This study attempts to analyse some of the conceptual problems of learning. It has been argued that learning is not a psychological process, nor an achievement in its major uses in ordinary contexts. Learning can be viewed as a significant form of human activity carried out more or less consciously and deliberately. / That learning is an activity could be shown in two different ways. First, in its major "modal" uses of the term 'learn'--'learn how to', 'learn that', etc.--it is used almost always with an implication of the completion of relevant activities or actions. It is not like typical epistemological terms such as 'know' and 'believe', which express states rather than activities. It also is not like typical achievement terms such as 'realize' and 'recognize'. Its use, except for a few cases, normally indicates that certain activities have occurred and have come to their completing points, the logical ending points. Thus a learning claim remains incomplete if the relevant activities or actions were merely stopped or interrupted. / Another way to support the activity view of learning is to set a contrast between two different aspects of human learning--"embedded" and "non-embedded" learning. When human beings acquire language, they also acquire a certain picture of the world. But human beings do not explicitly learn the world picture; its learning is embedded in their everyday actions and, most significantly, in their use of language. Furthermore, this "embedded" learning sets the background for further "non-embedded" learning. It sets the background for doubting, reasoning, and other significant form of inquiry. / Concerning the dilemma of inquiry in the Meno, it has been argued that the notion of embedded learning can be crucial for both the formulation of the dilemma and for the solution to it--what Socrates calls "prior knowledge" is what human beings learned "embeddedly". As a conclusion, it is argued that the significance of human learning as a full blown form of activity can be better understood against the background of embedded learning, the learning of language games in Wittgenstein's phrase. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-04, Section: A, page: 1067. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.

The Imam-Hatip schools have long been a site of contestation between Turks who see modernization as synonymous with secularization and those who maintain that it is possible to be both modern and Muslim. But are contemporary Imam-Hatip schools a threat to modern Turkish democracy? If not, are they a useful model for other Muslim societies seeking to balance modernization and religious faith in their educational institutions? To answer these questions it is important to develop a more accurate view of Imam-Hatip schools and to understand the contemporary role of Imam-Hatip schools in Turkish society. Therefore, this dissertation traced the historical development and contemporary social context of Imam-Hatip schools in Turkey as a prelude to the analysis of their basic philosophical assumptions by using the combination of historical, qualitative and philosophical methods to be able to address its research questions. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2018. / April 17, 2018. / Imam Hatip schools, Modernism, Philisophy, Prophetic Pragmatic, Secular, Turkey / Includes bibliographical references. / Jeffrey Ayala Milligan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Adam Gaiser, University Representative; Robert Schwartz, Committee Member; Helen Boyle, Committee Member.

The middle school philosophy, popularly referred to as the middle school "concept," purports to guide the development of schools serving early adolescent children. However, it has been criticized for its failure to provide an adequate philosophical and conceptual framework and for its rigid adherence to a distinctive model of practice. / The purpose of the study is to inform the development of a more complete philosophy of middle level schooling by (1) identifying inadequacies of the currently articulated middle school philosophy; (2) identifying and analyzing themes that emerge about the elements associated with quality middle schools from the perspective of teachers, students, principals, parents and community members; and (3) interpreting the analyses to inform the development of effective schools for middle level children. / The first phase of the study consists of a philosophical analysis of the middle school philosophy using William K. Frankena's model for analyzing a normative philosophy of education. The second phase of the study consists of the analysis of data about the perceived attributes of middle level schools identified as effective through the United States Education Department's Elementary and Secondary School Recognition Programs. In the third phase of the study, the relationships among the findings derived from the analyses conducted in phases one and two are analyzed. / The findings lead to three conclusions: (1) the middle school concept does not provide a sound framework for guiding middle level education; (2) the distinguishing qualities of a good middle school identified by respondents associated with middle level schools recognized as effective differ substantially from those promoted by the middle school concept; and (3) a sufficiently well developed philosophical and research base does not currently exist for prescribing anything but the most general requirements for the development of effective middle level schools. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-12, Section: A, page: 3652. / Major Professor: C. J. B. Macmillan. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 37-06, Section: A, page: 3496. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1976.

Zines and blogs written by the young women in this study are an important form of inquiry that, if considered by educators, may push us to critically question discourses of young womanhood, questions of subjectivity, and the way we engage with texts. I use readings of Antigone to shape a reading of this discourse. I argue following Judith Butler (2000), that her act speaks to the loss of her particular brother, as well as the ungrievable losses resultant from her tragic family life. Her story invites us to question boundaries of public and private, and suggests a space between them that was inaccessible to Antigone. Similarly, young women who publicly articulate their stories in zines and blogs access a hybrid space, between public and private, where they conduct important subjectivity work. Through hermeneutic readings of these texts, I explore the ways in which their authors articulate the importance of hybrid spaces between public and private as where they can do this work. Like Antigone, whose action challenges binaries, young women who posit their personal stories in public reflect on the past in a way that suggests melancholia, or an unwillingness to part with the past completely as they moves toward the future. I conclude by arguing that when academics and educators approach these texts as hermeneutic readers, they engage in a critical process of understanding with these young women that invites consideration of new feminism articulated in these works.

The accelerating pace of globalization places an imperative on formal schooling to figure out how to educate students for the rapidly changing world that today reaches even into the smallest towns and regions of our shared globe. This project attempts to respond to that imperative by examining the moral component of schooling, and specifically, what might be the best way to provide moral education. I begin from a premise that prevalent existing moral education constructs fall short of this task because they consist of either pre-determined morals that students are expected to learn and adopt or they teach about morality systems without analyzing their merits, preventing the development of the important skill of judgment. In a world of significantly different cultures and ways of living, such forms of moral education are simply incapable of providing the kind of education in morality that can withstand and accommodate the diversity that exists and the new forms of life that are yet to come. Cosmopolitan education, based in cosmopolitan philosophy, is posited as a possible answer to this question. Beginning with cosmopolitanism's grounding in the principle of shared humanity I show how cosmopolitan education might offer a more mutually beneficial response to evolving global conditions. This project uses conceptual analysis to examine the concepts of an education in morality and Hannah Arendt's work on natality, thinking, action, and the public space of politics to show that an education in morality is public and political. As a result, cosmopolitan education can use the processes found in Thomas Nagel's epistemological restraint, Jürgen Habermas's discourse ethics, and Chantal Mouffe's agonistic pluralism to help students acquire a disposition that both promotes active and flexible engagement in moral inquiry, as well as in other educational experiences, and embraces plurality and diversity by recognizing the positive contribution that others can make in one's life. Shared humanity emerges as a collective possession of what Arendt calls 'the human condition,' which is essentially a collection of the human conditions of plurality, natality, action, and one that I add, the condition of uncertainty. Through a cosmopolitan lens, these conditions frame the way political processes can be utilized in an education in morality to encourage the development of a disposition that I call 'moral agonism,' which equips students to inquire into and participate in the development of morality in the face of constantly evolving and uncertain conditions in the world.

The philosopher Charles Taylor argues in A Secular Age (2007) that people who live in secular cultures are losing the capacity to experience genuine "fullness." Described by Taylor as a philosophical-anthropological conception of human flourishing that corresponds with existential senses of meaning and purpose, fullness is consistently referenced in the publication through dimensions of "contact" with a transcendent reality. The intersections of such contacts are characterized as phenomenal experiences and moral-ethical expressions. In appreciating Taylor's descriptions of fullness and a corresponding "ontic commitment" to a transcendent source, I develop three specific "pedagogies of fullness." The pedagogy of study, the pedagogy of solidarity, and the pedagogy of grace are higher educational strategies that emerge out of the Renaissance humanist tradition of Jesuit education and facilitate the relational contacts that make fullness, and, hence, meaning and purpose, possible. By engaging and networking multiple construals of individual experience (study), immersing students into contexts of alterity (solidarity), and validating inexplicable and phenomenal moments of consolation, gratitude, and wonder (grace), I argue that my conception of Jesuit higher education has the potential to restore fullness in a secular age. As Taylor characterizes Western individuals as independent and invulnerable, my pedagogies of fullness render relational possibilities to ourselves, others, and an Other that correspond with a hopeful envisioning the self and the social. The way of envisioning, a Jesuit imaginary, views selves and social milieus as interrelational and transformative of each other.

This study examines the educational benefits of what the ancients called otium: the time and freedom from overt action that allows people to think about the world and their reasons for being. While leisure is not a new concept in philosophy of education, it is one to which not enough people pay attention. In the very few instances in which scholars have recently argued that leisure should make its way into our contemporary conversations on education, the argument, in my view, falls short due to the fact that the concept of leisure is still not well understood. This study seeks to demonstrate and illustrate the value of the ancient concept of leisure (otium) in an effort to show its significance for education today. It begins by offering a portrait of leisure, anchoring the discussion in the figure of Socrates, especially in Plato's Phaedo. This discussion is further expanded by Seneca's account of leisure in On the Shortness of Life. An extension of this portraiture follows by making direct liaisons with education, as the themes of the art of living and culture emerge. A full consideration of leisure in education continues by turning to the concepts of philosophy and contemplation. An examination of Yves R. Simon's definition of teaching as an "overflow of contemplation" provides a final consideration that leads to conclude that otium, as the ancient ideal of leisure, will benefit students, teachers, and society in general, by allowing us to recover a fundamental experience of human flourishing that finds its source in our time for education.

Moral perception is the non-inferential moral awareness immediately associated with moral emotion and action. Unfortunately, moral blindness, the incapability of moral perception, is frequently observed in the contemporary world. In order to account for the prevalence of moral blindness moral perception needs to be illuminated first, and the central purpose of this investigation is to elucidate the core property of moral perception. Moral perception has been denied by many modern moral theorists for a long time, but moral perception is an essential constituent of morality, which is also found in traditional moral philosophies, such as Aristotle's and Nietzsche's. Very recently, moral perception begins to be recognized as a way of moral awareness, but the number and diversity of research on it are still limited. Joining the recent effort to highlight moral perception this research attempts a new approach, phenomenological explication of moral perception, and Dewey's concept of perception and Heidegger's concept of thinking are mainly drawn on. For Dewey, perception presupposes the participatory subject who becomes to be related to the object or the situation, which is contrasted to the detached subject of recognition. Heidegger conceives thinking in a primordial sense which includes the perceptive level. Thinking begins with being inclined toward each other. On the ground of mutual inclination thinking becomes thanking to receive all that touch us. As Dewey and Heidegger similarly inform it, the essence of perception is the immediate connection between the perceiver and the perceived, and it is particularly distinct in moral perception. As an illustration of moral perception a Korean movie, Poetry by Chang-dong Lee, is introduced. Mija, the main character of the movie vividly embodies moral perception contrasted to moral blindness of the modern world. Considering the circumstance of modern world where the natural cultivation of moral perception is hindered, it is time to ask what kind of seeing and thinking should be cared about for education today.

This dissertation examines the educational philosophy of Jane Addams, through her written work as well as her work in the Chicago settlement, Hull House. Addams' critique of schools and universities will be discussed, as well as the ways in which she positions Hull House as an educational space outside of normative education. This dissertation will also focus on the importance that Addams places on the educational relationship as a means for learning, and the social knowledge that results from this relationship, as they help to shape and advance society. Finally, the dissertation will look at the ways Addams' educational philosophy can inform technological communities in the 21st century in order to foster the kinds of educational relationships and social knowledge that we can use to improve our current society.