Educational practitioners need capabilities to analyse both explanatory and normative claims that come up in the complex, contested spaces that education takes place in. This analysis consists of determining whether the concepts invoked are clear in meaning, coherent, and their interrelationships are firmly established. It also involves examining, critiquing, and gauging the implication of principles and the underlying assumptions that guide educational theories and practice. Philosophy of Education borrows theories and methods from several branches of philosophy and aims to achieve the above. The course will introduce students to the philosophy of education through an engagement with the theories and methods that contribute constructively to the examination of explanatory and normative claims embedded in educational practices.

The course will take up issues related to the determination and articulation of aims of education, theories of human nature, epistemic aspects of curricular content, and the structure and foundations of curriculum. It will also involve analysis of a desirable form of civil association that would enable meaningful education, and which in turn education would help achieve. Such analysis will include normative theories of morality and their relevance for moral questions concerning education. Finally, the course will attempt to consolidate these learnings, and help students reflect on the desirable relationship between their understanding of such fundamental issues and their own practice, that they ought to seek. This course, through its integration with practicum and field practice, will encourage and help students to philosophise using illustrative concepts, claims, and contemporary experiences of educational action.