Hansen, David (dth2006)

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David Hansen

John L & Sue Ann Weinberg Professor in Historical & Philosophical Foundations of Education
212-678-8239

Office Location:

334C HMann

Office Hours:

by appointment

TC Affiliations:

Educational Background

David Hansen received his Bachelor of Arts in the history of ideas from the University of Chicago, his Master of Arts in political economy from Stanford University, and his Ph.D. in education from the University of Chicago.  Before taking up his current appointment at Teachers College in 2001, he was professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and before that a secondary school teacher and instructor in a language arts program for teachers.

Scholarly Interests

Professor Hansen's scholarship has focused on the philosophy and practice of teaching and of teacher education, on moral and ethical dimensions of education, on the nature of values and inquiry, and related themes.  He draws from thinkers across the diverse fields featured in the Philosophy and Education program, including ethics, philosophical anthropology, and foundations of education.  He has studied extensively the educational thought of figures such as Plato, Michel de Montaigne, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and John Dewey.  He has focused on the relations between cosmopolitanism as an outlook on the human condition and the practice of education, and more recently has drawn out the ramifications for educational thought and practice of ‘bearing witness’ understood as a moral and ethical orientation toward the world.
 
Hansen is a Past-President of the John Dewey Society and of the Philosophy of Education Society.  He is a member of the National Academy of Education, and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association.  In 2013, he was named the John L. & Sue Ann Weinberg Professor in the Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education.

Selected Publications

** The Witness as Educator: Reading W. G. Sebald, Aimé Césaire, and Walt Whitman.  Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2025.

Outstanding Scholarly Publication on Justice in Education Award, American Educational Research Association (Philosophical Studies in Education SIG)

 

** Reimagining the Call to Teach.  New York: Teachers College Press, 2021.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2022

Critics Choice, American Educational Studies Association, 2023


** Philosophy’s voices in teaching, and teachers’ voices in philosophy.  Educational Theory 71 (1, 2021), 5-33.

** Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and the demands of education.  Educational Theory 68 (4/5, 2018), 443-475.

 

** Among school teachers: Bearing witness as an orientation in educational inquiry.  Educational Theory, 67 (1, 2017), 9-30.

** Hansen, D.T.  2011.  The Teacher and the World: A Study of Cosmopolitanism as Education.  London: Routledge.

Critics Choice, American Educational Studies Association, 2013

Translated and published (2013) as El profesor cosmopolita en un mundo global: Buscando el equilibrio entre la apertura a lo nuevo y la lealtad a lo conocido.  Madrid: Narcea, S.A. de Ediciones.


** John Dewey and Our Educational Prospect: A Critical Engagement with Dewey’s Democracy and Education.  Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006.

** A poetics of teaching.  Educational Theory 54 (2004), 119-142.

** Exploring the Moral Heart of Teaching: Toward a Teacher's Creed.  New York: Teachers College Press, 2001.

** Well-formed, not well-filled: Montaigne and the paths of personhood.  Educational Theory 52 (2002), 127-154.

** The Call to Teach. New York: Teachers College Press, 1995.

 

** Was Socrates a ‘Socratic teacher’?  Educational Theory 38 (1988), 213-224.

Honoris Causa (Honorary Ph.D.), Örebro University, Sweden, 2012

Named a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, 2011

Named Honorary Professor at Xiamen University, Xiamen, China, 2009

Outstanding Achievement Award, The John Dewey Society, “for contributions reflecting and extending the spirit and vision of Dewey's work,” 2007

Elected President, The Philosophy of Education Society, for 2008-2009

Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2007, for John Dewey and Our Educational Prospect: A Critical Engagement with Dewey’s Democracy and Education (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006)

James and Helen Merritt Distinguished Service Award for Contributions to the Philosophy of Education, 2006

Elected to the Board of Directors, National Society for the Study of Education, 2005

Elected President, The John Dewey Society, for 2003-2005

Outstanding Book, 2002, Division B (Curriculum Studies) of the American Educational Research Association, for Exploring the Moral Heart of Teaching: Toward a Teacher’s Creed (New York: Teachers College Press, 2001)

Selected by the University of Illinois as a University Scholar, 1996

Critics Choice, American Educational Studies Association, 1996, for The Call to Teach (New York: Teachers College Press, 1995)

Selected by the National Academy of Education as a Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow, 1992


Related Articles

The Case for Pondering

TC's David Hansen argues for education that questions as much as it defines

Philosophy in the Trenches

TC and Columbia volunteers are helping high school students ponder the meaning of it all

TC at AERA 2011

Highlights from the year's signature education conference

TC at AERA 2011

This year's annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), taking place in New Orleans this week and themed "Inciting the Social Imagination: Education Research for the Public Good," includes the participation of nearly 175 TC faculty and students.

Being Alive Twice

A small working group of faculty became students again as they pondered the implications of globalization

AERA names David Hansen, Henry Levin and Anna Neumann as Fellows

The American Education Research Association's Fellows are named in honor of their "exceptional scientific or scholarly contributions to education research or significant contributions to the field."

Learning From The Rest Of The World

It's a truly global classroom out there. Time for the United States to pull up a chair. It's called "learner-centered pedagogy," and since the 1970s it has been popular with some funders of education reform. Empower a group of students to work together on a project or report, the thinking goes, and they'll raise questions and own the work in ways that plain old didactic instruction could never produce.

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