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

Educating the Postmodern Child traces the philosophical challenges posed by children living in an information age. Fiachra Long explores the difficult construction of childhood in today's society, looking at issues including child space and child empowerment, globality, tactility, talent, and visibility. Arguing that a key danger for young people is the eclipse of the public arena and their withdrawal into a private world, he asks whether philosophy can offer an antidote to the uncertain landscape of childhood, enabling children to locate themselves within postmodern culture.Chapters take a phenomenological approach, beginning with a case study or by invoking an experience common across computer literate children today, and draw on historical sources to critique the situation, providing a rich combination of educational and philosophical theory and incorporating some relatively new speculative concepts.

Traces the philosophical challenges posed by children living in an information age, drawing on a range of philosophical thinkers.

Educating the Postmodern Child traces the philosophical challenges posed by children living in an information age. Fiachra Long explores the construction of childhood in today's society arguing that the postmodern child is exposed to the public world before its time and he explores the significance of this public/ private shift.

Issues considered include education, appearance, space, empowerment, globality, tactility, talent, and visibility. After setting the context, each chapter uses a phenomenological approach to describe experiences common across computer-literate children today. Chapters draw on sources in the history of ideas to critique the situation described, provide a rich combination of educational and philosophical theory and apply some speculative concepts to the situation of children.

Educating the Postmodern Child traces the philosophical challenges posed by children living in an information age. Fiachra Long explores the construction of childhood in today's society arguing that the postmodern child is exposed to the public world before its time and he explores the significance of this public/ private shift.Issues considered include education, appearance, space, empowerment, globality, tactility, talent, and visibility. After setting the context, each chapter uses a phenomenological approach to describe experiences common across computer-literate children today. Chapters draw on sources in the history of ideas to critique the situation described, provide a rich combination of educational and philosophical theory and apply some speculative concepts to the situation of children.

Fiachra Long is Senior Lecturer in Education at the University College Cork, Ireland.

Acknowledgements \ Series Editor Preface \ Foreword \ Part I: Context \ 1. Childhood and the Child \ 2. Child's Play \ 3. Empowering the Child in Postmodernity \ Part II: Appearances \ 4. The Global Child \ 5. Talent \ 6. Tactility \ 7. Visibility \ 8. Invisibility \ Part III: Education \ 9. Vapour Trails and Noise \ 10. The Ambassador's Secret \ 11. Mind Games and Philosophy \ 12. Conclusion \ Bibliography \ Index