Education and hope

ABSTRACT

This introduction sets a framework for the special issue on Education and Hope which contains a selection of papers presented at the 16^th Conference of the International Network of Philosophers of Education. It sketches the issue of how education and hope are closely intertwined notions. This introduction also gives an overview of the articles included in this issue and how they are thematically arranged. In a short conclusion the issue of hope is related to the issue of speed and slowness.

KEYWORDS:

• Education
• hope
• stengers
• possibility
• slowing down

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This four-day conference took place August 13–17, 2018 and was organized by Hanan Alexander (conference chair) and Joris Vlieghe (program chair). The conference was an occasion for about 150 scholars from all over the world to discuss pressing educational issues. This special issue includes the keynotes and responses delivered at this conference, as well as a selection from the (peer-reviewed) contributions to the concurrent paper sessions. Next to this, the conference program also consisted of (peer-reviewed) work-in-progress paper sessions and symposia that addressed the conference theme ‘Education, Dialogue and Hope’ (See: http://inpe2018.edu.haifa.ac.il/). This conference was the occasion of two festive events: there was a session during which the University of Haifa awarded a honorary doctorate to Nel Noddings; and we also paid tribute to Paul Smeyers who, after twelve years presidentship of the INPE network, passed over this role to Sharon Todd (for the coming six years). In the name of all those involved in INPE, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and admiration for Paul’s unconditional devotion to this organization and the biennial conference. I would also like to thank the journal Ethics and Education for continuing to offer the possibility to publish work issuing from this conference.