Education and the Postmodern Condition

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The translation of Lyotard's work into English in 1984 marked an important stage in the globalization of the modernity/postmodernity debate involving the central thinkers of the late 20th century, Michel Foucault, Jrgen Habermas, Richard Rorty, and others. This collection of 10 essays brings together for the first time a number of contributions on Lyotard's work made by philosophers, educationalists, and sociologists in the English-speaking world around the special focus of education. The intent behind the essays from scholars in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand is to examine Lyotard's notion of the postmodern condition and its relevance and special significance for the field of education. Lyotard's work, first published in Paris in 1979, was important in that it developed a particularly original interpretation of the state of knowledge in the most highly developed societies, reviewing and synthesizing a wide range of material on contemporary science, the sociology of postindustrial society, and studies of postmodern culture. Lyotard brought together diverse threads and separate literatures in a prophetic analysis that signalled an epochal break with the so-called modern era.

Reviews

"Given Lyotard's broad influence, it is somewhat surprising that so few books have surfaced on the relevance of his ideas to education. Michael Peters' edited volume, Education and the Postmodern Condition, fills this lacuna in the literature....In responding to the challenges raised by Lyotard in The Postmodern Condition, Michael Peters and his fellow contributors offer a coherent combination of critical essays on some of the deepest educational questions of the current age....I would recommend [this book] to all who have an interest in the future of teaching and learning."-The Journal of Further and Higher Education
"What Peters' text does offer those concerned with advising is a challenge to think about the social and cultural transformations manifested in the wide-ranging proliferation of forms of diversity within an age of declining authority, economic uncertainty...[and] the changing conditions of identity formation within electronically mediated cultures.'"- NACADA Journal
Given Lyotard's broad influence, it is somewhat surprising that so few books have surfaced on the relevance of his ideas to education. Michael Peters' edited volume, Education and the Postmodern Condition, fills this lacuna in the literature....In responding to the challenges raised by Lyotard in The Postmodern Condition, Michael Peters and his fellow contributors offer a coherent combination of critical essays on some of the deepest educational questions of the current age....I would recommend [this book] to all who have an interest in the future of teaching and learning.-The Journal of Further and Higher Education
What Peters' text does offer those concerned with advising is a challenge to think about the social and cultural transformations manifested in the wide-ranging proliferation of forms of diversity within an age of declining authority, economic uncertainty...[and] the changing conditions of identity formation within electronically mediated cultures.'- NACADA Journal

Author Bio

MICHAEL PETERS is Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His research interests are in the areas of postmodernism and poststructuralism. He has edited Performance and Accountability (1990) and published more than 60 journal articles and numerous chapters in edited volumes on educational policy and philosophy.