David Hamilton

Education is a technology, a production system whose elements comprise material, linguistic and conceptual inventions. This multi‐dimensional sense of educational technology is useful whenever attempts are made to understand educational practice. To this end, my paper examines a small corner of the historical or technological record, ‘patents of invention’, a set of sources that has seldom, if ever, been used in English‐language histories of education. To evaluate this source, my attention focuses on the ‘abridgements’, published between 1855 and 1930, where patent applications were grouped according to their use (e.g. as ‘furniture’ or ‘stationery’); and the diversity of these records will be illustrated by reference to an invention – the school desk – that was prominent over the same period.

The word pedagogy is increasingly used in English‐language texts. Its application, however, is not always clear since authors draw upon different inherited uses. Currently, it serves as a synonym of education; or it can reflect other definitions that have arisen from its integration, through time, into the world of public schooling. This paper, then, is an act of clarification. It does not seek a unitary definition. Rather, it attempts to give a sense of how and why such a word has been blurred in translation.

(2009). Pedagogy and the long course of learning. Pedagogy, Culture & Society: Vol. 17, Pedagogy: Some Heterogeneous Thinking, pp. 115-121.

Curriculum Visions WILLIAM E. DOLL Jr & NOEL GOUGH (Eds), 2002 New York: Peter Lang 310 pp., paperback, ISBN 0 8204 4999 7, £29.95

Este artigo é uma provocação. Ele focaliza a sociedade da aprendizagem, sua substância e retórica. Os protagonistas da sociedade da aprendizagem defendem a idéia de que a escolaridade está morrendo e que a educação deveria passar por uma reengenharia. Propõe uma nova infra-estrutura em torno do conceito de aprendizagem em linha. Entretanto, essa visão da sociedade da aprendizagem padece de, pelo menos, três defeitos. Primeiro, ela pressupõe que se pode transmitir tudo o que se pode imaginar; segundo, que fazer alguma coisa funcionar é tão simples como conceber uma infra-estrutura; e, finalmente, que a sociedade da aprendizagem pode se libertar das relações de poder que marcaram seus predecessores.

Teaching as Reflective Practice: the German didactic tradition I. WESTBURY, S. HOPMANN & K. RIQUARTS (Eds), 2000 London: Lawrence Erlbaum. 346 pp., ISBN 0 8058 2920 2, £52.50

This article has been written for two purposes. First, it explores a paradox: that recent Anglo-American usage of ‘pedagogy’ mirrors the mainland European use of ‘didactic’. Secondly, it is a comment on the current status of curriculum studies. In particular, it relates curriculum analysis to the fields of didactic and pedagogic analysis.