Utopia Ideology And Or Everyday Education Practice

The collection of texts by scholars of the Department of General Pedagogy at the University of Wrocław is, on the one hand, an expression of the contemporary approach to general pedagogy as a reflection on multidisciplinary upbringing – mainly of philosophical, sociological and psychological nature, and, on the other hand, a reference to the name of pedagogy and its Greek source of the concept of paidagogos, which describes a slave in ancient Greece who led the sons of free citizens to a place of physical exercise and games.

The individual chapters written by scholars of the Department of Ge­ne­ral Pedagogy at the University of Wrocław included in the volume offered to the Readers, showcase selected variants and problems of the hermeneutical and critical approaches to educational practice and research. The general pedagogy we practice in this way reveals its interdisciplinary character, drawing on the resources and achievements of philosophy, sociology, psychology, cultural anthropology, religious studies, and political sciences. By deliberately adopting such an approach, general pedagogy becomes the basic science of pedagogy; one of its major tasks is the integration and criticism of knowledge about education and the study of education and its broadly understood contexts, a knowledge which is produced not only in numerous disciplines of humanities and social sciences. This ambitious task undertaken by many theoreticians and researchers of education all over the world calls for a continuous effort to review the resources of dynamically changing and transforming scientific knowledge and to draw on contemporary and historically significant philosophy. Translating these experiences into the resources of general pedagogy requires from us the effort of understanding the languages of contemporary humanities, social sciences and multicultural societies, as well as the effort of critical thinking, which can recognize and take into account the entanglement of scientific knowledge in social ideas and practices, its conflicts, inequalities and asymmetric discourses. Hence the general pedagogy we practice, exploring the area of ideology (religion) and utopias present in everyday educational practice, implements the vision of bringing closer these two approaches (hermeneutical and critical). We believe that such a general pedagogy, engaged, practiced with passion, aware of its present social context and its past and of the urgent needs, theoretical and practical difficulties, a pedagogy that explores the possible shapes of the future, is both necessary and inspiring. It addresses new topics and offers novel approaches, revises well-established and newly proposed findings, is aware of opportunities and threats. Nevertheless, the chapters written by us are integral, self-contained wholes, just as their authors retain their intellectual and research autonomy, which can be seen in the issues we choose, the mode of their presentation and addressing.

Utopia and Education is an original contribution of the philosophy and theory of education, which also enters the fields of disciplines other than pedagogy and uses their approaches and achievements. The work is part of utopian studies and complements its discourse with a less marked path of philosophy and theory of education. Moreover, in the context of pedagogy and education, it takes up a number of issues whose significance goes beyond the conventional framework of a single discipline: utopia, ideology, social criticism, fundamentalism, democracy, populism, translation, transdisciplinarity and knowledge transfer, socialisation, school as one of the social institutions, etc. The work not only reconstructs knowledge about specific phenomena relevant to education and pedagogy but also proposes an original solution to educational problems in the form of the concept of asylum pedagogy. The approach to these phenomena is well reflected in the division of the book into two parts. The book, apart from references to researchers associated with utopian studies, addresses ideas of such figures of the humanities and social sciences as Emmanuel Levinas and Erich Fromm; their concepts were earlier used by the Author in two monographs. Besides, there are references to Bronisław Baczko, George Steiner, Jacques Derrida, Michael Walzer, Hannah Arendt, Janusz Korczak, and Ilan Gur- Ze'ev. Throughout the work, the Author attempts to combine the perspectives of critical pedagogy and dialogue, finds inspiration in the achievements of the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas and draws on Jewish thought and tradition.

This unique collection of essays by well known scholars from around the world examines the role of edutopias in the utopian tradition, examining its sources and sites as a means for understanding the aims and purposes of education, for realizing its societal value, and for criticizing its present economic, technological and organizational modes.

As a bold provocation to reimagine what the philosophy of education might mean in the 21st century, this book responds to the exhaustion of present theoretical models and indeed the degradation of fabulative thought in its current prospectus. The contributors, from Asia, the Americas, and Europe, proffer a frank response to the everyday reality of the classroom where teachers compete with electronic devices for the attention of students whose minds are literally elsewhere, cocooned in the noospheric ether. Outside of lecture halls the world is suffering the rise of fascism, panic, and anger driven by precarious employment, and a looming fatalism and resignation in the face of ecological calamity. These developments have led to an avalanche of psychical woes afflicting young people ranging from trauma, the loss of hope and, in extremis, violence and suicide. The concerned and committed writers of this volume therefore raise the timely question of the return of utopia as a fitting, desperate, and indeed necessary response to the ecological, existential, and pedagogical crises spreading across the planet. At this most crucial juncture in human history, the excellent contributions to this book offer singularly unique perspectives regarding the possibility/impossibility of utopia. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal, Educational Philosophy and Theory.

Amid the twentieth century's seemingly overwhelming problems, some thinkers dared to envisage a world order governed by utopian proposals that would eliminate--or at least alleviate--the evils of society and secure positive advantages for all human beings. Others found this utopian optimism a hopeless fantasy and predicted a utopian order only repressiveness, boredom, and the impoverishment of human experience. The unique gathering of articles in Utopia vividly demonstrates the tension existing between utopian ideas and their proponents and the severe criticism of their adversaries. Among utopia's enthusiastic supporters, B. F. Skinner outlines the educational practices needed to sustain his concept of utopia, while Margaret Mead sets forth a bold defense of utopian vision in her article "Towards More Vivid Utopias." In active opposition to modern utopian idealism, Ralf Dahrendorf, the prominent German sociologist and politician, compares utopia with a cemetery and criticizes its fixed and uneventful life, and J. L. Talmon predicts that, since utopianism postulates absolute social cohesion, there is no escape from dictatorship in the utopian design. Still another alternative is offered by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who bases his futurist ideology on the trends of technology in the advanced countries of the world, especially the United States. He sees in the conscious application of technical-scientific rationality by an intellectual elite the method by which the promises of modern knowledge can be made good. Underscoring the fact that the utopian tradition can make us look at the real world with new eyes, George Kateb, the editor of Utopia, clarifies the terms of this long-standing debate and offers a thorough analysis of the "strong utopian impetus to save the world from as much of its confusion and disorder as possible." The work is an argument neither for utopian or anti-utopian visions. Rather it shows the possibilities of political norms in advancing the human condition in open societies.

The Revival of Political Imagination offers a unique examination of the methodological aspects of utopia. Discussing utopia as a tool for social criticism, method and imaginative spaces - rather than in terms of its content - this volume analyses the function of utopias, to develop utopias as methodology and to show how instrumental utopian modes of thought can be in such diverse fields such as education, labour, and housing. Including discussions of traditional and contemporary utopias, as well as various forms of expression of utopian hope, from literature to social science and cultural practices, The Revival of Political Imagination is both analytical and practical in its elucidation of how political theory can function to foster our imaginative skills.