What takes ‘us’ so long? The philosophical poverty of childhood studies and education

Abstract

My argument addresses a significant history of philosophical racism–a term borrowed from Mogobe Ramose. The argument is: philosophical racism makes the racist philosophically poor, too. I propose that two philosophical keystones, i.e., ontological simultaneity and mutual causation need to be further developed by engaging non-Western contributions. I conclude by emphasising that childhood studies could level the playing field by paying attention to the intersections of racism and adultism. In turn contribute to inseparable fields like the philosophy of education.

Speciella barndomar: Idealbarnen i utbildningsforskning om antropocen riktad mot yngre barn

“…I stället intresserar jag mig för hur det vuxna "vi:et" konstruerar föreställningar om barn. Inom det barndomssociologiska fältet har det på senare tid framförts argument för att "barnism" ("child ism" på engelska) bör kunna utgöra en kritisk och affirmativ position -likt feminism -för alla som stödjer kampen för att barns rättigheter och perspektiv ska tas tillvara i kunskapsproduktionen och samhället, i större utsträckning än vad som sker idag (Biswas, 2022;Sundhall, 2017;Wall, 2021). Jag sympatiserar visserligen med sådana argument, men väljer i den här studien att i stället fokusera på hur vuxenvärlden konstruerar idéer om goda barndomar eftersom jag vill hävda att vuxnas perspektiv på världen inte problematiseras och synas i sömmarna i tillräckligt stor utsträckning inom fältet.…”

Olfactoscapes in Malawi: Exploring the smells children like and are exposed to in semi-urban classrooms

“…In pursuing this goal, we drew on theories of embodiment, socio-spatiality and sensory studies to understand how they might generate new meanings but also where they are deficient in their conceptual applications. The latter connects to Biswas’ (2022) provocation that the philosophical nuances of the postcolonial critique are difficult to blend with the practical context of research and its pedagogical implications. Biswas’ (2022: 349) concept of “ontological simultaneity” was a useful “logic framework” (ibid) for positioning our empirical endeavour to explore the scope of olfactory focus in studying childhoods in Malawi.…”

“…The latter connects to Biswas’ (2022) provocation that the philosophical nuances of the postcolonial critique are difficult to blend with the practical context of research and its pedagogical implications. Biswas’ (2022: 349) concept of “ontological simultaneity” was a useful “logic framework” (ibid) for positioning our empirical endeavour to explore the scope of olfactory focus in studying childhoods in Malawi.…”

“…Ontological simultaneity refers to the pluralist perspective of viewing phenomena as “being and becoming at the same time”. Biswas (2022) emphasises that ‘any judgement about reality can only be partially true and hold only for the specific aspect of the judged object (…) acknowledging the incapacity of any human observer to describe reality fully. Consequently, a third conditionally qualified proposition integrates the intellectual and cognitive limitations of any observer i.e., indescribability’ (p. 349).…”

Towards a childist theory of democratic dannelse: An argument for the radical potential of more age-inclusive scholarly imagination

“…An important critique stemming from the field of childhood studies is that while it is generally accepted that scholars need to understand their object of study from diverse points of view -such as gender, class, ethnicity, disability etc. -there is one social dimension largely absent, not only in childhood studies, but across social scientific and humanistic disciplines more broadly, namely children and youth (Biswas, 2022;Cockburn, 2020;Spyrou, 2011;Wall, 2019). This literature argues how every major philosopher and theologian of different historical traditions have uncritically adopted adultist social assumptions, that is, they have grappled with the question of the nature of the human being, its purpose and responsibility, chiefly from the perspective of adulthood (e.g., Wall, 2010).…”