Michael Hand
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 3866375 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Michael Hand |
| NOMBRES | Michael |
| APELLIDO | Hand |
| FIRMA | HAND M |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Birmingham |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1643-8213 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 46 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 96 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 46 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1979 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
Knowledge and religious education
This article explores differing scholarly views on the relationship between knowledge and Religious Education (RE) within a British context. Using a metalogue methodology – a structured, reflective dialogue – the perspectives of three scholars are presented facilitated by a fourth scholar. The method preserves individual voices while fostering interactive debate. The discussion includes – disagreements on the nature and definition of knowledge an…
Revisited
In this invited essay for the 75 th Anniversary Special Issue of Educational Theory , I revisit my 2008 article “What Should We Teach as Controversial? A Defense of the Epistemic Criterion.” I briefly summarize my argument, then survey the various objections it has attracted in the years since its publication. I focus in on a criticism I call the value worry about the epistemic criterion and try to show that it is unsuccessful
Symposium Introduction
A central aim of education, at the primary, secondary, and postsecondary levels, is to bring it about that students believe responsibly. We want students to form new beliefs, and revise existing beliefs, on the basis of the best available evidence, argument, and testimony. We do not want them to cling dogmatically to beliefs acquired in childhood, nor to be warily skeptical of new information, nor to lurch haphazardly from one set of beliefs to a…
Does Indoctrination Still Matter
For at least half a century, there has been a broad consensus that indoctrination is a pernicious form of miseducation and a distinctive vice of teaching. In recent years, a number of educational theorists have sought to cast doubt on this view. They suggest that the attention traditionally given to the threat of indoctrination, and the anxiety induced by it, are significantly misplaced. Here, Michael Hand distinguishes three forms of indoctrinat…
Education, extremism and exemption from basic morality
Are there things schools can do to build pupils’ resilience to extremism? The UK ‘Prevent duty’ assumes there are, but schools are poorly served by existing government advice. Here I offer a cautious defence of the idea that the acquisition of extremist beliefs and attitudes can be forestalled by educational means. I begin by sketching, and modifying, Quassim Cassam’s family resemblance account of the concept of extremism. I then focus in on what…
Tillson on religious initiation
In Children, Religion and the Ethics of Influence, John Tillson argues that initiating children into religion is morally wrong. His argument overlaps and intersects at various points with my own argument against confessional religious education in schools. In this brief reply I consider two notable differences between our arguments
Education, Extremism, and Aversion to Compromise
Schools plausibly have a role to play in countering radicalization by taking steps to prevent the acquisition of extremist beliefs, dispositions, and attitudes. A core component of the extremist mindset is aversion to compromise. Michael Hand inquires here into the possibility, desirability, and means of educating against this attitude. He argues that aversion to compromise is demonstrably undesirable and readiness to compromise demonstrably desi…
Symposium Introduction
Do schools have a role to play in counter-radicalization? Insofar as extremism and terrorism represent a clear and present danger to public safety, are there steps educators can reasonably be asked to take to mitigate the threat? And if so, what does a defensible program of education against extremism look like? In the UK, schools already have a statutory duty to “have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism,”1 an…
Hirst on rational moral education
In Moral Education in a Secular Society, Paul Hirst offers accounts of the content and justification of morality and the aims and methods of moral education. My own recent book, A Theory of Moral Education, does the same. Here I explore the similarities and differences between our theories. In the first part of the paper, I outline what Hirst calls the ‘sophisticated view of education’, which I wholeheartedly endorse, and highlight his attention …
How Did Colleges Disburse Emergency Aid During Covid-19? An Implementation Analysis of the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund
To address the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress authorized the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF I) in March 2020 with over $6 billion allocated for emergency financial aid. In this paper, we utilize the administrative burden framework to analyze HEERF I implementation for a stratified random sample of colleges, focusing on the implications for equity. We find that disbursement policies varied along two dime…
Consent and mutuality in sex education
Sharon Lamb, Sam Gable and Doret de Ruyter have recently argued that sex education in schools should promote a more demanding standard for morally permissible sex than consent. On their view, pupils should be taught that morally permissible sex is not only consensual but also mutual, where mutuality requires participants in sex to ‘try to know what is knowable’ about each other. I argue here that, while Lamb et al. are right about the insufficien…
Philosophy of education in a new key
What is the future of Philosophy of education? Or as many of scholars and thinkers in this final ‘future-focused’ collective piece from the Philosophy of Education in a New Key Series put it, what are the futures—plural and multiple—of the intersections of ‘philosophy’ and ‘education?’ What is ‘Philosophy’; and what is ‘Education’, and what role may ‘enquiry’ play? Is the future of education and philosophy embracing—or at least taking seriously—a…
On the necessity of school punishment
The question of the necessity of school punishment was raised, but not satisfactorily answered, in an exchange some time ago between John Wilson and James Marshall. Wilson argued that social interaction in schools must be governed by rules and that rules only exist if violations of them are normally punished. Marshall objected that there are some rules whose existence plainly does not depend on punishment of violations. Here I revisit and try to …
Autonomy, practical rationality and being at one with oneself
In his belated reply to my 2006 article ‘Against autonomy as an educational aim’, Christian Wendelborn advances two objections to my argument and proposes two new candidates for an educational aim deserving of the name autonomy. I show here that his objections miss their mark and that neither of his new candidates is appointable
Symposium on Michael Hand’s A Theory of Moral Education
The short articles in this symposium have their origins in a seminar held at the University of Birmingham in January 2018, to mark the launch of my book, A Theory of Moral Education (Hand 2018). Th
Defining morality, applying standards and shaping attitudes
In the preceding articles, Andrew Copson, Angie Hobbs and Ben Kotzee make a number of interesting criticisms of my book, A Theory of Moral Education. Here I offer some replies
TwoWorries about Educational Goods
In this brief comment on Educational Goods, I raise two worries about the authors' proposed normative framework for educational decision-makers. The first concerns the omission of rationality, or responsiveness to reasons, from the list of educational goods; the second concerns the inclusion of parental interests in the list of independent values
In Defence of Rational Moral Education
In the foregoing articles, David Aldridge, Doret de Ruyter and John Tillson offer some weighty and wide-ranging criticisms of my recent book, A Theory of Moral Education (Hand, 2018a). I cannot hope to do justice to the detail of their criticisms in the space available to me, but I shall attempt, in what follows, to defend my account of moral education against their principal lines of attack. I am grateful to Aldridge, de Ruyter and Tillson for t…
Religious education and religious choice
According to the ‘religious choice case’ for compulsory religious education, pupils have a right to be made aware of the religious and irreligious paths open to them and equipped with the wherewithal to choose between them. A familiar objection to this argument is that the idea of religious choice reduces religion to a matter of taste. I argue, first, that this familiar objection fails and, second, that we nevertheless have good reason to reject …
What Do Kids Know? A Response to Karin Murris
Religion, reason and non-directive teaching
In other work I have argued that decisions about what to teach directively and what non-directively should be governed by an epistemic criterion. Trevor Cooling has recently advanced some objections to my defence and application of the epistemic criterion and proposed an alternative to it. Here I reply to his objections and comment on his proposed alternative
Towards a Theory of Moral Education
In this inaugural lecture, delivered at the University of Birmingham in January 2014, I sketch the outline of a theory of moral education. The theory is an attempt to resolve the tension between two thoughts widely entertained by teachers, policy-makers and the general public. The first thought is that morality must be learned: children must come to see what morality requires of them and acquire the motivation to submit to its authority. The seco…
A New Dawn for Faith-based Education? Opportunities for Religious Organisations in the UK's New School System
The 'new school system' described in the Schools White Paper (DfE, 2010) presents religious organisations with two interesting opportunities. The first is an opportunity to play a significantly enhanced role in the management of faith-based schools. The second is an opportunity to rethink quite radically the content of their curricula. In this article I advance a proposal for the consideration of religious organisations: that they take up the opp…
Patriotism in Schools
In the face of rising concerns about citizenship, national identity, diversity and belonging in Britain today, politicians from all sides of the political spectrum have looked to schools to inspire and invigorate a strong, modern sense of patriotism and common purpose, which is capable of binding people together and motivating citizens to fulfil their obligations to each other and to the state. In this timely and astute analysis, Michael Hand unp…
Discussing Controversial Issues in the Classroom
Discussion is widely held to be the pedagogical approach most appropriate to the exploration of controversial issues in the classroom, but surprisingly little attention has been given to the questions of why it is the preferred approach and how best to facilitate it. Here we address ourselves to both questions. We begin by clarifying the concept of discussion and justifying it as an approach to the teaching of controversial issues. We then report…
Discussing Controversial Issues in the Classroom
Discussion is widely held to be the pedagogical approach most appropriate to the exploration of controversial issues in the classroom, but surprisingly little attention has been given to the questions of why it is the preferred approach and how best to facilitate it. Here we address ourselves to both questions. We begin by clarifying the concept of discussion and justifying it as an approach to the teaching of controversial issues. We then report…
Religious Upbringing Reconsidered
There is, on the face of it, a logical difficulty as well as a practical one about ascribing to parents both a right to give their children a religious upbringing and a duty to avoid indoctrinating them. Curiously, this logical difficulty was largely overlooked in the debate on religious upbringing and parental rights between Terence McLaughlin, Eamonn Callan and Peter Gardner in the 1980s. In this paper I set out the terms of the logical problem…
Philosophy of education in a new key
What is the future of Philosophy of education? Or as many of scholars and thinkers in this final ‘future-focused’ collective piece from the Philosophy of Education in a New Key Series put it, what are the futures—plural and multiple—of the intersections of ‘philosophy’ and ‘education?’ What is ‘Philosophy’; and what is ‘Education’, and what role may ‘enquiry’ play? Is the future of education and philosophy embracing—or at least taking seriously—a…
Should We Promote Patriotism in Schools
If patriotism is love of one's country, the attempt to promote it in schools must count as a form of emotional education. Emotional education is defensible in so far as it consists in offering pupils good reasons and effective techniques for fostering or suppressing particular emotions. The question is whether we are in a position to offer pupils good reasons for loving their countries. In this article I set out an account of the rationality of e…
Effects of instructions concerning ownership of a toy on preschoolers' sharing and defensive behaviors
Sixty-eight preschoolers 30-60 months old were told that a toy belonged either to them or to the or were given no specific instructions. Their subsequent behavior with the toy was observed. When told that the toy belonged to the class, older children were more likely than younger children to share. This pattern of findings did not appear to be due to differences in understanding of possessive words; an analysis eliminating subjects who did poorly…
Patriotism in British Schools
How should patriotism be handled in schools? We argue that schools cannot afford to ignore the topic, but nor are they justified in either promoting or discouraging patriotic feeling in students. The only defensible policy is for schools to adopt a stance of neutrality and teach the topic as a controversial issue. We go on to show that there is general support among British teachers and students for school neutrality on patriotism and that the cu…
On the Worthwhileness of Theoretical Activities
R.S. Peters' arguments for the worthwhileness of theoretical activities are intended to justify education per se, on the assumption that education is necessarily a matter of initiating people into theoretical activities. If we give up this assumption, we can ask whether Peters' arguments might serve instead to justify the academic curriculum over other curricular arrangements. For this they would need to show that theoretical activities are not o…
How Did Colleges Disburse Emergency Aid During Covid-19? An Implementation Analysis of the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund
To address the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress authorized the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF I) in March 2020 with over $6 billion allocated for emergency financial aid. In this paper, we utilize the administrative burden framework to analyze HEERF I implementation for a stratified random sample of colleges, focusing on the implications for equity. We find that disbursement policies varied along two dime…
A Rejoinder to Mackenzie, Gardner and Tan
TwoWorries about Educational Goods
In this brief comment on Educational Goods, I raise two worries about the authors' proposed normative framework for educational decision-makers. The first concerns the omission of rationality, or responsiveness to reasons, from the list of educational goods; the second concerns the inclusion of parental interests in the list of independent values
What Do Kids Know? A Response to Karin Murris
Towards a Theory of Moral Education
In this inaugural lecture, delivered at the University of Birmingham in January 2014, I sketch the outline of a theory of moral education. The theory is an attempt to resolve the tension between two thoughts widely entertained by teachers, policy-makers and the general public. The first thought is that morality must be learned: children must come to see what morality requires of them and acquire the motivation to submit to its authority. The seco…
A New Dawn for Faith-based Education? Opportunities for Religious Organisations in the UK's New School System
The 'new school system' described in the Schools White Paper (DfE, 2010) presents religious organisations with two interesting opportunities. The first is an opportunity to play a significantly enhanced role in the management of faith-based schools. The second is an opportunity to rethink quite radically the content of their curricula. In this article I advance a proposal for the consideration of religious organisations: that they take up the opp…
A defense of branching quantification
Hirst on rational moral education
In Moral Education in a Secular Society, Paul Hirst offers accounts of the content and justification of morality and the aims and methods of moral education. My own recent book, A Theory of Moral Education, does the same. Here I explore the similarities and differences between our theories. In the first part of the paper, I outline what Hirst calls the ‘sophisticated view of education’, which I wholeheartedly endorse, and highlight his attention …
Religious Upbringing
In this symposium Michael Hand presents a rejoinder to criticisms of his ‘Religious Upbringing Reconsidered’ (Journal of Philosophy of Education, 36.4) by Jim Mackenzie, Peter Gardner and Charlene Tan. Defending the idea of the logical possibility of non-indoctrinatory religious upbringing, he attempts to show that none of their various objections is successful. Mackenzie, Gardner and Tan each offer a response
A number is the exponent of an operation
Game-theoretical semantics, montague semantics, and questions
Effects of instructions concerning ownership of a toy on preschoolers' sharing and defensive behaviors
Sixty-eight preschoolers 30-60 months old were told that a toy belonged either to them or to the or were given no specific instructions. Their subsequent behavior with the toy was observed. When told that the toy belonged to the class, older children were more likely than younger children to share. This pattern of findings did not appear to be due to differences in understanding of possessive words; an analysis eliminating subjects who did poorly…
Semantical Games for Negated Belief-Attributions
Game-theoretical semantics, montague semantics, and questions
A number is the exponent of an operation
A defense of branching quantification
Informational variability
Religious Upbringing Reconsidered
There is, on the face of it, a logical difficulty as well as a practical one about ascribing to parents both a right to give their children a religious upbringing and a duty to avoid indoctrinating them. Curiously, this logical difficulty was largely overlooked in the debate on religious upbringing and parental rights between Terence McLaughlin, Eamonn Callan and Peter Gardner in the 1980s. In this paper I set out the terms of the logical problem…
The problem with faith schools
Geoffrey Short, Harvey Siegel and Douglas Groothuis have, in previous issues, advanced a number of objections to my recent paper (Vol. 1(1)) arguing for the abolition of faith schools. Here I attempt to answer their criticisms.
Hampton on the Expressive Power of Punishment
Retributivists often claim that the intuition that wrongdoing deserves punishment is moral bedrock; it needs no further justification. Critics of retributivism deny this intuition. They find morally repugnant the idea of punishing wrongdoers without a reason to believe that someone will benefit. Punishment involves the intentional infliction of suffering. One must surely have a compelling reason to do such a thing. But a simple appeal to what the…
A Rejoinder to Mackenzie, Gardner and Tan
Religious Upbringing
In this symposium Michael Hand presents a rejoinder to criticisms of his ‘Religious Upbringing Reconsidered’ (Journal of Philosophy of Education, 36.4) by Jim Mackenzie, Peter Gardner and Charlene Tan. Defending the idea of the logical possibility of non-indoctrinatory religious upbringing, he attempts to show that none of their various objections is successful. Mackenzie, Gardner and Tan each offer a response
Against autonomy as an educational aim
It is widely held that personal autonomy is a quality of character at which educators ought to aim. In this paper I argue that those who hold this view are misguided. I identify two ordinary senses of autonomy, and a range of technical senses currently popular with philosophers, and show that none of them constitutes a defensible educational aim.
In defence of the opposite sex
Juliette Goldman and Christine Collier have recently proposed that the editor of Sex Education should adopt a policy of replacing the phrase ‘opposite sex’ with ‘other sex’ in all published articles, on the grounds that the word ‘opposite’ has connotations of hostility or adversity. In this brief reply I argue that their reasoning does not stand up to scrutiny and that their proposal ought therefore to be rejected
Is Religious Education Possible? A Response to Philip Barnes
What Should We Teach as Controversial? A Defense of the Epistemic Criterion
A bstract There is an emerging consensus that to teach something as controversial is to present it as a matter on which different views are or could be held and to expound those different views as impartially as possible. This raises an important normative question that has yet to receive the attention it deserves from educational theorists: how are we to decide which topics to teach in this way? The answer suggested by Robert Dearden is that we …
On the Worthwhileness of Theoretical Activities
R.S. Peters' arguments for the worthwhileness of theoretical activities are intended to justify education per se, on the assumption that education is necessarily a matter of initiating people into theoretical activities. If we give up this assumption, we can ask whether Peters' arguments might serve instead to justify the academic curriculum over other curricular arrangements. For this they would need to show that theoretical activities are not o…
Patriotism in British Schools
How should patriotism be handled in schools? We argue that schools cannot afford to ignore the topic, but nor are they justified in either promoting or discouraging patriotic feeling in students. The only defensible policy is for schools to adopt a stance of neutrality and teach the topic as a controversial issue. We go on to show that there is general support among British teachers and students for school neutrality on patriotism and that the cu…
Referees Volume 29
Antirealism and universal knowability
Patriotism in Schools
In the face of rising concerns about citizenship, national identity, diversity and belonging in Britain today, politicians from all sides of the political spectrum have looked to schools to inspire and invigorate a strong, modern sense of patriotism and common purpose, which is capable of binding people together and motivating citizens to fulfil their obligations to each other and to the state. In this timely and astute analysis, Michael Hand unp…
Discussing Controversial Issues in the Classroom
Discussion is widely held to be the pedagogical approach most appropriate to the exploration of controversial issues in the classroom, but surprisingly little attention has been given to the questions of why it is the preferred approach and how best to facilitate it. Here we address ourselves to both questions. We begin by clarifying the concept of discussion and justifying it as an approach to the teaching of controversial issues. We then report…
Should We Promote Patriotism in Schools
If patriotism is love of one's country, the attempt to promote it in schools must count as a form of emotional education. Emotional education is defensible in so far as it consists in offering pupils good reasons and effective techniques for fostering or suppressing particular emotions. The question is whether we are in a position to offer pupils good reasons for loving their countries. In this article I set out an account of the rationality of e…
In defence of Etzioni’s ‘radical multiculturalist
A New Dawn for Faith-based Education? Opportunities for Religious Organisations in the UK's New School System
The 'new school system' described in the Schools White Paper (DfE, 2010) presents religious organisations with two interesting opportunities. The first is an opportunity to play a significantly enhanced role in the management of faith-based schools. The second is an opportunity to rethink quite radically the content of their curricula. In this article I advance a proposal for the consideration of religious organisations: that they take up the opp…
Religion, reason and non-directive teaching
In other work I have argued that decisions about what to teach directively and what non-directively should be governed by an epistemic criterion. Trevor Cooling has recently advanced some objections to my defence and application of the epistemic criterion and proposed an alternative to it. Here I reply to his objections and comment on his proposed alternative
Sociology (31 obras) · Philosophy (29 obras) · Epistemology (28 obras) · Psychology (25 obras) · Political science (24 obras) · Law (23 obras) · Pedagogy (20 obras) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (18 obras) · Religious Education and Schools (18 obras) · Philosophy (15 obras)