Gert Biesta

Winner - AERA 2011 Outstanding Book Award Jacques Rancire: Education, Truth, Emancipation demonstrates the importance of Rancires work for educational theory, and in turn, it shows just how central Rancires educational thought is to his work in political theory and aesthetics. Charles Bingham and Gert Biesta illustrate brilliantly how philosophy can benefit from Rancires particular way of thinking about education, and go on to offer their own provocative account of the relationship between education, truth, and emancipation. Including a new essay by Rancire himself, this book is a must-read for scholars of social theory and all who profess to educate.

" Winner - AERA 2011 Outstanding Book Award Jacques Ranciere: Education, Truth, Emancipation demonstrates the importance of Ranciere's work for educational theory, and in turn, it shows just how central Ranciere's educational thought is to his work in political theory and aesthetics. Charles Bingham and Gert Biesta illustrate brilliantly how philosophy can benefit from Ranciere's particular way of thinking about education, and go on to offer their own provocative account of the relationship between education, truth, and emancipation. Including a new essay by Ranciere himself, this book is a must-read for scholars of social theory and all who profess to educate."

What is the role of narrative in how people learn throughout their lives? Are there different patterns and forms of narrativity? How do they influence learning? Based on data gathered for the Learning Lives project, which sought to understand learning by questioning individuals about their life stories, this book seeks to define a new learning theory which focuses on the role of narrative and narration in learning. Through a number of detailed case-studies based on longitudinal interviews conducted over three and four-year periods with a wide range of life story informants, Narrative Learning highlights the role of narrative and narration in an individual’s learning and understanding of how they act in the world. The authors explore a domain of learning and human subjectivity which is vital but currently unexplored in learning and teaching and seek to re-position learning within the ongoing preoccupation with identity and agency. The ‘interior conversations’ whereby a person defines their personal thoughts and courses of action and creates their own stories and life missions, is situated at the heart of a person’s map of learning and understanding of their place in the world. The insights presented seek to show that most people spend a significant amount of time rehearsing and recounting their life-story, which becomes a strong influence on their actions and agency, and an important site of learning in itself. Narrative Learning seeks to shift the focus of learning from the prescriptivism of a strongly defined curriculum to accommodate personal narrative styles and thereby encourage engagement and motivation in the learning process. Hence the book has radical and far-reaching implications for existing Governmental policies on school curriculum. The book will be of particular interest to professionals, educational researchers, policy-makers, undergraduate and postgraduate learners and all of those involved with education theory, CPD, adult education and lifelong learning.

What is the role of narrative in how people learn throughout their lives? Are there different patterns and forms of narrativity? How do they influence learning? Based on data gathered for the Learning Lives project, which sought to understand learning by questioning individuals about their life stories, this book seeks to define a new learning theory which focuses on the role of narrative and narration in learning. Through a number of detailed case-studies based on longitudinal interviews conducted over three and four-year periods with a wide range of life story informants, Narrative Learning highlights the role of narrative and narration in an individual’s learning and understanding of how they act in the world. The authors explore a domain of learning and human subjectivity which is vital but currently unexplored in learning and teaching and seek to re-position learning within the ongoing preoccupation with identity and agency. The ‘interior conversations’ whereby a person defines their personal thoughts and courses of action and creates their own stories and life missions, is situated at the heart of a person’s map of learning and understanding of their place in the world. The insights presented seek to show that most people spend a significant amount of time rehearsing and recounting their life-story, which becomes a strong influence on their actions and agency, and an important site of learning in itself. Narrative Learning seeks to shift the focus of learning from the prescriptivism of a strongly defined curriculum to accommodate personal narrative styles and thereby encourage engagement and motivation in the learning process. Hence the book has radical and far-reaching implications for existing Governmental policies on school curriculum. The book will be of particular interest to professionals, educational researchers, policy-makers, undergraduate and postgraduate learners and all of those involved with education theory, CPD, adult education and lifelong learning.

Læring sendes retur til genfortolkning, for ifølge forfatteren skal læring ikke opfattes som tilegnelsen af noget udefra, men som en reaktion på, hvad der er anderledes. Det kræver at underviserne viser en interesse i deres elevers tanker og følelser og tillader, at de reagerer på deres egne, unikke måder. Det har konsekvenser for pædagogik og for den sociale organisering af læringen.

Jacques Derrida is, arguably, the foremost philosopher of the humanities and their place in the university. Over his long career he was concerned with the humanities’ fate, status, place, and contribution. Through his deconstructive readings and writings, Derrida reinvented the Western tradition by attending closely to those texts which constitute it. He redefined its procedures and protocols, questioning and commenting upon the relationship between commentary and interpretation, the practice of quotation, the delimitation of a work and its singularity, its signature, and its context: the whole form of life of literary culture, together with the textual practices and conventions that shape it. From early in his career, Derrida occupied a marginal in-between space – simultaneously textual, literary, philosophical, and political – a space that permitted him a freedom to question, to speculate, and to draw new limits to humanitas. With an up-to-date synopsis, review, and critique of his writings, this book demonstrates Derrida’s almost singular power to reconceptualize and reimagine the humanities, and examines his humanism in relation to politics and pedagogy.

Through its unique theoretical framework - a cultural understanding of teaching and learning – this book develops a new way of understanding educational improvement, one which focuses on the formation and transformation of the practices through which students learn. Based on detailed ethnographic research of seventeen learning sites in further education colleges, this book generates a unique insight into a wide variety of practices of teaching and learning. Illustrated by case studies, it is structured around three key questions: what do learning cultures in FE look like and how do they transform over time?how do learning cultures transform people? how can people (tutors, managers, policy makers, but also students) transform learning cultures for the better? Through a combination of theory and analysis, Improving Learning Cultures in Further Education makes a strong case for the importance of a cultural approach to the improvement of teaching and learning in further education, and provides practical guidance for researchers, policymakers and practitioners for implementing change for the better.

Through its unique theoretical framework - a cultural understanding of teaching and learning – this book develops a new way of understanding educational improvement, one which focuses on the formation and transformation of the practices through which students learn. Based on detailed ethnographic research of seventeen learning sites in further education colleges, this book generates a unique insight into a wide variety of practices of teaching and learning. Illustrated by case studies, it is structured around three key questions: what do learning cultures in FE look like and how do they transform over time?how do learning cultures transform people? how can people (tutors, managers, policy makers, but also students) transform learning cultures for the better? Through a combination of theory and analysis, Improving Learning Cultures in Further Education makes a strong case for the importance of a cultural approach to the improvement of teaching and learning in further education, and provides practical guidance for researchers, policymakers and practitioners for implementing change for the better.

Vad det betyder att vara människa är en fråga om utbildning, antingen den gäller barn, vuxna eller andra nykomlingar. Utbildning är ett ingrepp i någons liv, som motiveras med föreställningen att det på något sätt gör livet bättre: mer komplett, mer avrundat, mer perfekt - och kanske även mer mänskligt. I den här boken utgår författaren från att undervisarens roll inte är att producera eller frigöra något hos eleven. Istället handlar det om att fokusera på hur varje individs början kan bli till. Men detta att bli till skall inte uppfattas som en enkel process eftersom vi blir till i en värld av andra, en värld av pluralitet och skillnad som både är förutsättningen för vår tillblivelse och det problematiska villkoret. Undervisarens roll är inte teknikerns eller barnmorskans utan måste förstås i termer av ansvar för att unika, specifika varelser ''bryter in i världen'' som en värld av pluralitet och skillnad. Boken erbjuder en intressant återkoppling till genuint pedagogiska frågeställningar i ett språkbruk som har sina rötter i pedagogikens etiskt politiska aspekter snarare än i psykologins domäner. Den pedagogiska teori som erbjuds är endast möjlig efter den postmoderna kritiken, men stannar inte där utan blir till ett paradoxalt återupprättande av pedagogikens filosofiska ursprung, i frågan om människoblivandets villkor och möjligheter. Boken kan med behållning läsas av alla pedagoger: studenter, lärare och forskare.