Series Editors' Introduction: Getting a Handle on Educational Foundations Today

• In Event: Educational Foundations: A Book Symposium

Abstract

This paper presents and justifies the book series editors’ choice of six academic disciplines comprising contemporary educational foundations—philosophy, history, sociology, policy studies, economics and law—and traces a history of how educational foundations has evolved over the past century.
The fact that contemporary education students still tend to be exposed to some educational foundations content is a vestige of a once-dominant liberal arts model of teacher education. Taking hold during the first half of the twentieth century under the influence of John Dewey (1916) and likeminded progressivists (see Butin 2005a), the idea that the humanities should be central to teacher education came increasingly under attack after the Second World War. Gradually, a professional training model that prioritizes the practical matters of effective pedagogy, assessment and classroom management replaced it (Authors, 2019). Where educational foundations is still offered in teacher education, it usually takes the form of a module or course that examines certain educational issues from a philosophical, historical or sociological perspective and may include elements of legal, political or economic analysis and, more recently even research methods as well.
Beyond such generalities, however, there is little agreement about what the educational foundations are, neither in terms of a set of adjacent academic disciplines nor how foundations content is distinct from other material education students might encounter. Some commentators limit the educational foundations to the philosophy, history and sociology of education (e.g., Semel 2010). Others add anthropology, policy studies and economics (e.g., Pope & Stemhagen 2008). Those who tend to view the educational foundations as a vehicle for advancing the cause of social justice and emancipatory pedagogy in teacher preparation expand educational foundations further to include cultural studies, gender studies, religious studies, indigenous ontologies, critical theory, and comparative and international education (see Committee on Academic Standards and Accreditation 2013, Hartlep Porfilio Otto & O’Brien 2015).
As these debates rage on (see Butin 2005b, Hartlep Porfilio Otto & O’Brien 2015, Kerr Mandzuk & Raptis 2011, Neumann 2009, Ryan 2009), the study of education has quietly emerged within the academic disciplines that are commonly singled out as “foundations disciplines” (philosophy, history, sociology, etc.) as a well-established sub-branch of these fields. This growth of interest in educational questions has created occasions for fruitful exchange between researchers based in education departments and faculties—i.e., those who are closer to the realities of classroom instruction, mass schooling and teacher formation—and those who are more inclined to tackle educational issues from within the boundaries of a specific academic discipline.
There is no authoritative list of academic disciplines that make up the educational foundations and there is no conceptualization of the educational foundations that will be free of controversy. As our choice of the six fields that constitute the education foundations makes clear, the view of the educational foundations we have adopted for this series is one that highlights the unique contributions that the social sciences and humanities make in their own right to the study of education.

Authors

• Bruce Maxwell, Université de Montréal

• Lauren Bialystok, University of Toronto - OISE