Education in Childhood and Beyond

Room – Roscoe 4.3

Tammy Harel Ben Shahar (University of Haifa)

Philosophical discussions of education and schooling have traditionally focused on childhood. Children were historically considered “adults in the making”, and schools were considered central in their cognitive, professional, and moral development. Recent years have seen significant changes in these discussions, branching out in at least two interesting directions.

The first involves blurring of the boundaries of childhood and adulthood, extending philosophical inquiries in education to adult education and lifelong learning. In certain aspects, children are more mature and developed than ever before. Yet, in other aspects childhood is also consistently extending into adulthood, and with it the years of education and training needed for adult life. Corresponding the extension of childhood, philosophical questions that focused exclusively on K-12 education, are increasingly explored with regard to post-secondary education. For example, philosophers engage in discussions around widening and equalizing access to higher education, including a defense of a universal right to higher education. There is also growing interest in the aims of higher education and the division of labor between K-12 and higher education in promoting the individual and social goals of education. Additionally, the principles and duties of educational justice are being applied, mutatis mutandis, to institutions of higher education, raising interesting debates about the support universities are required to provide students, regulation of student life on campus, campus free speech, desirable educational outcomes, and more. 

Another direction in which the philosophical discussion of education has developed involves the growing literature on the nature of childhood and its implications for education. Thus, philosophers have debated whether there are unique goods associated with childhood, what they consist in, and what duties they create. Another issue involves children’s developing capacities and autonomy, and how these should be considered in decision-making. These debates (and others) have significant implications for core issues in the philosophy of education. For, obviously, our account of childhood will affect how we conceptualize schools and their goals; how we design schools and educational practices within them; how we envision relations between children and adults (parents, educators) in schools; what powers children should have in educational decision-making; how we should accommodate individual differences in development and talent; how we should balance school and play; and more. 

Drawing on emerging  perspectives on education as a lifelong preoccupation, the workshop aims to provide a friendly and supportive forum for exploring issues related to education in childhood and beyond.