Relational «(e)pistemologies» redefines epistemology in a non-transcendent manner and reclaims the traditional epistemological concerns of standards and criteria for warranting arguments and determining truth and falsity. These concerns must be reclaimed in order to make them visible and accountable as well as pragmatically useful on socially constructed grounds ¿ not transcendental grounds. Thayer-Bacon¿s book offers analysis and critique as well as redescription. She presents a pragmatist social feminist view, a relational perspective of knowing embedded within a discussion of many other relational views ¿ personal, social and holistic, ecological, and scientific ¿ which emphasize connections. Thayer-Bacon describes each of these forms of relationality, and she points to key scholars whose work highlights a certain relational form. She concludes with a discussion of the educational implications relational (e)pistemological theories have for education.

The Author: Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy of Education from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. As Professor of Education, she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on philosophy and history of education, social philosophy, and cultural diversity in the Cultural Studies Program at the University of Tennessee. Her primary areas of research as a philosopher of education are pragmatism, feminist theory and pedagogy, and cultural studies in education. She is an active member in numerous professional organizations such as the American Educational Research Association, the American Educational Studies Association, and the Philosophy of Education Society, and presents papers regularly at their annual conferences. She is the author of several book chapters and over fifty journal articles published in professional journals such as The Journal of Thought, Educational Theory, Studies in Philosophy and Education, Inquiry, Educational Foundations, and Educational Studies. She has written two previous books, Philosophy Applied to Education: Nurturing a Democratic Community in the Classroom (with Charles S. Bacon as a contributing author) and Transforming Critical Thinking: Thinking Constructively.