University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
Doi
Abstract
ABSTRACT Margaret Carmody: Educating Souls, Selves, or Minds? (Under the direction of Madeleine Grumet) At the beginning of the twentieth century, the term “soul” was virtually deleted from curriculum theory and replaced with the categories of “self” and “mind” from the learning sciences. This dissertation is a hermeneutic study undertaken to explore inviting the term back as a structuring concept in curriculum theory without privileging specific religious beliefs and to address those aesthetic, subjective, moral, and somatic dimensions of human experience that often do not get addressed in curricula focused on minds and selves. I explore how a fusion of Waldorf School founder Rudolf Steiner’s theory of soul, Waldorf curriculum theory, psychotherapist Mari Ruti’s theory of a post-humanist soul, and philosopher Kieran Egan’s curriculum theory may provide a new horizon to which curriculum theory may direct its efforts to educate human beings to be more open to what is unknown and learn to respond to difference in caring, creative, and conscious ways. Keywords: Soul, Rudolf Steiner, Mari Ruti, Kieran Egan, Elementary School Curriculum Theory, Waldorf Education.Doctor of Philosoph
