PHILOSOPHY of EDUCATION SOCIETY

July 2011 Update

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Time to Renew Your PES Membership – Cris Mayo, Executive Director

It is that time of year again--time to renew your membership for 2011-2012. Please remember that PES membership runs from July to July, so renew now and don’t miss out on a even a single exciting moment in any our publications. If you have not done so already please log in to our secure payment system and renew your membership for 2011-2012. For those of you who may forget your password from year to year (I pride myself on doing this consistently), the page does have the forgotten password feature, and you can pay with a credit card -Visa or Master Card. If you have forgotten whether you paid or not, log in and check under the Membership tab. You can also take this time to update your address and other information.

To log in you simply need to enter your e-mail address and password. If you have trouble logging in it may be because your e-mail address has changed. If that`s the case, try using your old e-mail address or, if you don`t remember it, let me know and I can change it in our records. Even if you don`t remember your password you can enter your e-mail and click on the: forgotten your password? link. The system will send you (to the e-mail address we have on file) a temporary password that you can use to log in.

Thanks to all of you who renewed your membership recently. Please contact me if you have problems: cmayo@illinois.edu I will be briefly away from email in mid-July but will respond as soon as I can thereafter.

We continue to see a growth in student attendance our conferences that is wonderful. We’re also seeing a drop off in membership rates so please do encourage colleagues and students who might be interested to join—they get access to great publications and of course, the simple joys of fascinating regional, national, and international colleagues.

Message from PES President--Gert Biesta

Dear colleagues,

Although our wonderful conference in St Louis doesn’t feel that far away, we are already getting geared up for the 2012 conference in Pittsburgh, Mar. 22-26. We are in downtown Pittsburgh, in a great location and an exciting environment. There is more detailed information about the conference below from programme chair Claudia Ruitenberg and chair of the hospitality committee Michael Gunzenhauser. I am very grateful to them for all the work that has already been done, and all the work that they and their committee members will do over the coming months.

I urge you all to submit papers and proposal for alternative sessions. While many of us are working under increasingly frustrating if not absurd conditions, I also notice, talking to students, teachers and educators in many countries around the world, that there is a great need to go back to the questions that really matter. These are not questions about how education can be organised effectively and smoothly, but how education can be meaningful for all who participate. This is where we have important insights to offer as philosophers of education. The conference, which is our society’s `main` event, is not only a place for recharging our intellectual batteries, but also an opportunity to share all the important work we are doing in the many different places and spaces where we work.

We are not a big society, but we are friendly and welcoming, and in that spirit I want to ask all of you to make an extra effort to invite colleagues and students to come to Pittsburgh, take part in the conversation, and perhaps even become a member of PES!

Two further bits of news. First of all I am delighted to announce that Professor John D. Caputo, Thomas J. Watson Professor of Humanities at Syracuse University, has agreed to give the Kneller lecture. Caputo has made really important contributions to a range of areas, including hermeneutics, phenomenology, existentialism and deconstruction, and is also doing exciting work at the intersection of philosophy and theology. Secondly: we are working hard on a new website for PES. I hope to be able to give you an update on progress in the next newsletter.

In the meantime: have a great summer, don’t forget the 1 November deadline, and if you have any ideas, suggestions or questions, do get in touch!

Gert Biesta

Message from Program Chair: Claudia Ruitenberg

PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION SOCIETY
Call for Papers
68th Annual Meeting 2012

The 68th Annual Meeting of the Philosophy of Education Society (PES) will be held from Thursday, March 22 until Monday, March 26, 2012 at the Marriott Renaissance Hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Program Committee invites papers to be submitted for presentation at the Annual Meeting and for subsequent publication in the PES Yearbook, Philosophy of Education 2012. The Committee also invites two other types of proposals: (1) Proposals for alternative sessions; (2) Proposals for work-in-progress that bring participants together to collaborate on developing ideas that are not yet ready for the regular paper submission process.

The Program Committee will review only submissions made in accordance with the instructions below. With the exception of the Presidential Address, the Kneller Lecture, and other specially designated invited talks, only those papers reviewed and accepted by the Program Committee, and invited responses to them, will be published in Philosophy of Education 2012 (now online only).

DEADLINE: Papers and proposals must be submitted electronically to pes2012submissions@gmail.com no later than November 1, 2011. Submission instructions appear below.


SUBMISSION FORMATS

PAPER SUBMISSIONS: Papers may not exceed 4,500 words, including footnotes, and must be written in proper PES form (see the Style Guide). The 4,500-word limit will be strictly enforced. Papers that modestly exceed the 4500-word limit will be subject to editing. Papers that exceed this limit excessively will be subject to rejection without review or to not being published in the PES Yearbook.

Multiple reviewers will review papers blindly. Final decisions on manuscripts rest with the Program Chair. Criteria for review include quality of argument, links to philosophical and philosophy of education literature and to educational practice, quality of expression, and importance of the contribution. Please make sure that references to your name, institutional affiliation, or work (e.g., “As I have argued on many occasions…”) are omitted from the paper, including the notes. Your identifying information will not be available to reviewers.

PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS: Proposals may not exceed 1,000 words, including references. If the session being proposed involves multiple presenters, please specify the contribution of each presenter. Alternative session proposals take two general forms:

• ALTERNATIVE SESSIONS may be scheduled concurrently with paper sessions or in separate time slots. Examples include roundtables, poster dialogues, authors’ talks, performances, consultations, interviews, and conversations on issues. Criteria for review include originality and clarity of motivating question or idea, potential interaction with session attendees, and relevance/importance to educational philosophy and educational practice.

• WORK-IN-PROGRESS SESSIONS group scholars with work-in-progress in an informal collaborative setting. Proposals should detail the question or claim being investigated, relevant sources/resources, likely direction, and mode(s) of analysis. Criteria for review include originality and clarity of question/claim, suitability of sources/resources, suitability of mode(s) of analysis, potential for contribution to educational philosophy and educational practice.


PES 2012 THEME: EDUCATION, THE ARTS, AND SOCIAL CHANGE
The Philosophy of Education Society and the journal Educational Theory have established a joint venture to identify a theme for each year’s conference. While submitted papers need not address the theme, accepted papers that do address the theme will be noted on the program as such and will be considered for separate publication in a special issue of the journal.

The purpose of this venture is to provide a high-visibility forum for philosophers of education to speak to important current issues of policy and practice in education. We believe it will be beneficial to PES, and to the field of philosophy of education more widely, to have a higher profile in this regard. The journal version will reach an even broader, and international, audience.

Next year’s theme is: "Education, the Arts, and Social Change." This theme speaks to the location of next year’s conference in Pittsburgh’s Cultural District, but is relevant also to policy initiatives around the world. For example, in some places the arts are supported as drivers of urban development and gentrification; in others, funding for the arts is cut because of charges of elitism and limited social relevance. The theme could be addressed, for example, by looking at the role of aesthetic education in social change today, either generally or in relation to particular works of art; the intrinsic versus instrumental value of the arts in education; the role of artists and writers as social critics, and/or the concern that this role is limited today because artistic works are absorbed by systems of economic exchange; controversies about the use of literary and other artistic works in schools; and many other topics.

Authors submitting papers to the PES program are not required to write on the theme, and only a subset of papers in the overall program will be thematically driven. All papers will go through the normal review process. Papers not found acceptable on grounds of quality will not be accepted simply because they address the theme. Papers not addressing the theme will not be penalized for that reason.

Following the conference, and in light of the response pieces at the event, the Program Chair will invite some or all of the authors who have written on the theme to revise and expand their papers, up to a limit of about 6,000 words, within two months of the conference. Authors are not allowed to make these sorts of revisions for the version appearing in the PES Yearbook, so the revised versions will be substantially different. It is even possible that a response paper might be deemed by the Program Chair to be of sufficient quality and distinctness to justify its being expanded to a full-length essay on its own and submitted as part of the collection. In the revision process, authors may also be asked to locate their argument more clearly in the context of educational and cultural policy, or indicate what policy implications the argument may have.

Two months after the conference, this set of revised papers will then be submitted as a collection to Educational Theory for review and consideration as part of a special themed issue. The papers will go through the normal journal review process, and may be subject to requests for further revision following that process. They will be refereed publications, as are all Educational Theory articles. Decisions on the final acceptance of papers will be made jointly by the Program Chair, serving as Guest Editor of the special issue, and the journal Editor, but in cases of disagreement the final decision will rest with the journal Editor.

Given the review process and production timeline, this special issue will normally appear early in the year following the conference.


SUBMISSION PROCESS
Submit papers or proposals as a Word attachment to pes2012submissions@gmail.com by November 1, 2011.

In the body of your e-mail, please provide the following contact information:
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Email address
Phone number
Mailing address

Submissions will be accepted beginning September 15, 2011. An e-mail confirmation that your submission has been received will be sent within two business days.

Note: If you do not receive an email confirmation within two business days of your submission, please contact Claudia Ruitenberg: claudia.ruitenberg@ubc.ca.


CALL FOR PARTICIPATION AS A RESPONDENT OR CHAIR

Members of PES who are interested in serving as session chairs or respondents are invited to contact the Program Chair, Claudia Ruitenberg, at claudia.ruitenberg@ubc.ca. Please specify your areas of expertise and provide your full contact information (mailing address, email address, and phone number).

For questions concerning the 2011 program, please contact Claudia Ruitenberg at claudia.ruitenberg@ubc.ca

Message from Hospitality Chair: Mike Gunzenhauser, University of Pittsburgh

Our 2012 annual meeting from Mar. 22-26, will be in Pittsburgh at the Renaissance Hotel, a historic hotel along the Allegheny River that sits in the heart of the Cultural District downtown. The hotel is the perfect size for our conference and has a terrific restaurant and bar on site. Pittsburgh is also a very interesting place to study philosophy and education, which will be sure to come up during the meeting.

Our room rate at the Renaissance is $149/night, and at this point you have plenty of time to make your reservation. Please be sure to say that you are registering for PES and that you have a special conference rate. You can reserve your rooms by calling: 1-412-562-1200 or using their toll free worldwide reservations number: 1--800-468-3571.

Following in our recent tradition, the Renaissance is hosting a welcome reception on Thursday evening as the conference begins, so plan to arrive early to kick off the conference. For more information about the hotel and amenities, see http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/pitbr-renaissance-pittsburgh-hotel/ or Google: "Pittsburgh Renaissance"

If you’ve not been to Pittsburgh recently for a conference, you may be surprised at how much the city has to offer. From our location in the Cultural District, you will have easy access to food, art, sports, and cultural events. You’ll need a guide to figure out what to do and where to eat (although it’s difficult to get a bad meal in Pittsburgh), and the hospitality committee is getting busy putting that together for you, so that you can take full advantage. Future updates will provide information about the many performances and exhibitions for those who would like to purchase tickets ahead of time. We’ll help you find some things off the beaten path, too, like the best time to visit the markets in the nearby Strip District, how to catch a ride on an Incline, and where to go to get a spectacular view of the city. In future updates, we’ll also run down your options for travel from the airport and specific directions and parking options if you’re planning to drive. To get started on your own, take a look at visitpittsburgh.com for a comprehensive guide. I’m joined on the committee by Pittsburgh residents Daniel Narey and Bryan Stephany and regular visitors Kathleen Knight Abowitz and Natasha Levinson.

 

A Call for participants to join symposia being organized for the 2012 PES conference:

OPEN CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
SYMPOSIUM: RECONSTRUCTING THE HIGH SCHOOL

In 2011, Erin Wilding Martin presented a paper at PES about Paul Ernest`s proposal for a comprehensive reconstruction of high school mathematics. This year Erin, along with Leonard Waks, invite philosophers of education to join in a proposal for an alternative session for the PES conference in 2012 in Pittsburgh to explore parallel efforts in other high school curriculum areas, especially in language and literature, science, and social studies. The symposium would be titled “Reconstructing the High School”.

Ernest argues that democratic principles require a differentiated high school core mathematics curriculum based on student choice and career goals. This core is based on mathematics appreciation and critical social awareness, which he believes will empower students. In her analysis, Erin finds some promising aspects in Ernest’s proposal, but also some troubling underlying assumptions. She argues that his democratic aims for this curriculum are threatened by mathematical elitism and social power structures. Parallel efforts exist for rethinking other subject matter areas, for example, the science/ technology/society movement in science education, though arguably scholars in other curriculum areas have not offered proposals as extensive and visionary as Ernest`s vision for math. This symposium aims to unearth and explore such reconstructive proposals, and subject them to philosophical critique.

This is an open call for contributions. If you have any interest in contributing, please contact Erin (emartin@parkland.edu) or Leonard Waks (ljwaks@yahoo.com).

OPEN CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
Symposium: Pedagogies of Listening

The listening study group is making an open call to members and friends of PES to join in a proposal for an alternative session on the topic “pedagogies of listening” for the 2012 PES annual meeting in Pittsburgh PA. The listening study group was initiated by Sophie Haroutunian-Gordon in 2003, as an outgrowth of her PES presidential address, “Listening: In a Democratic Society.” Since that time the group has organized a number of topical projects, conference symposia, edited collections and special journal issues.

The project aims to develop a book or special journal issue on “Pedagogies of Listening.” Leonard Waks is organizing these sessions and will edit the book or special issue.

Objective. The objective of the proposed symposium is to investigate in comparative perspective various contemporary or historical pedagogies that position teachers and pupils as active listeners. Presentations will focus upon specific pedagogies and examine six questions:

• how does the pedagogy define active listening?
• by what techniques does it position teachers and students as active listeners?
• what are the aims and the consequences of such pedagogical techniques?
• what training is provided for teachers to prepare them for their roles as active listeners?
• what strengths and shortcomings does the pedagogy exhibit?
• what lessons can be drawn for improving listening in conventional classrooms?

Structure and Overview of the Session. An introductory presentation will briefly describe the study group and the ‘pedagogies of listening’ project. Each presenter will then discuss the meaning and place of listening in a particular pedagogy. After brief presentations and a commentary, the speakers and audience explore the pedagogies in comparative perspective and their implications for philosophy of education and classroom practice.

If you have any interest in contributing, please contact Leonard Waks (ljwaks@yahoo.com).

 

Educational Theory Summer Institute 2011

EDUCATIONAL THEORY SUMMER INSTITUTE 2011
Plural Societies and the Possibility of a Shared Moral Vision
Featuring a conference, free and open to the public, on Wednesday, August 17th
RSVP to Jane Blanken-Webb (blankenw@illinois.edu)

This topic will be the focus of the Third Annual Educational Theory Summer Institute (ETSI), held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from August 15-17, 2011. The journal Educational Theory (http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/Educational-Theory/) is pleased to acknowledge The Forum for the Future of Public Education (http://forum.illinois.edu/) as co-sponsor of this year’s event.

Educational Theory has commissioned a team of outstanding scholars to produce fresh and substantive statements on this pressing issue. Their papers will appear as a special issue of the journal. The 2011 participants are:
· Sigal Ben-Porath, University of Pennsylvania
· Katariina Holma, University of Helsinki
· Bruce Maxwell, University of Québec
· Kevin McDonough, McGill University, Canada.
· Michael S. Merry, University of Amsterdam (director)
· Charlene Tan, Nanyang Technological University
· David I. Waddington, Concordia University
· Bryan Warnick, The Ohio State University

During the first two days of the institute, participants will workshop each other's papers in internal sessions with Educational Theory staff. The institute will culminate, on Wednesday, August 17th, with an all-day open conference, featuring the scholars above and other area scholars (to be announced). All of those interested in education and the possibilities of a shared moral vision are invited to attend (contact Jane Blanken-Webb, blankenw@illinois.edu, for further details).

Governments around the world are faced with increasingly pluralistic populations at the same time that they wrestle with
shrinking public budgets and worsening unemployment which exacerbate social tensions and anxieties. As social and
cultural fabrics stretch to the breaking point, a crisis of citizenship looms. Modes of belonging pull in conflicting,
sometimes directly competing, directions. Faced with these challenges, states are exploring ways to reinforce civic
attachments from their heterogeneous populations, but doing so is proving difficult when former ways of belonging no
longer resonate with a large portion of the citizenry.

The absence of a shared moral vision in particular is salient. As centripetal forces gather momentum, the result is both a
politics of fear and distrust of others. While the reasons for discordance are complex — they have economic, social and
cultural causes and effects — they certainly are aggravated by the presence of different cultures, religions, and political
views existing side by side without a shared moral vision. In the history of the world this is not new, of course. But what
is new is the scale of the challenges governments face in galvanizing peoples from conflicting experiences and visions
of morality.

Educational institutions are at the center of these challenges — challenges that can lead to cynicism and despair, or lead
to new visions of hope and opportunity. But opportunities for meaningful engagement with substantive moral difference
are too frequently passed up in favor of a moral rhetoric that either glosses over substantive differences, or else alienates
and divides rather than inspires and unites. In the presentations for this Summer Institute we want to explore different
possibilities for a shared moral vision. How can citizens be united through education when centripetal cultural forces
might otherwise pull us apart?

ETSI was established to foster new theoretical perspectives on important questions of educational policy and practice. It brings leading scholars to the University of Illinois to collaborate on a special issue of Educational Theory and, along with area scholars, to participate in a public conference. Each fall the journal issues an open call for proposals for the following summer's institute.




CONTACT: PES Executive Kurt Stemhagen
804-827-8415; krstemhagen@vcu.edu