Betwixt & Between: The Liminal Imagination, Education, and Democracy

ISBN-13: 9780820469140 / Angielski / Miękka / 2004 / 217 str.

Steinberg, Shirley R.

Opis

Both neo-liberal and Third Way politicians and pundits have come to accept globalisation as the key determinant of social and political organization. Consequently, they have confused government s role in the liberal democratic state with that of the globalised corporation. The result has been a discursive closure about what counts as human flourishing, and about the nature of the educational provision which best serves such flourishing which is co-terminous with economic success. This book offers both a challenge to such an equivalence, and an understanding of the dispositions and practices that are necessary for education to sustain a robust and invigorating openness in, and for, democracy. From an oblique and whimsical perspective, Betwixt and Between renovates a range of playful and interesting metaphors rooted in experiences and encounters with and at the limen (or threshold). In doing so it weaves through laughter, trickster, poetry, and religion."

Recenzje

"A humane, scholarly, and profoundly counter-cultural text which resists the domination of education by technical, economic and bureaucratic considerations. For its discussions of the place of laughter in education and the role of poetry and imagination in the liberation of the human mind, this book deserves to be used in all teacher education programmes. Although written by a Catholic, it has all the power of Luther's denunciation of current corruptions in institutional culture and practice." (Gerald Grace, Professor, Institute of Education, University of London)
"James Conroy is right: if we want to counter the hegemony of economic thinking in education, we need to cultivate alternative images and metaphors of what education is for and what it is about. Conroy's eloquent and erudite exploration of the idea of liminality not only opens up exciting theoretical possibilities. His concern for the future of liberal democracy gives his writing a clear practical edge and results in imaginative, original and highly relevant suggestions and conclusions. This is a strong book with a powerful message." (Gert Biesta, Professor of Educational Theory, University of Exeter)

O autorze

The Author: James C. Conroy is Head of the Department of Religious Education at the University of Glasgow. He has a B.Ed. in education and religion from the University of London, an M.A. in philosophy of religion, and a Ph.D. in the philosophy of education from the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. Dr. Conroy has sat on the board of a number of international bodies and been a visiting scholar in Brazil and Australia. He has written extensively on the politics of religious schooling, values education, and citizenship.