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The section New Areas and Developments presents essays on relatively new topics and concerns that have attracted the interest of philosophers of education in recent years, as well as novel approaches to philosophy of education. To date, emerging issues that have garnered considerable media attention, such as cyberbullying, school shootings, or radicalization, have been addressed predominantly from psychological and sociological perspectives. By contrast, the essays in this section focus on the philosophical questions that emerge from a study of these phenomena. Other topics, such as academic freedom or the question of non-human animals, are not exactly new but appear to be generating new work within philosophy of education. Finally, the increasing interdisciplinarity of academic departments and institutions, and of academic work generally, arguably requires that philosophers of education examine the boundaries of their field. A few of the essays in this section are concerned, explicitly or implicitly, with the need to address these boundaries and the connections with contiguous fields.

‘Educationalization’ refers to the general tendency to behave as if interpersonal problems could be solved by educational means. Educationalization trends present a tangle of social issues that range from debates about curricular mandates to the responsibilities of teachers for fostering democratic citizenship and environmental sustainability. Lynn Fendler presents historical and philosophical perspectives poised to highlight assumptions about educationalization that have become naturalized in practice.

There is an ongoing discussion about ‘learnification’, about the meaning and importance of the very notion of learning itself for the theory and practice of education. In contradistinction to Plato’s well-known philosophical cave parable, Jan Masschelein offers an educational cave story referring to the event of ‘school’. It is an exercise in educational thought to resist the actual learning discourses and policies not by criticizing them but, so Masschelein suggests, by trying to ‘repopulate the desert of our imagination’.

Naomi Hodgson explains the notion of the ‘entrepreneurial’ self in terms of how changes that have taken place at the level of government – for example, towards open competition, public participation, performance management based on outputs and feedback – require us to understand and conduct ourselves in particular ways. In recent years it has come to feature in the way we understand the purposes of education, and ourselves in relation to it (for example, as parents, citizens, and as researchers), in particular ways, and thus has become a focus of educational philosophy and theory.

Alexander Sidorkin examines the notion of cumulative versus non-cumulative knowledge as it applies to financial literacy. He contends that mass public education programs may have a tendency to curricularize knowledge, which means shifting knowledge from cumulative, descriptive kinds closer to non-cumulative or normative kinds. Moreover, he emphasizes the need to know not only how institutions operate in the real world but also the likely unintended consequences of the curricularization of knowledge.

In his discussion of the overlaps and distinctions between therapy, philosophy, and education, Paul Standish responds to concerns that education has become too concerned with students’ self-esteem and general mental well-being, to the detriment of more properly educational aims. He considers the ways in which therapy may become miseducative and, conversely, in which education can induce moral distress. He also asks what kinds of happiness education and therapy should foster and when these might be at odds with each other. These points are addressed in the light of historical shifts in the conceptualization of therapy, philosophy, and education and in the understanding of the relationship between these notions.

Until recently, little attention has been paid in the school classroom to creationism and almost none to intelligent design. However, creationism and intelligent design appear to be on the increase and there are indications that there are more countries in which schools are becoming battlegrounds over them. Michael Reiss contends that the ‘worldviews’ perspective on creationism indicates the difficulty of using the criterion of reason to decide whether an issue is controversial or not. It also suggests that standard ways of addressing the diversity of student views in a science classroom may be inadequate.

Education is a fertile ground for neuroscientific applications. However, at the academic level this has predominantly been addressed by cognitive psychology and the emerging field of neuroeducation. Although in its very early stages, there is now also a nascent interest by philosophers of education with respect to the intersections of neuroscience, education, and research. Clarence Joldersma provides a critical analysis of the kinds of philosophical questions and problems that can be posed with regard to the application of neuroscientific considerations to education, as well as of how philosophy of education might be enriched by engagement with neuroscientific research.

Terri Wilson foregrounds the philosophical concerns and tensions involved in the phenomenon of charter schools (USA), free schools (UK), and similar schools that give students and parents greater choice within public school systems. Wilson focuses on the questions about the purposes, aims, and values raised by autonomous schools of choice along two broad dimensions: (1) rights, pluralism, and autonomy, and (2) democracy, justice, and equity. She concludes by sketching out implications for choice policy and practice, and some recommendations for employing philosophical frameworks in the analysis of these policies.

Zdenko Kodelja distinguishes between the freedom of the university as an institution and academic freedom, the freedom of academics to teach, research, publish, and otherwise make known their considered opinions. Such an understanding of academic freedom is now under challenge from a wide array of critics. In the last three or four decades, both academic freedom and university autonomy have also been considerably diminished in many countries through the implementation of neoliberal politics, one consequence of which has been the increased demands for administrative control and accountability of universities.

The notions of autonomy, authority, and public or community are of renewed interest in new, technology-enabled schooling and learning spaces. In Social Media, Digital Technology, and Education Heather Greenhalgh-Spencer draws attention to the ways in which these philosophical ideas emerge within personalized learning contexts.

Videogames have flourished economically and culturally in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, and their educative possibilities have concomitantly been both lauded and claimed to be elusive. Yet, a fairly scant literature to date examines videogames through philosophical lenses. In light of the increased attention paid to videogames in the past two decades in educational theory and research, Jennifer Jenson and Suzanne de Castell focus on fundamental ontological, epistemological, and ethical questions and problems related to video games and learning generally.

Children and young people can be regarded as fully functioning consumers. The intimate connection between children’s lives and consumerism is reflected not only in how children spend their free time, but also in the educational environments provided for children and young people. In his contribution, Bruno Vanobbergen focuses on the various ways in which we write and talk about children as consumers, which arguably provides an insight into the various meanings of ‘child’, ‘parent’ and ‘parenting’, as well as children’s subjectivity and rights.

Students, teachers, workers, bosses, spouses, and even countries often find themselves on one side or the other of a bullying relationship. This, however, poses the question what exactly bullying is and where it fits in the democratic landscape. Along with defining bullying, discussing its many motivations, and suggesting a path forward, Ron Jacobson also argues that bullying is but one iteration of the eternally contentious case of the ‘other’.

The notion of ‘trigger warnings’ has been used in university discourse to refer to prefatory comments from instructors, warning students that texts and/or classroom discussions may be disturbing to some students. Ironically, trigger warnings are also offered to professors in classrooms where guns may be present. Both kinds of trigger have been viewed by some as at odds with free speech, and by others as necessary for genuinely free speech to prevail. Amy Shuffelton and Samantha Deane contend that because the language commonly used has material consequences, democracy demands that instructors adopt new metaphors to describe the kinds of arguments that make classrooms places in which education can happen.

Policy makers in all Western and some non-Western countries are giving educational institutions a central position in their public safety agenda against extremism. Yet, whatever research in the field where ‘intelligence’ and ‘security’ meet ‘education’ has been carried out has tended to be preliminary and hypothetical. By analyzing and reconsidering the definition of radicalization for educational purposes, identifying the different dimensions of this growing research domain, and reflecting upon possible educational responses, Stijn Sieckelinck’s chapter raises philosophical concerns pertaining to education against extremism.

Maria Victoria Costa argues that the most useful way to draw the distinction between patriotism and nationalism focuses on their respective objects of loyalty. Patriotism is loyalty to a country, whereas nationalism is loyalty to a people. The essay also introduces a number of alternative educational proposals that aim to avoid some of the difficulties faced by patriotic and nationalist strategies. These alternative proposals aim to encourage good citizenship while taking into account new challenges generated by the political, social, and economic conditions of an increasingly globalized world.

Fairly little has been produced on the ethical treatment and status of animals within philosophy of education, apart from the odd reference to humane education. By contrast, environmental education has received wide coverage, not only by philosophers but also by other social scientists, natural scientists, and politicians. Kai Horsthemke’s contribution attempts, at least in part, to fill this gap. Among other things, it examines whether anti-racist and anti-sexist education logically entails anti-speciesist education.

Some of the views and analyses offered in this section respond to the standard expectations of a handbook of philosophy of education more tidily than others, that is, those chapters that are perhaps less concerned with providing an overview of the key ideas and arguments within a given topical field or focus area. Because the latter contributions express particular tendencies and personal orientations, they are more likely to be controversial, to stimulate debate about the relevant area and/or development. Either way, the questions and concerns raised and discussed in this section indicate how philosophy of education might be taken into rich new directions.