Towards Rational Education explores how education can become rational by serving character building, rational thinking and the common good. It uses evidence-based psychology, philosophy, sociology and political science to support transforming education and provides a brand-new framework for effective universal education. This book endorses Rational-Emotive Behavior Theory (REBT) and rational education philosophy theories as main vehicles paving a viable set of rational education values and practices. Collective wisdom, rational living, freedom, mental health, altruism, solidarity, equality and fraternity are seen as the foundational values for shaping already existing schools of the world become more rational and in establishing Rational Education Communities (REC) and Rational Schools (RS). Calling for a philosophical and socio-political shift in education values and practices, the book cites principles, tools and practices that rational educators, philosophers, psychologists, other related scientists-practitioners and people have offered us as a legacy for building a more rational and positive education for all people universally, without sacrificing cultural sensitivity and expressivity. This book will be of great interest for the general audience and a special interest for academics, researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of the philosophy of education, positive psychology, educational psychology and educational policy.

The manner in which we variously come to an understanding of our world presents problems for us all, but the unified method by which we ought best to acquire such knowledge represents the particular problem of contemporary education. This important book seeks to explore some of the underlying practises and assumptions that go to produce and sustain both such sets of activities. As a result of its concerns with the social organization of knowledge at all levels, the sociology of education has become a central form of much contemporary sociological theory. All the papers in this collection are formulations of a ‘reflexive’ method of theorizing within sociology of education. This is a mode of address, deriving partly from social phenomenology, which seeks to display the grounds of the theorists’ speech as itself an essential feature of any informative dialogue. Major themes in education and in sociology are considered in this way, including the social form of rationality, the constitution of curricula, normative beliefs about Learning, the nature of literary study as liberal education and the character of scientific knowledge in the social world.

Examining writing for and about education in the period from 1740 to 1820, Rebecca Davies’s book plots the formation of a written paradigm of maternal education that associates maternity with educational authority. Examining novels, fiction for children, conduct literature and educative and political tracts by Samuel Richardson, Sarah Fielding, Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria Edgeworth, Ann Martin Taylor and Jane Austen, Davies identifies an authoritative feminine educational voice. She shows how the function of the discourse of maternal authority is modified in different genres, arguing that both the female writers and the fictional mothers adopt maternal authority and produce their own formulations of ideal educational methods. The location of idealised maternity for women, Davies proposes, is in the act of writing educational discourse rather than in the physical performance of the maternal role. Her book contextualizes the development of a written discourse of maternal education that emerged in the enlightenment period and explores the empowerment achieved by women writing within this discourse, albeit through a notion of authority that is circumscribed by the 'rules' of a discipline.

This book presents a case for teaching philosophy in schools. It develops two original arguments for teaching philosophy to all students at some point over the course of their education. Gatley argues that teaching philosophy is the best way to help students to think clearly using ordinary, or non-specialist concepts such as 'good', 'truth', or 'happiness'. She goes on to argue that teaching philosophy is the best way to help students to make sense of the different conceptual schemes used by different school subjects. Combining these two arguments, Gatley suggests that these two roles for philosophy are central to the task of educating people, and so philosophy ought to be included on school curricula. Building on the work of philosophers of education including Richard Stanley Peters, Harry Brighouse, Matthew Lipman, Mary Midgley and Martha Nussbaum, the book covers a range of topics including Philosophy for Children (P4C), the aims education, religious education, curriculum design and education policy.

The huge and fractured literature on adolescence challenges both students and scholars. For students there is too much to learn and too little coherence across topics to enable deeper understanding. For scholars, there are few integrative visions to connect minitheories, research programs, and practical concerns. In the first edition of this advanced text, Moshman provided a constructivist synthesis of the literatures of cognitive, moral, and identity development, from the classic universalist theories of Piaget, Kohlberg, and Erikson through the more pluralist research and theorizing of the late 20th century. Without assuming any prior knowledge of psychology, he introduced and coordinated basic concepts to enable students to wrestle with the questions of concern to experts and help experts see those concerns from a larger perspective. In this thoroughly updated second edition, Moshman develops his conceptualization of advanced psychological development in adolescence and early adulthood and proposes--in a new chapter--a conception of rational moral identity as a developmental ideal. Unlike the prototypical changes of early childhood, advanced psychological development cannot be understood as progress through universal stages to a universally achieved state of maturity. Progress is possible, however, through rational processes of reflection, coordination, and social interaction.

The first book of its kind to provide a full and comprehensive historical grounding of the contemporary issues of gender and women in science. Women in Science includes a detailed survey of the history behind the popular subject and engages the reader with a theoretical and informed understanding with significant issues like science and race, gender and technology and masculinity. It moves beyond the historical work on women and science by avoiding focusing on individual women scientists.