Research Group on Anthropology and Philosophy of Education

The Research Group on Anthropology and Philosophy of Education (GIAFE) is linked to the Complutense University of Madrid with registration number 970581 (approved in July 2012).

GIAFE currently consists of 13 members from 4 different universities (the Complutense University, the National University of Distance Education, the Autonomous University of Madrid and the University of Barcelona). Its members are part of different university departments: Educational Studues (UCM), Theory and History of Education (UB); Philosophy of Law, Morals and Politics I (UCM); Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatments (UCM); Didactics and Theory of Education (UAM); Theory of Education and Social Pedagogy (UNED) and Methods of Research and Diagnosis in Education (UCM).

This variety of trajectories shows, in turn, the disciplinary and epistemological opening of this research group. On the other hand, the denomination of the group intends to establish a sign of its thematic and methodological identity. We are interested from all possible points of view, a careful look at the foundations and the anthropological and philosophical aspects of education. We consider it necessary to focus attention on the deepening of the aims of education as conditions for the possibility of constitutively more humanizing actions.

Research topic

1. Epistemology in education: anthropological and philosophical foundations.We aim to address the philosophical difficulty of giving foundations to a supposedly objective and true knowledge of education. The epistemological consequences of gnoseological relativism in Postmodernism have caused a crisis in the way we understand the cultural references upon which educational discussions are built.

2. Educational spaces and educational relationships: anthropological and philosophical conditions. We aim to determine, some of the anthropological and philosophical conditions that need to be respected and promoted in order to establish educational spaces, educational time, and educational relationships.

3. Thinking and practicing the right to education: anthropological and philosophical grounds. The spread of fundamental rights, of democratic societies, of civic awareness, have greatly altered how we understand educational spaces and educational situations. It is no longer enough to conceive the right to education as generalized literacy education of the people, but now it is expected to be considered it in a much broader sense that implies to educate individuals under humanizing and civic criteria.

Contact Persons: David Reyero García and Fernando Gil Cantero