Epistrophe (EPREPE)

Introductory Note

pages 9-12

Elena Théodoropoulou

The relay of professional ethics in education – slippery slope or point of support?

For the resistance of a warry – the philosophical contribution

Le relais de l’éthique professionnelle en éducation – pente glissante ou point d’appui?

Pour la résistance d’une in-quiétude –  l’apport philosophique

pages 13-43

Jacques Quintin

The work of common sense: phronesis and education

Le travail du sens commun: phronesis et éducation

pages 44-73

Adalberto Dias de Carvalho

Between individual singularities and norms universality: a question for ethics

Entre les singularités des individus et l’universalité des normes: une question pour l’éthique

pages 74-85

Jean-François Dupeyron

Ethics and professional identity

Éthique et identité professionnelle

pages 86-106

Alfred Romuald Gambou

About the role of the imaginary and of hermeneutics in the emergence of a new ethics of teaching

Du rôle de l’imaginaire et de l’herméneutique dans l’émergence d’une nouvelle éthique enseignante

pages 107-126

Louis Desmeules, France Jutras

Values of teachers of human sciences in Quebec colleges: links between values & educative examples

Les valeurs des enseignants de sciences humaines des collèges au Québec: liens entre valeurs et paradigmes éducatifs

pages 127-150

Mohamed Miliani

Power relations in Algerian universities: Between «folk pedagogy» and professional ethics

Relations de pouvoir dans des universités algériennes: entre «pédagogie populaire» et éthique professionnelle

pages 151-165

Pablo Flores del Rosario  

Thoughts on professional ethics applied in education from a Mexican point of view

Réflexions sur l‘éthique professionnelle appliquée à l’éducation: un regard à partir du Mexique

pages 166-181

Didier Moreau

Building ethics in Music: constructing on the sand

Édifier l’éthique en musique: construire sur le sable

pages 182-229

Introductory Note

In order to implement their sociopolitical goals, contemporary educational institutions in Europe do nοt resort at all to what they had been practicing for the last fifty years any more, namely, the «geist governing». It seems that the new mode of educator subjectification has definitively deviated from the paternalistic guidance of Higher Schools that provide a Continuing Professional Development, via university structures.

Ethical thought in education, if it constitutes a philosophical question, has a direct political risk which ought to produce results according to two temporalities. The first one, the long-term, is that of the education's horizon and of its programmed abandonment to the teaching and training's markets. But the second one is calling us urgently: it is that of the actual situation in which practicing teachers are disorientated and made weak in their struggle;

In this context, the authors of the present issue are approaching the field of professional ethics through different conceptual grilles that reveal the very possibility of multiple ways to access the question, but also its conflicting and complex nature.

Elena Theodoropoulou

Didier Moreau

Download Full article here

Abstract:

The article argues for a professional ethics that is being perceived as a par excellence field of research and of self-reflection, of concern and not of promise. This concern persistently appeals to the movement of thought, which in turn recalls the philosophical work, while introducing a praxial tension reinforcing the understanding of the professional not as a reassuring space of premature moralization and counterbalancing, but of a fertile and fragile space that recognizes and deals with the risk in the dilemmatic element. Thus, professional ethics is placed thereon in an unyielding opening or an inability of closure, which does not overwhelm it but addresses it.

Download Full article here

Κeywords: movement of thought, philosophy of education, praxial intensity, breach

Abstract:

In everyday life, we trust constantly common sense. Nevertheless, questioning common sense is an integral part of the western culture and of the world of education. Facing the complexity of the postmodern world, the common sense is not sufficient anymore. The hypothesis of this reflexive text consists in demonstrating the need to restore the value of the common sense, but not at any cost. Common sense does not emerge in a spontaneous way. It is necessary to work on it. It builds itself into intersubjectivity, dialogue and philosophy. Education plays an essential role in this constitution of the common sense, which requires continuing education for the teachers. This is not without consequences on the development of professionalism.

Keywords: common sense, education, phronesis, hermeneutics, logos, ethics

Abstract:

The article poses the problematic of ethics by attempting the construction and practical application of a look that examines divergences and possible approaches within the universality of principles, according to Kant, the defense of the singular and the relationship with the other in Levinas. For this purpose, apart from the references to these very philosophers, the thoughts of Catherine Chalier and Jacques Daignault are equally relevant.

Download Full article here

Keywords: universality, relativism, values, education, rights

Abstract:

This text challenges some aspects of the place of ethics within the construction of professional identity by the educators and the teachers. Nowadays, this ethical implication is done in the context of the «neo-liberal governmentality» as Michel Foucault defined it; namely as a form of government of the individuals and populations transferring the whole load of the responsibility   onto the ethical agent himself. Thus, embarrassments and contradictions of the concept of «professional identity» are examined, before the text points to some characteristics of the professional identity which is seen here as a collective question, a question of practice and a question of «political ecology». 

Download Full article here

Κeywords: professional, identity, ethics, professional life

Abstract:

Starting from an analytical and actively constructive approach and leaning on a complex thought-system, this research paper seeks to show how an ethical intelligence takes form starting from the imagination as poetics and hermeneutics to mature into new teacher-training ethics.  For in the context of the collapse of cultural boundaries and hierarchies, as well as where ordinary, symbolic potential conflicts become the source of misunderstandings at school, and where knowledge loses its sense because it is too often hedged in and decontextualised, the very essence of teaching is in question.  As a result, and with the purpose of reinforcing or giving new life to professional teacher-training ethics, this research paper opens up the way for topological teaching ethics which, nurtured on the one hand by the imagination for poetic value, and on the other by hermeneutics as the science of understanding, becomes an investigation of what can bring about understanding, value and reason to what actually concerns action, of both the students' and the teacher's himself.

Download Full article here

Keywords: philosophy of education, imagination, hermeneutics, ethics, topological teacher-training ethics

Abstract:

It is important to consider that the educational act mobilizes explicit and implicit values in the teacher, independently of the school level where the intervention occurs. Individual interviews were conducted with 13 humanities college teachers (anthropology, economics, geography, political science, psychology, sociology) of the pre-university sector from 11 francophone institutions in Quebec. The results show their conception of their intellectual role, their values and the connections between their values and the educational paradigms. Although there are a variety of values stated and linked to educational paradigms, their values and educational paradigms are quite in phase with the dominant aims of education related to excellence and performance within a competitive society. Nevertheless, humanistic and social critique aspects are part of their sensitivity and discourse about educating their students. 

Download Full article here

Keywords: humanities teachers, college teachers, declared values, social policy, educational paradigms

Abstract:

The present paper tackles the problem of power relations in classroom situations namely those in the faculty of foreign languages. Classroom micropolitics is the fusion between popular pedagogy (folk pedagogy) understood as the personal definition of what teachers’ roles are on the pedagogical and axiological planes, and professional ethics seen as the set of values we believe to be those of teachers. This supposed harmony in the context of study is perturbed by the religious dimension which makes teachers’ decision-taking all the more difficult because of the ever-present religious dogma. These interferences seem to delay the appearance of a real professional ethics capable of managing, in a more equilibrated way, teacher-student power relations.

Download Full article here

Keywords: power, folk pedagogy, professional ethics, autonomy, relations, authority, attitudes

Abstract:

The desire to understand the ethical project, expressed through educational practices, necessarily involves discussing the concept of professional ethics not as a set of norms to apply to specific cases in order to transmit culture to the new generations and change easily the educators customs. Because ethics as a discipline exerts a certain violence of homogenization on educational reality, moreover if, the educational process entails the creation of a complex reality. On the contrary, professional ethics, in the reflective and communitarian project that we will propose here, cannot but contain a wealth of philosophical knowledge that allows persons to think what they are and what they want to be, via educational practice and thus to create, recreate or strengthen the ethical code of this practice. For this reason, philosophy and ethics are essential. 

Download Full article here

Keywords: ethics, profesional, reflective, comunitarian, culture

Abstract:

The article proposes an inquiry about music as an art of forming a human community. Classical philosophy has always been reluctant to answer this founding power of music. When we understand the reasons for this, we can see how the perspective of leaving the Absolute allows us to think of music outside of the ontotheology. The Rhythmos Community is a liberation from the logocentric community. Nietzsche's analyses are the moment of erasing a metaphysics of presence from which Wagner is the ultimate fighter. Finally, Schoenberg's work, in its theoretical dimension and in its musical compositions, can be approached via the ethical significance of music, which is to write on sand. Schönberg makes clear to us the failure of Heidegger to think of the Community in times of distress («in dürftiger Zeit») (K. Löwith).

Download Full article here

Keywords: community, metaphysics, music, dodecaphonism, ethics