This course focuses on the evolution of educational thought from a variety of cultural perspectives. The interplay of theorists and theories from philosophy, psychology, and sociology will be drawn together to explore their influence on conceptions and practices of education
Readings:
Biesta G. (2013).On the Idea of Educational Theory. In, Irby B., Brown, G., Lara-Alecio, R., & Jackson, S. (Eds.), Handbook of Educational Theory (pp. 5-16). Information Age Publishing, Inc.
Carr, W. (2006). Education without Theory. British Journal of Educational Studies,54(2),136-159
Kivunja, C., & Kuyini, A. B. (2017). Understanding and applying research paradigms in educational contexts. International Journal of Higher Education, 6(5), 26-41
Swedberg, R. (2022). Theory as text or theory as activities? Sociologist Forskning, 59(1-2), 5-30. 10.37062/sf.59.24247
Arias de Sanchez, G., & Li, L. (2025). Towards Coexistence? Navigating Interpretivism and Positivism in an Early Childhood Professional Development Program. Education Sciences, 15(9), 1193. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15091193
Zijdemans-Bourdea, A. (2013)- Experiential learning theories. In, Irby B., Brown, G., Lara-Alecio, R., & Jackson, S. (Eds.), Handbook of Educational Theory (pp. 115-123). Information Age Publishing, Inc.
Kilpatrick, W. H. (1953). Dewey’s Philosophy of Education. The Educational Forum, 17(2), 143–154.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge: MA: Harvard University Press.(selected chapters)
Bruner, J. S. (2009). The process of education. Harvard university press. (selected chapters)
Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking: Cognitive development in social context. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. - available in print
Cobb, P. (1994). Where is the mind? Constructivist and sociocultural perspectives on mathematical development. Educational Research, 23(7), 13-20.
Mercer, N. (1995). The guided construction of knowledge: Talk amongst teachers and learners. Cleveland, Avon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Fosnot, C.T. (2005). Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Wertsch, J. (1993). Voices of the mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
Hooks, b. (1994). Theory as liberatory practice. In Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York. Routledge
Butler, J. (1999). Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge Press, PREFACE
Freire, P. (2017). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Penguin Classics.
Giroux, H. A. (2024). Theory and resistance in education: Towards a pedagogy for the opposition (Revised Edition). London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Bear, L. L. (2000). Jagged worldviews colliding. In M. Battiste (Ed.), Reclaiming Indigenous voice and vision (pp. 77-85). Vancouver, Canada: University of British Columbia Press. (selected chapters).
Dehli, K. (2013). Michel Foucault: A Theorist of and for Social Justice in Education. In, Irby B., Brown, G., Lara-Alecio, R., & Jackson, S. (Eds.), Handbook of Educational Theory (pp. 1047-1056). Information Age Publishing, Inc.
Foucault, M. (1970), The order of things; an archaeology of the human sciences (selected chapters) - available in print
Derrida, J., & Kamuf, P. (1985). Racism’s Last Word. Critical Inquiry, 12(1), 290–299
Davies, B. (2016). Ethics and the new materialism: a brief genealogy of the ‘post’ philosophies in the social sciences. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 39(1), 113–127.
Murris, K. (Ed.). (2021). Navigating the postqualitative, new materialist and critical posthumanist terrain across disciplines: An introductory guide. Routledge (selected chapters)
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the Universe halfway: Quantum Physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Duke University press. Chapter 4: