11 research outputs found
The humanistic roots of Islamic administration and leadership for education : philosophical foundations for cross-cultural and transcultural teaching
For a number of decades, a humanistic approach has been a minor but persistent one in the Western field of administrative and leadership studies, and only recently has been broadening to include other humanist traditions (Dierksmeier et al., 2011) and has yet to be fully explored in educational administration and its pedagogy and curriculum although some foundational work has been done (e.g., Samier, 2005). The focus in this chapter is on the Islamic humanist tradition as it relates to the teaching of educational administration and leadership in a Muslim context, with implications for cross-cultural and transcultural use. The second purpose of the chapter is to show the correspondences that exist between the Islamic and Western humanist traditions in terms of human values, knowledge and educational ideal, which in this chapter are argued to be close to the Western Idealist tradition and the German Bildung conception of education as well as the strong interpretive and hermeneutic foundations that originated in the Islamic tradition and which influenced the foundations of many relevant European schools of thought, particularly in the Enlightenment.The initial section of the chapter is a comparative examination of the central principles of the Islamic humanist tradition from the classical through to contemporary times with the Western humanist tradition as they relate to conceptions of the good, ethics, the construction of meaning and a set of higher order values predicated upon human dignity, integrity, empathy, well-being, and the public good (Goodman, 2003) covering a number of important scholars like Al Farabi, al Isfanhani, and Edward Said (e.g., Kraemer, 1986). In both, professions are viewed as meaningful work that allow for large measures of decision making, and are grounded in human qualities and needs including autonomy, freedom and emancipation balanced with responsibilities, obligations and duties to society. These are compared with the corresponding principles of knowledge in Western humanism which includes a strong constructivist view of reality (Makdisi, 1990). Secondly, the chapter examines the principles of good or ideal leadership and administration that humanism aims at in its preparation of officials, including those in the educational sector in both the classical Islamic tradition (Hassi, 2012) and Western approaches to humanistic administration and leadership (Czarniawska-Joerges & Guillet de Monthoux, 1994; Gagliardi & Czarniawska, 2006; Leoussi, 2000). The third section focusses on close correspondences that exist between the Islamic (Afsaruddin, 2016; al-Attas, 1980; Yasin & Jani, 2013) and Western (Aloni, 2007; Veugelers, 2011) humanist education traditions in terms of educational ideal as well as the kind of teaching practices that distinguish these traditions (Daiber, 2013; Dossett, 2014) as they apply to educational administration and leadership (Greenfield & Ribbins, 1993). The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the Islamic humanist tradition can contribute to cross-cultural and transcultural graduate teaching in international educational administration (Khan & Amann, 2013)
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Nationalism and racial Hellenism in nineteenth‐century England and France
This article assesses the part played by physical anthropology and classical archaeology in the transformation of nineteenth‐century English and French nationalisms into racial Hellenisms. At that time the anthropological ideas of race and racial determinism introduced the body into conceptions of national identity and community. Physical anthropologists placed the Greek body at the centre of their studies, claiming, first, that the Greek physique, and particularly that of the ancient Greek athlete, recorded in the newly discovered Pheidian and Polycletan sculpture, was biologically perfect; second, that the perfection of the Greek athlete was due to race, in the sense of biological inheritance, as well as to athletics; third, that in accordance with the theory of racial determinism, ancient Greek civilization and political power were due to the peculiarities of Greek biology; and fourth, that the Greek body was the type of all other European nations in their fullest physical development. The nationalism and positivism of nineteenth‐century European thought led European nations to accept these ideas and to claim a Greek physical and cultural identity. The belief that all Europeans were Greek had important practical consequences for English and French life, prompting an emphasis on the care for the body through open‐air exercises in imitation of the Greeks, and producing a new classical revival on a national scale. However, although physical anthropology was a European discipline, national peculiarities and rivalries produced variations both in the timing and in the form of English and French Hellenisms