Hand, Michael (2008) What should we teach as controversial?: a defense of the epistemic criterion. Educational Theory, 58 (2). pp. 213-228. ISSN 0013-2004 (print); 1741-5446 (electronic)
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Abstract
There is an emerging consensus that to teach something as controversial is to present it as a matter on which different views are or could be held and to expound those different views as impartially as possible. This raises an important normative question that has yet to receive the attention it deserves from educational theorists: how are we to decide which topics to teach in this way? The answer suggested by Robert Dearden is that we should apply the epistemic criterion: a matter should be taught as controversial when contrary views can be held on it without those views being contrary to reason. My aim here is to defend that answer. In the first part of the article I revisit Dearden’s rather thin and unsatisfactory justification for the epistemic criterion and attempt to mend its deficiencies. In the second part I examine an alternative to the epistemic criterion in the area of moral education, an alternative I label the political criterion, and explain why I think we should reject it.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | The definitive version is available at www3.interscience.wiley.com |
| Subjects: | Departments > Education Foundations and Policy Studies |
| Depositing User: | IOE Repository Editor (1) |
| Date Deposited: | 26 Feb 2010 12:06 |
| Last Modified: | 26 Jun 2012 22:25 |
| URI: | http://eprints.ioe.ac.uk/id/eprint/1076 |
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