All too often discussion of Capability proceeds as if it is clear what "Capability" is and that all that is required is the ascertaining of means for developing it. This paper seeks to explore the meanings of Capability. It provides two broad meanings, and discusses the paradoxes inherent in the application of these to the real world of management…

Since Dilthey we have become used to thinking of reason as having a cultural and historical setting. If we take this insight seriously, then critical rationality or critical thinking can no longer be conceived of as context-free skills. This paper takes up the line of thought that is elaborated by Christopher Winch in his 'Developing Critical…

The main points made by Clarke and Mearman about Winch's article, 'The Economic Aims of Education,' are taken up and discussed. My argument is that work is not necessarily a disutility, although paid employment can be when it is undertaken in conditions that are not fulfilling. Life aims are not the same as educational aims, although educational…

Some scholarship suggests that critical pedagogy should be abandoned for more pragmatic goals. While the democratic and political sensibilities of critical pedagogy require more from the instructor, classrooms that on the surface do not appear to work in teaching students should not be seen as signs that the pedagogy is not worth the extra effort.…

Classroom composing is a lot of work, but it is tremendously rewarding for students and for teachers. The learning and skill development that attends composing efforts can make the addition of composing activities to a music classroom both useful and enjoyable. In this article, the author provides five steps for leading students in classroom…

Developing people's emotional well-being and emotional engagement are official aims in social policy. A growing number of initiatives respond to diverse, often contradictory public, political and professional concerns about individuals' emotional needs. These concerns are a powerful discourse in "personalised learning". The article…

Evolution is typically measured as a change in allele or genotype frequencies over one or more generations. Consequently, evolution is difficult to show experimentally in a semester-long lab course because most organisms have longer generation times than 15 weeks. In this article, the authors present an experiment to demonstrate and study…

This article explains the nature of vision-guided educational practice, makes the case for it, and appraises objections to this approach to education. The discussion is grounded in a critique of the rhetoric and practice associated with American education, a critique that emphasizes the continuing failure to think about educational challenges and…

During the past several decades, multicultural education has become an integral part of the social studies as a means to authentically prepare students for living in an inclusive and democratic society. Topics traditionally omitted, such as race, ethnicity, culture, social class, and gender, are now included. Yet, while multicultural education has…

This paper explores the cognitive difficulty of assessment tasks in six first year computing courses within an Information Technology (IT) degree. This issue is pertinent to Information Technology education for two reasons. Degree level education in any field of study is expected to develop higher order thinking skills. Bloom's taxonomy is a…

Democratic schools are schools that result from explicit attempts by educators to put in place arrangements and opportunities that will bring democracy to life. These arrangements and opportunities involve two lines of work. One is to create democratic structures and processes by which life in school is carried out. The other is to create a…

Much official environmental education policy in the UK and elsewhere makes scant reference to nature as such, and the issue of our underlying attitude towards it is rarely addressed. For the most part such policy is pre-occupied with the issue of meeting "sustainably" what are taken to be present and future human needs. This paper…

In this article I examine ways in which educators can use discourses of empathy and reconciliation to problematise the prevailing conflictive ethos in their curriculum and pedagogy. The ideals of empathy and reconciliation are examined through the lens of "emotion"; the emotional effects of trauma narratives raise a question that has been largely…

At the 71st Annual International Convention of the Association for Business Communication (ABC), held in San Antonio, Texas, October 26-28, 2006, the author (editor of "Business Communication Quarterly" from 1997 to 2005) was honored as the 2005 recipient of ABC's highest award for teaching: the Meada Gibbs Outstanding Teacher Award. This article…