The 2021-22 KTS Epistemology of Education Lecture will feature Andrea R. English, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) & Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Edinburgh.

Friday February 18th, 3:15-5:00 PM PST

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"Dewey, Uncertainty and Non-Affirmative Democratic Education"

In this talk, I center uncertainty and indeterminacy as essential to the process of ‘coming to know’, (i.e. learning). Specifically, I focus on Dewey’s understanding of the educational meaning of existential uncertainty and argue that it lies at the heart of his idea of democratic education. I contend that Dewey’s theory of democratic education is grounded in a concept of transformative learning as necessarily involving experiences of existential uncertainty; and, in a concept of teaching as necessarily involving supporting learners’ opportunities to have educative experiences of existential uncertainty. Throughout the talk, I distinguish between affirmative and non-affirmative teaching, and highlight how each relates to different conceptions of knowledge, learning and human experience. In doing so, I aim to bring the democratic aspect of Dewey’s notion of teaching into sharper relief by showing how it offers a productive extension of the tradition of non-affirmative educational theory. In closing, I build on and move beyond Dewey to formulate an idea of the teacher as a listener, arguing that this understanding of the teacher is vitally relevant for the theory and practice of non-affirmative democratic education, I show how in the current climate of performativity and accountability, this is at risk of being gravely neglected.

Andrea English is an Associate Professor of Philosophy of Education at the Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Her research is grounded in the Deweyan idea that meaningful learning involves struggle. Through this lens, her scholarship attends to the significant, transformational role of teachers in ensuring that all learners have access to meaningful learning opportunities.

She is co-editor of John Dewey’s Democracy and Education: A Centennial Handbook (Cambridge UP, 2017), which provides detailed analyses contextualizing each chapter of the 1916 original. Her monograph, Discontinuity in Learning: Dewey, Herbart, and Education as Transformation (Cambridge UP, 2013), highlights the originality of Deweyan pragmatism, while linking it to other traditions in philosophy of education beyond pragmatism. As the editor of The History of Western Philosophy of Education, Volume 4: The Modern Era, (Bloomsbury's Major Reference Works, 2021), she has highlighted connections between Deweyan philosophy and equality movements led by women and BIPOC peoples at the turn of the 20th Century.

Her research articles are published in major journals, including Educational Theory, Democracy and Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, and Educational Philosophy and Theory. She has been an invited keynote speaker at international education conferences, including “Pragmatism Today: Perspectives on Cognition, Education and Society” (Denmark), “Relationality in Education of/towards Morality” (Slovakia), and the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain Gregynog Conference (UK). She is currently Associate Editor of the journal Dewey Studies, and has served as board member of The John Dewey Society.

For 18 years, she has worked as a teacher educator, and is currently leading the professional development of Higher Education teachers. She supports teacher development through philosophy of education in her role as the Teacher Education Coordinator for The Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain. With funding as PI from The Spencer Foundation, she launched an on-going research project on ‘productive struggle’ in mathematics education (with Co-I’s Hintz and Tyson). The innovative project combines Deweyan philosophy with empirical study, involving primary teachers in the US and UK. It has gained increasing recognition in mathematics education, leading to invited talks at the 2019 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Annual Conference,  and the 2021 Teachers Development Group (US) Virtual Leadership Seminar.

She has taken an active role in the collective effort to end systemic and institutionalized racism in Higher Education, and has worked towards decolonizing HE curricula and pedagogy in her department, University and at the sector level. She is currently a core member of "Anti-Racist Curriculum Development Project" of ADVANCE HE, a UK charitable organization focused on improving Higher Education. At the Moray House School of Education and Sport, she is Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, and the founding Chair of the Race Equality Subgroup.