Education for liberation

Abstract

In this chapter Maria Teresa de la Garza assesses Sharp’s work relating philosophy of education and the practice of the community of philosophical inquiry to social justice, feminist theory and philosophy of childhood. The task of education is in part defined by the need to do justice to the oppressed. Sharp encouraged women and children to philosophize about their experience in order to intervene against what Paolo Freire referred to as a “culture of silence.” The community of inquiry can be seen as a practice of liberation and gives rise to “the child as critic.” Sharp’s ideal of the classroom community of inquiry as a site of social criticism is an antidote to the naive optimism that multicultural education can easily bring historically oppositional cultural, religious, and political beliefs and ways of life into relationships of mutual accord. Sharp’s educational theory was also shaped by her commitment to a feminist ethic that is non-imperialistic, relational, contextual, and focused on the concrete details of daily life. One of the least-studied aspects of Sharp’s scholarship is the way she incorporated these political and ethical aspects into her philosophical stories and novels for children.