well as empirical research that tests assumptions that underpin this relationship. Finally, we assess what we know to date about "what works" in education in emergencies based on intervention research. We find that with regard to access, diminished or inequitable access to education drives conflict; conflict reduces boys' and girls' access to education differently; and decreased distance to primary school increases enrollment and attendance significantly for boys and even more so for girls. With regard to learning, education content likely contributes to or mitigates conflict, although the mechanisms through which it does so remain underspecified; and peace education programs show promise in changing attitudes and behaviors toward members of those perceived as the "other," at least in the short term. Finally, providing children living in emergency and postemergency situations with structured, meaningful, and creative activities in a school setting or in informal learning spaces improves their emotional and behavioral well-being.

This article examines how local law enforcers in India respond to NGO efforts to disseminate world culture through human rights education. Law enforcement officers do not merely decouple from human rights discourse by superficially endorsing it. They also go further than infusing rights with local meaning. Officers use the language and logic of human rights to explicitly contest the validity of core rights protections. This reveals how local state agents can resist world culture by using its script to argue against its principles.

Collective action frames are a key strategy of human rights activists and educators, and central to this strategy is the ability to connect frames to a population's extant beliefs. But two dilemmas plague framing efforts directed at state agents such as police officers, who are seen as potential violators of rights. First, these actors may be less likely than members of the general public to share the beliefs in terms of which human rights workers frame rights; and second, frames by their very nature simplify reality, and fail to take into account factors that constrain state agents' actions. This article explores these issues through a case study of human rights education involving police officers in India. Educators may be able to mitigate such obstacles by basing their framing efforts on research on the specific populations with which they are working, and using frames as only one part of an approach that takes into account the limited ability of frames to encompass all aspects of the situations in which violations occur. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article explores the public thinking in the gap between past and future, with fieldwork as philosophy. It argues that efforts to reform a group of people are likely to be premised on a narrow conception of ethics that excludes other possible conceptions, and that the reform efforts risks dehumanizing their subjects by viewing them as objects to be transformed. The author also argues that reform efforts tend to occur in the midst of heated controversies.

This article examines how law enforcers in India respond to human rights educators' efforts to connect human rights to their religious and cultural beliefs. Human rights educators will, according to theorists, be most persuasive if they frame rights in ways that connect to local traditions. In this view, local beliefs often constrain acceptance of international human rights norms, but have the potential to be important sources of support as well. This study, however, reveals a more complex relationship between religious or cultural beliefs and human rights. The human rights course on which this study focuses explicitly connects human rights to Indian traditions. The officers participating in the course accept the idea that human rights embody the same values as their religious and cultural traditions. This does not, however, lead them to accept human rights. Instead officers feel that they must compromise or reject both human rights and their traditional values, in favour of competing values and interests related to their work as law enforcers. This finding complicates assumptions about the relationship between local beliefs and international human rights norms. Furthermore, the study reveals the importance of considering students' professional and social roles within society, and the constraints, beliefs, and expectations related to such roles, when designing programmes that aim to connect human rights to students' values and concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]