Enabling Education - proceedings of the annual conference of Finnish Educational Research Association FERA 2013

This book is a collection of papers presented in the Finnish Educational Research Association Conference on Education FERA2013, which was held in University of Jyväskylä in November 21-22,2013. The title of the book, Enabling Education, encompasses the conference theme - Education for future well-being and teaching excellence. The word Education has purposefully been writting with a capital letter in the book title. Education with a big E is something which initiates us into the kinds f practices that fosrer the good life for each person and the good for humankind. The capital letter implies that Education with a big E is something more than schooling which has transformed education into standardized, factory-like practices. As the keynote speaker of the conference Stephen Kemmis puts it: "Schooling is to produce people with skills for production and the means for consumption, and people who are willing providers and grateful clients of services. (...) Education, by contrast, is a prcess of individual and collective self-formation, a simultaneous process of growing good selves and good societies." Education with a big E is not limited to convertional schoolbased settings. It happens in everyday life, and it is a life-long journey. It may take place outdoors and through adventures as well as in peoples' homes, on trains and streets via portable electronic devices. It may be about cultural education - music, arts, and crafts as well as literature, video clips, and digital stories. Education requires inter-professional collaboration and pressupposes the strong agency of the educators. Education is something very practical and simultaneously deeply philosophical and ethical. The eleven chapters of this book shed light on all these aspects of Education with a big E.