Educating the Postmodern Child: The Struggle for Learning in a World of Virtual Realities

Fiachra Long’s elegant prose teases out the complexities of the postmodern child, offering unique insights and extending the field of childhood studies in new directions. This ground-breaking book challenges the consumer mind-set so prevalent in contemporary education and it cements the case for philosophy in education – a philosophy that can enable the young to navigate the borders between history and ‘un-history’, past and future, originality and community, private and public, and memory and experience as they try ‘to find their own place in an old world’. The reconceptualization of childhood in this innovative book points to the need for scholars of education to engage in rigorous thinking about the fundamental purposes and practices of education.Written by a well-established scholar in an incisive, philosophical style, it is at once challenging and accessible. It will appeal to a wide audience from general readers to academic scholars in the fields of childhood, education, philosophy, sociology and cultural studies. ― Kathy Hall, Professor of Education, University College Cork, Ireland