Nel Noddings

A compelling philosophical argument for an ethics based on caring, a feminine view that examines what it means to care and be cared for. New edition with new preface.

A Feminine Approach to Ethics & Moral Education

Caring

Publisher Fact Sheet Argues that an ethic of care, learned at home, should serve as the foundation for social policy.

Caring and Social Policy

Starting at Home

With numerous examples to supplement her rich theoretical discussion, Nel Noddings builds a compelling philosophical argument for an ethics based on natural caring, as in the care of a mother for her child. In Caring—now updated with a new preface and afterword reflecting on the ongoing relevance of the subject matter—the author provides a wide-ranging consideration of whether organizations, which operate at a remove from the caring relationship, can truly be called ethical. She discusses the extent to which we may truly care for plants, animals, or ideas. Finally, she proposes a realignment of education to encourage and reward not just rationality and trained intelligence, but also enhanced sensitivity in moral matters.

A Relational Approach to Ethics and Moral Education

Acclaimed as the ''best overview in the field'' by the Teaching Philosophy and predicted to ''become the standard textbook in philosophy of education'' by Educational Theory, this now-classic text includes an entirely new chapter on problems of school reform, examining issues of equality, accountability, standards, and testing.

Philosophy of Education

In this collection of essential essays, Nel Noddings examines alternatives to prevailing models of character education - a sympathetic approach based on an ethic of care. Covering both stories in the classroom and controversial issues in education, Noddings describes the similarities and differences between character education and care ethics...examines how moral education might be infused throughout the curriculum...and calls for greater cooperation across fields and more attention to the practical problems of everyday teaching.

A Caring Alternative to Character Education

Educating Moral People

One of the most enduring and controversial issues in American education concerns the place of individual beliefs and moral standards in the classroom. Noddings argues that public schools should address the fundamental questions that teenagers inevitably rasie about the nature, value and meaning of life (and death), and to do so across the curriculum without limiting such existential and metaphysical discussions to separate religion, philosophy or even history classes. Explorations of the existence of a God or gods, and the value and validity of religious belief for societies or individuals, she writes “whether they are initiated by students or teachers, should be part of the free exchange of human concerns—a way in which people share their awe, doubts, fears, hopes, knowledge and ignorance.” Such basic human concerns, Noddings maintains, are relevant to nearly every subject and should be both non-coercive and free from academic evalution. “Nel Noddings probes the many ways in which children’s questions about God and gods, existence, and the meaning of life can and should be integrated into life in classrooms and the real world of the public schools.” —From the Foreword “This is a rich and sensitive book that will give teachers, administrators, parents, philosophers of education—any concerned citizen—the basis for more substantial discussion and concrete proposals.” —Free Inquiry “Impressive in its sweep of possibilities for exploration in the school curriculum and teacher education.” —Educational Theory

Educating for Intelligent Belief or Unbelief

"Educational philosopher Nel Noddings draws on John Dewey's foundational work to reimagine education's aims and curriculum for the 21st century. Noddings looks at education as a multi-aim enterprise in which schools must address needs in all three domains of life: home and family, occupational, and civic. She raises critical questions about the current enthusiasm for standardization, the search for 'one-best-way' solutions, and the practice of maintaining a sharp separation between the disciplines. Comprehensive in its scope, chapters examine the liberal arts curriculum, vocational education, restructuring secondary school, extracurricular activities, national and global citizenship, critical thinking, and moral education."--Back cover.

Education and Democracy in the 21st Century

Helen E. Lees

This state-of-the-art, comprehensive Handbook fully explores the field of alternative education on an international scale. Alternatives to mainstream schooling and education are becoming increasingly recognised as pertinent and urgent for better understanding what really works in successfully educating children and adults today, especially in light of the increased performance driven and managerially organised economic modelling of education that dominates. For too long we have wondered what “exactly” education done otherwise might look like and here we meet individual examples as well as seeing what alternative education is when a collection becomes greater than the sum of parts. The Handbook profiles numerous empirical examples from around the world of education being done in innovative and excitingly democratic and autonomous ways from Forest Schools and Home Education through to new technologies, neuroscience and the importance of solitude. The book also sets out important theoretical perspectives to inform us why seeing education through an alternative lens is useful as well as urgently needed. Global in its perspective and definitive in content, this one-stop volume will be an indispensable reference resource for a wide range of academics, students and researchers in the fields of Education, Education Policy, Sociology and Philosophy as well as educational practitioners.

The Palgrave International Handbook of Alternative Education

There is a huge volume of work on war and its causes, most of which treats its political and economic roots. In Peace Education: How We Come to Love and Hate War, Nel Noddings explores the psychological factors that support war: nationalism, hatred, delight in spectacles, masculinity, religious extremism and the search for existential meaning. She argues that while schools can do little to reduce the economic and political causes, they can do much to moderate the psychological factors that promote violence by helping students understand the forces that manipulate them.

How We Come to Love and Hate War

Peace Education

In this much-needed volume, Nel Noddings uses her extensive experience at every level of schooling to challenge the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Noddings invites readers to think critically about the ideas underlying NCLB, the reform movement that shaped it, and the processes it has put into play. She considers such questions as, Is money the answer to raising test scores? Are failing schools mainly attended by poor children, or are all of our schools failing? Do all students need courses in advanced mathematics, physics, and chemistry? Should special education students be expected to meet the same standards as regular students? Does one standard curriculum serve the needs and interests of all students? Does our current system of schooling undermine the democracy it should support? This dynamic book: Challenges almost every provision in the No Child Left Behind Act. Argues for educationally justifiable interpretations of equality, accountability, standards, testing, and choice. Suggests an educationally and morally acceptable way of employing an enriched form of tracking to meet the needs of all students. Considers what is at stake for our children, schools, and democracy and offers suggestions for fresh thinking. “A must read for anyone who cares about our troubled public system of education.” —David C. Berliner, Mary Lou Fulton College of Education, Arizona State University “If you only have time to read one book, make it this one. Logical, lucid, wry, and wise, the book brings Noddings’s vast experience to bear on what’s wrong about current and recent efforts at school reform and what appropriate, humane reform might look like.” —Gerald Bracey, independent researcher and writer “Developing themes from her landmark volume The Challenge to Care in Schools, Nel Noddings provides a much-needed perspective on current educational reforms.” —Kenneth R. Howe, University of Colorado, Boulder

When School Reform Goes Wrong

In this provocative new book, renowned educator and philosopher Nel Noddings extends her influential work on the ethics of care toward a compelling objective—global peace and justice. She asks: If we celebrate the success of women becoming more like men in professional life, should we not simultaneously hope that men become more like women—in caring for others, rejecting violence, and valuing the work of caring both publicly and personally? Drawing on current work on evolution, and bringing concrete examples from women’s lived experience to make a strong case for her position, Noddings answers this question by locating one source of morality in maternal instinct. She traces the development of the maternal instinct to natural caring and ethical caring, offering a preliminary sketch of what a care-driven concept of justice might look like. Finally, to advance the cause of caring, peace, and women’s advancement, Noddings urges women to abandon institutional, patriarchal religion and to seek their own paths to spirituality.

Two Paths to Morality

The Maternal Factor

Human beings love to fictionalize evil--to terrorize each other with stories of defilement, horror, excruciating pain, and divine retribution. Beneath the surface of bewitchment and half-sick amusement, however, lies the realization that evil is real and that people must find a way to face and overcome it. What we require, Carl Jung suggested, is a morality of evil--a carefully thought out plan by which to manage the evil in ourselves, in others, and in whatever deities we posit. This book is not written from a Jungian perspective, but it is nonetheless an attempt to describe a morality of evil. One suspects that descriptions of evil and the so-called problem of evil have been thoroughly suffused with male interests and conditioned by masculine experience. This result could hardly have been avoided in a sexist culture, and recognizing the truth of such a claim does not commit us to condemn every male philosopher and theologian who has written on the problem. It suggests, rather, that we may get a clearer view of evil if we take a different standpoint. The standpoint I take here will be that of women; that is, I will attempt to describe evil from the perspective of women's experience.

Nel Noddings

Books

Your next favorite book is out there