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The text is an attempt at a comparative analysis of the concept by Rousseau in which he proposed moving away from the directive control of the development of the child, with those concepts that can be found in poststructural childhood psychology and pedagogy, whose authors are inspired by the work of Michel Foucault. The author reconstructs the incidents of the child’s crying (Book 2) and child’s agency (Book 3) described in “Emile”, to show that Rousseau’s proposition is, in reality, manipulative and oppressive in relation to the child, being as it is based upon the all-knowing mentor, who carries out his own hidden programme. The poststructural proposition frees childhood from the regime of standardization and normalisation, taking as its starting point a problematisation of so-called, scientific developmental psychology, questioning the very term development and the role of educational institutions. The fundamental difference between the concept of the right of the child to enjoy their life in freedom formulated by Rousseau and poststructuralist concepts, is identified by the author in terms of four areas: certainty “versus” the uncertainty of deciding(differences in status given to the thesis and the project, universalism “versus” localism (differences in scope of agreed upon understandings), binary “versus” diversity (differences in accepted ontological assumptions), instruction “versus” description (differences in moral attitude towards the child).
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In this essay, the author contends that the approach to education described by Rousseau in Émile is not only impractical but is founded on four misconceptions concerning human nature and development. These are (1) the vulnerable-child child fallacy (that children must be protected from learning the wrong things); (2) the stage-of-development fallacy (that children can learn only certain kinds of things at certain ages); (3) the lone-child-in-nature fallacy (that children learn best from interacting physically with nature, not from interacting verbally with other people); and (4) the controllability fallacy (that is is possible to know a child so well as to be able to control, through subtle means, what the child learns). The author’s own research indicates that the ideal environment for children’s natural, self-directed learning is very different from, in many ways opposite to, that outlined by Rousseau.
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In my paper I will argue that the development and the need of support of development (also in Rousseau sense) takes a strategic position in the contemporary power relations. The pedagogical thinking built on the need/demand of support of development can justify the mechanisms of power in a legal scheme, and consequently, to justify them in terms of natural human right. My paper assumes the following order: Firstly, pay attention to the specifics of contemporary power relations. Secondly, problematize the need of support the development and show how educational dispositif works. Thirdly, I ask about the emancipatory potential of Rousseau’s pedagogical ideas.
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The aim of this article is to bring the reader closer, in a synthetic way, to the legal realities in which children had to work in the eighteenth century in Europe. The analysis applies in particular to the private law shaping the relationship between parents and children. The first issue taken into account was the varied situation of children of married and unmarried couples because of the fact that children born out of wedlock lived outside the family and had no personal rights and property such as were due to the child born in a marriage. A considerable part of the publication is devoted to the rights resulting from parental authority over a child, which directly shaped his position in the family and in society. The emphasis was put on a particularly strong position in order to stress the father as a head of the family. The rules prevailing at that time relating to the upbringing of children and their education were illustrated, taking into account the different situation of sons and daughters. Important issues were presented relating to the entering into marriage by adolescent children, and their financial situation. Also mentioned briefly were legal sanctions threatened for abuse by children of parents, as well as parents for abandoning or killing a child. In the final part of the article legal regulations of eighteenth-century Europe are quoted. The enforcement of these regulations foreshadowed a change in legal concepts of the child and the treatment of children within a legal system.
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Categories of childlike innocence, immaturity and helplessness, which constitute the idea of a child accepted in Western societies, are regarded as obvious and undisputed. However, more and more often their obviousness is questioned by modern researchers, particularly the representatives of the new sociology of childhood, including A.W. Corsaro, A. James, C. Jenks, A. Prout, J. Qvortrup. They move away from the universal vision of an innocent child and emphasize the variety of ways of experiencing and understanding the world by children living in different social and cultural contexts. Therefore, they present the possibility to include such categories as competence and autonomy in the considerations on the construction of the image of a child. The author, assuming the above mentioned research perspective, attempts to read Rousseau’s idea of a child in the context of three pairs of contradictory categories: innocence/corruption, immaturity/competence and dependence/ autonomy. Going out of the category of child innocence makes it possible to notice that children are not only victims of aggression, but sometimes they are aggressors; that they not only submit to others, but also influence what is happening to them and around them; that they are endowed with the ability to cause events and in the same time, to be innocent and helpless beings to some extent. Such findings prove that going beyond innocence in the considerations on the child’s nature and examining it in the context of a wider range of categories is valid and legitimate. They also point at the ambiguity and complexity of the child’s nature, which allows us to question the obviousness and universalness of the idea of a child as a being that is innocent, immature, dependent and devoid of the ability to influence events.
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Literature remains somehow suspended between fiction and the truth, between pretending and authenticity. Each type of narration is, at the same time, a story and a creation, constructing the world portrayed on the experience of the speaker, taking into account the addressee, requirements of the genre selected and a set of ready-made schemas. The article analyses selected autobiographical works by J.J. Rousseau as a form of literary creation, as texts of culture that are rich in meaning, as the meeting place for the speaker, the text and the reader. It presents the attitude of the author/narrator towards the presented reality and the interesting process of its subjectivization, interpretation and evaluation.
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The text is an attempt to analyze and interpret a selection of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s thoughts about education relating to music education, the thoughts that I find as reminiscences of assumptions and methods of Emil Jaques-Dalcroze. He focuses his discourse on the issues related to the moment when the musical education of the child takes form and also on the quality of the child’s first contacts with music, and the role of parent and teacher in the child’s appreciation of music. A comparison of the assumptions regarding musical education of Rousseau and Jaques-Dalcroze may seem interesting, because, despite the passage of successive decades, they seem to be still valid, as, for example, the one that speaks of the joy of discovery that should accompany the child in the learning process.
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The paper situates the thought of Jean Jacques Rousseau in the context of the 17th and 18th century social and political debate on the possibility of creating a better society, which intensified with the crisis of feudal system and early modern discovery of the Other. The paper also discusses consequences of this debate for shaping anthropology as a field of knowledge and understanding culture of the time. The idea of a “noble savage” according to which non-Europeans, i.e., the “primitive” people living in the state of nature as free and equal, without concerns and inconveniences of civilization, is contrasted with an opposite project of a “degenerate savage” of Thomas Hobbes, who used it as a justification for absolute monarchy in European countries and of European societies over non-Western ones.
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The present paper is an attempt at discursive exercises involving the application of modern psychiatric knowledge, treated as a variant of truth-discourse about human sexuality, for the diagnosis of the mental condition of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. An analysis of his “Confessions” shows that in his case one can speak of a strong masochistic tendency. Masochism is analyzed not only in the context of sexual paraphilia. Equally important is proximity of masochistic tendencies and gestures to record his own confessions.
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One day, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was known mainly as a philosopher and a pedagogue, told a deer hunting story. In doing so, he managed to play a small role in the development of the branch of maths called ‘game theory’. Later his story was converted into a game. Initially game theory was used to explain exchange in the field of economics. Over time, the mathematical modeling was found to be useful in the social sciences. A game theory describes diverse and cognizant participants forced to make decisions. In regards to the game based on cooperation, a choice is at the same time a dilemma. It can be viewed as a moral or philosophical predicament and in addition it gives as an inside into the human psyche and behaviour. Game theory has the potential to offer an attractive mathematical model, useful in analyzing social interactions. Though currently unappreciated by pedagogy, it has the potential to be successfully used in pedagogical studies analyzing conflict of interest of all participants in an educational process.
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The paper presents the results of a study aimed at the identification of selected subjective and situational determinants of the well-being of children and their adaptation to the environment of an elementary school. The study was conducted on a group of pupils from grades II to V (N = 173) and was based on an analysis of the questionnaires: SPAS (Boersma Chapman 1979), SUSPO (Mikšik 2004) and own tool QSL. The results indicated the determinants of changes in well-being in time related to the sense of exclusion and level of sadness. An analysis of the data pointed to the spheres of the educational environment changes in which could increase the level of child satisfaction from schooling and learning.
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In the modern, changing, uncertain world, life is becoming more and more complex and difficult. Only those who are well prepared for it will be able to function in this world. Thus, the article raises the question of whether teaching children democracy, liberation behaviour, participation, but also responsibility, is a fantasy, a fiction, or a whim, which teachers and researchers who seek, and parents who reject authoritarianism are often accused of, or whether it is a necessity of the modern times and an expression of an awareness that it is essential wisely to prepare the younger generation for life in contemporary society. In this paper the author also outlines the role of educational institutions that can and should be aware of this task and search for opportunities for the creation of conditions for the development of children’s democratic competences.
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Every child has an innate sense of rhythm, beauty and harmony, enjoys observing nature and architecture, plays with the gifts of nature and decorates. As a matter of fact, in the course of such activities the child not only experiences pleasure, but also discovers new phenomena, refines visual perception and aesthetic sensitivity, constructs mathematical concepts, enters the world of geometry. The relationship between nature and art, play and culture, as well as the educational significance of observation and activity have been stressed by a number of researchers into child development, including Maria Montessori. She claimed that for a child, learning is a natural process, occurring spontaneously not thanks to passive listening, but thanks to active contact with the environment. The didactic materials she devised are characterized by purposefulness, isolated difficulty, stimulation of the child, visual beauty and order. The source of their beauty lies, above all, in their simplicity and transparency. M. Montessori’s and F. Froebel’s educational materials were the inspiration for devising original teaching aids, Esy floresy blocks. The current paper presents the methods of using them for playing, observing nature and architecture, that were validated in action research. The aim of the methodological solutions described here is to sensitize children to discovering beauty and geometrical dependencies in their surroundings, as well as to develop their spatial thinking.
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At this point in time, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, an educational philosophy underpinning the educational system is being neither reflected upon nor consciously implemented. This serious situation is the subject of this research and will be presented using logical and political explanations as well as analytical methodology. The facts and conclusions included will be assessed for accuracy. The entire contents of the educational plan and curriculum of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region will be explained in a manner that is both understandable and problematized when necessary. Later in the study, the current curriculum and programmes in Iraq, and especially the educational system of Iraq, will be more generally explained and analyzed. At another point, as education and philosophy are discussed, an attempt will be made to determine whether there is any relation between the current educational model and a philosophy. At a final point, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s educational philosophy is discussed with a view to analyzing its impact, if any, on the educational system and curricula. In addition, the study looks at whether the aim and philosophy of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s education system is clear and understandable by international standards.
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This article is the result of the author’s study visit that took place in the forest kindergarten “Wurzeln & Flügel e.V.” in Leipzig, Germany on 23–27th of July 2014. The study visit created an opportunity for the author to participate in the educational process in its unique environment – in the park. This publication is an attempt to describe the observed reality of a forest kindergarten, especially in terms of its pedagogical dimension.
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The paper provides an economic interpretation of the assessments of the level of competitiveness of the Bulgarian economy presented in official international studies. The key factors for the competitiveness of the Bulgarian economy have been analyzed. They are ranked in comparison with other countries. The dynamics of these factors are traced before and after the economic crisis. Special attention is paid to the impact of the geoeconomic factor on the comparative economic competitiveness – what is the geoeconomics specificity and what impact has on the economic development of Bulgaria. Some conclusions about the Bulgarian competitiveness are made based on the results of the study; pointing out certain opportunities for increase.
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