Lynda Stone

Feminism and curriculum: Getting our act together

We bring together feminism and curriculum to examine the possibilities of their mutual influence. Based on a recognition of the achievements of girls in education and elsewhere, we begin with consideration of liberal feminism, its advances, and its limitations. Basic to limitations of liberal feminism is the hierarchical, dualistic structure of gender that pervades western life. Attention to dualisms as they connect to the history and theorizings of feminism follows. Arguing that curriculum is overdetermined by the dualism which feminist theory addresses, four categories descriptive of the feminist analysis of dualism are offered: experiential, categorical, psychoanalytic, and deconstructive. A further thesis is that these categories organize human experience and education in terms of the relationships of self to language, and of intentionality to reflexivity: evident cultural and educational interactions of these four are offered, leading to the argument that only formulations that connect self and language, reproduction and representation will effect curriculum.

Feminist Political Theory: Contributions to a Conception of Citizenship

Abstract Recent political advances of American women can be maintained and furthered with a reformulated definition of feminism and the solidarity that stems from it. Such a definition acknowledges the past successes and failures of feminist theorizing and builds toward a new conception of citizenship. Over the past 20 years feminist political theory has been an arena from which such a redefinition can be drawn. Pertinent is relatively recent work from postmodern feminists, specifically ideas of reformulated rationality and personhood as difference rather than sameness, multiplicity rather than singularity, and fluidity rather than stasis. Following a political introduction and an intellectual contextualization, the author presents three theoretical phases leading to a new conception of citizenship: past for the present, difference out of sameness, and rationality to subjectivities.

Educational Reform through an Ethic of Performativity: Introducing the Special Issue

Serving as an introduction to the special issue of Studies in Philosophy and Education, “Philosophical Transgressions: Performativity and Performance for Education,” this paper situates the papers that follow in its own performative analysis, especially utilizing the insights of Jean-François Lyotard. From him two ideas are salient, one his conception of knowledge as performance and the other the aesthetic (through language and writing) that is a reformist response.

Re-thinking Dewey’s democracy: shifting from a process of participation to an institution of association

Dewey’s definition of democracy from Democracy and Education (1916) is analysed and rethought through a path exploring a shift from a conception of participation as a process to one of association as an institution. Contributions to this pathway among others come from political philosophy and educational philosophy. The rationale for such a shift is found in contemporary American politics and its dysfunction.

Julia Kristeva’s ‘Mystery’ of the Subject in Process

So begins Possessions, a mystery novel from French poststructuralist philosopher and psychoanalyst, Julia Kristeva. A novel, this novel, is “autobiographical” (Kristeva, 1996a, p. 270), not only because elements connect to her own life story, but also because the form facilitates the therapeutic relationship.

Modern to postmodern: Social construction, dissonance, and education

Modernist educational practice operates within an overarching norm of consonance, notions of sameness and agreement that permeate schools and classroom life. This paper posits a needed move to postmodern educational theory and practice through dissonance. Following an intellectual contextualization, two sets of philosophical claims are presented. The first promotes social construction of reality and the second poses dissonance rather than consonance. The paper concludes with a “look” at education from this postmodern perspective.

Break with Tradition: Marshall's contribution to a Foucauldian philosophy of education

James Marshalls work on Foucault exemplifies a break with tradition in philosophy of education and if taken appropriately as a new methodology, a new logic, portends a different future for the field. This article begins from a misunderstanding of Marshall. It then posits Marshall as situated in a particular Foucauldian root: a logic break out of Bachelard, Canguilhem and Foucault. From them a different understanding of ‘concept’ is offered as a break with the analytic tradition in philosophy and philosophy of education.

A Different Road: The Life and Writings of Soseki Natsume as a Struggle for Modern Accommodation

This chapter provides a broader context for issues and themes that recur in this book as a whole. The discussion begins with reference to a woodblock print by the modern master, Un’ichi Hiratsuka. This sets the scene for a reflection on the writings of Soseki—with particular reference to the exploration in his novels of the profound changes Japan underwent during the Meiji restoration. The essay examines especially the teacher figures in Soseki’s work, and through this it explores such matters as accommodation with the West, the semblance of a Western lifestyle, shifts in generational relationships, and tensions between urban and rural life. The reading of Soseki is oriented by questions concerning the reception of other cultures, questions that are plainly central to the ambitions of this book.

Epistemological Diversity: A Roundtable

The participants in this conversation are all philosophers or philosophers of education with different perspectives on the issues, and all (with the exception of Lynda Stone) have contributed other chapters to this volume. The substantive conversation opens with a statement by Code expressing discomfort with thinking of “multicultural epistemologies” as “alternatives,” as if one can pick and choose between them. Rather, all concerned are focused on the epistemic issue of “knowing well.” Furthermore, epistemology is a field that has changed over time and is doing so today making this a “conflicted historical situation.” Siegel argues that these “alternatives” are best seen as “claims for the legitimacy of the experiences, views, and presence of members of marginalized groups”, for clearly they are not epistemology. Stone raises some issues relating to seminar-room practice with doctoral students, including the problem that what constitutes knowledge has become politicized. Phillips expresses his long-standing puzzlement as to why the important educational and political concerns of marginalized groups have come to be expressed in ill-fitting epistemological language. Ruitenberg responds to some of these concerns expressed by the roundtable participants by arguing that the effort must be made to understand what advocates of multicultural epistemology are trying to achieve by resignifying the term; her hypothesis is that they are objecting to narrowing “knowledge” to refer to propositional knowledge to the exclusion of knowledge by acquaintance.

Experience and Performance: Contrasting 'Identity' in Feminist Theorizings

Connecting identity, broadly defined to recent ‘advances’ in educational research, this paper takes up two different feminist treatments based in pragmatism and poststructuralism. The first is from Charlene Haddock Seigfried on ‘experience,’ and the second is from Peggy Phelan on ‘performance.’ The first is in keeping with a dominant tradition to secure identity through visibility and the second suggests critique through a turn to invisibility. The first arises out of Deweys naturalism and the second through Lacan, performance art, and anti-representation. At bottom is suggestion that an entire narrative tradition in educational research is potentially self-defeating.