APA Awards Inaugural Prize in Philosophy of Education
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has announced that the first winner of its Israel Scheffler Prize in Philosophy of Education is Jennifer Morton, assistant professor of philosophy at City College of New York.
The prize, of $1000, is “for either a book or a connected set of three or more papers on a topic in philosophy of education, broadly construed.” It is awarded once every third year.
Professor Morton won the prize on the basis of five connected papers:
- “The Non-Cognitive Challenge to a Liberal Egalitarian Education” in Theory and Research in Education
- “Cultural Code-Switching: Straddling the Achievement Gap” in the Journal of Political Philosophy
- “Molding Conscientious, Hard-Working, and Perseverant Students” in Social Philosophy and Policy
- “Unequal Classrooms: Higher Education and Online Learning” in Philosophical Inquiry in Education
- “The Educator’s Dual Role: Expressing Ideals While Educating in Non-Ideal Conditions” in Educational Theory
The prize is named in memory of philosopher Israel Scheffler, who died in 2014, and who worked on philosophy of education and philosophy of science.
Congratulations, Jen!
Impressive work, and this is a fitting thanks for it!
Absolutely wonderful that the APA recognizes Israel Scheffler in this way. Scheffler and R. S Peters worked together in the very early 1960s to remake philosophy of education as a field of robust contemporary philosophical scholarship. Perhaps only those of us who were around the philosophy world at that time and following educational issues can appreciate this achievement. Philosophy of education – after the magisterial efforts of John Dewey – had become an intellectual wasteland cut off from both philosophy departments and developments in philosophy. Today – due in large measure to the influence of Israel Scheffler, philosophy of education is a vibrant field – but too few philosophy departments offer courses in the field. I hope that this prize will bring more attention to it and inspire more philosophers to teach and do research in it.