Fearism Concept in Educational Literature: A Review, A New Model

Abstract

A seasoned educator (curriculum theorist) and researcher, the author picks-up on the recent innovative gains made in the social sciences with the valid use of “fearism” as a concept for analysis, with the latest version being the use of fearism as a force-field vector on a quadrant mapping of social reality. This paper has three main purposes: (a) to review the citing of “fearism” in the Education literature per se and a critical evaluation of its rare use to date (b) to make suggestions of why this paucity of use by educators and, (c) to offer a more matured version of the placing of fearism as a force-field vector on a quadrant mapping that produces a ‘ring’ formation which includes a heretofore missing developmental and emancipatory trajectory within such analyses without reinforcing unnecessary moralism (e.g. virtues signaling) within such research approaches.