Global Philosophy of Education Field Launching Conference
2026-03-19 09:00 - 2026-03-20 17:00 (Europe/Brussels) | Amsterdam, Netherlands
Background

This conference aims to establish the field of Global Philosophy of Education, understood as a research space and practice where central issues in philosophy of education are defined, discussed and researched jointly by philosophers working from different cultural and philosophical traditions and perspectives. This entails not the establishment of a global philosophy in the sense of a universal or hegemonic philosophical theory, but the development of a global practice of philosophy of education. The purpose of doing so (viewed from the perspective of anglophone philosophy of education) is, firstly, to diminish anglocentrism, eurocentrism, or any form of parochialism in the discipline, and, secondly, to make progress on substantial issues (prevented by such parochialism). What we are proposing is the development of a genuine global practice of philosophy of education aiming at an actual collaborative engagement between the substantive positions developed in different traditions focusing on concrete philosophical problems. Instead of just comparing different traditions, we need to actually use their theoretical resources in the social practice of doing global philosophy. The conference is part of the project ‘Expanding Consciousness in Education – East, West, North and South. Towards a Global Philosophy of Education’ (GlobalPhilEd) funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.

Invited speakers

- Paula Ambrossi, University College London, UK

- Rowena Azada-Palacios, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines; University of Edingburgh, UK

- Heesoon Bai, Simon Fraser University, Canada

- David Gabriel Hebert, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway

- Ruyu Hung, National Chiayi University, Taiwan

- Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach, VU Amsterdam, the Netherlands

- Qasir Shah, University College London, UK

Submissions

We invite submissions of abstracts (400-600 words, plus a short bio) for individual paper presentations on themes related to Global Philosophy of Education. Each presenter will have 45 minutes in total for the presentation, including the discussion. The presentation should be between 15-25 minutes long in order to leave enough room for the discussion. Papers presented must not have been published prior to the conference. All papers are considered for publication within the first volume of the Yearbook of Global Philosophy of Education, which will be launched in 2026 and published open access on our project website

Registration

The deadline for submissions is the 8th of December 2025. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by the 15th of December. Please send your submission to: a.zuurmond@vu.nl

The conference is free, but spaces are limited and registration is required. To register for the conference please contact: eylerd.killmann@tu-dortmund.de
