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Hope and Education
Author(s) -
Levitas Ruth
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of philosophy of education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.501
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9752
pISSN - 0309-8249
DOI - 10.1111/j.0309-8249.2004.00381.x
Subject(s) - pragmatism , managerialism , utopia , sociology , philosophy of education , epistemology , character (mathematics) , process (computing) , social science , aesthetics , environmental ethics , philosophy , higher education , law , management , political science , geometry , mathematics , computer science , operating system , economics
This essay reviews David Halpin's Hope and Education, which aims to bring theories of hope and utopia to bear on the practical processes of schooling in contemporary Britain, and which sees education as an intrinsically hopeful and future‐oriented process. It argues that the properly utopian character of Halpin's project is subverted by his espousal of a currently fashionable pragmatism, represented by Richard Rorty and Anthony Giddens, which insists that ‘good’ utopias must be realistic and practical. Utopian hope for a better world, in which a transformed educational process will be central, is ambushed by this pragmatism and reduced to managerialism.