Moral education and ethical reflection are always dependent on the content of the internalized norms, principles and values of the individual. As we demonstrate, this also means that there is no instance of feeling, emotion, spontaneity, or care that can be independent of norms, rules, and values outside human discourse. In light of this, Noddings’ theory of the ethic of care is a contentious theory of child education, as it is linked with the presupposition that we can turn a blind eye to the symbolic field, to the network of rules/principles and their values, when we educate. Education that is derived only from caring, without being derived from reflection on education’s specific values, can lead to education that supports, for instance, racist ideology and racist education. This is not, of course, something that the ethic of care would advocate; however, as an educational theory, it is flawed in that, due to the rejection of reflection through principles in general, it fails to provide the educator with a conceptual apparatus through which he/she could analyze and reflect upon – could understand – what he/she is doing with regard to the norms of his/her culture. Society and educators cannot tacitly allow or be benevolent towards such fundamental mistakes in moral education.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11141705
The article analyses parallels between phenomenology and radical constructivism (as epistemic model of knowledge formation that has found especially fertile ground in the field of education). The list of methodological and epistemic problems of both paradigms is outlined as well a number of opportunities of their mutual collaboration. Special emphasis is given to the analysis of possibilities of first-person empirical research, grounded in the constructivist epistemological framework. Guidelines for participatory empirical (phenomenological) research that does not ignore its self-referential nature are proposed.
COBISS.SI-ID: 10949961
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), colloquially known as Rabīndranātha Thākura, was an Indian or more precisely a Bengali artist (poet, writer, playwright, musician and fine artist). His most well-known work is Gitanjali (Darovanjke), for which he became the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Considerably less known is Tagore’s pioneering work in education and schooling. Tagore established his school in West Bengal, on the basis of his belief that the educational process alone can lead to solutions to all of our problems and enable man to realise his true potential. To Tagore, therefore, education pervades and influences the entire physical and social environment of an individual. Tagore emphasised the physical, aesthetic, intellectual, social, moral and spiritual aspects of human life in education, through which man can develop a comprehensive personality. To him, the physical and aesthetic development of the senses was at least as important as, if not more important than, intellectual development. The school he established therefore laid emphasis on academics as well as on movement, music, literature, art, dance and drama. Tagore was one of the first educators in the world to think of the school as a global village. This thinking stemmed from his multi-racial, multi-lingual and multi-cultural context, living in the then economically backwards and politically imbalanced nation of India.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11412297
The authors raise the question of the influence of the culturally and linguistically heterogeneous composition of classes in schools on the conception of teacher education. They begin with a synthetic presentation of the results of studies focused on the presence and characteristics of an intercultural conception of teacher education. They then discuss the intercultural competences of teachers. They show that the concept of the intercultural competences of teachers is, on the one hand, held to be a prevailing and self-evident discourse, while on the other it gives rise to criticism and questioning. Common to both discourses is a confrontation with fundamental dilemmas in the conception of teacher education that, again and again, leads to the question of the relationship between the knowledge that teachers need for their work, the skills they have to acquire and the attitude they are expected to cultivate towards their work and the mission of a teacher. It appears that when it comes to teachers' capacity for work in culturally and linguistically heterogeneous classrooms, a key role is played by attitude, which can orient a teacher towards inclusive and intercultural teaching practices. Because of this, teacher education programmes are seeking methods of education that touch on the attitudes and values of (future) teacher. At the same time, however, reflection backed by theory must not be overlooked.
COBISS.SI-ID: 61202530
Since the spring of 2014, the authors of this article, joined by a wider group of students, have been dedicated to researching vulnerable families and their involvement with education systems. In the initial phase, we found that both, the families and the expert services experience dissatisfaction when it comes to their cooperation. Our pivotal finding is therefore that it is vital to develop more flexible and consistent forms of support that respond to the concerns and challenges of the daily lives of vulnerable families (Razpotnik et al. 2015). In the action research reported on in the present article, we have focused on investigating the development of a newly emerging flexible and comprehensive form of family support that was co-initiated by ourselves (the researchers) and primarily implemented by volunteers and NGO workers. The main characteristics of this support are flexibility, presence in the daily lives of the family, building a cooperative relationship, and prioritising the dynamics and needs of the family rather than the formal demands of organisations and institutions. Lifeworld-oriented support is a supplementary addition to conventional forms of family support, represented and reported on predominantly by representatives of educational and social welfare organisations.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11411529