This essay explains that periodic examination of the goals of education is essential for educational institutions to ensure they are adequately preparing students to address the challenges of the present and build a better future. It argues that education is an ethical enterprise, and that clear and shared goals provide education institutions with…

Fully developing the talents of all students is a fundamental goal for personal well-being and development and ultimately for global societal innovation and flourishing. However, in this paper we focus on what we believe is an often neglected and underdeveloped population, that of the gifted. We draw from the cognitive aptitude and gifted…

Forum Theatre is an interactive theatrical form of the 'Theatre of the Oppressed' (TO). I refer to Forum Theatre in this contribution as a dramatic and participatory research approach which -- despite its specific nature -- shares many similarities with approaches taken in action research and participatory research. Procedures and methodological…

The article analyzes the pedagogical views, and the practice of implementing them through the experience of the Ukrainian-Russian social and religious reformer, Nikolay Neplyuev (1851-1908). His social experiments were a unique attempt at solving the social and economic problems of the peasant classes within the Russian Empire by means of…

In recent years, new expectations have been placed on universities, demanding academic contributions towards solving large-scale, interdisciplinary challenges. This is in conflict with existing insights from university governance research, which emphasises that scientific communities focus on reproducing disciplinary practices that are unsuitable…

How can we teach critical hope, amidst contemporary challenges that seem intractable, within neoliberal educational institutions that work to foreclose transformative pedagogies and through academic critique that can result in cynicism and disillusionment among students? Here, I draw on the writings of Paolo Freire, J.K. Gibson-Graham and Sarah…

Considering globalization as part of a post-colonial conjuncture, the examination of the politics of decolonization is essential to understand key conflicts in global civil society. Recently, a global movement for the decolonization of higher education has played a key role in this context, with the #RhodesMustFall movement being particularly…

Many political and economic forces are driven by the desire to eliminate democratic plurality in today's political juncture. Democratic republicanism itself in its contemporary forms has failed to address many of the daunting moral, political, economic, social, technological, and ecological challenges we face today. It is argued that to fulfill…

The iPhone 62 has just been released. Political gridlock and the governmentally approved process of locking immigrant children in cages continue ad infinitum. Public schools resort to primarily remote learning as pandemic viruses ebb and flow. University students study post-postmodernism on campuses that remain on stolen Indigenous land. In this…

At the fin de siècle the Industrial Revolution created egregious physical, emotional and spiritual conditions for American society and especially for the worker but who would come forward to alleviate those conditions? Protestants implemented their Social Gospel Movement as a proposed cure to these problems. Secular Progressives engaged in a more…

In recent years, grand challenge initiatives have emerged nationally with the goal of addressing large, multidisciplinary public problems. The advent of university-led grand challenge initiatives offers an important opportunity to reflect on how institutions of higher education design, implement, and orient externally relevant activities at a time…

The purpose of this article is to show how the humanities offer a solid support to understand and face social and personal decisions as well, especially looking at Chile although, we know, these situations are not only local. Also, to provide suggestions of help, in education, through the humanities, so that future citizens escape the disastrous…

In this theoretical and provocative paper our aim is to problematize universal ideals, and the closely related belief in educationalization, that frame education today. Inspired by the ethico-political work of Agamben ([2007]. "Profanations." New York: Zone Books), and his focus on profane acts of play, and Zupancic's ([2008]. "The…

Since its establishment in 1974, Aalborg University has aimed to deliver cutting-edge research and innovative practices in engineering education. However, increasing complexity related to rapid developments in digitalization and emerging societal challenges offer new opportunities, requirements, and expectations across disciplines for educational…

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen ongoing and disruptive change on a global scale. As well as being experienced collectively, this period of uncertainty has been felt intensely and personally by individuals across the world. In this chapter, I use an autoethnographic approach to provide a personal, reflective take on recent events. Here, I emphasise…