Thinking educational controversies through evil and prophetic indictment: Conversation versus conversion

Abstract

This article is about evil and its function in educational discourse. The research posits, using work in postsecularism and particularly through an historical, legal, and theological read of prophetic indictment and the function of the jeremiad in educational policy, that the terms of educational debate are rendered in a legal rather than a deliberative discursive framework. This lends itself, then, to the creation of evil others opposed to one’s own preferred policy prescriptions and renders much of the discussion about and around the need for conversation and comity moot. The authors propose attending to the function of evil in education as well as positing an historical approach to thinking about why we often can’t think differently about educational arguments.

Keywords:

• Evil
• Prophetic Indictment
• Theology
• Educational Policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kevin J Burke

Kevin J. Burke is an Associate Professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Georgia. His work in teacher education sits at the intersections of religion, curriculum, and queer theory. He is particularly interested in the ways in which religion exists and persists in public education in the United States; critically examining Catholic schooling; and reconsidering theology as a language and structure to think differently in the social sciences. His most recent book, co-edited with colleagues, is entitled: Legacies of Christian languaging and literacies in American education: Perspectives on English Language Arts curriculum, teaching, and learning (Routledge, 2019).

Cathryn van Kessel

Cathryn van Kessel is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta in Secondary Social Studies Education. Her Research interests include: conceptualizations of evil in the context of education, social studies education, curriculum theory, teaching for social change, philosophy in/of education, intersectionality, teacher education, youth studies, popular culture, terror management theory, and posthuman thought. Her first book, with Palgrave (2019), is entitled: An education in 'evil': Implications for curriculum, pedagogy, and beyond.