Student Responses to the Women's Reclamation Work in the Philosophy of Education

Abstract

Reclamation work denotes the process of uncovering the lost contributions of women to the philosophy of education, analyzing their works, making them accessible to a larger audience, and (re)introducing them to the historical record and canon. Since the 1970s, scholars have been engaged in the reclamation work, thus making available to students, professors, and researchers a rich and varied perspective for tracing the evolution of educational thought. This article shares the responses of undergraduate and graduate students to discussing the reclamation work and canonical formation in their Philosophy of Education course. Two of the benefits most commonly cited by students involve learning a fuller, more accurate picture of history and ameliorating contemporary gender inequity. We assert that the traditional canon and syllabi for Philosophy of Education and Social Foundation courses could be enriched through the inclusion of works that trace the tradition of women's intellectual thought.

Notes

1. Educating Women is an “international and intergenerational community of learning and inquiry on women, gender, and education” (organization's Web site). More information about the group may be found at: http://www.educatingwomen.net.

2. The authors perceive the canon of the philosophy of education to include works and authors that the discipline has considered the most essential and important, i.e., the works and authors that are included in education textbooks and compilations. Authors most closely attributed to the canon include, for example, Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, and Dewey.

3. See, for example, Boos (1976), Gibson (1989), Hill (1992), Martin (1982), Stock (1978), Waithe (1987), Gardner (2003), Laird (1991; 2008), Berson (1994), Maloney (1996), O’Neill (1998; 2004), Sotiropoulos (2007), and Titone and Maloney (1999).

4. See Titone (1997; 2004; 2006; 2007) and Titone and Maloney (1999).

5. For more information on approximately 70 classical women found in four 17th-century histories of philosophy, see Eileen O’Neill's (1998) “Disappearing Ink: Early Modern Women Philosophers and Their Fate in History” in Janet Kourany's Philosophy in a Feminist Voice: Critiques and Reconstructions.

6. The author of an eight-volume history of England and a colonial sympathizer, Macaulay frequently participated in philosophical conversations with George Washington and other founding fathers both in person and through letters. For more on Catharine Macaulay, see Boos (1976), Waithe (1987), and Titone (1997, 2004).

7. We acknowledge that there is a distinction between historiography (the writing of history) and canonicity (an authoritative or accepted group of works; or a standard or criterion of judgment). However, for our purposes, the two topics are intimately connected. Without inclusion in the history of the philosophy of education, the works of early women philosophers could not be considered for inclusion in the canon.