Claudia W. Ruitenberg

The trouble with dispositions: a critical examination of personal beliefs, professional commitments and actual conduct in teacher education

In this article, I argue that the concept of disposition is often unclear in teacher education programs, sometimes referring to general personal values and beliefs, and sometimes referring to professional commitments and actions. As a result, it is unclear whether teacher education programs should focus on selecting the right kind of person, or on educating the student for a profession. I suggest that a clearer distinction should be made between predispositions (value commitments that a person may or may not act upon) and professional dispositions (characteristics attributed to a person based on actually observed actions), and that teacher education programs should focus their attention on the latter, not the former. The question is not whether student-teachers have the ‘right’ personal beliefs but whether, if the dispositions required by the profession are at odds with their personal beliefs, the former will override the latter.

B Is For Burqa, C Is For Censorship: The Miseducative Effects of Censoring Muslim Girls and Women's Sartorial Discourse

In this article, I add a discursive analysis to the discussion about Muslim girls and womens dress in non-Muslim educational contexts. I argue that a law or policy that prohibits the wearing of khimar, burqa, chador, niqab, hijab, or jilbab in the context of public schools is a form of censorship in educational contexts. This sartorial censorship is miseducative in the sense that it impedes the achievement of important educational goals, especially in public education. I consider the public nature of public education and discuss three sets of miseducative effects: First, the examination of discursive processes, including the production of social norms, is limited. Second, the critical uptake of the banned discourse by female Muslim students themselves is foreclosed, and their agency hindered. Third, a metadiscourse arises that translates individual sartorial discursive acts into generalized terms (such as “veils” and “headscarves”) without noticing what is lost in translation.

Queer Politics in Schools: A Rancièrean reading

The perceptibility and intelligibility of queer students and teachers have been a central theme in queer politics in education. Can queer teachers be ‘out’ to their colleagues and students? Can queer relationships be seen at the school prom? Can queerness be seen and heard? At the same time, perceptibility and intelligibility are by no means uncontested political goals. This paper analyzes different school initiatives by and/or for queer students and asks how political these initiatives are from the perspective of Jacques Rancières conception of politics. In particular, it employs Rancières work on the ‘distribution of the sensible’ (partage du sensible) to analyze conditions of visibility and sayability and the political risks and benefits that gaining visibility and sayability carries for queer students and teachers. The paper brings Rancières distinction between identification and subjectification into conversation with Judith Butlers work on the governing of intelligibility by social norms, and the promise of ‘insurrectionary speech’. Finally, Rancières work on the role of allies in political interventions that shift the distribution of the sensible provides a fresh reading of Gay‐Straight Alliances in schools and the work of queer allies more generally.

Learning by walking: non-formal education as curatorial practice and intervention in public space

This case study focuses on Walking Home Carrall Street, a series of walks with youth that took place in the autumn of 2010 on and around Carrall Street in Vancouver, BC. Through participant observations, interviews and analysis of the written reviews submitted by the youth, the purpose of the study is not to provide generalisable insights, but rather to discern with which category or categories of educational programmes it may share certain features. The central question guiding the study, therefore, was: How might Walking Home Carrall Street best be characterised as an educational programme? By drawing out connections to educational, philosophical and geographical literature, I discuss obvious features explicitly mentioned by the programme’s organisers, such as its nonformal and experiential character, as well as less obvious ones, such as the ways in which the programme constitutes an intervention in public space and the ways in which it offers youth opportunities to manifest their intelligence. I also discuss curricular features, such as the deliberate use rather than avoidance of repetition and the relevance of emergent and unplanned curriculum.

‘Scientifically‐based research’: the art of politics and the distortion of science

The US Federal Government is forcefully prescribing a narrow definition of ‘scientifically‐based’ educational research. US policy, emerging from contemporary neoliberal and technocratic viewpoints and funded and propagated on a large scale, has the potential to influence international thinking on educational research. In this article we continue a policy critique that has emerged and address three problems associated with the US Government’s narrow definition of research: (1) the Government’s claims about ‘scientifically‐based research’ are, in themselves, philosophically problematic; (2) the emphasis on quantitative, experimental research is modeled in a questionable manner on techniques from the natural (and especially medical) sciences, and the emphasis on applicability and transferability of findings can be directly related to a predominance of economic principles and discourse; (3) the research commissioned and used by the US Federal Government itself is inconsistent with the rhetoric of scientific criteria. We call for educational leaders and researchers to challenge the Governmental manipulation of science and the marginalization of the education profession from policy‐making in its own field.

‘Plays Well with Others’: The engagement of philosophy of education with other educational research

This essay takes up John White’s argument for an engagement and collaboration of philosophy of education with other disciplines, and in particular with other forms of educational research. It examines the benefits and risks of ‘situated’ or ‘embedded’ philosophy as well as Hannah Arendt’s claims about the separation of philosophy from the public world in which people speak and act. Taking the example of the Canadian context, the essay argues for philosophy of education that works with other disciplines to address pressing educational issues distinctive to Canada, notably the educational recognition and success of Canada’s Indigenous people. The essay closes with the caution that a closer engagement and collaboration of philosophers of education with other forms of educational research should maintain the distinctiveness of philosophical questions rather than seeing the philosophical contribution melt into a generic body of ‘theorizing’.

Liquid subjects: news media and public political pedagogy

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between news media and political education within consumer society. We argue that political education today needs to be understood as part of consumerism and media culture, in which individuals selectively expose themselves to and scrutinize various media representations not only of political issues, but also of political subjectivity and action. Individuals learn about how they might become political and act politically through their engagements with the news, in the context of the characteristics of liquid modernity, namely consumer culture, individualization, and choice. When examined through a lens of public pedagogy, political education becomes intertwined with consumer culture and the role of media in the education and socialization of political subjectivity. In this paper, we look at one example of the relationship between news and the education of political subjectivity by drawing from a larger research study, which examined the role of mainstream and alternative media in citizens’ political mobilization on climate change. We argue that news consumption is part of a public political pedagogy through which individuals negotiate becoming liquid subjects, that is, citizens who take a critical, monitorial, and individualistic consumer approach to becoming political and taking part in social change.

“How to do things with words” in health professions education

This paper reports on a qualitative study of journal entries written by students in six health professions participating in the Interprofessional Health Mentors program at the University of British Columbia, Canada. The study examined (1) what health professions students learn about professional language and communication when given the opportunity, in an interprofessional group with a patient or client, to explore the uses, meanings, and effects of common health care terms, and (2) how health professional students write about their experience of discussing common health care terms, and what this reveals about how students see their development of professional discourse and participation in a professional discourse community. Using qualitative thematic analysis to address the first question, the study found that discussion of these health care terms provoked learning and reflection on how words commonly used in one health profession can be understood quite differently in other health professions, as well as on how health professionals’ language choices may be perceived by patients and clients. Using discourse analysis to address the second question, the study further found that many of the students emphasized accuracy and certainty in language through clear definitions and intersubjective agreement. However, when prompted by the discussion they were willing to consider other functions and effects of language.

Toward a Curatorial Turn in Education

Against the backdrop of a discussion of the educational turn in curating and the differences between teaching and curating, the chapter argues for a curatorial turn in education and highlights the curatorial aspects of teaching. Specifically it argues that it would be of value for teachers and educational scholars to think about discussions in the field of curating, for three reasons. The first is that curating involves a set of abilities and understandings important for navigating the media-saturated environment of the 21st century. The second is that curatorial scholarship explicitly addresses the question of criticality in the role of the curator. The third is that the question of the creation (or “interpellation”) of publics is being raised in curatorial scholarship, and shows new potential for this task in education.

The overlapping spheres of medical professionalism and medical ethics: a conceptual inquiry

Abstract This essay examines the concepts of ‘professionalism’ and ‘ethics’ as they are used in health professions education and, in particular, medical education. It proposes that, in order to make sense of the construct of ‘professional ethics,’ it would be helpful to conceive of professionalism and ethics as overlapping but not identical spheres. By allowing for areas of professionalism that are not directly pertinent to ethics, and areas of ethics that are not directly pertinent to the professional sphere, ‘professional ethics’ as a focus of medical education can come into sharper relief. The essay argues that professional ethics should be understood not only in relation to major ethical issues such as end-of-life decisions, but also in relation to everyday actions and decisions. The essay ends by raising questions about how and by whom professional ethics is best taught.