Library Resources for Education 230: Introduction to Philosophy of Education

This web page is intended to introduce you to some resources which can be used for Education 230.

If you need help, please contact Hope Power, Liaison Librarian for Education at 778.782.4359 or hpower@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian.

Definitions

Subject encyclopedias are an excellent source of assistance when reading in a new subject area:

- Internet encyclopedia of philosophy
- Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy
- Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy 

Books

One of the fastest ways to find books on your subject is to do a keyword search  in the SFU library catalogue.

Here are some examples:

For books related to ecological philosophy: search by keywords ecolog* and philosoph*  or environment* and philosoph*
For books about  feminist philosophy of education:   search by keywords feminis* and philosoph* and educat*
For books about  philosophy of multicultural education:  search by keywords multicultural* and philosoph* and educat*
For books about the philosophy of  critical theory and education: search by keywords critical theor* and educat*
For books about analytical philosophy:  search by keywords analytic and philosophy.
And for books about education and the spiritual:  search by keywords spiritual and educat*.
 

When you find the title of a book which appears interesting, look at the formal subject headings which are hot-linked below the call number.
For example, many books about the philosophy of critical theory have the formal subject heading Critical pedagogy.
Click on the subject heading which appears closest to your area interest, and you will see how many books in the library have that subject heading.
Click on the hot-linked subject heading again to reach a list of the books with that subject heading.
 

As a student in Distance Education courses you can request that books be mailed to you by the staff of  the SFU Library Telebook service.   Just click on the Request button near the top of  the catalogue entry to begin your request.    Allow a week to ten days for a book to come to your house in the mail.
 

Articles

As a student in Distance Education courses you can request that copies of articles be mailed to you by the staff of  the SFU Library Telebook service.  Allow a week to ten days for the article  to come to your house in the mail.

An excellent way to find references to articles on your subject is to use online journal article databases.

Some journal article databases which you will find helpful in this course:

ERIC  to find references to articles in education journals and to find ERIC documents or reports written by educators..
ERIC has very formal subject indexing.  The best way to use ERIC to find articles on a specific subject is to use the Thesaurus button or the Suggest Terms button to find the specific formal subject heading.
For example, to find articles and documents about environmental  philosophy of education,
Sign on to ERIC;

Choose the Advanced Search tab;
Click on the Thesaurus button;
Type environmental  in the search box and click on the Browse button.
Several suggested subject headings will appear, and you can click those that seem most appropriate.
Then click on the Add button to put that search in the search box near the top of the screen, and then on the Search button to conduct a search for all records with those subject headings.

Click on the Thesaurus button again.
Type philosophy in the search box and click on the Search button.
Again a choice of subject headings will appear, and you can click those that seem most appropriate.
Then click on the Add button to move all those subject headings into the search box, and then on the Search button to search for records of articles about philosophy or philosophy of education.

Then, to focus your search results by combining all the references related to environment and all the references related to philosophy of education, click on the Search History button.

You will see two sets of search results, one related to the environment and one to philosophy.

Choose both results by clicking in the search box beside each set, choose to join them with "and", make sure the Search box at the top of the screen is empty, and then add both searches to the search box, and click on the Search button.
When you find an article which you would like to read, use the Where can I get this? link to find out if the full-text of the article is available online, or to initiate a request for the Telebook staff to mail the article to you.
 

CBCA Education to find articles in Canadian education journals.
CBCA Fulltext Education has no online thesaurus.  Use the "Browse Topics" option if you wish.
Use keyword searches to find the best articles on your subject.
The full-text of many articles is available online.
Use the Where can I get this? link to find out if the full-text of the article is available online, or to initiate a request for the Telebook staff to mail the article to you.
 

Philosopher's Index for articles in philosophy journals.
Philosopher's Index works much like ERIC -- look for the Thesaurus button at the bottom of the main search screen.
Hint: Use the Where can I get this? link to find out if the full text of the article is available online, or to initiate a request for the Telebook staff to mail the article to you.

First Nations Periodical Index for articles related to native people and education.
First Nations Periodical Index has a unique interface.  Again, keyword searches work well.
This index does not have Where can I get this? links to indicate which libraries hold the journals.
If you find a reference to an article you would like to read, copy down the author and  title of the article, the title and volume number of the journal, and the date and the pages, and  look up the journal title in the SFU catalogue.  When you find it, click on the Request button to initiate a request for the Telebook staff to mail the article to you.
 

Associations

Links to valuable web sites are often maintained by professional associations:

Association for Moral Education
Philosophy of Education Society
AERA (American Educational Research Association)
 

Style Guides

APA style is recommended by instructors in many Education courses. However, because Education is a field that crosses many disciplines, other citation styles may be preferred or required in specific circumstances. Writing & Style Guides provides information about citing and style guides, with links to examples using the most common styles: APA, Chicago, Harvard, and MLA. Assistance with APA style is available from several sources:

SFU students and faculty can store citations in their personal RefWorks database for later use to produce lists of references formatted in APA or other styles.

Unsure about when it is necessary to acknowledge the work of other writers and creators? Test your knowledge with this online tutorial.

Other Help

Library staff will be pleased to help you with your research.  You can call the Ask Us Desk at 778.782.5735, or if you live outside the Lower Mainland of British Columbia you might want to use our AskAway, our live chat help service, or contact us by e-mail at libask@sfu.ca.