Faculty Directory

Chris Higgins

Department Chair, Department of Formative Education

Associate Professor

Photo of Chris Higgins

Chris Higgins

Ph.D.

Contact

Campion 215

Telephone: 617-552-4200

Email: christopher.higgins@bc.edu

Education

  • Ph.D., Columbia University
  • B.A., Yale University

Courses

The Art of Educational Inquiry
Philosophy of Formative Education
Readings and Research in Formative Education
Colloquium in Formative Education

Research Interests

Formative education; virtue ethics; education as a public good; philosophy of work; teacher identity and development; aesthetic education; hermeneutics; transformative dialogue; teacher-student relationship; humanism; liberal education; corporatization of higher education.

Expertise

  • Formative and Whole Person Education
  • Philosophy of Education
Curriculum Vitae

Department

DFE Department of Formative Education

Profile

Chris Higgins coordinates the program in Transformative Educational Studies and co-directs the Formative Leadership Education Project. A philosopher of education, Higgins seeks to articulate the existential dimensions of teaching and learning, defend the idea of education as a public good, and recall education to its humane roots. He has written on: the dynamics of the teacher-student relationship; action research and the philosophy of inquiry; ignorance and openmindedness; humanism and liberal learning; imagination and aesthetic education; practice and vocational formation, and the experimental tradition in higher education. His book, The Good Life of Teaching: An Ethics of Professional Practice (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) offers one of the first systematic extensions of virtue ethics to questions concerning work and professional identity. His current book project, entitled Humane Learning: Formative Essays on Educational Integrity, is an inquiry into the problems and possibilities of formative higher education.

Select Publications

Higgins, C. (2021). Education, pluralism, and the dynamics of difference. In D. Hansen and M. Laverty (eds.), A history of western philosophy of education, vol. 5, The contemporary landscape (1914-present), ed. Anna Pages, 23-55. London: Bloomsbury, 2021.

Higgins, C. (2018). The public and private in education. In P. Smeyers (Ed.), International handbook of philosophy of education (Vol. 2, pp. 801-820). Dordrecht: Springer.

Higgins, C. (Ed.). (2018). "Education in a minor key." Special issue. Educational Theory, 68(2): 139-233.

Higgins, C. (2018). The death spiral of contemporary public higher education. Thresholds in Education, 41(3), 185-200.

Higgins, C. (2016). The promise, pitfalls, and persistent challenge of action research. Ethics and Education, 11(2), 230-239.

Higgins, C. (Ed.). (2015). "Humane education: Recovering the humanistic dimensions of teaching, learning, and research." Special Issue. Educational Theory, 65(6), 611-754.

Higgins, C. (2011). The Good Life of Teaching: An Ethics of Professional Practice. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Higgins, C. (2011). The possibility of public education in an instrumentalist age. Educational Theory, 61(4), 451-466.

Higgins, C. (2009). Open-mindedness in three dimensions. Paideusis, 18(1), 44-59.

Higgins, C. (2008). Instrumentalism and the clich茅s of aesthetic education: A Deweyan corrective. Education and Culture, 23(3), 7-20.

Recent Grants, Fellowships, and Awards

Higgins, C., Scanlon, M., and Wortham, S. (co-PIs) (2021), "Expanding the Reach of Formative Leadership Education by Building Communities of Practice," $1.5M grant from the Kern Family Foundation. LSEHD.

Higgins, C., and Lowe, E. (co-PIs) (2012), 鈥淭he Centrality of Translation to the Humanities: New Interdisciplinary Scholarship鈥� ($157,083), Summer Institute for College Teachers, National Endowment for the Humanities, Urbana, IL.

Back To Top