Responsibility and Education: A Synopsis

• In Event: Roots and Routes: Revisiting Dilemmas in The Purpose of Education

Abstract

There has been a wealth of scholarship in recent years that has critiqued how accountability presents itself in education reforms. Far less attention has been devoted to theorizing the subject of responsibility in education. This presentation provides a synopsis of a monograph that the author is currently writing entitled Centralizing Responsibility in Education: Political, Ethical, and Environmental Responsibilities (Routledge, forthcoming). The author will provide a rationale for why political, ethical, and environmental responsibilities ought to be central, ongoing educational concerns. The analysis builds upon what responsibility means and why it matters in the thoughts of key thinkers who have written on the subject. Several education-based cases on “rights” will then be interrogated in terms of responsibility and irresponsibility.

Author

• Hannah Spector, Penn State University - Harrisburg