Abstract
Although traditional philosophy of science is mostly individualistic, in this introductory chapter Stephanie Fox and Lukas Boser argue that science in its core is a social endeavor. To prove their claim, they refer to their own book in which eminent educational scientists and up-and-coming young researchers discuss the concept of ‘national literacies’. This concept was proposed by Viennese professor of education Daniel Tröhler in 2018. It derives from Tröhler’s methodological suggestion to analyze ideological languages in order to get empirically sound knowledge about how educational systems all over the world were supposed to make future citizens for modern nation-states. National literacies are not to be mistaken for the literacy rates in a nation-state, but they are the individual’s ability to make sense of symbols, acts, and signs related to a particular nation and thus to live a meaningful life in this nation.
In their introduction, Fox and Boser show that analyzing the nexus of nations, nationalism, and education is highly relevant as it is important in order to understand the functioning and the global aspirations of modern Western educational culture, as well as it is important to analyze national thought styles, which affect all science even though most scientists are not aware of it.
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Acknowledgments
At the beginning of this introduction, we stated that science is a social activity, and argued that this book is itself proof of the veracity of this claim. This assertion applies not only to the content of the book, but also to its production. Without the help of many friends, colleagues, and other professionals, we would not have been able to edit such a large and diverse volume and achieve satisfactory results. First and foremost, we would like to thank all the authors (listed here in alphabetical order), namely Felicitas Acosta, Mette Buchardt, Robert Cowen, Nicole Gotling, Michèle Hofmann, Ethan Hutt, Berit Karseth, Kevser Muratović, Nelly Piattoeva, William F. Pinar, Hans Schildermans, Marva Shalev Marom, Sophie Pia Stieger, and Johannes Westberg. Most of them not only wrote formidable chapters, but also wrote reviews and had extensive discussions to improve the overall quality of the texts. Nicole Gotling also engaged in proofreading them to improve the book linguistically. We owe her our utmost gratitude for this invaluable contribution, as her impartial perspective and attention to detail have certainly elevated the quality of this volume.
David Labaree also deserves our deep gratitude, for he graciously accepted our invitation to write a final commentary. Although he knew very well that this would be a ‘fool’s errand’, he was ready for the challenge. David, much like Daniel, is a cornerstone of this research community, and it is our great honor and privilege to work with him and have his insights featured in this book.
Finally, we would like to thank William Reese and John Rury for including our book in their book series, and we would like to thank Milana Vernikova and Arun Prasath at Palgrave Macmillan for their support as well as very professional and seemingly effortless collaboration.
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Fox, S., Boser, L. (2023). Engaging with National Literacies in Education. In: Fox, S., Boser, L. (eds) National Literacies in Education . Historical Studies in Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41762-7_1
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