20th Annual Conference of the
SOCIETY FOR APPLIED PHILOSOPHY
28th - 30th June 2002
Mansfield College, Oxford
EDUCATION AND SOCIETY in the 21st Century
Call for Papers
Education always takes place in a social context, broadly
construed, and its values reflect this fact. It is a
commonplace that, in these terms, the context for education
is changing rapidly. The aim of the conference is to
explore the impact of these changes on educational practice
and aims and examine what values should underpin education
in the coming years.
The conference will be organised around three main
themes, and contributions are invited on the following
topics (the questions are merely indicative)
1. THE VALUE OF EDUCATION: For what and, more importantly,
for whom is education? What, if anything, is the 'good' of
education? Is it a universal good? Has education
intrinsic or instrumental value? What has been, or will
be, the impact on our conceptions of education and its aims
of market consumerism and structural changes such as
privatisation? Is the idea of a liberal education now dead
or does the fashionable notion of 'student empowerment'
revive it?
2. EDUCATION AND THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY: How
should educators respond to the challenges of new
technology and globalisation? Is there any point to campus
based universities any more? Does access to ICT simply
provide information, or can it deepen knowledge and
understanding? Does the skills agenda undermine the
broader aims of education? What impact should
considerations of 'relevance' and 'employability' have on
what and how we teach? What is the importance of 'embodied
presence' to teaching and learning?
3. PERSONAL AND SOCIAL EDUCATION: Can we, and should
we, teach values? What values should we teach? What
should be the role of education in a multicultural society
(or, at least, a society with an increasing plurality of
value) or the so-called global village? Should we teach
'citizenship', and what does this mean? When does moral
education become indoctrination? Should education
positively promote our understanding of values and ends?
Should it be, so to speak, merely 'about' rather than 'in'
value?
Offers of papers are invited by the conference advisors,
Stephen Burwood and Stephen Wilkinson. Papers should be of
a suitable length for presentation in 20-30 minutes; but
full-length versions may be published in the conference
proceedings. Please send abstracts by 1st December 2001
(200 words) to Stephen Burwood, Department of Philosophy,
University of Hull, Kingston upon Hull, HU6 7RX, UK.
Email: [log in to unmask]
The conference fee, inclusive of meals and accommodation,
will be in the region of £130, with a small number of
subsidies available to students and the unwaged. Further
details are available from Stephen Burwood at the address
given above.
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