Dear colleagues,

We hope that you are still keeping well and safe.

We (Lokesh Maharajh and Mlamuli Hlatshwayo) are academics in the Education Studies at UKZN. We would like to explore the teaching of philosophy of education in teacher education programmes at education faculties in South Africa. The purpose is to establish if current faculties of education are continuing to attract and graduate students with different philosophical assumptions about education. We are hopeful that an opportunity may be set up for collaboration among the various teacher education programmes in South Africa.

We would like to, therefore, invite chapters from the staff at the various universities for a book on the teaching of philosophy of education at universities in South Africa. Kindly refer to attached call for chapters.

Interested contributors are encouraged to submit their abstracts to the editors Dr L R Maharajh (maharajhlr@ukzn.ac.za) and Dr M N Hlatshwayo (hlatshwayom@ukzn.ac.za).

Kindest regards,

Lokesh & Mlamuli

THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION IN TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAMMES

Universities in the global South are currently battling with the demands to “reform”, “evaluate”, “change”, “decolonize” and “transform” their curricula. Disciplines such as  Sociology, Philosophy, Education, Political Science, Anthropology and others have all been implicated in these calls. Similarly, the Philosophy of Education has also being implicated in regarding to what extent we can recenter African epistemic traditions in our curricula.

According to Mkabela (1997), philosophy of education in South Africa is still fragmented, i.e., there is no co-ordination among various philosophy of education departments. In 2003, Higgs writing on the transformation of educational discourse in South Africa, commented that “philosophical discourse in South Africa about the nature of education, teaching and learning has always been fragmented” (Higgs, 2003:5). Higgs (2003) added further that there have been numerous calls for new approaches and relevant paradigms in philosophy of education in South Africa.

Another finding that emerged from the Mkabela (1997) study was that universities have oriented their philosophy of education curricula to serve the national aspirations of South Africa. However, in some universities significant sections of the ‘old’ philosophy of education curricula remained unchanged. Philosophy of education has always been plagued by controversies and remains a complex issue even in the present times. Parker (2003:25) has argued “most teacher education institutions in South Africa remained within discourses descended from Fundamental Pedagogics – albeit stripped of the racist and Afrikaner nationalist language and imagery that characterized Fundamental Pedagogics”. According to Parker (2003), teacher education in South Africa underwent a nation-wide restructuring in the 1990s. He writes:

Of the 17 institutions, perhaps 5 could be regarded as having traditions of education characterized by analytic discourses and the remainder, in the erstwhile Afrikaans and ‘homeland’ universities, by Fundamental Pedagogics. Given a predominantly liberal democratic form of analytic discourse… and a Fundamental Pedagogics that has disintegrated into a variety of neo-Fundamental Pedagogics, there would appear to be no existing discourse that provides a suitable breeding-ground for a new philosophy of education (Parker, 2003:26).

The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (SEP) states that there was a time in the 1960s when the practitioners of analytic philosophy of education had to meet in their hotel rooms at night even though they were attending the annual meetings of the Philosophy of Education Society in the United States of America. This was because the phenomenologists did not allow them access to the conference programmes. The SEP, however, continues that with the passage of time, the field of philosophy of education has become more diffuse. For example, many analytically trained philosophers of education find the writings of the postmodernists incomprehensible. Different countries, and indeed within one country there are different intellectual traditions, and each has its own way of institutionalizing philosophy of education. According to le Grange (2004) during the 1970s and 1980s South African philosophers of education drew extensively on (neo) Marxism and therefore made use of ideas from Continental philosophy. Le Grange (2004) alerts us to how the University of Western Cape, established as an ethnic university, became a site of resistance and struggle in the 1970s and 1980s when its philosophy of education was influenced by neo-Marxist and more particularly analytic discourses. Le Grange (2004) agrees with Parker (2003) that discourses on philosophy of education in South Africa might not be providing a suitable breeding-ground for a new philosophy of education.

Venter (1997) argues for a pluralistic, problem-centred approach in philosophy of education in South Africa. She states further, “a huge amount of work has already been done towards the actual implementation of the approach in teacher education and training at Unisa” (Venter, 1997:57).  In the Mkabela (1997) study, it was found that philosophy of education was not truly multicentric in nature as African philosophy was not included in the philosophy of education curricula. These sentiments were echoed by Higgs (2003) who also argued for the discourse of philosophy of education in South Africa to take cognizance of the contribution of African philosophy to the transformation of educational theory and practice.

As mentioned earlier, philosophy of education remains a complex issue. This is borne out by the different kinds of knowledge that are emphasised by different philosophers of education. According to Burbles (1989:230-231) philosophers of education such as D C Phillips and Harvey Siegel have placed emphasises on the intellectual integrity and thus scientific enquiry of philosophy of education. According to them, “making philosophy of education more relevant and practical might negatively influence the critical edge philosophers need to maintain” (Venter, 1997:60).  On the other hand, Harry Broudy (Burbles, 1989:231) is of the view that educators have “a right to expect that philosophers of education will address themselves to problems of education in general and how those problems impinge on schooling”. Soltis (1983:17) agrees with Broudy as he maintains that philosophers of education should be able to reach audiences beyond their fellow philosophers.

In referring to the distinction between pre-democratic and the new democratic South Africa, Venter, Franzsen and van Heerden (1997:2) have stated there has been a “major shift in the value and philosophical frameworks which underpin the basis of South African society”. Philosophy of Education during apartheid was surrounded by controversy. Mkabela (1997) writes that philosophy of education under apartheid served divisive and hegemonic purposes. Mkabela (1997) concluded that philosophy of education remained fragmented at South Africa universities, as there was no coordination among various philosophy of education departments. Furthermore, according to scholars such as Soltis (1981), Luthuli (1982), Ozmon and Craver (1992), Higgs (1994), McBride (1996), Hand and Winstanley (2009) and Bailey (2010), the purpose of philosophy of education is to guide educational practice. In view of the above, this edited book seeks to explore and generate debate on the status of philosophy of education in teacher education programmes at education faculties in South African. The purpose of the book is to establish if current faculties of education are continuing to attract and graduate students with different philosophical assumptions about education. The book may create an opportunity to set up collaboration among the various teacher education programmes in South Africa.

The specific objectives of the book are:

• To explore the teaching of philosophy of education at South African universities
• To determine to what extent philosophy of education features in teacher education programmes at both undergraduate and post-graduate level
• To determine the nature and extent of the tuition of philosophy of education in teacher training

The following questions are the guiding research questions:

1. How is philosophy of education being taught in selected South African universities?
2. What are some of the philosophical underpinnings that guide the teaching of the philosophy of education in South African universities?
3. To what extent, has the field “transformed” in including knowledges from the global South and others in curricula?
4. Are there any “signature pedagogies” that are often adopted when teaching the philosophy of education?
5. How are teachers being trained to teach philosophy of education in selected South African universities?

A call is being made for representatives of education faculties at universities in South Africa and internationally to submit a chapter on the teaching of philosophy of education at their respective university. The chapter should be based on the aforementioned objectives and questions.

INTERESTED CONTRIBUTORS

Interested contributors are encouraged to submit their abstracts to the editors Dr L R Maharajh (maharajhlr@ukzn.ac.za) and Dr M Hlatshwayo (hlatshwayom@ukzn.ac.za). The SUBJECT line of the email should read as: Teaching of Philosophy of Education Abstract by... (Name of the corresponding author).

ABSTRACTS FOR PAPERS SHOULD INCLUDE:

• A succinct title
• A brief abstract (± 200 words)
• Author/s name/s
• Author/s institutional affiliation
• Contact details

 

TIME FRAME (30 JUNE – 31 MAY 2021)

Tuesday	30 June 2020	Deadline for submission of abstracts
Friday	31 July 2020	Final date for decisions on abstract
Monday	30 November 2020	Final date for submission of first draft
Tuesday to Friday	1 December 2020 to 26 February 2021	Review process
Monday	1 March 2021	Final date for decisions on first draft
Monday	31 May 2021	Submission of final edited chapters