Education’s Theology
David Aldridge (Marino Institute, Dublin)
This paper takes seriously the theological legacy of Western educational thought. Influential educational concepts such as literacy, ability and merit are ‘haunted’ by a period of domination of Western schooling and the university by the salvific concerns of post-axial religious movements. Some philosophers have presented this haunting as a scandal to be overcome; some have pointed to a possible recovery of the theological significance of education in a post-secular age. Others have sought to ‘return’ to a Socratic framing of the educational endeavour that precedes the soteriological. Reckoning with ‘education’s theology’ requires interdisciplinary engagement between theology, philosophy and history.
David Aldridge is Dean of Curriculum and Childhood at Marino Institute of Education. Previously he was Head of Evaluation and Observational Research at the National Institute of Teaching, and Professor of Teacher Education at Edge Hill University. He is an Assistant Editor of the Journal of Philosophy of Education and former editor-in-chief of the British Educational Research Journal.