The Epistemology of Violence

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Beth M. Titchiner

   Pages 1-17

3. A New Epistemic and Methodological Approach to the Study of Violence

   • Beth M. Titchiner

   Pages 19-42

4. Conceptualising Violence as a Problem of Epistemology

   • Beth M. Titchiner

   Pages 43-80

5. Conceptualising Violence in Relation to Social Circumstances and Subject Development

   • Beth M. Titchiner

   Pages 81-114

6. How Violent Epistemology Shapes the Contexts Surrounding Schools: Brazil, São Paulo, and the Baixada

   • Beth M. Titchiner

   Pages 115-158

7. How Violent Epistemology Shapes Schooling Systems: The Development of Public Schooling in Brazil and São Paulo

   • Beth M. Titchiner

   Pages 159-175

8. How Violent Epistemology Manifests in Schools: The Case of DCX

   • Beth M. Titchiner

   Pages 177-228

9. Moving Forwards

   • Beth M. Titchiner

   Pages 229-261

10. Back Matter

    Pages 263-268

    PDF

This book provides an in-depth, multidisciplinary framework and case-study analysis for understanding the root causes of violence in schooling. Drawing on critical theory, psychology, neuroscience and learning theory, the author provides a holistic analysis of how ‘violent epistemology’ and the ‘non-conducive circumstances’ that it produces can be seen to be at the roots of violence in societies and social institutions such as schools. Chapter 1 outlines how current and historical theories of violence, and interventions based on them, have failed due to their inability to properly conceptualise the root causes of violence. Chapters 2 addresses this by providing a new epistemic and methodological framework for studying violence. Chapters 3 and 4 then demonstrate how violence can be best conceptualised as a problem of specifically ‘violent’ epistemology and the ‘non-conducive social circumstances’ that it fosters. Chapters 5-7 demonstrate in practice how violent epistemology results in multiple manifestations of violence at the global, national, local, and ultimately classroom level. Chapter 8 concludes the book by presenting an early conceptualisation of ‘non-violent’ epistemology, and what fostering this might look like in practice.

• Violence
• Epistemology
• Education
• School
• Brazil
• Pedagogy
• radical pedagogy
• critical theory
• critical social theory
• educational psychology
• freire
• neuroscience
• learning theory
• classroom
• history
• philosophy
• sociology
• alternative education
• social justice
• social movement

“This carefully crafted and boldly theorised critical ethnography of a school and its teachers, students and communities in Brazil explores some of the deepest sources of violence in education and society, and invites us to reflect on how we might address it at its roots. Titchiner’s concept of ‘violent epistemology’ advances our understanding of epistemic violence, and her stories bear witness both to the damage caused by schooling rooted in such thought and to the everyday revolutions being made by teachers struggling to heal these wounds.” (Sarah Amsler, Associate Professor of Education, University of Nottingham, UK)

 

• Norwich, UK

  Beth M. Titchiner

Beth M. Titchiner has a PhD in Education from the University of East Anglia, UK, and has worked in a wide variety of third sector and educational settings. Her work and research has focused largely on social inequality, housing, welfare, disabilities, and pedagogy with particular emphasis on the relationships between epistemology, subject development, wellbeing, and social/institutional structures.

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