Abstract
In a time of unprecedented outpouring of writing about the self, the subject appears in a striking multiplicity of perspectives. Variously described in such terms as fractured, decentred, and minimal, or roundly denounced as illusory, the self in shadowy form often assumes the role of a background participant in discourse, making fleeting appearances in discussions of theory and practice across a broad range of disciplines within education. This study seeks to trace some of those forms and, in examining discussions that deal particularly with ethics and moral development, to contribute to an understanding of how variant notions of the self influence conceptual economies of meaning that travel into classrooms.
Assessing how notions of the self vary, and attempting to understand their influence on particular approaches to ethical deliberation, invites engagement with questions of language, epistemology and ontology and the conceptual incommensurables that inhabit them. The study examines various aspects of selfhood under such descriptive categories as ethical agency, identity, experience and the dialogical, and discusses how these are rendered problematic by essentialist and anti-essentialist views. Based on a presentation of opposing approaches to the self, the study argues that an appreciation of the relationship between the theoretical and the practical becomes the site of a process in which individual ethical integrity may flourish.
An examination of the various ways in which the self is understood through narrative focuses on the concept of narrative knowing as it appears in the writings of Jerome Bruner and Donald Polkinghorne. A critical appraisal of their views and the instantiation of these in the literature of educational research includes discussion of insights from the work of Paul Ricoeur, David Carr, and Martha Nussbaum. The phenomenological and hermeneutic perspectives they bring to an understanding of the relation between self and ethics in narrative, serves to preface a review of the formidable contribution of feminist writing.
Feminist writings on the self, and particularly the ethics of care as presented in the work of Nel Noddings, offer important challenges to educators steeped in more traditional deontological ethical approaches; in this work they also serve to underscore the recurrent theme of the role of consciousness in making meaning of experiences in which human connection with others and the environment is central. Feminist insistence on the crucial role of relationship and on the consideration of the affective, embodied aspects of experience, also invite timely questions about the role of spirituality and religion in ethical perspectives.
In contemplating notions of the self as spiritual, the study brings together views from outside and inside religion in an appreciation for the nuanced character of a polymorphic consciousness in confronting the summons to ethical deliberation. Various recommendations concerning the inclusion of the spiritual in curriculum are advanced in support of the principal contention of this work: that the challenge of pursuing an understanding of the elusive self in its many guises offers an indispensable opportunity for ethical development in education.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/179 |
| Date | 27 July 2007 |
| Creators | Arril, Robert J. |
| Contributors | Graham, Robert J. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
Page generated in 0.0016 seconds