Andrew Babson will be giving a talk, representing the GPN, at the XVIII World Congress of Comparative Education Societies, to be held 22-26 of July 2024, at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, USA. The theme of the meeting is “Fostering Inclusive Ecologies of Knowledge: Education for Equitable and Sustainable Futures”.

The paper, draft title “Humaneness as a key concept for comparative education: intellectual history and applications”, provides a very brief intellectual history of the concept of humaneness, construed as a pro-social moral characteristic intrinsic to human beings, and explores ways the concept has been, and may be, applied, in educational and youth development scenarios.

A number of fundamental questions are addressed, such as:

• How translatable is such a concept between intellectual traditions, and what are some examples, such as Ubuntu (Southern Africa), Menschlickheit and Humanität (Germany), Ren (Confucianism)?

• What are optimal settings for the cultivation of humaneness? Can it be part of a secular public education (“character education”, humaneness education, e.g.) or it it more appropriate for religious education? Are formal or informal modalities, in-person or online, more or less effective?

• How can we apply the responses to the above questions to discussions of contemporary societal issues, such as liberal democracy, pluralism, militarization, digital technology use, anthropogenic ecocide, and artificial intelligence (AI)?

The paper illustrates the history of the concept and typical uses through examples; and one clear takeaway is that while humaneness is often assumed as a desired outcome of formal education, whether and how this happens remains and open question. I propose that humaneness' meanings and uses should be explored ethnographically to understand how and why such meanings shift according to context, while also discerning which meanings are more or less universal.

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Information:

WCCES Onsite Day-4 Parallel Session - 14

Day 4 - Thursday, July 25, 2024 - 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm  

LOCATION: Room MVR1151