Obstinate Education - by Gert Biesta (Paperback)

About the Book

Obstinate Education: Reconnecting School and Society argues that education is not just there to give individuals, groups and societies what they want from it, but that education has a duty to resist.

Book Synopsis

What should the relationship between school and society be? Obstinate Education: Reconnecting School and Society argues that education is not just there to give individuals, groups and societies what they want from it, but that education has a duty to resist. Education needs to be obstinate, not for the sake of being difficult, but in order to make sure that it can contribute to emancipation and democratisation. This requires that education always brings in the question whether what is desired from it is going to help with living life well, individually and collectively, on a planet that has a limited capacity for giving everything that is desired from it.

This book argues that education should not just be responsive but should keep its own responsibility; should not just focus on empowerment but also on emancipation; and, through this, should help students to become 'world-wise.' It argues that critical thinking and classroom philosophy should retain a political orientation and not be reduced to useful thinking skills, and shows the importance of hesitation in educational relationships. This text makes a strong case for the connection between education and democracy, both in the context of schools, colleges and universities and in the work of public pedagogy.

Review Quotes

Check out the book being discussed on the New Books Network podcast here.

"With Obstinate Education, Biesta wrote an intellectually heeft Biesta een intellectueel, uitdagend boek geschreven. Het boek daagt uit 'door' te 'denken', niet alleen de pedagogische kwesties die Biesta in zijn boek aansnijdt en de pedago[1]giek die hij daarbij voor het voetlicht brengt, maar ook kwesties die niet besproken worden, maar er wel nauw mee samenhangen. Ik denk hier bijvoorbeeld aan de relatie tussen overheid en onderwijs [...] Ik raad het boek van harte aan."

About the Author

Gert Biesta, PhD (1992), Leiden University, is Professor of Public Education at Maynooth University, Ireland and Professor for Education at the University of Humanistic Studies, the Netherlands. He writes about educational theory and policy and the philosophy of social research.