Imagining Epistemic Justice
Trayvon Martin is dead. He died with a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles in his possession. This seventeen-year-old black man was shot on February 27, 2012, in a gated townhouse community near Orlando by a male block captain who was not black and who had a handgun in his possession. Trayvon was in the community with his father visiting friends and left briefly for a “snack run” to the 7-Eleven.
Education and Epistemic Injustice
In the history of philosophy, education is a somewhat forgotten issue. Plato and Aristotle were both deeply occupied with the contribution of education to ethics and politics, and many major philosophical questions in, for instance, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel and Mill concern what and how the young should be taught. (For perspectives, see Rorty, 1998) Happily, education is receiving new attention in epistemology. This is especially so in the fields of social epistemology (e.g. Goldman, 1999) in which the social arrangements by which knowledge is transmitted are studied and in virtue epistemology (e.g. Baehr, 2011) that studies the character of the individual knower and the experiences and practices through which good intellectual character develops. Both social and virtue epistemology have a strong normative focus and see epistemology’s task not only as understanding what knowledge is, but as promoting good knowledge gathering practices. Furthermore, both these fields are deeply sensitive to the suboptimality of many of our ingrained epistemic habits and practices (on the individual and social level). In her account of epistemic injustice, Miranda Fricker draws explicitly on both social and virtue epistemology to develop her account of epistemic injustice. (See, e.g. Fricker, 1998; Fricker, 2007: 72–81) In particular, she sees the virtues of epistemic justice as developing through a process of individual and social ‘training’ and locates the source of the vices of epistemic injustice in suboptimal or downright bad epistemic training. (Fricker, 2007: 82–85) Amongst those who consider themselves education scholars first and foremost, it is these critical perspectives on the epistemic dimensions of inequality and exclusion and how they operate in the classroom that have struck a particular chord. In this chapter, I will give a brief account of some work on epistemic justice in education. I open with a discussion of epistemological thought about education to map the terrain ( Section 2 ) before outlining features of the educational context, specifically, that make educational justice such a pressing concern ( Section 3 ). Next, I outline some responses to problems of educational justice in education ( Section 4 ) before concluding with a discussion of three challenges for thinking about epistemic justice in education ( Section 5 ). Discussion of these challenges can fruitfully structure further research in the area. 31 EDUCATION AND EPISTEMIC INJUSTICE
A social analysis of the members of the Newfoundland House of Assembly, Executive Council, and Legislative Council for the period, 1855-1914
Chapter I consists of an introduction to the thesis, its purpose, and intent. Chapter II is an aggregate analysis of the members of the three chambers of government during the period 1855-1914. Chapter III is an analysis of geographic factors contributing to recruitment into Newfoundland politics. Chapter IV analyzes religion and its importance in Island politics. Chapter V studies occupation and class and Chapter VI is concerned with kinship and marriage. Chapter VII summarizes the findings of the previous chapters.