Hannah Arendt on Educational Thinking and Practice in Dark Times - by Wayne Veck & Helen M Gunter (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In her renowned and provocative essay, The Crisis in Education, Hannah Arendt observed that a 'crisis becomes a disaster only when we respond to it with preformed judgements, that is, with prejudices'. Taken as a whole, Arendt's work provides an enduring provocation to think and to make judgements about education and the issues that impact on it, such as political, economic and cultural disruption and uncertainty. Drawing together the leading thinkers on Arendtian ideas and education, this collection explores the role and promise education can have in preparing the future generation to understand, to think about and to act within the world. Concluding the same essay on the crisis in education, Arendt declared education to be the point at which love for the world meets love for those who are newcomers to it. The authors respond to Arendt's call for responsibility and authority in education, providing a leading edge thinking, analysis and agenda setting for public education systems and the world in dark times.

Review Quotes

"This compelling collection will be of interest to anyone seeking alternative perspectives on education to those which currently dominate. Each essay demands thoughtfulness in the process of reading, and subsequently, our research and practice, in order to enact our natality on the world." --Educational Review

"An outstanding collection of essays that puts Hannah Arendt into conversation with pressing educational issues - from today's global refugee crisis as it pertains to the rise of populist movements and renationalization trends to putting the public back in public education. A must read." --Hannah Spector, Associate Professor of Education, Pennsylvania State University, USA

"Many enduring lessons are on offer in this volume, which advances Arendtian scholarship as well as educational thought, and itself embodies the thoughtful research it calls out for." --Phenomenological Reviews

"The threads of the book are stitched together well by the editors in a concluding chapter, which makes important the notion of action as well as thoughtful research. This is a truly heroic effort." --The British Journal of Sociology of Education

About the Author

Wayne Veck is Senior Lecturer in Education at Winchester University, UK, having started his teaching career as a teacher of English to students from Afghanistan and Iraq seeking refuge in the UK.

Helen M. Gunter is Professor of Educational Policy at the University of Manchester, UK, and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.