What might the Covid Pandemic mean for the SERA Theory and Philosophy of Education Network?

Lewin, David and Tonner, Philip (2020) What might the Covid Pandemic mean for the SERA Theory and Philosophy of Education Network? Scottish Educational Review, 52 (2). pp. 17-18. ISSN 0141-9072 (https://doi.org/10.1163/27730840-05202007)

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Abstract

Some prominent theorists and philosophers of education recently offered their reflections on the ongoing crisis by way of a collective project which begins with the provocative words of Arundhati Roy: “[o]ur minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to ‘normality’”…“[n]othing could be worse that a return to normality” (Peters et. al. 2020, 1). Whether or not one is persuaded, Roy is surely right that this rupture offers us a glimpse of something different if we are “ready to imagine another world” (Roy 2020). Roy points to the “brutal, structural, social and economic inequality” of India and elsewhere that the pandemic has illuminated. That it takes a pandemic to face some basic social problems may be disheartening, but it suggests that, in an era of such fundamental uncertainty, we may be able to meaningfully open up basic questions of the nature and purpose of education, questions that are otherwise taken for granted. Thus, the theoretical and philosophical basis of our educational work comes into sharper focus.

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