Philosophical Inquiry in Education

Mission Statements, Values, and Practice

Jamie Herman — 2025-11-07

“Love of learning” is a phrase that appears frequently in school mission statements, among others with similar connotations Using “Love of learning” as a case, I employ comparative conceptual analysis to characterize the value underlying the phrase before reviewing the implications this holds for practice in schools that use the phrase in their mission statements. I argue “Love of learning” refers to a distinct, intrinsically valuable phenomenon that implies a particular type of learning experience. A commitment to fostering “love of learning” at school would require developing environments conducive to each student having this particular learning experience. This carries implications for practice, particularly in schools that include fostering “love of learning” in their mission statements. As a case, the conceptual analysis of “love of learning” presented here demonstrates the need to review mission statements to assess whether values conveyed therein align with institutional practices.

Public pedagogy and the archive

Timothy Martin — 2025-11-07

The Toronto Disaster Relief Committee (TDRC) was a coalition of housing activists active in the years between 1998 and 2012 (Monsebraaten, 2012; Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, 1998, 2012). Their efforts bore witness to the rise of dehousing (Hulchanski, 2000, 2010), and the associated trauma and deaths of those forced to live without housing. Upon their closure, they donated their collective files to the City of Toronto Archives. This paper articulates how the curation and public provision of their collected material operates as a significant form of public pedagogy. First, the TDRC files are what I term a “counter-archive within.” That is, nested within a conventional archive, often figured as a repository for colonial common sense, motivated by the preservation of state power (Stoler, 2002), lies a counternarrative that challenges the epistemic authority of neoliberal logic. Secondly, in tandem with monthly public events, such an archive resists the “re-scripting” (Edkins, 2003, p. xv) of trauma in commemorative practice; activists as archivists unveil the faults in state-managed temporal arrangements. And finally, the storing of such material in a public institution like the Toronto Archives ultimately foregrounds the archive as a public thing (Honig, 2017) that requires our contestation, care, and attention.

Creative Listening as a Driving Force in Explorations of a Subject Matter

Johan Deltner — 2025-11-07

Listening is a familiar activity in education but has received less interest in the literature than speaking, matching its position in our popular culture, which focuses on freedom of speech and extrovert demeanor. Drawing on John Dewey to understand what characterizes creative listening in educational dialogue, this paper argues that creative listening initiates and prolongs explorations into a subject matter through creative tensions, here described as the interplay between originality and meaningfulness that triggers further inquiries and gives rise to ambivalent experiences within the teacher. Through these tensions, creative listening widens the subject matter and increases the opportunities for teachers and students to connect to the world of the subject matter. To achieve this form of listening, the teacher must artfully navigate the tangle of creative endeavors to facilitate enriched educational experiences for the students. By highlighting creative listening as a subtle but powerful force in educational dialogues, this paper strives to emphasize and expand the role of listening in education, promoting an understanding of the way silent communications aid complex forms of knowing.

On Justification in Moral Education

Emma Prendergast — 2025-11-07

Teachers engaged in moral education face a puzzle. We aim to bring children up to believe in and subscribe to basic moral standards such as prohibitions against harming others and requirements to help when we can. At the same time, there is widespread reasonable disagreement about the content and justification of morality, and teaching standards as justified when there is reasonable disagreement is wrongfully indoctrinatory. I analyze two answers to the puzzle posed by Hand (2018a) and White (2016), defending White’s education in altruism approach against Hand’s criticisms by drawing from an analogy with the teaching of standards and principles in other subjects. Moral standards need not be metaethically justified to children all the way down, like how we need not teach children the metaphysical foundations of math and science in order to teach the standards of math and science in a way that does not wrongfully indoctrinate them. I conclude in favor of a pluralistic approach to teaching the reasons to abide by basic moral standards.

When Care Becomes Cruel

Lana Parker — 2025-11-07

Drawing on our empirical study engaging focus groups of highly experienced educators and stakeholders (n=12) in Ontario, Canada, we examine the cruel refiguration of educational worker care under neoliberalism in public education. Austerity policies have degraded conditions in the schools such that educators are unable to fulfill their attachments to education as a public good. In addition, the neoliberal individualization of responsibility asks workers to address worsening conditions as individuals, collapsing structures of solidarity. In this paper, we explore the phenomenological aspects of how neoliberal individualism structures educator moods, examining educators’ affective interplays of grief, rage, despair, determination, and exhaustion as they struggle to independently uphold or repair a system under duress. We argue that neoliberal conceptions of care are insufficient—and indeed Sisyphean—as singular efforts cannot address the current widespread systemic problems. Instead, we suggest educational workers should disavow individualism, refusing to bear personal responsibility for systemic issues, and should instead seek broader, collective organization against further neoliberal education reforms.

Review of Retuning Education: Bildung and Exemplarity Beyond the Logic of Progress by Morten T. Korsgaard (Routledge, 2024)

Ilya Zrudlo — 2025-11-07

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Feminist Care and Being Tough Enough: An Interview with Michelle Forrest

Adrian M. Downey — 2025-11-07

This article takes the form of an interview with Dr. Michelle Forrest. A philosopher of education, a teacher, a feminist, and a mentor to many, Michelle has been a longtime member of the Canadian philosophy of education community. This interview, conducted by her colleague, Adrian Downey, and her PhD student, Renée McKinstry, looks back over Michelle’s work in philosophy of education, offering her the chance to reflect on her contributions considering the changes in educational thinking and social circumstance throughout her career. Specifically, Michelle discusses her dissertation on pedagogical openness and the openness of the text, the feminist ethics of care and feminist irony, the dangers of comparative thinking, coloniality, and the significance of the Canadian Philosophy of Education Society (CPES) to her career and life as a philosopher of education. The interview concludes with Michelle’s advice to future scholars working the foundations of education and especially philosophy of education.