The impact of socio-cultural differences on educational values: a comparison of the pedagogy of Michael Oakeshott and John McGahern^*

* This article has benefited significantly from the acute, informed, searching and challenging observations of two anonymous referees for this journal. Any deficiencies remain my own responsibility.

Abstract

The year 2016 marked the tenth anniversary of the death of John McGahern (born 1934), the widely acclaimed Irish author. There is a shared temper of mind and several common strands in the work of McGahern and that of the English philosopher, Michael Oakeshott (1900–1990). Despite the very different cultural environments in which they grew up and wrote, both writers exhibit a similar commitment to education as initiation into the pleasures of the mind, although they differ in their responses to the social context in which formal learning takes place. This paper examines the commonalities and differences in their visions of education.

Keywords:

• Schooling
• class
• credentialism
• Oakeshott
• McGahern

Notes

* This article has benefited significantly from the acute, informed, searching and challenging observations of two anonymous referees for this journal. Any deficiencies remain my own responsibility.

1. McGahern was extremely non-militaristic and non-nationalist and these comments occur in the course of an essay entitled ‘In Pursuit of a Single Flame: Ernie O’Malley’ on O’Malley’s book On Another Man’s Wound, which McGahern describes as the ‘one classic to have emerged directly from the violence that led to the founding of the Irish Free State’ (2009, 259).

2. I am grateful to Caitríona Williams for her comments on this section of the article.

3. Several examples from Hogan’s work are examined in Williams (2014a, 56, 57; 2014b, 139, 140).